Bridging Technology and Community Impact: Naftal's Vision for Affordable Innovation

welcome to the host African where we discuss web hosting and how it relates to business the individual and its General role in society I'm ashin your host in today's episode we have a naftal nuto a highly accomplished businessman and innovator naftal how do you [Music] do would would you would you mind giving us a brief background of your business Journey please yes um I think uh the brief background as you just mentioned is um I've started career some 18 years ago um uh doing um much of uh technology I've been in the industry for those for those years but basically then leading um uh some technology companies and I've also worked in um the charity space uh doing a number of international projects Community projects development projects and uh it's between how you technology can impact communities and how communities can absorb technology for purpose of impact in terms of development purpos but when it comes to entrepreneurship I think this journey began in 2016 and started by a bit of Innovations which were focused on small uh Enterprises uh that's micro Enterprise and smmes and uh this was basically trying to get how smmes can be able to boost their businesses by using their mobile phones and be able to have some specific crms on their phones cuz these are guys who could not be able to have computers or afford computers but the smartphone penetration in Kenya was very good so we thought we should be able to enter that space over time we have uh evolved created quite a number of Innovations Innovations which have G Awards in Africa which have gone Global World We have got inovations which have really created a huge impact in agriculture in climate change in corporates in smmes so it's a quite huge portfolio maybe we can be discussing them as well go um yeah I mean I I I begin to discuss them I my first question is actually knowing that you that you are as accomplished as you are I mean you've won International Awards like you mentioned um and you've also helped loads of people in the community like what which of those is is your primary goal I mean are you looking to like be recognized for your efforts or your Innovations or you actually is your main goal mostly to let's say um provide assistance or ideas or whatever facilities or help basically for for the community and I mean the the Ws just come because you were Innovative in that sense yes I I think you captured rightly I think my motivation has not been more of the recognition and if you look at some of the Technologies we have created over time uh we have created Technologies with the focus of impact and that is not that's not something that easier to do because if you are so much focused on profits then you realize that um if you focus on Technologies which have a bigger impact then you don't turn around profit and you don't become very profitable very easily so uh what we have done is trying to make sure that um whatever Technologies we are coming up with has a very positive impact to but only just the communities but small businesses and U even if we are gotten into corporates it's simply because some of our Solutions were able to scale to the corporate level but um you realize for example let me give an example of what we are doing in areas like Agri Tech um this is this is a very uh Community Driven kind of projects because agriculture is a big area in in in Africa in Kenya for example and you realize most of those communities for example when you talk about things like AI pres agriculture iots these are things they see on TV they can't basically look at them as something they can consume or use but how do you deify them and make them very affordable to the extent that they can be like their day-to-day tools just like they can have uh the normal tools in the house to use in the agriculture practices every day so if you look at that then you realize that Innovations have a very big social impact if you look at it from that perspective then when you bring in corporates in the corporates become now the the the enabler because they have the muscle they can be able to look at supporting the infrastructure that you need for you to be able to subsidize and and end up having that social impact that you need at the community level so I can say that that is the major focus and I think that talks about my background more and that has been the bigger driver is is your motivation to succeed basically to have an impact on the environment around you is that how we can sum it up yes that's accurate that's the bigger motivation I mean it it sounds like a it sounds like a lifelong goal cuz it's um I mean to to my mind it's um I mean you're always going to be having ideas there's always going to be problems to solve I'm thinking if if the cost runs for a long time we can get you on every 10 years and talk about what um what projects you've done and you'll be wor working till you 90 or 100 maybe cuz um yeah it's a I think it's a very noble noble approach but um how do you manage that with um actually offering a hand or creating value for for the community and not I don't want to say not focusing on profit but maybe not having it as your main objective because um I mean all of these things of course cost money you know yes I have a different school of thought and um and I think let me just reference that the the coroporation As Cities traditionally which was basically more of a capitalist kind of cooporation is is changing and I and I give reference to what I feel like one of the business what we started in business school Peter draa who said that the corporation has to be part of the society and um and the coer as it was is transforming why because even corporations which are for profit they have to create Solutions which have actual problems they're solving that are Community problem those corporations have a more sustainable approach to making profits and and I feel that school of thought is the right school of thought for example some of the solutions we have are actually for profit basically profit solution but um uh who are the people who are your clients customers these are Community people these are the masses who are likely to be the consumer of that product so if you focus more on profit what you're likely to do is that you're not going to create a client base that is loyal that is looking at your solution as solving their day-to-day problems so what we do is try to match both how do you make sure that yes you are building Sustainable Solutions that can sustain the organization yes make profit which is the key driver of course but at the same time that the communities that are the users or the consumers of this products look at you or the solutions as a tool that is their day toay tool that they can be able to use whether is from their small businesses that they're doing or their daytoday things