This guest article was written by Allen Mukwenha. Allen is a marketing specialist with an interest in social media. Earlier this year Allen was awarded a Commonwealth Professional Fellowship and he spent time in the UK working with leading brands and academics and studying the use of social media in marketing. You can contact Allen on his blog www.mukwenha.org , twitter @amukwenha or email – allen [at] mukwenha.org
The depth of talent showcased at the Start-up Challenge gave me renewed optimism for Zimbabwe. I wish to congratulate the deserving finalists and the organisers for putting on a fantastic show. Although some projects didn’t end up making the finals, most had strong concepts and I hope the entrepreneurs are not discouraged but continue to pursue their ideas. Even as we celebrate this success, we need to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the format used, to build on the strengths and improve on the weaknesses to ensure even more successful events in the future.
One of the positive things that came out is that the organisers were able to attract a good mix of talented entrepreneurs with diverse business ideas. The event was well organized, attended and ideas presented included desktop applications, web applications, mobile applications and even hardware businesses. It’s important to note that the judges were selected well, with extensive experience in the technology industry in Zimbabwe and beyond. The panel included venture capitalists and successful entrepreneurs – people who know what it takes to build a successful technology business. This meant that their feedback was informed and backed by solid experience.
The organisers need to get credit for the great coordination. Everything was thought through from corporate sponsorship, communication, event branding and equipment. The pitchers themselves worked hard and most of the presentations were well structured and well presented.
However, one thing I feel didn’t work well is that the judging criteria was not very clear to the participants. I don’t doubt that the judges were clear about what they were doing but I don’t think their judging criteria were well communicated. I felt that there was tension between two conflicting ideas – innovation and potential for commercial success. One common question the judges asked most entrepreneurs was whether the idea had been implemented elsewhere. Such a question can be used to get a feel of whether an entrepreneur understands their competitive environment or if their idea is a unique innovation. If the purpose of the question was to understand if the entrepreneur understands their competitive landscape, the judges might have been better served by asking questions that directly address the issue of competition. As it is, one has to assume that they were putting a premium on unique and innovative ideas.
However, our experience shows that businesses that replicate an established business model often succeed. Microsoft did not produce the first OS, Google did not invent web search and Facebook was not the first social network. These companies succeed by offering a product that was already on the market but their innovation was in other areas of their businesses, not the core product. Without innovating in the core product, a start-up can succeed by reaching an untapped market niche or by saving costs through greater efficiency and charging lower prices, among many other possibilities.
I appreciate innovation as much as anyone else but product innovation is not a guarantee of commercial success. An innovation challenge can be convened for innovators to compete on unique concepts and ideas. In some instances, an idea can be both unique with great commercial potential at the same time. However, I was left with the feeling that the judges focused too much on innovation and not enough on the overall business model and how it fits the current context. I hope the judging criteria used did not overlook businesses that are not necessarily unique but have great commercial potential.
In addition, it’s also important to understand if the quality of presentation (confidence of the presenter, the flow of the presentation and the graphics used) was part of the judging criteria. Was the experience and background of the entrepreneur considered as well? Indeed these are important factors that I think entrepreneurs needed to know beforehand, what and how each element would contribute to their overall score.
Another criticism is that entrepreneurs were not well briefed on their intellectual property rights. I know that when one pitches at a public forum such as the Start-up Challenge, one is sharing their idea in the public domain and that one should take care to protect their ideas through patents and licences. However, not all participants knew this and some were concerned because their ideas compete directly with the sponsors, organisers and judges of the Start-Up Challenge. To be fair, sponsoring, judging or organising such an event does not mean one should surrender their right to start or expand their business using the same or similar ideas as the ones pitched during the event. The problem is that not all entrepreneurs understood this and it might have helped to counsel them on their options for protecting their intellectual property before the event.
The judges did give some feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the ideas presented. However, we are not sure what the merits of the chosen ideas are over the other ideas that were presented. It must have been a tough challenge making the final selection. However, transparency would help build confidence in the final decisions made and help entrepreneurs that did not make it understand what their ideas lacked and how they can be perfected. Without criticising individual start-ups on the shortlist, one observation I made is some of the ideas compete with established international corporations. Others provide simple web applications that are easy to replicate at low cost using open source solutions. Indeed, the innovations that resulted in these projects being picked are not obvious (they could be innovations in customer acquisition and retention or unique communication strategies or any combination of a million ideas I can think of).
