Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

Crayfish Babbbaaayy!!

Distract any self-respecting coder/designer/animator from their work by suggesting that you go for lunch, play foosball or by coming to their desk to ask silly/stupid and irrelevant questions like ‘How are you?’ or ‘How was your night?’,  at iHub and you have made an enemy.

Tell a coder that you have some gig that requires they stay away from their computer for more than 6 hours, and they will cringe. Such is the life of a digerati.

But once in a long while, comes something tempting enough. Take for example, WordCamp. WordPress-Camp. An open-invitation for Kenyan e-Writers of all shapes, sizes and colors.

A meetup with Kenya’s finest bloggers, poets, writers, troll-commentors, habitual re-tweeters and gutter-press. Well, speaking of the gutter-press crew, there are rumours that they finally bought new shoes and could not afford the USD 40 fee for the WordCamp, but we are launching a Kenyans4Gutter campaign in a hour on twitter, that will make sure all our various sections of bloggers are present. We love everyone equally. More on this in the last paragraph.

I am still mulling over whether to take the public means (WordCamp bus) that everyone will be taking (more fun, social, Free wi-fi c/o Safaricom etc) or whether to drive our Mint Symbiotic’s Kompressor E-240 up to the camp.

The Lou-pean part of me tells me, this is a good chance to show these doubters in our midst that coders can actually make it in life and own the best toys that money can buy. Utatumiaje Bus na una Kompressor? And the gals will LOVE it.

The other saner part of me tells me, #justToConfuseYourEnemies, vaa kawaida and move with the crowd. Be one with your peers and also, keep the haters and doubters thinking that you are as broke as they are. That this code manenos is all talk. It keeps them going. Gives them a reason to live.

The bus leaves at 9:15 and I know it is going to be fun. I was at Crayfish on the new-year eve. It was a nice place to be. Apart from the 4-k-club mosquitoes the size of a USB-port and the hippos that maraud past midnight (far from the camping area), the place is heavenly. Cool breeze, nice swimming pool, Boats to go fishing into lake Naivasha in, BIG in-camp club with nice music, 2 pool-tables, option of tents or ‘vans’ of cottages, nice food, friendly servants (waiters etc).

Then my good buddies will be there. Mugo and his beginner-skills in pool, Wamathai the gal-gaster, the ever-smiling Savvy, My small brother Kachwanya, Bwana PKukubo, Ninja Anto and 6 other people I will not mention. What better selection of friends can a coder ask for?

This is also an opportunity for me to meet people I have been dying to meet outside the office. Content people. Safaricom has given us a challenge. Show us the traffic, and we will give you the Keys to Mkwanjaville. If you do content and/data, look for me or Timo. Kuna mazuri.

Ofcourse, I will be the un-defeated guy at the pool table with a black-chalk beating up everyone. I don’t have swagger.. I have twanga. No mercy.

On the menu, ofcourse, are the BLOODY CRAYFISH. Yep. Make sure you sample some.

With that said, tupatane huko and let us do biz and have some little fun.

Back to code.

Wazi

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.

We are family

Ahhh. That feeling when the game is finally over and you won with a 1-goal margin against your fiercest rival in an entertaining game. Last minute winning goal. Coming down from 2-0. [Keyword: Entertaining. For many like me, to win simply isn’t enough – you had to win with style].

Ahhh. That feeling you get when you know that, finally, the hatchet is burried between you and the co-orporate world and they have extended a warm arm to you, and you now can start implementing all the solutions stored in your laptop for the last 18 months.

The code had started rotting. You spent sleepless nights hoping no one invents your stuff. But, Ohh no!  chako ni chako. Thank God.

Ahhh. That feeling when you know that it is ONLY YOU that can fail yourself from now onwards. iHub/NaiLab/mLab are here. Mpesa is here. Safaricom is now finally looking to promote local developers [A blog on this on Friday], the gurus are here to learn from. What more do you want? Welcome to Mkwanjalization.

Yesterday I had a nice, long meeting. Needless to mention, it is was not a beer-na-maboyz-meeting where we discussed madem, Manchester or such trivial and useless things. Ohh no! This was a meeting of the minds. The movers and shakers. We made the move. Now, brace yourselves for the big shake. The shake-up is here. Finally, Uhuru! What? You expect me to share more? Sawa. Ngoja basi.

A while ago, I talked about responsible blogging and  palatable content. My blog is read by ONLY 30, 000 people a month. Ofcourse, my stats are shared ONLINE and are real-time. I could count CSS and Javascript file hits to make the site look busy and HIP and ‘Swag’, but we leave that to gutter-press. I am here to share information and life experiences. Not get traffic and sell ads. I am here to tell that campus kid that they can be rolling in a Kompressor by June next year wakiwa serious. Not to hurl stones and complain about Bamba 15 bob.

Like I always say, I sleep better knowing that by blog is read by 32 CEOs, 18 IT Masters, 21 Coders, 231 wannabe-geeks, 21 Javascript and CSS gurus, 8 VB programmers 4 faggots and 3 lesbians than 21, 743 watchmen, 22, 145 shoe-shiners and 32, 665 idlers.

The Language

People-Skills is a very new and alien concept to developers. “My code works and is the best. So fuck all all you humans” is a mantra alot of coders go with. Me included. Once, anyway. Now I am growing up. Fast. At this point of my life, it is more benefitial for me to do a PR/Marketing course than learn the internals and intricacies of the Java Virtual Machine.