and you asked a very important question there are so many problems to solve uh when are you going to be finishing solving them and you are accurate now we might not be able to solve a lot of problems what we have done is that we have created what we call and I called it a technology ecosystem I wrote a book and authored a book four years ago called the spider web economy a spider from the normal spider the animal spider web economy and my thinking then was that um I thought that collaboration is the new innovation that the Innovations are becoming more collaborative Innovations and from that book I said that just like an ecosystem of animals or how species interact to each other me call them F and Flora interact to each other the smaller and the bigger animals depend on each other and they collaborate for them to coexist uh the reason I said that is that the reason I picked the word the animal spider was simple the spider is an animal that does not really collaborate it's a it's a lonely animal it Hunts by itself creates its own wave you don't find them working together so it's a solitary animal just like the number of Corporations which were working in a solitary so the spider is a solitary animal so the transformation which has happened simply because spiders realized that they have to survive scientist over time discovered that in for example in Amazon forest they have collaborated and they created a bigger web so they can be able to capture a bigger prey so they created what we call an OB and the reason they creat an OB is because instead of capturing flies now they can capture b or they can capture birds so you see that kind of collaboration is because of trying to survive so what we did right now is trying to see our technologies have to have create a kind of ecosystems where everybody can be able to feed and be able to serve different other segments of the community because you can solve everything so it's like now you create a foundation and you create an infrastructure and you get some other organizations tapping into the same infrastructure or us tapping into to other organization infrastructures so you realize that all of them are coexisting each other so that to avoid having too many segmented different products which maybe they're not actually they end up looking overwhelming but in actual sense that is not how we are structured well that's a that's actually a very interesting concept I mean I was also unaware of um that spiders were collaborating in the in the Amazon Rain Fighters cuz I mean like you said whenever I see local spiders here it's some they always saw so it's a definitely a new idea I'd say and I mean the way you contextualize it really it's kind of changing my perspective on how I look at what um what companies or corporations um offer I want to find out like I mean you you're doing a lot of work um trying to uplift the community does is um would you say the way the line of thinking you have now would you attribute that to to your success yes I I think so because um I can be able to say we are one of the few startups in in Africa who have basically bootst and um been able to be successful by bootstrapping and that can only become uh possible if you have a different thought process where you working in um you create a kind of a collaborative environment where you are able to uh succeed by creating that kind of infrastructure where different segments of the industry from let's an example manufacturing banking Insurance all these kind of Industries you sit in the middle of them and then what happens when you sit in the middle of them then you're no longer becoming a small boy then you become bigger because the moment you D with the bigger ones then you are part of them and and I think that is part of the success as I said sometimes if you start by trying to feed the community by your Technologies alone without the funding you need you cannot be able to succeed because first you need to subsidize you need to make it affordable so why do you get the finances to sustain the infrastructure to be able to afford that then it becomes impossible then you will start looking for Grants and such kind of donor charity then you turn to the charity organization but we took a different model we said okay you know for you to be able to feed you need to have yourself you need to be full yourself so that you can be able to feed others but for you to do that again you need to be with the people you can be able to facilitate to help you feed so I think we introduced some bit of technologies that have enabled that let me give an example um we have one technology called hababa habah Haba is name means you know small small saving small small this technology has become very successful as one of the Technologies simply because we looked at the banking sector and we said yes the banking sector is good people are the micro finances are good but they all capitalists they are maximizing on the same of these people and giving you small investment returns then you then you realize you have the infrastructure bonds and treasury bills they are a bit for bigger boys then you realize okay so what happens with these small guys who are in the informal who are having their $2 $3 a day what can happen to them why can't we interface and then we say okay you as Banks yes you want to maximiz on it but we look for a fund manager who can be able to put a pull of this individual small investment these are guys who are doing agriculture doing small they only they only earning a day two three4 then we said okay we'll pull this money then give you as the fund manager give us some 15 16% because now it's a bigger pool we take that risk we become the garer there then we are able to spread this kind of um benefit the returns to the consumer who ordinarily if you put your only $100 in a bank nobody will give you 12 13 14% a year you mean that small money you're putting in a bank the bank will maximize so what we do so you see right now we are offering specific benefit to this informal person uh in terms of the form of micros saving using their mobile phone but in the actual sense you're working with the bigger boys so you see you are getting impact in a different way I mean I'm just I'm just thinking that I mean with you you creating you kind of putting forward all these um different ideas of different ways of solving like common problems like um are you well known by the local people as well cuz or do you use um do you try to keep your personal life away from the solutions that you're offering you mentioned like the standard model is kind of um let's say capitalist in nature you know people's out to make a dollar and I mean you know it's everybody wants to survive you know so it's I wouldn't say it's a bad thing per se but like it's it doesn't um it doesn't really bring us together you know um I mean if everybody's just looking out for themselves so like