Build your own venture, and upcoming events!
Guest post by Monwar Hussein, Product Manager at Capgemini and Founder of Employ Digital.
👋🏾 Salaam, we are Somalis in Tech and welcome to our monthly newsletter. Each month we’ll bring you the latest from the community, tech news and a community guest feature.
🗞 Hot off the press
☪️ Tarteel launches ‘Historical Mistakes’
The world’s first AI powered Quran companion announced a new feature that allows users to improve memorisation mistakes through page highlights.
The NYT dives into the recent cost cutting efforts deployed by tech companies. For an industry known for its competitive salaries, quirky offices and excellent perks, what does this shift towards austerity mean?
On February 7, Microsoft announced AI powered updates to their Bing search engine, and Edge browser. In partnership with OpenAI, this revamp will allow the software to: “deliver better search, more complete answers, a new chat experience and the ability to generate content.”
🗓 Upcoming Events
We’re excited to launch our first IRL event, exclusively for Somali women in tech!
Tickets will be released on Monday, February 13. We will announce the event & share more details on our #announcements channel on Slack first. Space is limited, so don’t forget to switch those notifications on, so you don’t miss out!
Do you want to host a SiT meet up in your city?
We’re proud to have a global network! 🌍 If you’re interested in bringing together your local SiT community for a meet-up or event in your city - visit this page to learn more.
Building Your Own Venture
Monwar Hussein, Product Manager at Capgemini.
Hello everyone! 👋🏾
My name is Monwar and over the past seven years, I’ve worked in Product and BA roles across tech startups, large companies, and tech consultancies.
Instead of putting all my focus on developing my career as a Product Manager, I have (perhaps naively) tried to build my own products and ventures. This is because I like trying to build solutions to tedious problems.
Over the last seven years, I’ve tried to build 5 ideas:
4 failed. ❌
1 has helped me generate over £250,000 in profit. ✅
While this might not be amazing compared to the multi-millions tech startups raise in funding. It does make life a little bit easier knowing I now have a decent amount of capital to build a bigger venture. I’ve found it helpful to reflect on my experience building a my company: what went well, and what would I have done differently?
I know a lot of my peers that work in tech have ambitions of launching their own startup one day. Based on my experience, and with the benefit of hindsight, I’d like to share a few tips that I think can help any prospective founders.
1. Validate your market quickly 👥
My first idea was an EdTech startup. We spent 2 years trying to build the MVP with 300 parents on our waiting list. We believed that upon launch, all 300 would sign up for our product and we would be the next tech unicorn.
Well… when launch day came, only 1 out of 300 parents signed up. We sent email reminders, phone calls, even set appointments to speak to these other parents and try get them to sign up … they just weren’t signing up! This shows the importance of validating your market quickly as you build. The easiest way to do so, is to see how quickly you can generate revenue from your potential customers and how long they remain paying customers. If they do not buy or do not continue to use your product, it may be a sign to re-think the market validity.
2. Distribution is key 🔑
If you are going to build a product, focus on distribution! Knowing your user base and how to acquire them is the most essential aspect of executing on your idea. Three of my failed ventures were enterprise software companies trying to solve enterprise problems. You’d think a SaaS idea would be great, right? Well, that’s the thing, it was a great idea.
I did not know how to execute. I didn’t know how to reach my customers. I didn’t know how the buying cycle worked. I was in over my head. While it is great to have lofty ambitions, my advice would be to focus on the idea that you can practically and efficiently execute.
3. Don’t rush it, keep learning 📚
Your first idea might not be a success and that’s okay. You could be really early into your career and feel too inexperienced to build your own startup and that’s okay. In fact, that’s more than okay, that’s the ideal path to take.
Work on your projects at your own pace, but continue to prioritise your career growth and development too. It does not have to be a zero-sum game. Currently, I work as a Product Manager at a senior level and I genuinely believe that knowledge and insights I’ve acquired through my career and projects make it much easier to build another venture. My career and salary growth since I first embarked on my journey as an entrepreneur has meant I’m capable of investing more capital into growing my ventures without breaking a sweat over finances.
And that’s why I’m now working on building Employ Digital. We currently have over 2,100 on our waiting list, and if you’re interested in learning more, you can join here.
I hope you enjoyed reading this and found it useful! If you would like to stay in touch, you can find me on my LinkedIn and Twitter.
🐪 Maah-Maah
Biyo fadhiya biyo socdaa kiciya
Dead-water is moved by running water.
Mahadsanid 👋🏾