Easy software

08/03/2022

29/01/2022

As a start-up founder you will always be faced with catch 22 situations. The easy way out of it is gather as much information as possible, make a decison and move on.

What catch 22 situation are you facing currently?

15/01/2022

Business and work is about serving other people, serving God’s children

Money happens as a result of serving God’s other children. It is your reward. But the reward does not negate the value of the work. In fact, the money you make substantiates the fact that you have done good for others. Making money proves to yourself and others that you are serving God’s other children.

To serve them, you must first get to know them. You must understand their wants and needs. This is what we call value proposition.

Being others-focused instead of self-focused changes your worldview too. Living in a selfless manner and seeking to help others enriches our very existence on a daily basis.

To other-ize keeps you tethered to the real world and grounded to reality, which should make it harder to be prideful and forget where you came from.

What your idea of serving God’s children this year? Does it involve require software? software will help you create your product and business.

13/01/2022

Bootstrapping Technique

How do you self-fund your startup?

As your tech incubators, our advice to you is that investors are mostly not interested in your idea in the early stages. Your best bet in supporting your business in early stages is through bootstrapping, friends, family, debtors and creditors.

Good news is that the longer you can keep going without giving shares, the higher valuation you’ll get when you raise you first capital.

Here are some ideas on how to go about bootstrapping;

Keep your day job: - You got to pay your bills and feed your family as you build a new business. They say proposals are not going to pay the bills.

Don’t delay: – Get started on implementing your idea and keep moving.

Focus on Cashflow : - Raising money is not a substitute for making money. Focus on projects that produce income and expand market share.

Be frugal, not cheap – Focus on handling absolute necessary costs to get the company going. Avoid costs that you can avoid.

Leverage on your assets: - You can exchange your product for other services by ways like licensing, strategic alliances, joint ventures.
Seek ways to grow without cash. Make the most of what you have.

Trade equity for services: - Consultants and advisors may agree to take equity in exchange for their services. Try accountants, lawyers, marketing agencies and other necessary services.

Be a junkyard dog: - Seek to use assets that are underutilised by others. Opt for second hand assets instead of brand new.

Leverage on suppliers and customers: - Negotiate for extended credits from suppliers. Seek advance payments or deposits from customers before you begin work.

Perception versus reality: - Don’t think that because you are bootstrapping your company that your company is perceived as a low budget operation. Some items your can do at low cost that uplift your perception include high quality letterheads, well written web page and “borrowed’ conference rooms for meetings.

Use others’ resources: - You can co-share office space with established companies, work with interns and students.

Don’t quit: - It is a marathon not a sprint. Rely on your self-confidence, co-founders, friends and family for support through the sleepless nights. There will be many sleepless nights.

Integrity: - Maintain integrity and ethics. Be aware when to ease up on bootstrapping and seek investors.

23/12/2021

Recieve all gratitude for support this year from Easy Software.

Enjoy your holidays, stay safe.

12/11/2021

Let’s Build a Peer to Peer (P2P) Lending app

In the next 300 words, I will attempt to inspire you to a new way of generating income or alternative ways of financing your start-up depending on which side you are playing.

Peer to peer lending is a money lending application where lenders and borrowers are equal parties with no intermediaries like banks and credit brokers involvement.

This makes it possible for the borrower to enjoy lower interest and the lender to enjoy better return from interest earned.

One thing that makes P2P model exciting is that once a borrower has placed a valid application, lenders can compete by offering best terms to the loan.

Let us look at some niches to consider in establishing a P2P loan app before beginning to develop;

· Chamas and micro SACCOs
· Students loans
· Start-up loans
· Car / motorcycle loans
· Medical loans
· Asset financing
· Inventory financing
· Invoice factoring
· Purchase order (PO) financing

Now we can develop the app.

The portal is built on distributed ledger or blockchain platform for enhanced security. It has lenders module, borrowers module, admin module and credit scoring and repayment (EMI) management, document management and CRM module.

Borrower functionalities include sign up via mobile app or web app, select loan type, complete loan request form, provide KYC and support documentation, accept terms and make loan repayments. He can request refinancing too.

Lenders access is through mobile apps and web application. They are able to sign up choose preferred lending model, add funds, bid for loans available, lend money, receive interest and principal repayments.

Admin module accessed via a web portal provides lender management, borrower management, EMI settings, credit scoring management, KYC approval, CRM tools and real time analytics.

Team and Stack

If you are targeting Africa market (which you should) you could start with Android app as that would take care of 90% of mobile phone users. The alternative is adopt a hybrid platform and develop IOS and Android on a single code.

The team will include a project manager, 2 backend Java developers and UX / UI designer. This team can provide you with a market ready MVP in 120 days.

You too can lend money!

08/11/2021

Is it luck or Skill that brings success?

Here is what successful people said about luck or skill as a contributing factor to their success in business;

Bill Gates claims that he “was lucky to be born with certain skills,”

Warren Buffett considers himself a “member of the lucky s***m club and a winner of the ovarian lottery.”



Jeff Bezos attributes Amazon’s success to an “incredible

planetary alignment, it is half luck, half good timing, and the rest is brains.”



Jack Dorsey once twitted that “Success is never accidental”



Luck happens when preparation meets opportunity. This is the reason why successful people have an easier time doing new things. It could be due to their networks, wealth or experience. They already have prepared a fertile ground for opportunities to thrive in.



Luck doesn’t happen without you putting some work. You position yourself and business to attract luck. For instance you could be working on a super compelling idea and win some grant in the process – you attracted luck with your work.