what's the reaction to you being um or you kind of offering all of these services or Solutions like um like what's the general Public's reaction to all of this do do they know who you are or do you like to keep a low profile or cuz I mean like I'm just thinking if just as a quick example if someone someone is like homeless or whatever or they don't have a job and you provide them with a job or give them an an opportunity for a job they would obviously I feel like they'd they' look out for you a lot more they would obviously respect you more like is is that the case with um the people in your in your area or do they not know about you at all they they don't know I think people create impact differently they are those ones who do it by wanting to be the face of it out there for a number of our Solutions but there are those ones who for example like me who try to keep a different perspective of um being out there because we have a lot of our Solutions we have created and assisted a number of charity organizations or NOS on ground to do specific things and Achieve different impacts without Let me Give an example we working with some organization doing onions for farmers in kaj in parts of Nairobi you know in kaj county and they came and say these farmers face XYZ challenges and we don't have the funds to develop Technologies and AI Technologies to help them be able to identify some pets and diseases get advice on what they can be able to do just from their phone I said okay we we have the infrastructure ready so why should I charge them for infrastructure I developed the technology for them and and told them get some few Farmers start using them for free once it succeeds then you raise funds from it once you able to raise funds because you them they a charity organization it's an NGO you raise funds with it then come back and and support the the C and now pay for it then we scale and that is what exactly has happened so sometimes sometimes capitalism doesn't be the mean that you have to it has to come first as I said the future of the corporation is going to be is going to be social that is what is going to happen where people are going to look at the value are going to look at how you an organization takes care of the community interest or the consumers first and that is what is going to keep an organization a corporation more sustainable because that's what loyalty is about I mean that's that's quite interesting it's just um it's uh it's not often that I that I speak to someone with your with your perspective you know so I'm just trying to wrap my mind around all of these ideas I mean you mentioned you mentioned providing a solution for these Farmers um and so that I mean my next question is not specific to to them but what would you say is a field or technology that that excites you the most I mean because it sounds like you you pretty deep in um in Ai and I'm guessing um I mean you you said you you've done some CRM projects as well like what yeah what what technology excites you the most essentially you know you know the beauty of this technology everything keeps changing the new excitements come what excited Us in 10 years ago is different from what excites us and I think previously before AI we AI is one of the exciting Technologies but I think we started developing more my excitement was more of the iot kind of things before even AI came and I think that's the feel that was more exciting because I think it was interesting on how you can you know can c objects to communicate to each other and put them on the network so that was that was more interesting because connectivity was critical because most of these Technologies it's like um we might say how internet came in the imges of internet created excitement to everybody so whenever you are laying any solutions within the Internet space it's always looked exciting but now it was like how do we go ahead and now connect people who are not on the internet but still create a network like internet but at the local level it's like interconnecting Breck and motor people are not necessarily on the internet but interconnect them so iot was a very interesting technology for me but right now um AI has comeing but it is not in isolation because AI is just an enabler it is working to Now power and make other things become easier the technology that you have been working become a bit easier and um and I think it has helped a lot in terms of making it possible that uh the communities can be able now to do things you can actually reduce the cost of even doing community empowerment education Knowledge Management and I think for me that's why I believe that AI democratizing it the way it is right now is going to make it easier to create a better or more social impact than any other technology and I think that's why the excitement is it right now I don't disagree but I think something um I mean this is less of of a question but more more of a let's say an idea or maybe something based on a bit of my own experience and it's uh I think having having the technology doesn't necessarily solve our our problems cuz I mean you uh you as an example I mean you have lots of lots of insight and business experience right so you generally have um a path for for the solution or for the problem that you're trying to solve right you you'll know where you want to go but um someone who's um they say they don't have any education or they aren't as for or they don't know how to solve the problem or they don't even know what the problem is you know but they they're trying to make use of the technology I mean like it obviously won't be as effective as effective for them but um I don't disagree with what you're saying I just I just think um the the benefit will vary from from person to person but um something else you mentioned uh about one of about one of your businesses that you you bolted by boot strapping um and um for audience members who don't know that's basically building from the ground up with no or little money or funding I mean you you just created it basically on your own so for I mean what what would you say is the the key component to successfully bootstrapping a business cuz um I think there's many people out there who's trying to get their their business off the ground and I mean like finding funny is not something that they know have to do or something they just can't procure you know so like what what what's the key component I'll give my own experience from uh let me just mention this because um about 90% of the startups we started together who are between my circle of friends let me just start from there they collapsed in the second year because they took the arm of racing funds this Silicon Valley bars of raising money raising getting vises and Ango investors no the Silicon valy disease is is a bus that had just come here and everybody was like I can raise a million I can raise 2 million and I can