The Nairobi Innovation week is coming up in March 2018 and I can’t but help to think who the winners are going to be and what kind of innovations are going to stand out.
Nairobi Innovation week has the potential to be the biggest and central platform in East and Central Africa for identifying innovation and provide a pipeline for other support providers such as Hubs, Accelerator programs among others. Nairobi Innovation week has the potential be the biggest driver of foreign direct investment in Kenya and East Africa other than the Securities Exchange.
To reach such heights a lot of effort needs to be put in not only getting as many startups coming through the platform but raising the quality of applications to ensure they meet basic investor requirements.
There are nine unchanging principles of innovation that inform investment decisions by any investor of which startups must be aware off before pitching their idea or business.
The first principle is designing a solution around users in mind. This means that the product or service must be addressing a real and not a perceived need.
The entrepreneurs must show a deep and robust understanding of the local ecosystem in terms of customer behavior, culture, and social economic disposition. This is important as it gives investors confidence that the entrepreneur knows the undercurrent that is driving sustained demand and not a just one-off fascination with the product or service.
Startups must ensure their business model can be scaled up and is sustainable. What does this mean; it means that startup must identify the basic characteristics of their target customers say our customers want ‘’Healthy soft drink’’ meaning people with such characteristic will take the soft drink regardless of nationality. Secondly is that the input needed to develop product or service doesn’t need to be sourced or rely on the innovator or one location.
Startups must ensure that their business is data-driven, as a famous musician once said Numbers don’t lie. Startups must ensure that they tirelessly collect data be it about customers, competitive environment, and financials among others. We are in the age of big data and data mining is fast becoming a tool that gives a competitive advantage.
Similarly, startups must strive or make every effort to protect their intellectual property as early as possible. Having a great idea is one thing; having a great and protected idea gives you much better leverage as the idea can be valued regardless of whether you have made sales or not since it has a tangible chance of sales due to the exclusive opportunity it presents to investors.
Startups must be able to prove that they are able to learn and take in new ideas with little resistance. Successful companies have one thing in common; ability to forecast through strategic plans, implement strategy but most importantly get on the ground feedback and tweak strategy to meet unanticipated changes. In simple terms, successful companies succeed because they can learn and be agile in product development.
Finally, startups must demonstrate collaboration with stakeholders be it government, customers, suppliers, employees or any other stakeholders as this shows that they can work in a team.