Category: Business
2nd Africa Innovation Banking, Financial Services and Insurance Summit
The 2nd Annual Banking, Financial Services and Insurance Summit will take place in Nairobi on 4 – 5 February 2020. The event brings together some of the top CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, Heads of IT, ICT, Risk, Compliance, Retail Banking, Customer Experience, Analytics etc. from Banks, Micro-Finance, Credit Unions & Insurance companies across East Africa. I ...
A Working Paper on Kenya’s E-Commerce Sector
The Kenyan e-commerce sector has been a death bed for many startups – both large and small companies have failed in a bid to launch viable online businesses. Google’s Getting Kenyan Businesses Online failed to gain traction, Mocality (an online business directory)lacked a sustainable revenue stream and had to shutdown, Sahara books didn’t have enough ...
The App Company that Never Was
Working long hours in a startup require a steady supply of cheap carbohydrates. That’s why we honored the single food that kept our tummy full and minds alert in our next startup endevour. After the exit from Doban Africa, our lead programmer at the time Ishuah Kariuki invited me to brainstorm on some app ideas ...
Building a Company
On a quiet evening in December 2010, while walking from Kenyatta University main campus towards Kahawa Wendani (students’ preferred residence), a thought rushed through my mind – I partially remembered a computational trick I read from a recreational mathematics book in High School. A problem, I couldn’t remember the title nor the author – Google ...
Funding Doesn’t Make Software Big
Funding doesn’t make software “big” — selling software doesn’t work the same way selling mandazis does, primarily because the question “what will I do with the money to make my software successful?” does not have an educated answer. If it did, I would have exercised that option a long time ago; I am not devoid ...
Funding Doesn't Make Software Big
Funding doesn’t make software “big” — selling software doesn’t work the same way selling mandazis does, primarily because the question “what will I do with the money to make my software successful?” does not have an educated answer. If it did, I would have exercised that option a long time ago; I am not devoid ...
Discourse on Kenya Rebasing to Middle Income Status
Featuring Leonida Mutuku: Research Manager Patrick Costello: Data Scientist Christine Mahihu: Research Assistant Chris Orwa : Executive Producer 😉 Image Courtesy of Jesse McKee SET (iHub Coffee bar, everyone having a cup of their favourite stimulant) Chris Orwa: Hey guys, check out this article Christine Mahihu: Kenya will become middle-income state by September. Leonida Mutuku: Patrick, any ...
How Not to Innovate
You have a novelty idea that would take the world by storm, good! What do you do next? Get a couple of friends and begin to hacking it away. Soon you have a minimum-viable-product and ready to meet the market. Everything at this stage is experimental, the budget low and everyone who has anything to ...
The Unintended Consequence of Bonga Points
There is no doubt in our minds that bonga points like other loyalty programs is a novelty and contributes towards customer satisfaction and retention. The extent to which only affect micr0-economic factors of a company. However, when Safaricom made bonga points transferable to other subscribers and redeemable phones and computer accessories (elastic goods), they exposed the ...
Forex Trading is No Easy Money
So finally I made a career move, to be a currency analyst. I hope my background in data analysis and behavioral economics will come in handy. However, when I let in a few friends on my new venture I got surprising responses, “why do you want to gamble?”, “you are getting into a financial mess”, ...
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