come this big so they all focused there and the mistake that happened is that I told them I don't want to learn about vises I don't want to learn anything called fundraising because our traditional businesses were always built without this kind of Silicon Valley issues so I decided okay then something changes that is the first area of pro strapping you end up changing your business model to sort what is um trending in terms of where the VCS are putting their money so you change your business model not because your idea focuses on that business model but this is because it is what the V want at that point so your pitch your pitch deck everything you are trying to do online is focusing there so what happens is it affects your original concept or idea then bootstrapping becomes impossible at that point look at it from my end I said yes that means my business model has to focus on sustaining myself from day one so it means we have to find a formula of how we can sustain ourselves until we break even without necessarily having the external funds coming in so that means your brain and mind and every day you wake up you know you are alone you need to sustain yourself you need to survive because the moment you have a brain whereby you have to look for business and you have to fundrais those are two different those are two different things you're doing because fundraising means you're doing pitch decks you're pitching you're looking for the right vises your you they have documentation they're telling you have to go meet them but they're not guaranteeing you funds and this process not takes quite a while so what happens you end up affecting your income here if the other Wing doesn't money doesn't come in what happens you collapse it basically means you canc Sur and I think for me that is the fast level from from ideation level it has to be very clear I fundraise yes but I need to started from year two or year three or when I'm broken even then your focus goes into first sustaining the business making it profitable or at least making it to generate Revenue before you start focusing on and I think for me that is the first level of the thought process of a boost trapping it starts from there okay so the let's say for someone who let's say they take that approach and focus on the business first right I mean funds is funds is probably at a low Point since they starting I mean they they bootst they bootstrapping the business um I mean I'm just thinking like um if assuming their product or the idea is not not fully developed right like would would you go forward with with that um service or product um not not as a not as a consumer but um said was your business and I mean you you need some funds to kind of um make to ensure the product is completed but um it's let's say 90% complete you you kind of you can do something with it but um it's not where wanted to be would you still consider focusing on the business and not fundraising just to get that last 10% I have a different school of thought uh in in in this entrepreneur because I think sometimes we take ourselves to be um in in a developed markets where uh it's easier to get people to give you money family gives you money Banks gives you money that's a different kind of setup let me give it an example of where we are right now in Kenya which which for example I have an idea fantastic idea but it needs funding for it to to to come out you 99% of those ideas will die from day one because you might not get those funds because your idea purely depends on you getting the money to pick up so um uh there are those ones who have an IDM but they have reached a stage of where they have the network they can be able to call a few friends or they can easily fundra then that's a different scope that's a different entrepreneur that's a different entrepreneur who already has a ground from which his idea can be funded to be until the time it gets an MVP or until the stage that it's now you know it it picks up so I I don't think it is wise for a stter entrepreneur who is just starting a fresh trying to build a network trying to start a few ideas to put yourself in the same pedestal for this guy naftal for example has done his 14 15 years build a network he can easily come up with an idea and call a friend and tell the friend you know what I need some money 100,000 uh to push this idea or I can or already you are out there some some angel investor will say I trust Nal because of his profile I think I can I can put in my 10,000 so it's becomes different so we have to set up entrepreneur end up using a wrong one I always say start with an idea that even without funds you know you can pull it that's how you become an entrepreneur our mothers were selling tomatoes and and and and educating us are selling things were they thinking about funding them no they had small monies they start small and they grow until it time that the bank comes in and tells them you know what we have seen your financial records now we can pump in money you know Bo strapping has been there originally that's where entrepreneurs started this craziness of of of of funding is a b started some 10 10 years ago in this country where and that is for me I think where we are killing entrepreneurship because every young entrepreneur is thinking about being funded and that is where we get it wrong then you get a concept from Internet working elsewhere you can't put strap it it's impossible to put strap like most of the ideas which are B Toc ideas you you it's purely hard to put strap them you need money for you to pull them through fantastic but you need money I always tell the guys who can listen is keep your idea which needs VC and every everything if you don't have the network and you don't you going that stage start with an idea that you can put strap once you put strap you learn things you learn how it works what doesn't work you build a profile now it doesn't Hur now bring that fantastic idea that point which needs to be funded then you will not go down you are likely to be now you know you're already at somewhere you can easily push through yeah you know what's um what what's interesting and I'd say I'd say kind of scary as well is that um the way you put that forward um the way you put that idea forward is that it made me realize that my ideas for how um starting a business or um just let let's say like trying to make it successful it's I didn't even realize it was I was kind of boxing myself with with that perception you know um but hearing your perspective kind of um it takes me out of the box you know it's like it it it makes um it makes things seem a bit more possible you know with with that with um just the way you put it forward it's it's I mean feels very insightful to me it's uh quite quite cool but um a question I want to ask I mean like you you shared a lot of your philosophy on um let's say entrepreneurship and but and I feel like maybe