Kicking the tires on pay-as-you-go bicycles in Zambia: our marketplace of ideas
One of the great things about working on Frontier Technology Livestreaming (FTL) is being part of a programme and team that’s always adapting and willing to try something new.
Our approach on the pay-as-you-go bicycles pilot (which you can find described in Jasmine’s article here and Steve’s article here) is a great example that illustrates how, when faced with an unusual challenge, FTL will try a new path to make our pilots a success.
Why a marketplace of ideas?
On FTL, we’re open to supporting a very broad range of pilots. Some proposals come to us as already well-developed concepts that even have implementing teams proposed as part of the package. Others are more “early stage” concepts that may arrive at our program with a problem and potential frontier technology solution identified, but not much else.
The pay-as-you-go bicycle concept falls in the latter category. When we first reviewed the proposal, it was just a problem (making bicycles more accessible in Zambia) that we believed could potentially be solved by harnessing technologies (mobile money and/or bicycle locking mechanisms) and innovative business models (pay-as-you-go or lease-to-own).
What we normally do in instances like these is recruit specialists in either the problem or technology to help us figure out how we can make the most productive use of FTL support to create a pilot with real potential for scale. What happened with this pilot is that we could not find specialists to help us to do the job.
So, as Lea described well in her article, we decided to try a slightly different approach: mobilise diverse people to learn as much as we could about the problem in a short space of time, understand how we think we could best approach it, and then have the market take the reins and guide us on what to do.
Enter — the Ideas Marketplace
The Ideas Marketplace included a real mix of people from the Zambia, the UK, US and neighbouring African countries joining in person or online.
The format of the event centred around two key areas:
1) Asking key questions replaced the single specialist we would normally use with the wisdom of the crowd. Experts in bicycles, pay-as-you-go retail, mobile money, private sector development as well as many living and working in Zambia were able to come together to provide the broadest possible perspective.
2) Understanding and developing personas helped build empathy with, and gain insight into, key stakeholders who might play a role in the pilot. This included potential scaling organisations (e.g. impact investors), government officials and, most importantly, end users. Understanding what would make them happy about our idea, what would make them nervous and what questions they might have gives a great framework to think about how to approach the pilot.
For us, the purpose was twofold:
1) It helped us to better understand the problem: On the day of the event, between 35 and 40 people form various backgrounds turned up (either in person or virtually) to lend their expertise and experience to help us figure out just how to approach the pilot. They included everything from local tech entrepreneurs, to bicycle manufacturers and sellers, others with experience in the international development sector in Zambia, and even local journalists. Such a wide range of experts provided a wealth of expertise and experience that we could use to build a strong pilot concept.
2) It enabled us to catalyse the supplier market: One thing we learned as we thought about the problem is that tackling it might require a team with a diverse range of specialist experience. By bringing them together in the same room around the same idea, we’re hoping that they will have established the connections to then form the multi-talented teams that will help make the downstream pilot a success.
We also took a slightly different approach to facilitating the Ideas Marketplace, which differed from more traditional “early market engagement” events in a few ways:
· Stayed away from potential suppliers sharing implementation ideas: While we were keen to generate insights for a successful pilot, we also wanted potential collaborators to participate freely and develop relationships among each other. Asking them to share potential approaches and plans might have encouraged them to “put their guard up” slightly on both fronts, so we erred way from this.
· Got the word out: Events like these are often advertised to a select, targeted group of experts and potential implementers. Because we did not know the supplier market and because we wanted to bring together a diverse range of skills and partners, we took the opposite approach and worked hard to spread news of the event far and wide. We’re thrilled that it worked!
So… what did we learn?
The short answer is — quite a lot! Everyone will have access to our summary of the event (which will be published on this livestream), but a few of the key takeaways include:
1) There appears to be strong interest in giving this idea a go. We were genuinely (positively) surprised by the high turnout and breadth of expertise at the event, suggesting that it may have real potential and the supplier market is keen to give this a shot!
2) Less may be more (in terms of requirements). When we first thought about the pilot idea, we believed that a handful of fixed parameters would be crucial to making the pilot a success. As the event went on and we summarised our takeaways, we learned that this one may very well be a case of “less is more” in terms of hard parameters. For example, earlier we believed that new bicycle locking technology and/or mobile money would be fundamental to helping crack the problem. Having consulted the market, we’re not so sure about that (or a few other things) any longer.
There may be multiple good ways to try to tackle this problem, so we figure: why not give the market the flexibility to come up with a wider range of solutions?
3) …but there are certain things that we must think about: While less may be more with particular elements of the pilot, there are nevertheless some fundamental requirements that we do wish to set. For example, we want the pilot to try to benefit those who need it most, such as the peri-urban and rural dwellers and/or those who are in informal employment or unemployed.
We also concluded that that durable bicycles are key to tackling the development challenge and achieve longer-lasting impact. Robust and warranty-backed equipment, as has been the basis for the pay-as-you-go solar home market, is important.
We also touched on how best to structure the pilot and ensure we bring together the right mix of local and international best practice as well as the right team to tailor the pilot the local context to maximise our chances for success.
Finally, there was a reminder of the real impact. We talked about children often seen rolling rapidly-leaking, large barrels of water around the streets to provide a water supply for their homes from distant boreholes, and how a robust bike with appropriate attachment could be of benefit. We also touched on how lives could be impacted by enhanced health services when both citizens and health workers are able to move around more freely and quickly.
The event was more than we had hoped for. Beyond enabling the progress of the pilot, it also made us realise that this process may raise the profile of the mobility challenges that exist for many in Zambia and elsewhere, and how a diverse range of people can help contribute to solving those problems.
Tender now open!
Having synthesised our insights, we have now published the tender!
You can access the Invitation To Tender (ITT) at the following link: LINK
As you can see in the tender, we are taking slightly different approach to what we have done in the past when going out to the market.
Yes, we’re always keen to tinker and improve!
