Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

Increase your SMS revenue to 155%.

Recently, the revenue share model for SMS services running on short-codes was revised and, as always, it anti-enterprenural.

As hot girls might tell you, I don’t like beating around their bushes and I always dive right to the meat of the moment and this being a weekend post, i will make it straight to the point, like me.

So, I will share model 1 of 3 and hopefully, it will be of use to someone.

The Locus Standi

The current revenue share model for Kenya is like this:

SMS Service on Safaricon

Government – 26% (16% vat + 10% excise),

SAF 50% (of what remains after tax) – if your traffic is less that 1M smses or 40% if it is more.

PRSP 20% (of your 100%, which is 50% of the after-tax value.)

You – A hefty 80%, from which you must the government another 5% with-holding tax.

So for an SMS service charging the client 10 bob per response, The share will be:

Govt : 2.6, Saf : 3.7, PRSP : 0.74, You: 2.96 (less 5% W/h tax : 2.812)

Same applies to other operators, give or take 5% from their share. or yours.

So, for you to make something sensible, e.g. 5 Bob per SMS, you must charge at least 20 bob.

The Solution

When I designed the Easy Hisa System for Standard Investment Bank (SIB) as an adaptation of our Mobile Stock Trading and tracking suite, we decided to try a different revenue model. Today, I will share with you the revenue model, so that you can use it to maximize on SMS revenues.

This model is simple and is applicable to banks, insurance companies, stock brokerage houses, bars and clubs etc. Think outside an in-existent box, and the possibilities are unlimited.

Success Story: How SIB is doing it

SIB Opted for a model that is simplistic and traffic independent. The profits are always HIGH and fixed. Client gets charged normal SMS rates to access the system, e.g. 1 bob for YU and 2 bob for Zain.

At SIB, I have setup a MODEM pool with SIM cards for all operators. All lines are the same e.g. 0711/0751/0734 (900009) and clients just need to SAVE their network number to their SIM as SIB.. or Broker.

Anytime a client needs to check the status of their shares order, balance etc, they just send a normal-rated SMS to SIB on their address book and we receive the SMS, process it and respond. Mara iyoiyo… Cost on their Airtime, 2 bob. Needless to say, SMSes come to the client using out TumaSMS gateway and are masked as the broker sees fit.

Now comes the big question. How does the broker make money?

The clients have been educated to see this as a convenience service and looking at the kawaida cost of going to your broker of KSHS 100+ coz of transport etc and the time wasted because of Jam etc not forgeting akina morio, they gladly pay the 10 bob SIB charges as a service fee for this service.

EasyHisa passes a journal to the internal brokerage system and charges the client’s trading account 10 bob, a revenue stream from which SIB keeps 100% profits. 10 outta 10.

So here, the client pays 12 bob to get information that would have cost them 100 bob. In 5 seconds when it would cost them 1hour+. SIB keeps 100% profit as opposed to 28.2%. Simple, Easy, Neat!

Jidosishe mzee, dont dosisha wadosi.

Back to code.

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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!

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A troubled but genius innivation

Last week, I called my landlord to ask her why there was no water in my apartment. She told me,  “pigia city council uwaulize. I just connect you to water. Not provide it.” So I packed my stuff and moved to the leafy suburbs where the taps never run dry.

Also, Last week [what an eventful week. Arsenal match included], I Mathematically demonstrated that it was IMPOSSIBLE for Mpesa to go down due to user-load. But, the downtime issue occured again last week!  This downtime lasted so long that I, for just some seconds, assumed that the eye of the Nebula had finally opened and the finger of god was about to start poking us all. I could not send money home and I had to cancel my Friday night Pool Hustling to take the money back home, by hand. Yuck! 2002 all over again.

But now, Mpesa is back up. We are all smiling. Long live Safaricom. Until the next downtime. They we can all switch back to Safaricom-ni-madogi mode.

After a response by Kaduki and a blog posting by Kachwanya (both very learned, incisive and non-partisan friends of mine and former Stacherians) about a non-safaricom-controllable element of the downtime, I decided to do my research and what I found out was interesting.

The Mpesa Architecture

Minimalistic Mpesa WAN Overview

Note/Disclaimer : The map above is my own sketch of how the Mpesa system would hypothetically work. It is by no way endorsed by Vodafone or Safcom. Ok.. Safcom wouldn’t -ofcourse; So let me stop at Vodafone.

From the WAN-map above, we see that Mpesa has 3 primary points-of-failure.