My point is that only the judges know. I am not clear on how and why the projects were selected. I think it’s important to publish the reasons because transparency builds trust in the process used. The judges cannot please everyone, but they can explain their thinking so that as a technology community, we can debate the model used and through debate and exchange of ideas, improve future Start-up Challenges.
The whole concept succeeded and I believe Zimbabwe is firmly on its way to challenging South Africa and Kenya in technology innovation on the continent. The Start-up Challenge showed that we have bright and passionate people that are working to address our market challenges using technology. We have seen from India and other examples that technology has the power to drive economic growth. We have also seen from Silicon Valley that technology can create wealth for entrepreneurs with little capital but great ideas. We therefore have to welcome this great initiative and thank the sponsors, judges and organisers for their effort and dedication. At the same time we need to start constructive debate to ensure that we get the best value from the few initiatives that are meant to benefit our young industry.
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Does this mean that we will find out why we (USSD dirctory) didn’t make it to the next round? #justwondering#
Hello William Chui,
I believe you did receive feedback on your pitch through email, as did all other participants in the challenge. If you would like the feedback to be resent please let us know.
Good read!
Just to add my 2c, on the issue software, I felt a lot of the startups that pitched made use of open source software but didn’t quite pitch how they were going to dish out something that’s unique and make it stand out.
Using the example of the eventual winner, mukela.com -> the startup’s website is the core of the product…powered by Joomla! which has a plethora of components for hotel listing. Apart from taking us through the process of registering on the website and finding a hotel, I failed to see anything else about it. In the end, I went away with a feeling their solution can take a night to replicate, exactly how it stands on their website. That university talk they threw at us, wasn’t of any use other than helping their failed startup resume. I think everyone agrees that’s when we actually paid attention after telling us they had harvard degrees…that was their selling point, not the product….after taking a look at the product, would you say its got harvard genius sprinkled all over it?
With all due respect, I think the mix of judges might not have well fitted this sort of event. Yes, we can see on their resumes they have vast experience but with the way things are changing, are they all moving with the times when they fail to spot an overnight cookie-made solution?
I think if I had pitched packaging the default joomla installation into .rar files, I would have stood a good chance too. [I think you get my point]
i think the tools used in innovation do not matter. what matters is the service they are offering. When coming up with a product, use what is available (joomla in this case) and add/create what ever components you need that are not already there.
A site is made up of the tech and the info/product. We shouldnt emphasize on tech only.
Can you really replicate the Muleka thingy overnight? Really? Maybe you can do a site with test data (Lorem ipsum anyone?) but to gather the hotel listings and other info on the site, I dont think so.
Lets give credit where its due, overnight? lets give u the next week to come up with 7 excellent products then!!!!!!!
>>PS I know you probably didnt mean overnight literally 🙂 right?
cool_web_matrix, you do make some interesting points but I also want to challenge your comment. If the Mukela team is from Harvard, that is well and good and it might indeed be a factor that led to their success. If the educational profile of the team was part of the judging matrix, then they put forward a good team.
However, one has to wonder: Is educational profile a good factor in evaluating start-ups? Probably not, a lot of successful start-ups were started by college drop-outs (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zukerberg, Michael Dell are a few examples). A more important factor might have been the skills profile of the team. Do they have excellent coding skills, a proprietary process etc? We don’t know and we cant know unless we get access to the criteria used to judge the product.
I agree that at first glance they have a product that seems easy to replicate. However, it probably means what impressed the judges is something under the hood that we cant see. Maybe their strength is in exclusive deals with their hotel partners guaranteeing that Mukela clients get exclusive discounts. Maybe they are targeting a market niche that is under served.
I don’t think we can debate the relative merits of the winners if we don’t understand the judging framework. However its important for the organisers to explain the criteria used to judge so that we can debate its merits whilst acknowledging that the judges had a difficult task.Let us not pull anyone down rather lets cooperate in improving our processes for the benefit of the entire community!
The point I wish to make is that being from Harvard wasn’t of any help [clearly], this search won it: http://extensions.joomla.org/search?q=hotels
Whatever they have under the hood was not presented and I left after everyone had pitched. Given other ideas pitched, I can confidently tell you this wasn’t remarkable nor entertaining.
