Why Sharpsend Failed
Sharpsend provides a modern solution to making payments with your mobile phone by leveraging existing USSD solutions to improve the user experience while making transactions without requiring the internet. You can send money, buy and check Airtime from your mobile phone without internet connectivity!
Sharpsend failed how we envisioned it as a product, but it will still be available on the Google Play Store.
Some months ago, I wrote an article about Sharpsend titled “Sharpsend: Lessons Learned”. Although the article introduces Sharpsend, how it started, the team, and the launch details, it doesn’t go in-depth with what I learned about designing and managing the app from idea to launch. I’m writing this article to reflect on why the project failed and what I learned during the process.
Main Reasons Why Sharpsend Failed
The main reasons Sharpsend failed were because of the product and the team.
I. Product
Sharpsend started due to a hackathon organized by Hover Developer Services in 2020. We didn’t win the hackathon, but I remember telling the team to let us ship the product anyway.
We encountered some setbacks, which are;
- We had to rewrite the entire codebase three times because the Hover API did not work how we thought it would.
- We used the Hover API only for sim selection and had to pre-fill data entered by users while redirecting them to the dial pad to continue the operation.
- The Hover API is only available on Android, and some of our beta users were asking for an iOS version, which we couldn’t add support for.
- The codebase was written in native Android. Therefore, no team member had the technical ability to write Swift. We also found a way to make the app work without depending on the Hover API. We also can’t migrate to Flutter after rewriting the whole codebase three times.
- We had a solution in search of a problem. The idea was born due to the Hover Giza hackathon, where we had to use the API to build the product, and we didn’t have any immediate alternative to switch to after noticing that we were stuck.
II. Team
At the beginning of the whole project, everyone was pumped and excited to work on the idea. After the result of the hackathon came out, and we didn’t win, the team was demotivated. I remember trying to motivate everyone on the team and telling them we should continue to build the product so we could launch it. Maybe I was wrong 🤦♂
- The Android developers were experiencing burnout due to having to rewrite the codebase several times and not getting the desired results.
- One of the Android developers on the team dropped a message on one lovely day that he wasn’t interested in continuing to build the product again. This was before we launched the product publicly, which set our launch plan backwards, but we ended up launching the product two months later.
- We had plans to change the product strategy by switching from the offline Hover API to other online payment API providers like Flutterwave, Wallets Africa, and Interswitch. After which, we would rename it to Sharpsend Pro, which is targeted at offering reliable services like money transfer, bill payment, and virtual card creation so that users can make a transfer with internet connectivity, unlike the offline services we previously provided. We also had plans to change the name of the initial product we shipped to Sharpsend Lite, but we were still waiting for someone to be fully interested and committed, so the best option was to move on.
We even had an investor who expressed interest in investing in Sharpsend, but we couldn’t follow up.
The entire development took about seven months. We started around May 2020 and launched on November 11, 2020.
The last update was shipped to production on January 5, 2021.
What I Learned
Some of the things I learned during the process were;
- Be intentional about joining a team building a product, as it can make or mar the product because building requires commitment and focus.
- A good co-founder relationship is more significant than marriage, so choose your partner wisely and carefully.
- Good communication skills are essential when managing a product.
- The tech stack you choose matters. Choosing widely used technologies or services with possible alternatives that can help ship faster is advisable.
- Falling in love with a problem that needs a solution is way better than falling in love with a solution that requires a problem.
- Launch fast and keep iterating.
- Talk to/with your users.
- Product design is more than pushing pixels.
Moving on…
Sharpsend will still be available on Google Play Store, and the codebase is also open-source on GitHub.
Everyone on the team has moved on to do more incredible things. I have also been able to design and work on over 5+ products after Sharpsend, including Fidia, Fashy, and others still in stealth. I am working towards making them successful and great products.
The team at Hover Developer Service are also working on a product like Sharpsend but better, which is “Stax”. So, if you’re looking for an alternative to Sharpsend, you should check it out.
Thanks to Bello Gbadebo, Fouad Olaore and Ajibola Akelebe for reading and reviewing drafts of this.
