Items by Andrew Mugoya

Afrinnovator

  • Doing something about bad design

    Posted: January 23, 2012, 2:30 pm by Andrew Mugoya

    With a year+ of experience of running Afriapps, we’ve seen our fair share of badly designed apps – the number one reason we decline apps submitted to us.

    So now we’ve decided to do something about it. Introducing our latest ebooklet: Help! I’m a developer with no clue about design – 6½ practical design tips for developers with no access to designers.

    Recognising that it may not always be possible for developers to get an expert designer involved in the design of apps or sites, this ebooklet offers pratical design tips for developers to follow. They will not turn developers into killer designers, but they will hopefully ensure users are not turned away from apps/sites due to woeful design.

    You can download it here.

    Happy DIY design.

  • Learning Ruby on Rails, Fighting the Funding Trap and Other Interesting Things

    Posted: January 13, 2012, 11:49 pm by Andrew Mugoya

    Riding the Rails
    One of my goals this year is to learn Ruby on Rails. When I first decided to get into web development (proper), about 7 years ago, my analysis lead me to PHP/MySQL. After coding two major sites literally from scratch (including the now defunct Jijini Markets), I decided it was time to find a CMS or web development framework. My search and comparison analysis lead me to Drupal, which I’ve now been using (religiously) for more than 3 years, including for most of the sites we’ve done at Asilia. Drupal is great for CMS websites but I find it too ‘heavy’ for web apps, hence my decision to try out Rails. I’ve also missed the buzz of learning something new and further think that it would be good to have Rails in our Asilia toolset.

    I’m still in the early stages but have already got my initial “Hello world” app done. For anyone else interested in learning Rails, these are some of the resources I’ve found useful:

    Happy coding!

    Fighting the funding addiction, one addict at a time
    Sadly, the new year always throws up the usual flurry of tweets and blog posts about how this year will be the year for African startups to grab all the funding coming Africa’s way.

    I’m not against funding but as I mentioned in my ebook, getting funding for the sake of getting funding (or as an end goal) is dumb! I’m still amazed each time I see ‘funding’ being used as a measuring stick or as a major goal for a startup. I tweeted recently, “only fraudsters and scam artists see funding as an end in itself”. Genuine businesses or NGOs consider funding simply as a means to an end. Further, they would avoid external funding if they could. So why would entrepreneurs seek (or be encouraged to get) funding at the earliest opportunity, sometimes even before they have launched or tested their concept?

    Refreshingly, I’m not alone in my thinking. None other than the creator of Ruby on Rails, (also a partner at 37Signals) feels so passionately about it that almost every talk he gives touches on it, including one he gave to Stanford University MBA students. Check out his site for more on his views – there’s generally good and interesting advice for entrepreneurs and developers.

    Design: The missing link
    Another focus this year is design (or better appreciation of good design). I’m lucky that, at Asilia, I work with fabulous designers who, not only educate me on design, but also make sure everything we put out has had a qualified designer’s input. In Africa especially, design seems to be the missing link. Loads of great apps (probably solidly built) but lacking that special ingredient that will make them killer apps – great design and UI.

    Apart from my colleagues, one designer whose work I’m continually inspired by is Swiss Miss. She’s got one of the best blog’s I’ve come across and is involved in some very cool projects: TeuxDeux (one of my favourite apps), CreativeMornings and Tattly. There’s also this very inspirational talk she gave that’s worth watching.

    Steady, organic growth and more to come from Asilia
    Officially, Asilia launched in August 2010. So 2011 was our first full calendar year of experiencing what it means to build up a portfolio of clients, submit annual results, recruit staff and do everything else that comes with running a business.

    I’m very proud we’ve managed to grow (in every sense) and still be self-sustaining. We acquired many new clients, went from 3 staff members to 7 (5 fulltime, 2 freelancers) and completed or grew several in-house projects, including Afriapps and Afri-Love. More excitingly, 2012 promises to see this trend continue.

    What this has taught me is this: If you focus on putting out a great product/service and offer great customer service, customers/clients will flock to you and your business will grow. And this, ultimately, is the basis of building a sustainable business. Sometimes we forget that.

  • Why it may be better to be employed (first)

    Posted: November 19, 2011, 3:02 pm by Andrew Mugoya

    Guest contributor Andrew Mugoya is the Author of ‘African Apps in a Global Marketplace‘ and the Founder of Asilia (an international creative agency) and Afriapps (a showcase of great African apps).

    Andrew Mugoya

    Entrepreneurship is all the buzz. Founding your own startup has never been easier and has never been more encouraged than it is now. So we all want to do it. And many of us are. Employment is for suckers, right?

    Wrong!

    Unfortunately, most of the stories out of Silicon Valley (the assumed utopia of start-ups)  focus on the founders, co-founders and investors. You’d be forgiven for thinking that it is only made up of entrepreneurs and founders. The hundreds of thousands of employees, many of them very talented engineers, designers or developers are the not-so-public side of the Valley. Quite a number of startup founders also happily give up owning their own business to effectively become employees when they are acquired by, say, Google or Facebook.

    So you have to ask: Why would so many talented individuals, located in the best place to be a tech entrepreneur (with all its access to investment, ideas and, ironically, employees) opt to go into employment?

    At Asilia, we struggle to get good developers in our Kenyan office. It is not that they do not exist. It is simply that many of them want to have their own startup. The African tech industry is in danger of being flooded with more bosses than workers. The benefits of employment have been drowned out by all the hype about being your own boss. For the sake of the industry, employment needs to be portrayed and seen as a viable option. Not necessarily for everyone, but for most, especially for the young and the inexperienced who are starting out in their careers.

    Employment gives you a chance to improve and perfect your skills prior to embarking on your own venture. You also get to learn the many soft skills you need to progress in any career or business. Leadership, teamwork, communication, marketing, discipline, time management, project management, client management, meeting targets, etc. You can also start to build your industry networks. And you can do all this while being paid a steady, relatively stress-free income.

    Running a business is a balance between technical and soft skills. Although many developers may have the technical skills, many of them simply lack the soft skills necessary. Employment is often the best training ground for these skills.

    A scary statistic to keep in mind: On average, only 10% – 20% of startups are successful, 20%-30% are OK (break-even or have modest profits) and 50%-60% fail. What this means is that majority of startups are unlikely to be successful. For many would be startup founders, employment may be a better option rather than condemning yourself to a lifetime of poverty and misery in the name of being your own boss.

    Bottom line. For most people, running your own business is not a good idea – at least not early in your career. Fortunately or unfortunately, we all think we are among the few that are the exception. The challenge is knowing if/when we are not.

    Related posts:

    1. Ebook: African Apps in a Global Marketplace ‘African Apps in a Global Marketplace’ by Andrew Mugoya is...
    2. JobCrystal We caught wind of a new jobs startup in South...
    3. Great Reading for Startup Founders/Entrepreneurs Startups are… interesting. They can be unpredictable. They can be...

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