The African Product Paradox: Unicorns, Silence, and the Need to Share
This might not be a hot take, and someone has probably talked about it a lot, but I guess it is good to repeat things as often as you can.
A professional colleague and friend talked about how ‘Western product teaching’ does not work in Africa and how product training institutes were not as effective as many people hoped. In some way, he does have a point, but I think certain nuances are not considered in the argument.
First, ‘Western product teaching’ was not developed by someone sitting in their room and saying, “Oh wow, I have a product framework or technique or strategy or PRD I can create and make sure everyone uses it.” It was developed by individuals in companies who were trying to solve a specific problem. OKRs were created by Google because they wanted to find a better way to track and measure results. Product strategy frameworks and techniques were created because companies wanted to find a better way to plan and build products that solve pain points for customers. It’s the same for Agile: 17 software developers came together because they wanted to find a better way to build products. Every company in the West has always operated this way. Intercom. Microsoft. Slack. Apple. Amazon. We have a problem. We create something to solve it. We share with the world what we created. They see and adopt it. We move on to the next thing.
Now, given that Africa has a different market dynamic that is entirely different from the West, I often wonder why African companies that have gained serious traction or valuation are not very open to sharing how they build products. Interswitch. Paystack. Wave. Flutterwave. Moniepoint. All unicorns. Yet none of these companies have openly shared “This is how we build products from ideation to launch.” There are no new ideas or techniques for upcoming startups in Africa to use. No one is even saying, “Hey, I adopted Western product teaching, but we tweaked a lot of things to solve for this specific market.” And this is what I have a problem with.
We can say Western product teaching is absolute BS, and it does not work, and that product management training institutes in Africa do not work, but we should also look in the mirror and be honest with ourselves. We are less open to sharing knowledge, new product techniques, and tweaks to previous product teachings that we have used to build and succeed in the African market, and I think that should change. Otherwise, we will keep going in circles with whether Western product teachings are suited for the African market or not.
Let’s digress a little bit with product management training institutes like ProductDive, Treford, Utiva, and the like. For anyone who asks me if they should take a course at any of these product schools, the first thing I tell them is to see this as a beginning, not an end. When I attended ProductDive, by no means did I think this was going to get me a job. In fact, it took seven months before I got my first PM job. What was important was my mindset. I saw it as a foundation for so many things I was going to learn as I started the journey, for which I am thankful. But the truth is ProductDive did not teach me a lot of things about the product world, and to be honest, who could do that in six weeks? You would be lying. I teach Agile and Scrum for three hours every now and then, but even I know I will never teach anyone everything. The student always has to take the initiative to improve, and that comes with consistent learning. This is what I did and what every PM who leaves a product training school should probably do.
So what do I hope to see? PMs from various African companies coming together to invent new ways of tackling product discovery and development on this continent that are perfectly suited to our market dynamics instead of arguing if Western product teachings are suited for us. Simple.
Now, I am not throwing stones at glass houses because if that was the case, my house would be the first to come crashing down. At the very least, I hope it encourages African PMs, especially the ones who have been building products for a while on the continent, and successful African companies to be more open with how they build products. It would help us all a lot.
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