Zimbabwe is lagging in technology and at a time when you’d think initiatives like this would help the penetration of tech LOCALLY before helping people out there who already have it all, we pick a hotel listing site?? what problem is this fixing??? Is there even a problem with getting a hotel today? If there are any problems with tourism, trust me this piece of site is a far cry for a fix.
I appreciated the event so i hope no one takes what I’m saying personally. I just wish there was some transparency too in the selection of the winner and some knowledge of the products.
Mukela is a good product but if there was no competition, it’d have won without so many people feeling like great ideas got revealed and ditched for somewhat (supposedly) “wrong” and unclear reasons.
Android is built on JAVA, imagine if they had tried building it from scratch?
http://developer.android.com/guide/basics/what-is-android.html
quite enlightening indeed. well thought. reminds me of my college days… coming up with a project proposal, the supervisors would reject what they knew it would be done overnight. they were right… some would win, finish the project in a day. seems these are the ones we are considering winning startups… maybe we shld give them a chance & we ought to understand more about their business models…
That’s a great article dude. We need more events like this.
btw, I participated and pitched my startup! Thanks to the judges for providing some feedback on why mine was not selected.
If I may add, I appreciated the feedback but I felt the reasons mentioned for not picking it, lacked some foresight I expected from such a “distinguished” (distinguished) panel. Not to blame the judges but maybe I didn’t present it well enough.
I was happy for the chance to meet likeminded people though! Thank you zol!
check out http://themeforest.net/theme_previews/117530-online-booking?index=1 , shows you how http://www.mukela.com won the startup challenge for $15 and twicking a css file
Well, whats done is done. They won the challenge, regardless. We’ll be more watchful with future challenges. The judges would have been expected to at least research on each product. Funny that none of us came across this.
It would be nice to hear if judges knew about this…though I guess its too late. No bother.
Good find, no innovation!
lol. matsotsi… ok, I didnt say that.
They shouldve at least customised if further by changing the layout and all.
Will take screenshots for the sake of history 🙂
Mukela won, I’ll leave it.
ok, I have to take it all back. It’s just a theme as ta_pi_wa pointed
out. Its the aesthetics, less the functionality. Pressed with time to
have a presentable (live) solution, for the sake of the challenge,
having a pre-made template is ok.
The most important thing would be the idea and the functionality. The visual design is not what makes the money.
Mukela won!
I am a non techie, so may not appreciate some of the debate areas (kikikikiki), but they have a functional product, that is usable. This kind of product has been some of the missing link in our tourism (product provided by non resident firms, making it difficult to tax them). So I think its an economically sound product (can be better monitored for tax purposes). The fact that it can be replicated easily does not take away the fact that they have put up a good product needed in our country. There are many complicated (out of this world ideas/applications) that have marginal use……..this has practical use…………..so for me it does it. Will follow the thread.
the fact you’e a non techie means you can’t really judge how good tech products are if they’re competing on a technical and entrepreneurial basis. That product is not sound, lets be honest..WHO needs it in zimbabwe? who?
where’s their market and how far realistic is it to target such a market?
The fact it can be replicated easily defeats uniqueness, creativity and innovation period. Is this the best idea that was pitched honestly? If yes, we need REAL tech people in Zim ASAP. Shut this blog because we’re all lying to ourselves we do tech.
not to add THEY replicated it lmao
The
revelation by @784f17df8d0ad63906cb880aa553e8e7:disqus that Mukela simply bought a $15 theme and used it as the basis of
their project could damage the reputation of this excellent initiative. I have said the overall business
model of a start-up is more important than innovation at the product level. I am also a supporter of open source software
as a means of bridging the digital divide.
It’s not
wrong to use open source software as the basis for a start-up. However, entering
someone else’s work with little modification in a start-up competition is like taking
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, changing the names of the characters and submitting the
manuscript in a writing contest. Yes, Shakespeare’s work is in the public
domain and we are free to modify and adapt his writings as we see fit. However,
such an action raises questions about one’s judgement. This
action by Mukela is regrettable. They claim that mukela.com is powered by
Kelanet, “an end-to-end on-line hotel marketing and reservation system
specifically designed to serve the African hotel industry”. It’s disappointing
to learn that Kelanet is actually a theme downloaded from the Internet.