that um maybe that's uh a bit closer to who you are as a person so I think this this question is re relevant for you but like what what direction are you trying to steer your industry um towards that that will that will have the biggest impact on on the most people my my focus has been a bit different I've gotten a lot of guys coming and saying you know you can do this stop focusing on this say Focus here we can make more money here and all that because that is money is good I think it's it's what we are all looking towards and businesses sustaining ourselves I have a different philosophy and as you said it is more closer to who I am is that um I want to give it from an example when a I came in and I realized that it's become a bzw word in this country where every conference and everybody is talking about AI I created I could say the first public AI locally here called wakili wakili Ai and then I was with my friends who are lawyers and um and I was asking them if AI can disrupt their space and they said no no no it is only our space of lawyers that you can't AI is not going to disrupt and um and I I I said okay let me do something something to see if it can disrupt so I created a public chartbook and I trained it on the Kenyan laws the Kenyan case laws everything that concerning statutes and everything and made it public and made it free of charge and um uh it became so famous that guys could go there and um consult because lawyers in this country ask for around um $30 minimum to $50 for consultation I have a problem with my wife how do I go through divorce how do I go through separation you charge me $30 so this thing now everybody within the first month we had 100,000 conversations and guys were there doing conversations and drafting a contract for land with a local person H draft a contract print with using the Kenyan law structure and things changed the lawyers wrote me letters from the the lawyer Advocates body that I'm providing legal services and I'm not a lawyer that which is they said it's illegal and everything so so so I told them me have provided a platform and this one shows you how technology can create impact and disrupt how we can provide services to communi that was just showing them and you know over time so many things have changed now they have come back and said okay so what can we do say we need to democratize Justice it should not be only for people who can afford you guys have made these things very expensive now let me create for you an AI for your law Farms so that you can reduce the cost of research because the cost of research is huge you reduce the cost of research the cost of drafting all those kind of things but pass that cost reduction of cost benefits to the consumer so that you make it easier for consumers to access Justice that way we can say technology as AI has created social impact but you're making profits but the community is also benefiting you seeing it so this kind of perspective is what I feel is the right way so from then I've been able to talk with a number of organizations like Kenya Chamber of Commerce Kenya private sector Association Kenya manufacturing I told them let's partner we create Solutions at at at the top level then we make them very affordable for your micr smes your smes guys who ordinarily cannot afford AI infrastructure they can not afford iot they cannot afford a number of crms in the market so that is the level we said then we can get a bigger impact you look for your donor as an association me I'm coming in and we come and co-create we have a huge technology we have a a lot of engineers in house here we create those Solutions I I'm not going to charge you anything I'm not a supplier you're coming in and I'm coming in to create the solutions for you once the start using those Solutions at a very affordable rate and msme what could we have done we could have made AI iot or any other technology we could have democratized it by making it more affordable and accessible for me I feel that is the essence of Technology first of all I tend to I tend to agree but um I probably need to fact check myself on this but I what I think is that the the the guy who created the internet he had the similar idea and that that's why he made it um free because he he kind of wanted he wanted it to be accessible for for everyone so um it's nice to know that there's that there's I mean people like yourself out there who's um the the main focus is not um just Capital you know cuz I mean like um yes competition does um I mean it does Drive um Innovation but um at the end of the day like you mentioned it's it's not really um sustainable you know but um the I mean definitely the way you the way you're solving problems the way you're approaching things it's um uh something I should something I should think about I'm actually thinking I want to I want to get your book after after our our podcast to maybe get some more of those those insights in your bio you mentioned that you I mean you found your passion developing Tech with um social impact while working for for an NGO and I mean you mentioned it earlier as well like can you can you tell us a bit more about about this experience yeah uh for almost three years I worked for Aden geospace and at that point I was um a programs manager and I was managing projects of livelihood projects uh specifically for adaptation in climate change because I was in the environmental climate change space uh what meant there is that we are trying to change how communities protect the environment because we thought that you cannot um you cannot tell people not to cut trees down and maybe that's their livelihood some of the communities have to sell that tree to take their children to school and we thought that the we need to make sure that the economic aspect of the community is the most important aspect because that's what adaptation is about so I worked with the number of un Pro projects where specifically undp unep funded projects and um with a local NGO that is what the transformation started from because I was a computer science person but I find myself in my undergraduates in computer science but I'm finding myself in projects uh simply because when I did my masters in project management but you see my background and basis and Foundation is basically computer science so when I was in that space then I was like what can we be able to do for the communities to be able to do things and one of the turning point is when one of the projects funded through the government with huge huge almost $200 million to communities to do livelihood projects and um out of that out within two years those projects when I was part of the evaluation team looking at the success of those projects only around 10% of them had turned profitable the rest of them were not profitable they had collapsed and most of these guys have been funded something like $300,000 $200,000 you can imagine for