Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

Seven Seas. The lessons

It is a very eventful day here in Kenya. Yeah. That third-world country that invented mPesa, mKesho and PesaPap! (deny all you want). Yes. That country with Google Offices but has NOT a single home-grown success story. Well, that is not true, we have Mocality and DealFish and Kalahari, all Made in Kenya and very successful. True? Nooot. They are not. And they are not. Both. True. Wait. Just like I had predicted before, they would not last long with their SA blue-print in Kenya. They got it all wrong from the beginning.

I said it and I was blacklisted. Nikatukanwa. Nikaitwa hater. Nikaambiwa sipendi success. Etc.

First off, I read an article stating that they are being shut down. Mocality has once been accused of buying Century Cinema tickets at KSHS 500 per ticket and selling them as ‘deals’ for KSHS 150 each. Just to create traffic and a feeling of ‘Tunafanya kazi’. I am just reporting what was said in a TechMeeting at location X. I have no claim or proof to these allegations.

Step in SevenSeasTech

And then Mr Bob Collymore came in and said on Twitter:

“We are NOT targeting SST for acquisition. We’re partnering with SST to deliver managed services. Each brings own skills to the deal.”

A smile lit on my face. Made in Kenya. By Kenyans. Going PanAfrican.

This is what Safaricom has been preaching for the last 3 years to deaf ears, mine, sometimes, included. And it is just normal business practice. Prove you are a WORTHY business partner, and we will partner with you. Finally, it is demystified. I have always preached. My sermon has slowly changed from “Safaricom hates Kenyan solutions/developers” to “Safaricom si mamako”. A wise man changes his mind when presented with facts and reason. A fool keeps fighting a lost battle.

Lesson 1: Let success speak for you. Si kelele.

Liko has always sang to me. “Salim, make your product grow and achieve traction. You will never need to ask for appointments. People will LOOK for YOU. Not the other way round.”

Investors/partners look for one thing. Your VALUE to the business/deal. Not your smile or the fact that you have 2 cats and love your mum and can sing ‘kum-baya my lord’ in soprano. No. How MUCH value can you bring to the table? The rest ni stories.

And this comes as a good gesture from Safaricom. Ofcourse, as coders, we might not have the connections, financial muscle and board-room influence that SST might have. But who said we need that? You only need to manage 2 things that My good friend Muendo always talks about. ‘Relations and Delivery’. Kwisha maneno.

Get a deal and do it good and more will come from the coffers. Haters wabaki wakijiongelesha. Waseme umeangukia. Umehongana. Umependelewa. And all the other 17 things Kenyans say when what they ACTUALLY mean is ‘We wish we were them. They are soo HAPPY. We are soo SAD. Our side sucks so much!!’

Lesson 2: Focus pays

I was very honored to share a business session with Macharia in Diani during the OpenData Government meetup in coast, April this year. Silently and with utter admiration, i sat and listened as he spoke about relations, ethics and focus. Things that alot of Kenyans lack. It is not uncommon to find a CEO who drives a Matatu over the weekends and pimps on Fridays. Macharia preached focusing on Plan A, because of you need a Plan B, then your plan A is not as good as you thought.

Get a SOLID plan A and focus on it. And good things will come.

 Lesson 3: Don’t develop software

This is where most noble and focused people fall short. Developing software. People don’t buy software. They buy SOLUTIONS. The bigger the percentage of their problem you can solve, the more likely they are to give you the deal. If you develop the software part of the solution they want and ignore the hardware, networking and orgware part of the puzzle, you have NOT delivered fully.

SST differentiates itself in their Mantra:

Vision: To be an African company defining Service Excellence in technology driven business solutions. NOT [To be an African company with the most bug-free code]

Mission: To help customers get the most from their investment in technology deriving optimal performance. [To train customers use our software].

Tafakari hayo.

Back to code.

Wazi.