Topic cluster
African technology.
Writing from inside the Tanzanian and East African market. What works locally, what does not, what foreign consultants get wrong about Africa, and what indigenous African builders are doing that the rest of the world should be watching.
Start here · The pillar piece
Why Western tech advice often fails in Tanzania
Most technology advice is written for a market that has reliable power, cheap labour-replacing software, and customers who pay by card. Three of those assumptions are wrong here. What to do instead.
African tech · 10 min · 28 May 2026
Read the pillar →More in this cluster
- 10 Jun 2026African tech · 9 min
Why African businesses shouldn't copy Silicon Valley startups
The startup model — raise money, lose money fast, chase hypergrowth, hope to win later — is a specific bet suited to a specific environment. That environment is not ours, and copying the model here quietly destroys good businesses. Build the other kind.
- 09 Jun 2026African tech · 9 min
Building software for unreliable power and patchy data
In Dar es Salaam, "the internet is always on" is a lie you cannot afford to believe. The engineering principles for software that keeps working when the power flickers and the connection drops — and why they make better software everywhere.
- 08 Jun 2026African tech · 9 min
Hiring and keeping good developers in Tanzania
The talent is here, and it is good. The hard parts are evaluating it honestly when credentials tell you little, competing with remote employers who pay in dollars, and building somewhere people choose to stay. What three years of doing it taught me.
- 31 May 2026African tech · 9 min
The real cost of being online in Tanzania — data, bundles, and connectivity
For a Dar es Salaam business, "just put it online" carries a cost the advice never mentions: the data your customers spend to reach you. Why connectivity economics, not engineering, decides whether your digital product actually gets used.
- 30 May 2026African tech · 9 min
Mobile money is the real operating system of East African business
The West built commerce on cards and is now trying to catch up to what we already do with a phone number. Why mobile money is not a workaround for missing banks, but a genuinely better system — and what building for it really requires.
Other topic clusters
AI for business
AI for African business
Practical AI adoption for African SMEs, founders and operators — the version of the AI-for-business answer that does not assume Silicon Valley conditions.
Explore →Systems
Systems & documentation
Systems thinking for founders and teams — decision logs, documentation defaults, the four-document rule, and the long compounding effect of writing things down.
Explore →Tech explained
Technology, explained
Technology and digital systems written for the people who don't write code — business owners, students, founders, and curious non-technical readers.
Explore →Founder
Founder discipline
The long game — habits, weekly reviews, building in public, saying no, and the slow work of building a calm, profitable African technology company.
Explore →