I have seen ‘coders’ [More like PornGrammers] who can’t even be ranked 2/10 sell their buggy, insecure and half-baked garbage for Millions while 8-8.5/10 masters and gurus with their optimized, multi-threaded and un-hackable systems (in their laptops) are still waiting for a number 46 to town. People-Skills.

No. You no longer have to bribe to have your system out there. And I really hope I am not derailed because I want to prove this VERY soon. That all you need is a laptop, the right skills and a smile. And you can be what we all wish to be. FREE. Coding on a full stomach. Getting out of the lift on the Basement. Not Ground Floor. Know-worramseng?

It is very tempting [but ultimately suicidal, stupid and immature] to blog about a person or a corporate. Safaricom/EABL/Yokozuna Breweries wamenijamisha? Aki ngoja nita-blog. But, as Batiatas would ask, “to what end?”. It is one thing to have freedom of expression, but it is another thing to know the limits. Know the avenues of channeling the complaints. All you will get online and on twitter are just ArmChair critics and happy-clappers. “Salim, hiyo blog yako ni kali”, I would be told by someone. But end-month ako na salo. Mimi ni hustler.

Don’t forget. These people are humans. They have emotions. Maybe they just had a bad day. Trust me, it is more valuable, in the short-term and long-term, to talk to them na uwaskize, than to tukanana. ESPECIALLY if you are a DEVELOPER, in KENYA, in 2011.

Jua kuongea na watu. If you can’t, get someone who does. And give them half your company. Or 60%.

Back to code.

Wazi.

4 BabySteps

Banx suggested that I stick to being a tech blogger and a gadgets reviewer for the next 3 months until watu watulie. Moving on swiftly.

Well, @smutinda and @mbuguanjihia represented Kenya in the just-concluded DEMO launchpad event – www.demo.com. I was privileged to get an exclusive on what happened and who won what and why. It was a success story. Letting everyone out there know that there are real coders and thinkers in Africa, contrary to common belief.

This was an awakening.

Shimba ranked highly in their category and was behind a solution from Stanford with their MedAfrica product. The Stanford team, with funding from Eric Schmidt and the best tools (more about this later), had made a gadget that you attach to your back and it gives you a slight electric vibrations when you sit in a bad posture. It helps you sit better and protect your backbone. [Read More here]

MedAfrica was something different altogether. Given the sad fact that there are ONLY 7, 000 doctors tasked with serving 40, 000, 000 Kenyans, MedAfrica uses the fact that there already 10M mobile users in Kenya to create eDoctors. MedAfrica would cut the Doctor:Patient ratio from1:5714 to 1:4.  Here is the presentation.

The 4 lessons.

Lesson 1: Relevance Matters

Ofcourse, In being from a First-world country, this was a difficult sale. With all the online services like my MyPhysician and the rest, it was difficult to explain how so man people could not have access to basic human right like medicare. So, MedAfrica tanked in this initial round. Luckily, not winning the DEMO accolades did not amount to total failure.

Lesson 2: Funding Matters

I can’t talk enough about this. Linet always frowns at me when I talk about this. We always seem to have a “Develop your solution, generate interest and the funding will come” VS “Give me the funding and I will give you the BEST solution” debate. I never seem to be able to explain the later, a mantra I subscribe to.

Seed capital is all developers ask for. Not Millions and Millions. Google would never have been afloat without the US$100,000 funding from Andy Bechtolsheim [Read More Here]. Facebook would not have kicked off without the first investment of US$500,000 in June 2004 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel [Read More Here]. I could go on the WHOLE day.

But then again, we are in Africa and funding/seed capital is a pipe-dream.

So cometh the challenge to the Universities and the Government.

Lesson 3: Government Matters

In the US, all Universities offering Computer Science have funding available for the MOST promising students. Government subsidizes and offers security for loans to IT initiatives from Government Banks. Need KSHS 5M to do a project, no problem. Your University and the Government just needs 20% shares of your company, and you will get the loan tomorrow. Try that in Kenya.

Our old-money-old-ideas mental setup, colonial-thinking and defensive business models make this impossible.

So, the innovators and thinkers are still REQUIRED and EXPECTED to fend for themselves. Think about your product, then think about the money to make the product a revenue-generating solution. Once you start making money, KRA and KAC will be sent over to see ‘how’ you make all this money. Then the ‘investors’ will come. When you don’t need them.

People who invested millions in FB and Google, ventures that had NO revenue potential or defined streams, right now are smiling all the way to the Keyboard to refresh their profits screens. There are no risk-takers here. Yet.

Lesson 4: Name Matters

Think of the power in a Name. UoN is know for Riots. Harvard is known for Excellence. Most people would still rather partner/invest in a C student from Harvard, than an A student from UoN. [If the GradeNazis would allow my use of Kenyan Grades for Harvard]. Until maturity comes to our students to elevate our name in such a manner that the very mention of UoN, Strath, JKUAT or CUEA would put a smile on investors and partners, the prejudice will remain.

Also, what we learn or are perceived to learn matters. It makes me sad that we are still teaching PHP, CSS and Javascript in Campus, 4th year. I will not belabour this point.

Kids need to leverage the Fibre and use the 4MB Ngwati links to learn things that blow the socks off investors. Talk QR Codes, NFC, e/m Payments, Cloud, Anything. Si Css.

Back to code

Wazi.