One of the harder parts about working in tech in Africa is nailing down your distribution channel. The market is not at the level yet where having a good website and a social media presence will drive enough traffic to your site. As I’ve written before, you need the MNOs for distribution. Your app or service will ride on their rails to cover that ‘last mile’.
To make things even more difficult, the MNOs often move at a glacial pace. They have dozens of other projects going on, all likely far more important than your world-changing app. At JUMO we constantly talk about this and how we can capitalize on MNO windows of opportunity. To us it all comes down to momentum. If you are granted a window by the MNO, you need to make sure that you do everything you can in that window to get your project going. It’s almost a type of IP, the grit required to buckle down and work your butt off over a week period when you stated in the MOU you needed a month. That’s what the great startups do, and that’s what separates them from the rest. At my first tech company, I didn’t see that as clearly as I do now. I was based in Tanzania, so I was always popping into the MNOs to push things along. It wasn’t until we wanted to expand to Zambia that I realized how difficult getting things done was. That product fell apart in large part because we couldn’t get momentum. Once you have the momentum, keep it moving. Always keep it moving. The rewards are well worth it.