doing community livelihood projects things like beekeeping guys do fish farming small holder farming you know those kind of things but at the end of the day that money goes into West why these communities cannot be able to turn this project to become profitable so what it meant that we need to find solutions for this otherwise have a lot of money coming in and this community's livelihood there their profet levels doesn't change so that is when introduction of things like a few of Technologies came in and I thought okay first of all we need first to these guys have not gone to school and we are trying to teach them how to do business plan why can't we create them a simple tool for them to be able to just get in what they have and is able to oplate for them their pnl or be able to get their cash flow or anything and be able to even give them indicators of the prices they need to sell let me tell you one of the communities I could go to because I did business plan for FAO specifically me mention that for almost 15 business Community associations I realized that they can't even know that they're making profit they buy they they they manufacture this was energy saving Jos and we call them fireless jles they bring newspapers they travel to go and bring raw materials they have this these women who wake up in the morning to make one fireless J the whole day because that's be soon that's be done very well neatly done at the end of the day when I ask them so what is the cost of your materials they could calculate what is the cost of your labor they don't pay themselves because they think they're working for the group uh but they at the end of the day when they selling they sell at a loss and they have done that for one and a half years I ask the the project you guys are making these people become more poorer because because the the the the time they could have spent in their Farms they're spending it in making this what does it mean actually their livelihood or their income levels has reduced so it means we are not making these people any better from they making them worse and it is worse because psychologically they think they're making it but they not making it in actual sense what does it mean that now that is the basis of trying to come up with Solutions and saying okay it looks like we need to have a better way of managing this we have better way of dissimulating information we have a better way of sustaining Knowledge Management in terms of knowledge and empowerment because almost 40% of the money that comes for development projects in this country is used for empowerment and trainings but I can tell you some of the people who being trained at the community they serial trainees they go from one one one Workshop to another one Workshop to another they come back home they they have learned nothing they can't Implement anything because they're going there because they want to get some little bit of money I so say no no no we have to have a way then we didn't have a way of doing it very well structured but right now when age of AI we having a way and I'm implementing it to have a sustainable approach of disseminating Community Information with a local language where people can go there using their feature phone or or Whatsapp or anything do their livelihood do their projects do everything they need to do just using their phone they can't browse the they can't search on the web and read all those documents and try to find how to do my fish farming or small holder what what my fish is having problems today what do I do you know those kind of things so uh the whole concept here is that there's that background of NGO is is the basis of a lot of the things that I'm doing right now okay something something I want to touch on that um you mentioned a bit earlier and then I mean you also mentioned now when you in this answer is that I mean your your computer science background because I'm just I'm just trying to relate this to maybe someone who's trying to start a project of of their own what what's the process like for creating a solution that um for let's say even the even the simplest problem like um let's say as an example creating creating an app that um like you said the the bot for wakil that kind of provides um well not legal services technically but um I provide some assistance for for these guys like what I mean you don't have have to give the step-by-step process but like what um how accessible is that for someone who doesn't have a computer science background or someone who's maybe untrained or uneducated because I mean also like you said I mean they they can probably go to a bunch of workshops or training um sessions and and still walk out there not knowing anything like what what what's the practical way that um that someone can get that done they might not be um very clear formula for this because I usually say that when you are an entrepreneur you can easily sport uh opportunities and you see you only sport opportunities through seeing the problems and when you see the problem then you ask yourself if I find a solution for this problem will it be will somebody buy that solution because you need to ask yourself those questions because a lot of entrepreneurs they get excited of a fantastic solution they focus on their solution and then they end up realizing that they are solving a problem that is not existing I just because the solution was exciting because in Tech that is the biggest problem challenge because in Tech a lot of things are exciting you can easily be tempted to come up with something so assuming you are not in tech for example I always have this belief don't do things that are not within the space that you that you understand when you are starting as entrepreneur why because unless you're lucky you are likely to meet more obstacles than a person who understands the space for example if I'm in media I'm like to sport opportunities faster within that space then it is easier for me to navigate challenges because I already understand the space however if you have an interest that needs technology and you another tech person then I always encourage first get a co-founder who is in the tech space it always helps why because then you focus on what you understand best and he focuses or she focuses on what what they understand best because sometimes entrepreneurs make this for example you you are not in Tech space you get a developer an engineer develops for you an app you forget at the stage of developing the app it's at the initial stage the product will evolve obviously and that Evolution needs somebody who can be able to nurture it recreate it redevelop it sometimes even change it you will end up having getting let me use the word screwed up with a lot of Engineers and Developers and they'll give you stories and they delay your vision you'll get disappointed frustrated your clients get frustrated and things happen assuming you