Don’t Falter, Ship It Still. Let The Market Decide
“Oohh but this product already exists?”
Raise your hand if you have been told by a fellow developer/friend that what you are trying to do is already out there.
I have been in this tech space for a long time. The first thing I did when I learned how to code was build a banking software application in Java. It was pretty evident that I wanted to learn how to code to build something. At least when I am gone, something should bear my name. Well, we are not here to talk about this. We are here to talk about something different. We are here to talk about the discouragement that our fellows tell us.
So many times have I seen fellow software engineers or friends come and say that this idea, product, or service is already out there. No one will want to use it or buy from you. I am sure you have come across these sentiments so many times. Such opinions used to derail me from the visions that I had had. Over the years, I have seen and interacted with people who are developing or creating products that some of the fellows would call them dumb or useless or just another IMS.
It has helped me to develop this exoskeleton that shields me from such nonsense and focus on the goal. Let me give you another perspective. Malawi lacks so many solutions as mostly we are adopters of foreign solutions that are not tailored to our environment. It doesn’t matter if it’s just another information management system or whatever. We need such solutions because we know that the developers working on them can deliver something that will fit our use cases.
Gone should be the days when we just get software solutions from wherever and expect them to work out of the box or with minimal customization. We need to encourage our fellow innovators to build and deliver solutions that are going to address our needs. Listen, no one knows the Malawian context than we do. We should not be discouraging each other.
As for me, anyone who has approached me with a software solutions idea, I encourage them by showing them a different perspective on how they can make their solution better. I think we ought to be doing this as that will encourage more products on the market that are solving our problems.
As an industry, we are so far away from matching first-world country innovations. For example, our counterparts were shipping apps back in the 90s while our population didn’t have access to a computer. In the US and most of Europe, they had trains created and developed railways back in the 1800s.
All to say, these countries are so far ahead with innovation. We can’t compare to them. We need to ensure that we can crawl before we even think of standing and taking baby steps.
So, here is my message to fellow founders and innovators in Malawi: if you are building a product or service, whether it’s tech-related or not, I want you to find the right customers or users for it. If they like it, perfect it. Work on it. It doesn’t matter if it’s only 5 people using it. Keep working on it. That’s a solution, you will learn more from that and can channel that into a different product or idea. Don’t be discouraged by more talkers. After all, “the world is full of talkers and less doers.”
Malawi can only grow if we have a love for our very own products. Reach a chapter or two on how others did it in their early days. Don’t try to compare industries that are 100 years apart or something like that.
Yours…
