After I graduated college I moved out to Kenya. That was 9 years ago. My work had taken me to four East African countries in that time, the majority in Tanzania. Most of that time was spent in mobile tech; however, I had a solid two year stint at a micro-finance bank. I’ve worked with people from many different cultures, and built products for people from vastly different backgrounds. None of these people have been like me. Until recently, in every company I worked for, I was the only white American. This has been difficult at times (Yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds). I’ve felt lost, confused, frustrated and left out. I didn’t understand our customers, I would never use our products, but people seemed to love them. I struggled most at the first tech company I started, when I was trying to build products that I would use – a mobile money aggregator with a web interface. It never took off. The only companies who bought it were companies with Western founders. It was a painful lesson, and after that I decided to partner with local businesses, or businesses that had been around for longer than me. What I learned was that to be successful you had to listen and speak to your customers. I thought I knew this from reading Steve Blank and Eric Reis, but when your customers don’t look, sound or speak the same language as you, it’s far easier to come up with excuses not to get out of the office. The interesting part about the businesses I partnered with was they were incredibly customer focused without ever deciding to build a customer intelligence team. They just spoke with customers all the time. This occurred through the call center, in person at sales meetings, or out drumming up business. The important part was they listened and recommended changes to the product. In most cases, these changes worked really well. As companies expand into emerging markets, into Africa and Asia, and think they can execute based on their existing model, where their customers vastly think, look and talk like them, they’ll fail. You have to start all over again. You have to identify the niche, and you have to go out and talk to your customers. It’s the same all over the world.