Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

Just bubbling with brilliant Ideas

Well, it is 4:35am and I am at iHub coding the final Java classes of ProjectX4 while some  C++ guys debug a system to help the visually impaired use laptops more comfortably.

Just like the hundreds of Kenyans I meet everyday inundating their blogs with copy-pasted content from all over the net (as if we don’t know how to google), I feel inventive.

I have ideas that ‘no one else has thought of’ and that are ‘going to make me millions’, then ‘finally enable me to buy my Range and bench my identical-twin-sisters neighbors.’

I was reading David Thorne’s blog and his sarcastic view of all these wanna-be inventors and tech-prenuers really cracked me up!

Please guys, there are MY ideas!!  I am sharing FREELY bit I beg you not to steal them. Otherwise I will lock myself in my room and cry.

sijaogathisweek.co.ke

A website for people who fear water and don’t shower. (At Stach, we used to call them Sodiums). Here, these Sodiz will login and say that they have showered. Then another user will need to respond and say ‘You have not showered’. This will generate MASSIVE traffic and hits and advertisement revenue will be realized.

imagineihavejustwokenup.co.ke

A website for people to log in after they wake up. Since everyone sleeps, then this website will surely attract everyone alive. A sure winner! I am already wet with the prospects of this site. My God, I am clever!

nanyeshathisweek.co.ke

This will be the favorite website for Kenyan guys. Guys will log in here to see which chics are rolling, then lenga them for that week and focus on other to-do chics. Companies selling male products can advertise here and I am sure I will soon be rolling in dosh.

sitakijokesmzeeiya.co.ke

This will be a great and innovative site for people who are taking year 2011 seriously. Upload your face on the homepage for KSHS 1000 a week and all your friends will know you are serious.

chekiarmpityangu.co.ke

Here, people will upload air-brushed images of their armpits and the person with the hairiest armpit will get 1000 Bonga Points and 15 Free SMSes. This will be bigger than Zawadi 2929. Since Kenyans love FREE stuff, people will sign-up. We can use these images later to create an armpit-hair montage of Kenya.

nangojanganyaikamu.co.ke

While you stand at the stage for hours ignoring the ong’otees and waiting for a Nganya, login to this site and be the first person to type : ‘Nangoja nganya badala ka kusave time for better things ni-buy ndai yangu’ will own the website for a week and put any content they want. Including their Facebook profiles.

mademniwaseefakesana.co.ke

Yep! Saved the best for last. This is patented. The baddest!  MNWSF will be a site for single, unkempt and obnoxious guys to login every morning and complain about how girls ‘feel hot’ and are possibly lesbians because they don’t fall for their vibe. Girls will then login via Mobile Web and say, ‘no we are not’. Then the guys will respond via SMS and say ‘Yes you are’. etc. And this = Traffic!

I am sure Google and Microsoft will be falling all over themselves to invest and buy at least 4 of these off.

I feel so good. I am bubbling with ideas.

Back to code…

Wazi.

Ok, now, explain your idea to me...

I know. It happens to the best of us. Developers and inventors are always vulnerable.

A good Kenyan Idea MINUS funding is just a Good Kenyan Idea, In the /codelab/completed_systems/ folder. On the flip-side, a good Kenyan Idea + Funding = A Great Kenyan idea.

A great invention replicatable-to-any-market idea.

Kenyans are the MOST peculiar people on earth. The best testbed on earth. Once a System succeeds in Kenya, it will success ANYWHERE. This means Money in the bank. In Any Country.

We don’t develop systems without a revenue model. We develop and end-to-end cash-cow with VALUE and REVENUES. Sell-able and buy-able.

Therefore, in MOST cases, all developers need is just a little push. And this is where the risk falls for Kenyan Software. We always have an answer to ‘where is the money?’ as far as the system is concerned. Couple that with mass-market appeal, and you have a winner.

Kenya is the Cradle of Human Life. Of Ideas. Of Innovations. Mpesa was invented in Kenyan, but as a marketing gimmick, the Kenyan involvement in development was widely and heavily denied. We can’t give these bloody Kenyans the credit they deserve, can we? That would be so bad.

Personally, over the last 16 months, I have noticed a trend. I have witnessed the sickening habit 1st hand. An ‘investor’ comes to Kenya with the promise of the missing part of the jigsaw. The funding for the marketing and operations. They know who to contact to get the contacts and access to the best brains this country has to offer. The ICT Board, iHub, SkunkWorks etc.

Unlike code-crunching programmers, as coders and advanced developers, we understand the system from a code-level and a market level. We know how it will scale and how much revenue it can make, at least on the bare-bones. Then the sales, marketing and operations come on and actually VALUE the system based on the VALUE it brings, not the cost of developing and commissioning it. And the system is documentable now, on a ARPU basis. And projections are made.

So, in full trust (something I am now VERY much against), we meet them, discuss ‘how our systems work’, ‘how they can be adapted in various markets’, ‘how they scale’ etc. Free consultancy. Free 1st-hand information. Ohh, the naivety!

You get lured to assume you are friends and possible partners, but then, from nowhere, they disappear. Go silent. Emails go un-answered. The next thing you know. Your un-heard-of product now has a name and all the documentation you provided (mostly verbally) is used as a blue-print. These people have all the money and resources and the FOCUS to duplicate you.

Meanwhile, as a Kenyan coder, you hustle with ‘other stuff as you wait for the investors to respond’. Then you see a billboard. The rest is history. You are fucked! You start a new project. Do while… Endless loop.

The solution

This is a dilemma of the hot girl who agrees to to go for a rave with you, gives you all the right signs that you have full admin access to her drive C,  then after ‘amekura dhambutha ya firifiri’, she gets an head-ache. I will let you suggest solutions to this brain-sucking.

Wazi…

Back to code!

Long time ago, when the word ‘gay‘ meant ‘to be happy’, I used to do ALL aspects of a system myself. From idea, conceptualization, wire-frames, testing, debugging, installing etc. This was mainly due to the misguided Idea that:

1. No one around was good enough to do exactly what I wanted and I had to do it myself.
2. No one could be trusted as a code/project partner and that everyone was a SurfCon just waiting to understand, then pounce on my Idea and steal it.
3. Everyone was busy with their own hassle and no one cared about my bizarre ideas.

And so, night in, night out, I coded deep into the night. Coding alone and debugging endless projects. until I learnt one word. DELEGATE. This article from About HR changed my whole view. I stopped being a do-it-all coder. And started being a live-like-a-human coder. Delegation does not mean you are weak. It enables you focus your strengths on the real meat, while you , proverbially of course, ‘let the garbage-man handle the garbage‘.

Whether it is coding, running a shop or even trying to get laid, you need to delegate some parts of the entire puzzle, to achieve the final, expected result.

The word GAY might have evolved in meaning, but certain success principles remains the same

The Curse of Yangu-yangu

Directly translated to mine-mine, yangu-yangu is a street phrase depicting that the owner of the object [idea, item, place etc] will NOT share under whatever circumstances, even if sharing would improve the loot and bring MORE for everyone on the table.

A certain Kamaray, once posted a comment on my blog talking about this and how it affects Kenyans :

Nice piece…time the talking stopped and the “cash-ing” started.

1 Problem : Kenyans don’t share : Coder dies with brilliant code, Marketer dies with brilliant marketing strategy, Finance guru dies with financing connections……bring them together….BAM!

This is what I feel Kenyan need. A Symbiotic relationship. A convergence of thinkers, doers and talkers who all work towards filling a common bucket.

If a good coder and find a brilliant marketer and a finance guru puts all the other pieces together, then this will be a story worth writing home about.

Back to code!

Adios!