Point 1 : Data Path-1-to-2 Request Path

If the link between Saf and Voda fails (cut, rained on, power issues of just the plain fear of Makmende), your Mpesa will fail. Shared responsibility – Saf-Voda

Point 2 : Data Path-2-to-3 Auth path

If for some reason Voda does not get a full hand-shake and ACK from the bank, then your Mpesa will fails. Shared responsibility – Bank-Voda

Point 2 : Data Path-3-to-2-to-1 Response path

If for some reason Saf does not get a full and timely response from Voda, then your Mpesa will fails. Shared responsibility – Saf-Voda

So, clearly, Safaricom might, and I suspect, always does her part.. and VERY fast at that, but the multiple-points-of-failure make them look bad in the eyes of the public.

Solution

Many come to mind:

1. Develop a Kenyan Mpesa. Locally hosted and run. No downtime.
2. Take and work on daily data snapshots. Reconcile with Voda at end of day ala the ATM Model.
3. Work on a Store-and-forward modus operandi where there is a system-trust threshold based on the last-known-user-balance so that the client ALWAYS gets served and reconciliation is delayed abit. This could also be made more secure by placing repeat requests by this client on queue-2 is reconciliaton is not yet down.

That’s all, folks!

Back to code.

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Last Friday, after all the Females I had poked and in-boxed snubbed going out with me because I always focus more on the Pool Table than the Female I am with while clubbing, I decided to Call Teddy so that we can go to Westlands at Qz and shoot some Pool. Gz up, hoz down and we both pitiad by Nandos/Galittos and stuffed ourselves with Chicken Thighs. Who said money cant buy thighs?

And so Westlands it was. I met with my old Campus Friend, Marto, (yes, I went to campus. UoN for 2 and 1/2 years. Ask Sebi and Knoxx. But I dropped out.) and he told me about this new mobile website he had just finished after being inspired by my post on how 10 serious Kenyans will be Millionaires before October . He decided to focus on item 8.

So he needed my help on how to monetize the idea and also how to secure the site from hackers. We met later the next day and for 5% shares agreement, I gladly did this.

Step in LaidInKenya (LiK)

LaidInKenya is a Kenyan’s dream. An East African’s dream. Actually, an African’s dream! LiK is an adult personals website with one mission:

To help anyone and everyone get laid by aggregating an e-pool of layers and layees. Be your orientation Straight or Gay, Normal sex or mtandikano, Kakyabali or just oral, you will find at least 10 people to fulfill your fantasy.

LaidInKenya has the following offerings:

• Age Check – No one under 18 is allowed. Someni Viijana.
• Lay-Mates - Everyone will have a personal to-do list (no pun intended) and she/he can always add, delete people from it. This is a personal private list. Not a public facebookesque friends list. Chako ni chako.
• Inbox Messaging – With the Inbox and emoticons like Spank, Kiss, Nugde and Flirt, you will not be short of ways of expressing yourself on LiK.
• Trial-Period – On registration, as soon as you fill in your profile and upload an avatar, you will have 7 days of FULL site use to enjoy all the offerings before having to pay membership fees.
• Registration and Confirmation – There is a registration and confirmation algorithm that makes sure the registered users are unique and real. You are assured that ALL members there are legit and not jokers.
• Members Only – A membership fee of KSHS 100 per month ama 1000 per year ensures that LiK members are only the serious people you want to associate with.
• Discreet SMS Chat – You will send and receive SMSes between you and your Laymate without ever needing or having to exchange numbers. LiK has a proprietary SMS engine that takes care of all the discreet routing. How cool is that!!?
• Continuous Development – Knowing Marto, he will not settle for what he has. LiK will always continue to evolve. he talked to me about a lot of features he will add in good time. Let us wait and get amazed.

What about the Kids?

To protect the Kids from Indecent exposure, LiK has RTA Meta tags and ALL Search Engines recognize it as an Adult website. Also, LiK has a ‘We ID’ identity and one MUST consent that they are 18+ from the home-page. Talk about an in-your-face disclaimer. That is the meanest and ugliest e-bouncer you can get.

Also, Marto requested I integrated a skeleton version of the ZungukaPay platform and I just activated the ZAP and Mpesa modules for him to be able to receive payments for his site and auto-magically activate user Accounts. Because Age-vetting is done at the Mpesa registration Level, this further proves that our user is of mature age and of a conscientious frame of mind.