have the money you are able to bring engineers and and employ them that does not solve the problem why because if you are not able to do connecting some things that that they do then they are likely to also start playing the games which in most of cases is very frustrating for a lot of people I meet so I always say if you're going to Tech it's a good space you don't have to be Tech identify your um co-founder who is in that who is Tech they it'll help you figure out a few things and it'll help you run operational level and manage those Engineers that's number one area number two when it comes to identification of a problem I think that is universal because you don't have to be take to identify a problem most of the time problems is from the surrounding the environment the people you interact with I think I think Solutions from that becomes easier Let me Give an example you know how Facebook came up with these are guys in students in a they want to socialize within themselves and someone says can we be able to develop something for our social here in the school it ends up becoming something Global what does that mean it means most of the solutions which even those ones who have come Global are developed from your interaction level your social network level you the people around you so anybody can do that after that if you identify then ask yourself if it was you can you buy this solution or what is it saving once you do that then then you go to the next next stage of saying okay now I need to develop it what do I need then that's when you identify the right team the right people to start putting things together okay I mean that certainly puts it in into perspective because I'm not an entrepreneur so there's lots of knowledge gaps that I that I need to for myself but the the idea I had was um the I mean as as everything becomes more kind of um intertwined with technology you you're kind of being left behind if you if you aren't um at least um putting your foot in in some sort of uh Tech environment you know or whatever technology it is you know but um contextualizing it like that it does put it in perspective that um I mean people who's um maybe not um as uh technologically inclined that there's still problems for them to solve they still they still have a market you know it's that like the The World Isn't running away um without them basically is is is what it sounds like but the I mean I want to find out like how how hard is it to to fill with so many Tech resources available to business owners because um the kind of like I just mentioned we we kind of like swarmed by all the technology um around us or maybe at least um in some of the developed areas of of our cities I'm sure like in in outskirts of our respective countries there's still people maybe just operating with um uh a simple phone not even an Android really but um yeah like how how is it easy is it to fail with with all these Technologies like what what what are the what are the common traps that new business owners will will fall into when they when they look at the mountain of tools that's that's available to them yeah uh I always say that it's harder to run a technology company than any other business because other businesses you you you become easily more focused if today I'm making a pen and I want to manufacture a unique pen I mean my Innovation and everything will go to the pen and just like other product so you get more focused but moment you go into the tech space you are likely to get into the temptation of of being overwhelmed by ideas and new things which are coming in and uh most of the time that becomes the Trap um and another part is that when you assume that the technology you have is the most fantastic one and it's usable uh for example you realize you can make a take and then you realize the country you are deploying it with or where you are deploying the most of the likely consumers they don't have the right technology to access the technology that you have built for example but you come to discover that too late when you have already developed the technology you have used a lot of resources and then you come to discover later that it's not possible um that's one of the major Pitfall or obstacle that you meet but the ne other obstacle is for technology Farms is that there's always issues when it comes to technological technology changes for example today you realize there's a lot of cyber security issues which can easily bring down the technology that you have built so clients become so worry in terms of what they be able to do and then the next thing is you have this fantastic idea but the infrastructure on how where this technology will be hosted how this technology will be secured how technology can scale up those things that most of the time they don't come in to mind of an entrepreneur who is excited with the with the idea so you reach that stage then you realize you need a lot of more funds to scale or you need more more funds to be able to protect this so you also again stagnate or you have to change Focus so those becomes some of the obstacles you see in the technology space it might look the most exciting space because every talk about technology nowadays but I can be able to say the highest number of entrepreneurs or startups that fail are also in technology as far as they the highest but also the highest that fa why because it is very easy for anybody to start anything if today you want to start anything you just need to pick an idea from wherever start it then you only discover the time you get what we say in Kenya here that the ground is different when you hit the ground you have now finished bedroom work of developing a solution now when you hit the ground and you discover things are totally different then you have to keep reiterating and trying to do things and then you don't have the funds you you need money to survive yourself maybe if you have a family they are telling you stop doing those things go back to job all these pressures make an entrepreneur know give up and I think that's some of the challenges or things that entrepreneurs or guys in the tech space always face just based on that and also a lot of what you what you said earlier on the I mean it sounds like the simplest the way to kind of I I'd say succeed is just follow the simp simp kind of um solution or problem that you that you or your community is experiencing at a local level because the and I think this is also kind of an idea maybe that I kind of maybe picked up online or you know just just from the all the Innovations happening but you tend to think the if you if you're creating something that needs to be the most exceptional most Innovative like you know it's just out of the box but I mean just just based on all your insights like the the simplest solution wins wins the race basically and I can tell you that is I think things made from Simplicity have ended up no