Externships, #DeepDives and the #SalesInTech meetup!
Youth unemployment can be linked to the disconnect between the knowledge that graduates have upon graduation and the expectation that the industry they are joining has for them.
We created our own version of the solution, an approach which also enhances the knowledge and use of our main product (The API) in the developer community. Externships.
It’s not a true word, but we like it!
As a startup, we know the challenge of selling, so we thought it could be a great opportunity if we taught the skill to our developers. We call it Sales in tech.
Finally, as a way to enhance a more vibrant ecosystem on our API, we came up with Deep Dives. Who wants to have users who only use 20% of the potential of a product or service that they produce? Not us. Bad for business.
Follow along and I will get you acquainted.
At Africastalking, we are running an externships program which involves training interns on how they can provide mobile solutions to the government and corporate clients, offering them a free software development cycle.
The process involves teaching the interns on how to build various mobile solutions that run on SMS, Short codes, USSD, airtime and Voice features.
The key problem areas being addressed include:
1. Music distribution
2. Gas distribution
3. Education assessment
4. Monitoring/ Speed reporting
5. Group investing
On February 1st 2016, we met two of the potential clients — Home Boyz Entertainment (Music Distribution) and Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD). See the action here.
The externships program is scheduled to run from January 2016 — April 2016.
The deep dive is a mini hack organized by the Africa’s Talking team, that allows developers who have been building on our APIs to get deeper on the features available on the API.
Typically, a deep dive session brings together the developers and the Africa’s Talking engineering team into one room to hack away on various apps that use the APIs found on Africastalking.com.
On the 29th of January, 2016, we run a deep dive on short codes. You can view the action here.
In this deep dive, we were building intelligent programs with messaging (short codes). Using a Natural Language Processing engine such as, https://wit.ai/getting-started, you can turn sms text into actionable data and send back automated responses that can make you money on short codes.
We built a Premium SMS Service that uses natural language processing (NLP) to determine the livescores to send back to the user.
The proposed user journey:
User sends a question to a short code, say 22384 starting with Apl:-
Apl what was the score for the arsenal game yesterday?
and gets a response based on yesterdays match.
See the Wit AI set up here.
The #salesInTech event is a program run by Africastalking.com, Yusudi.co and hosted at Moringa School targeting developers looking to improve their skills in negotiation, pricing, proposal writing and sale of tech product and services.
These monthly meetups for entrepreneurs and developers in tech is a platform for creatives and innovators in the community to share their experiences, network, and take part in customized workshops to bring their business to a new level.
Some of the key issues highlighted in the January 23rd 2016 #SalesInTech meetup include
1. How to price your product, services and freelance hours
2. When and how to negotiate pricing
3. When, why, and how to use proposals in communication with prospects
4. The foundations of negotiation that aid to close a beneficial sale
Join us for the next one themed creating a sales funnel in Tech.
Well. I hope these tips can give you a more vibrant tech ecosystem for your startup!