Investment Opportunity

Being a very talented developer, but no Daddy’s money and in a country where no banks can lend coders money to pursue their ‘high risk’ ideas, Marto told me to source for an Investor willing to act as a silent partner and can invest a lumpsum of KSHS 2.5 – 5M to be used for advertising. He is offering 10 – 20% lifetime shares for this.

I suggest anyone who has money to spare to invest in this opportunity TODAY!. Trust me, you don’t want to be that guy who will be salivating and kicking himself 8 months down the line saying, ‘Damn! I knew about that offer and could Invest but fear and greed got the better of me!!’

Marto can be reached on : thebed AT laidinkenya . com

Join LiK On Facebook

Only time will tell. 9 More millionaire Slots left. Laleni tu.

Back to Code!

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Coditta Continua!

And so it came to pass. Internet on Mobile in Africa, in Kenya, in ZIMMERMAN… is actually a reality. The jokers and Idlers and those whose life is on a mental plateau can now poke on FB at 2 MBPS. These will be the losers of this new digital age. Coders and integrators cant even stand up properly because of the mighty Erections these possibilities bring with them. These will be the WINNERS and MINTERS of this new digital age.

As I take this code-break from my Netbeans 6.8 IDE as I am currently debugging Tubonge Version 1.0 (More about this on an Internet near you soon), I hastily share this as a warning to all businesses, SMEs and Corporates wishing to engage Symbiotic in their mobile applications development.

The writing is on the wall and the coffee is already hot and aromatic. Those who will wake up and smell it, will realize that if whatever you are selling is NOT mobile, then you are not serious and if I ever meet you in town, I will kick you in the nuts if Male or brutally twist your nipples if female.

Symbiotic are SMACK in the middle of all this. They develop content, content discovery tools, monetizers and mobile social experiences.

Just like many start-up IT firms in Kenya, we meet people who suffer from the dreaded ‘Code ni Mkate syndrome’ . This is characteristic of some guys who normally have :

• Stayed outside Kenya for like 2 weeks and think they have travelled and seen it all.
• Did some obscure IT course in 1981. [Possibly in some satanic language like VB or Cobol].
• Possibly have MCSE.
• Own a Pentium 3 at home and a USB 160 GB Hard and. so, they have a data-center.
• Think they are all that in Code and can lecture at Inoorero.

So, Why not Hire Symbiotic?

• Face Value : We have clients ranging from the shop down the street to international tech companies. The size of your business doesn’t matter to us. What does matter is how seriously you take your business. If you don’t value your work enough to have it professionally presented, well, it was nice speaking with you. Because if it goes out with our name, it is going to be our best. We expect the same from our clients. Hatutaki Aibu!
• Copy-Pasters : If you are just looking to copy what your competitor ‘has just done’ so as to do the classic stupid and mee-too-istic Kenyan way of ‘matching them’ and ‘kuwafikia’, then Symbiotic will not work for you. Symbiotic does Innovation and Apps building from A to Z. Not Mimicry.
• Budgets : If you want a fully capable site with social networking, Integration with the ZungukaPay payment gateway, TumaSMS integration and a mobile client to engage your clients candidly, and your development budget is minuscule, Please don’t. We want your work to be done by our dedicated and skilled pool of IT resources. Not outsource it to Kenya Poly! A good budget is essential. Not BIG; Good.
• Scope-Creep : If you are looking for just a simple product to do step A, then ‘tutaona hizo features zingine baadaye’, then please come back when all the features are decided. We have been if far too many situations where scope is not clear and end up developing a Ferrari on the ToR of a Vitz.
• Value-Add : Many a  times, a client comes to Symbiotic with a RFQ for a product to do A and B, but gets exposed to technical awesomeness and realizes they can achieve more for their business. Open-minded clients work well with Symbiotic. If you have decided what you want and can’t even listen to suggestions, Please click next.
• Dedicated Resource : If your staff is too busy to respond to our emails or phone calls, then we suggest an engagement when they are less busy. Like my big white brother from another mother, Bill Gates, we do business at the speed of thought and canceled meetings and delayed responses don’t help much.
• Client Commitment : If your modus operandi is ‘You start the project then we will discuss finances later’, then we suggest you try hiring Rajamarasapukar Rajdinyar IT Limited from India. We have a very strict Software Development Life Cycle that we adhere to and ‘Client Commitment’ is Item 1c.

So, there you have it!

Symbiotic does not discriminate on tribe, race, pocket-size or country. We just hate mediocrity and time wasters.

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