How then do we protect the integrity of the process? My
suggestion is that future competitions should have a condition that the work
submitted should be the work of the people pitching the idea. Projects based on
Open Source Software need to have significant modification and the fact has to
be declared upfront.
We have to resist the temptation of blaming the judges. We
cannot expect them to know all the Open Source Software out there. The process
has to be protected at a conceptual level. In future, we must have clear rules of entry
and a good definition of a qualifying entry. Another condition should be that revelations
such as the one made in this case will disqualify the winner and they would
risk having to return the prizes.
Agreed with most of the points raised, especially noting that this is the first such competition in the country (not sure if there are others before this). Things are expected to get better from the judging criteria and the whole concept in the following editions of the same competition or other similar competitions. So I think we should hold back some of our gritty criticisms.
I agree and there is no point in blaming Mukela or the judges. Mukela saw an opportunity and grabbed it! Good for them!
However, we need to point out why their approach is wrong, how it happened and how we can prevent similar mistakes in future. And these revelations about Mukela have provided another reason for us to think deeper about this process.
My fear is that we may blame the judges which would be unfair. Instead, lets help by contributing ideas about tightening the process.
Initiatives that support the Zimbabwean tech industry are few, and any such initiative regardless of its faults, deserves our support. My criticism is made in that spirit, I have no interest in pulling anyone down. Our community is full of bright innovators, lets pull together and raise our industry!
I do not mean to sound hostile or dismissive: but do you know what a Theme is? A theme merely governs the appearance of a given website, not the functionality. You can imagine a theme as paint (it doesn’t change a car’s torque or top speed). I think it is OK for Toyota to buy $15 paint if it wants to.
That said, I have a critique of your critique.
I’d say innovation and potential for commercial success are almost never conflicting ideas. I doubt anyone expected the decisions to be objective. All I can say is I hope the other start-ups where not in it just to win contests, go ahead and prove the judges wrong!
Hi t_api_wa, if you check out the link to the theme http://themeforest.net/theme_previews/117530-online-booking?index=1 on which Mukela is based, you will find that Mukela is an exact replica of the theme/site (The look and functionality are exactly the same). The Mukela team did not make any substantial changes to this product. So what? Surely they can still succeed as a business. Of course, but I feel we need to reward innovative home grown solutions if our industry is to prosper.
As to the conflict between innovation and potential for commercial success, I agree that the two can be found in a single product. However, my point was that a start-up challenge should not penalise ideas that have potential for success but are not necessarily innovative at core product level. Product innovation is well and good but the judging framework should consider the entire business model and how it fits our local context. I thought the judges focused too much on product innovation but I accept that my judgement is subjective and you may see things differently.
There is no way that such a process can be objective, but we need to debate the model used for the benefit of our industry. This Mukela thing is now taking focus away from the central debate. I wish Mukela well. My objective is not to criticise them, but to reflect on how we can improve future start-up competitions. I hope I am making a small contribution to improving the industry by starting debate so that bright people like you can enrich the process with their ideas. Our colleagues in SA and Kenya are busy innovating, lets improve our game, we have a lot of catching up to do!
The revelation by no inovation that Mukela simply bought a $15 theme and used it as the basis of their project could damage the reputation of this excellent initiative. I have said the overall business model of a start-up is more important than innovation at the product level. I am also a supporter of open source software as a means of bridging the digital divide.
It’s not wrong to use open source software as the basis for a start-up. However, entering someone else’s work with little modification in a start-up competition is like taking Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, changing the names of the characters and submitting the manuscript in a writing contest. Yes, Shakespeare’s work is in the public domain and we are free to modify and adapt his writings as we see fit. However,
such an action raises questions about one’s judgement. This action by Mukela is regrettable. They claim that mukela.com is powered by
Kelanet, “an end-to-end on-line hotel marketing and reservation system specifically designed to serve the African hotel industry”. It’s disappointing to learn that Kelanet is actually a theme downloaded from the Internet.
How then do we protect the integrity of the process? My suggestion is that future competitions should have a condition that the work
submitted should be the work of the people pitching the idea. Projects based on Open Source Software need to have significant modification and the fact has to be declared upfront.