One thing I know for sure is Kenyan marathoners deliberately work hard to attract luck.



I mostly compare luck with winning in gambling, it is unhealthy for you and your business. If your strategy is winning money as opposed to earning money, you are doomed to fail terribly.



The one sure way to sustain a business is ensuring a process of generating future cashflows. That happens when you earn money. Winning and luck implies that you did not do anything for the money.



When you earn money, two parties benefit: the one who earns the money and the one who makes a purchase so that he may receive a service or product.



Winning money does not create happiness for all involved. When you win money, you are taking it from someone. Somebody loses. Someone is not happy. Neither of the parties created anything or exchanged any value. He who sells sand as brown sugar will receive stones as payment – African proverb

What are you doing to attract luck?

02/11/2021

Do you remember the old statistic that 90% of businesses die within ten years? The statistics is more bleak if your break down the 10 years. This is still the case even as the cost of starting a business dropped at least 10 times in last 20 years.

On the same breath, do you know that human life expectancy was 40 years some short 30 years ago and life expectancy today is above 70years in most countries?
This was largely achieved by reducing infant mortality.

Just like taming infant mortality, we believe we can have more successful businesses if we help them cross the valley of death. There is a huge opportunity in this space.

In our recent poll, we established that 85% of startups are swimming to cross the valley of death. Out of 15% that were breaking even, 8 of them still needed help to stay afloat.

As tech business products developers and incubators, we believe concerted efforts in helping early stage businesses will come a long way in ensuring their success.

15/10/2021

What else is there other than startups and entrepreneurship?

Well there is a lot but one concept that caught my attention is intrapreneurship.

According to Sir Richard Branson, Intrapreneurship defined as:
“An employee who is given freedom and financial support to create new products, services, and systems who does not have to follow the company’s usual routines or protocol.”

You may think of consultants, agents and supplier driven innovation as closely related to intrapreneurship but there is more. They are not employees.

Intrapreneurship is one way to get your employees more engaged and to harness their energies and ideas.

Would you set your employee free and provide resources for creating new products without following the usual company’s protocol?

As a leader would you be willing to pivot when an employee discovers something transformative? Would you?

08/10/2021

Bootstrapping Technique

How do you self-fund your startup?
As your tech incubators, our advice to you is that investors are mostly not interested in your idea in the early stages. Your best bet in supporting your business in early stages is through bootstrapping, friends, family, debtors and creditors.

Good news is that the longer you can keep going without giving shares, the higher valuation you’ll get when you raise you first capital.

Here are some ideas on how to go about bootstrapping;

Keep your day job: - You got to pay your bills and feed your family as you build a new business. They say proposals are not going to pay the bills.

Don’t delay: – Get started on implementing your idea and keep moving.

Focus on Cashflow : - Raising money is not a substitute for making money. Focus on projects that produce income and expand market share.

Be frugal, not cheap – Focus on handling absolute necessary costs to get the company going. Avoid costs that you can avoid.

Leverage on your assets: - You can exchange your product for other services by ways like licensing, strategic alliances, joint ventures. Seek ways to grow without cash. Make the most of what you have.

Trade equity for services: - Consultants and advisors may agree to take equity in exchange for their services. Try accountants, lawyers, marketing agencies and other necessary services.

Be a junkyard dog: - Seek to use assets that are underutilised by others. Opt for second hand assets instead of brand new.

Leverage on suppliers and customers: - Negotiate for extended credits from suppliers. Seek advance payments or deposits from customers before you begin work.

Perception versus reality: - Don’t think that because you are bootstrapping your company that your company is perceived as a low budget operation. Some items your can do at low cost that uplift your perception include high quality letterheads, well written web page and “borrowed’ conference rooms for meetings.

Use others’ resources: - You can co-share office space with established companies, work with interns and students.

Don’t quit: - It is a marathon not a sprint. Rely on your self-confidence, co-founders, friends and family for support through the sleepless nights. There will be many sleepless nights.

Integrity: - Maintain integrity and ethics. Be aware when to ease up on bootstrapping and seek investors.

07/10/2021

NO PAIN, NO GAIN

“No pain, no gain. We have to make the system super secure and gather all background information.”

This is what one of our junior developers told me when I enquired why we have to go through 8 steps before a customer can borrow money on a fintech app we were developing for a client.

Gain/Pain ratio involves measuring the gain you deliver to the customer versus the pain and cost for the customer to adopt and use your product.

These two questions are pertinent as you cook your brilliant idea and coin a value proposition.

How much pain is the customer going to endure in an attempt to adopt and use your product?
How much gain are you delivering to the customer?

When considering gains, think of cost saving, revenue growth, convenience, efficiency, competitive advantage.

Pain to a customer may include buy, install, try, download, total cost of ownership.

Most startups are so focused on the features they deliver, they forget to examine how hard it will be for customers to learn to use their product.

When you can’t deliver a 10x gain of adoption/pain of adoption, customers will typically default to inertia and will “do nothing” you risk inertia. Customers think about alternatives and switching costs while in this state.
Inertia is a very frustrating state because customers don’t say yes and they don’t say no. You too can easily get lost in the mix when you can get answers. About 80% of software products settle in the state of inertia then slowly fizzle out.

In the final app, the customer is able to borrow money in 2 steps and all other background checks follow in subsequent steps.

04/10/2021

Don't walk alone

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/avoiding-valley-death-easy-software-ltd