Here’s how we did it.
7 weeks ago we decided to try out something, building a working product, whatever it was, within seven weeks and launching whatever it is that you had after the 7 weeks.
I called it the 7 Week Challenge, and luckily a few other guys decided to try this out as well.
Why do this?
Because quite often, we spend too much time worrying about too many things instead of just building, launching and letting the people you aim to sever try out your product and give you the feedback that you’ll need to build an even better product.
Week one was for introductions, idea polishing and goal setting. The 6 weeks after that we for building, testing and iterating all at once. A lot of iteration has happened.
Every week we met up on Thursday evening for 1-2 hours to catch up, give feedback and keep each other on track. My work was mostly to act as the moderator and ensure everybody reached the finish line with something to show.
This is our final week and below is a snippet of what has been worked on thus far.
Foundstack – Amos Ndeto
You have this idea of what you want to work on, say an e-commerce store for organic pet food in Kenya, where do you start? What tasks do you need to do first? Who will you need? How will you get your first customers? What tools will you require and where do you access them?
Foundstack gives you the answers to these fundamental questions not only as you start off your journey but also as you move along from MVP, to product and even when you would want to raise funding, Foundstack will help you properly structure your entrepreneurial journey.
The product uses AI to help structure the responses and workflows that you get. I tried it out with a product that I had worked on a few years back (Redhunt – a blood donation app) and the tasks and workflows that I got to help with building the product were beyond amazing.
CalcKenya – David Amunga
Two words that have been used a lot in the past year in Kenya are “economy” and “uchumi” they might have been accompanied by other words such as “wueh!”, “eeehhh” to mention a few, depending on the context and setting in which the conversation was taking place.
One app that was used a lot by Kenyans in 2023 was the calculator, from calculating the money that one is owed to the new taxes eating up the never changing salaries.
These two scenarios are what led to the birth of CalcKenya, a simple tool that will allow Kenyans to know/calculate their net pay, gross pay, interest on loans, and many more financial calculations on the click of a button, with the ever changing economic environment.
In time you will also be able to calculate interest gained on investments on things such as SACCO savings, Money Market Funds etc. to help you make the best decisions on where to put your money.
👉🏽 CalcKenya will be where you go to when you want to make sense of your money or when your money doesn’t make sense.
Design course book for the Kenyan Designer – Maxwell Otieno
Early 2023, Maxwell set out to do a free designer course to help other upcoming designers in Kenya upskill and finesse the little things that normally lead to getting a design job.
The course was very practical, hands on and feedback based, he would do two early morning sessions with the students before work and designed a wonderful coursework on Figma.
A few of the students went on to get jobs and some if not all are currently practicing with a change in mindset as to what it really means to design products for the Kenyan consumer.
Max’s task was to work on a simple book around the course that he had done with the students. The book will be out soon.
Last but not least is myself. I was the moderator as this was a Building Africa initiative but even I had to do something.
In the final quarter of 2023 I set out to see if it’s possible to invest in products but using your skill. So I immersed myself in two products as a designer, one called Uzakitu, an E-commerce SaaS for the Kenyan SME, designed and built with Kenyans online purchasing habits in mind, even backed by a little research. Kenyans mostly buy in-store but they most certainly do their research online. Backed by some great devs from Neverest who also had some experience with customers asking for websites like Jumia, we put our heads together and are currently testing out the product.
The other is Xently, another product that I’m sure a lot of Kenyans who like to go out and touch grass will appreciate. The idea is to start by gamifying the experience of visiting local hospitality spots, small lodges and villas. The customer gets an app where they can see all these places, the services offered, menus, get gamer points for every visit and give feedback to the owners, both good and bad. The owners in turn get more visits, a place to easily showcase what they offer and a tool to help them get quality feedback about their services and offering. Working on this as a designer also, backing Harrison an Bramwell who you will hopefully meet sooner or later.
The goal is to build and sell and let the customer tell you what to focus on more.
As 2024 goes on, we’ll keep building, selling and iterating, let’s circle back on these awesome products in June to see where we will be at.
I hope to do another version of the 7 Week Challenge this year.
May you 2024 be a great one. Be kind to yourself and be kind to others. [PS. Say No More Often].
Worth a read:
This twitter thread by Dan Kulkov should be your entrepreneur’s bible in this new year.
Thank you for being an avid reader in 2023, keep reading in 2024. There is a lot planned 🙏🏾.