We have to resist the temptation of blaming the judges. We cannot expect them to know all the Open Source Software out there. The process
has to be protected at a conceptual level. In future, we must have clear rules of entry and a good definition of a qualifying entry. Another condition should be that revelations such as the one made in this case will disqualify the winner and they would risk having to return the prizes.
So let me get this. You want the business idea to be projected and its
capacity to become a business to come to the fore. Then you have
Mukela.com developing a concept, which by the way, is already working
given that it has such an extensive listing.
I don’t get it. They used open source to create a product and then developed a strong business idea to back that idea up.
If you look at Zimbabwe, is there anyone doing the same thing? Does it
serve a Zimbabwean need? Does it address an actual problem? Does it have
the capacity to make money?
I will mention again, the fact that they have it up and running and are
able to get the confidence of different hotels to list with them is
credit to them.
Let’s not be typically Zimbabwean, just looking for reason to knock someone else down!
Hey Three Men On A Boat, that is an ad hominem attack, attacking me as a person instead of attacking my arguments. I don’t claim to have all the answers and I have nothing against Mukela, I wish them well.
I just want us to debate the issues so we can build a strong industry. If we succeed, we will attract venture funding to Zimbabwe, create employment, inspire youngsters to become tech entrepreneurs and generate wealth which will have a multiplier effect for the whole country’s benefit.
Mukela won and that is well. However, if we retain the same format for future Start-up challenges, will that take the Zimbabwean technology industry forward? That is the central question we should debate. If we disagree, lets do so as brothers with the same goal of taking the country forward.
I am loving this, thinking of tacking basic programming lessons……any suggestions on a crash course?
http://answers.techzim.co.zw/
Hi All. I’ve been away and just got back to see all these comments. They are all excellent, and as a judge and the sole financial sponsor of the event I really take it all on board. This weekend I’m going to find the time to respond to them all – so keep them going. There is method in our apparently madness as judges 🙂
hi David,
Thanks for taking the time to read through the comments. I have a few issues to raise myself concerning the overall competition format, and Mukela’s eligibility to even compete.
I feel going forward we have to be clear on criteria. open source exists for a reason. using it is not in any way bad, but praiseworthy. However to fairly evaluate the success/failure of pitches, I suggest that all entries should state the type of software they’re using and if its open source, there should be a modification threshold each start up has to reach.
Since this is a TECH event, I also suggest that startups that pitch have got to be evaluated more on the value they’re adding to technology and its overall use given our current local context. If we lean towards business minded ventures (and less on the value they’re adding to tech) I feel it defeats the purpose. For example, if I have a chicken business that’s backed with a solid business plan and decide to have a website, do I qualify? Using the criteria and the final decision, I feel like such a business qualifies. If we don’t question the underlying concept of this competition, we undermine real innovation that may help this industry move forward.
I pitched Ziguru and was grateful for the huge opportunity. Before qualifying (me and Shaun Benjamin who pitched Mu-Office) took the time to go over the terms and conditions for entry. A page of such conditions exists on the zol website here: http://www.zol.co.zw/index.php/aboutzol/csr/challenge under “Who is eligible to enter?”. To my understanding this was understood by everyone at the event from the conversations I had with other participants. It beats me why the conditions where removed AFTER the event from barcamp.co.zw.
From our observations of studying competition at the event we found mukela.com actually existed before 31 December 2010. Please visit this url for visual proof: http://web.archive.org/web/20100815213307/http://mukela.com/ It’s clear from that page -which was generated on 15 August 2010.- that Mukela is in direct violation of this. Are you able to clarify on this issue if the rules changed but even us as participants were not told?
Thanks David, I can’t tell how I much I personally enjoyed the challenge and your feedback.
Cheers, Chiko
Lol at chicken business with a website. I suppose if you have a website that effects commercialization of your product in an innovative way, you’d have effectively used technology right?
I am the Mukela product manager. Honestly, any one of you please feel free to get in touch with me or Gugu (our technical head) if you feel you could add value to our team. Believe it or not, Mukela is not about a website – and for a while we had a hard time figuring out how to explain what our idea is effectively. I think the judges understood this. I hope so at least.
So email me – taku@mukela.com. Or Gugu – gugu@mukela.com. We would love to work with serious technical talent. Look forward to hearing from you guys.