the complexity will come later but the simplest of the solutions are the most successful one I can I can say that because um I give you I've buil a few startups which have failed and I can give from that experience for example I build one of the startups which there was this fantastic idea or concept of when in Kenya the issues of lending were becoming big a lot of fex were lending left and right and there so many of them which lend and I saw the opportunity I said okay for me I don't want to lend I don't have the cash to lend but I want to build a peer-to-peer you know how peer-to-peer works and na has some money yes so so I build a peer-to-peer kind of solution and this peer-to-peer was to come out of currently it is a what existing the market is B Toc kind of lending a corporation or a fintech lends to a consumer directly so I decided no no why can't we build a different solution because people lend to each other either way my friends borrows me money and maybe doesn't return my money so borrowing each other is is a habit that is that is currently existing so we said okay why can't we formalize it and build a peer-to-peer solution but in this peer-to-peer we what we do is create a wallet as as a platform owner we get you to open a wallet as an investor I we call an investment wallet that's now the peer that's the investor peer so you come in you have your $20 disposable you don't want to you don't want to use but you want to reinvest it in lending to somebody so you put the money into the wallet then we have another person who is the consumer now here but as we change the model we said we don't want people borrowing to consume we want people to borrow to use it for business so in that way the only person who comes who opens the account to borrow as to own a business either a small business selling in the marketplace where whatever then you open a wallet then now we introduce what we call agents agents is now the broker the person who looks for this guy you want to borrow but he becomes the guaran because he's the one who knows the borrower so in in in that perspective which I thought what fantastic we are creating three layers here we are creating the person who is investing we are creating the agent who is the person who is selling money that is not his or hers and we have the borrower who is of course the beneficiary the end of the day so this thing was fantastic we I told my friends you know you start with your friends can you put some few monies here and um we we told two agents in one of the informal settlements in Nairobi where to just a few businesses so that business will come to the agent's shop just like aesa agent I want to borrow money I come to the agent I say I want to borrow money they take you the normal kyc puts you once $10 then the investors will get their the notification of the dollars they they request they authorize money from their wallet to move to the borrower and fantastic idea nice looks nice we tested it but now uh what we didn't realize that um has stagnated the process because that business are not grown anywhere is that um the borrowing culture in this country is a bit different we thought I what what I realized over time is that some people borrow not with an intention of not returning yeah just because they know the investor or the lender is not known to them you see people because there's no consequence if I borrow from a bank I know I'll be followed and my business will be you know so so that has become uh the challenge but you see I think Al I didn't do a good research but it was looking a fantastic idea there's a gap for it there's an opportunity for it so I'm trying to say here that some ideas might look very fantastic and looking nice but assuming I that was my only startup you see I could have collapsed by now you see what I'm saying because I couldn't have sustained for me to sustain that then it means uh maybe we need to put more better we even did blockchain there to make sure that there's a ledger to make traceability how the money moves and all those kind of things you spend your money you build infrastructure but you see what you have not moved forward so it's just there so that is a true example of how some ideas might look so nice but when you start piloting or testing them to prove the concept you're are trying to create that minimum viable project then you realize that their Dynamics you didn't consider whether they are cultural whether they are behaviors and it means you have start changing those behaviors there's a cost of changing the behavior there's a cost of creating awareness there's a cost you know creating the structures all those kind of things then then you don't have the fans obviously you collapse a very interesting a very interesting story from your side um I mean the I feel like it definitely definitely highlights how kind of like you say things can look good on the outside but I mean once uh what's it saying once you once you eat the ground it's um it's something completely different but uh yeah I mean like I'm just trying to over all the all the concepts and insights that you shared it's I mean it's been definitely been Illuminating for me that's i' I'm at the end of my list of questions for you but um I definitely think that uh I'd like to have you on again sometime and um pick your brain get some of get some more of your insights and um just share get share some of those experiences that you have cuz uh I think the way you contextualize your the the information I think it makes it makes it really digestible especially using your your examples your own experiences and that uh it makes it real you know so I think um I definitely think our audience will learn a lot from from watching our this episode with you a i me also um also I'm sure you you elaborate more in your book which um is definitely something I'd recommend they' they'd get but um but yeah that's that basically sums up our um oh is this oh that's the book okay now we know I mean that that basically sums up our our episode I mean it's it's been fantastic getting to know you enough and learning learning from you your insights your expertise as usual for for all your hosting needs feel free to check out our website we we also on Facebook and Linkedin um if you're into that kind of thing you can find um naftal and his business online as well we'll we'll have details for the the ones that he'd like to make you aware of in our show notes um the I mean you if you watch the episode you you'll know that this man has um a lot of ideas a lot of Concepts businesses um in his spiderweb so yeah we'll we'll get the ones that he wants to to push forward but if you have any questions or topics youd like to hear about feel free to reach out to us um again we'll have the episode the details of today's episode in the show notes so um thanks for listening to the W African uh goodbye [Music]

2025-01-01 23:43

Other news