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Making the Ugali Machine
Rank: Elder Joined: 6/17/2008 Posts: 23,365 Location: Nairobi
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Achaneni na ugali tafadhali!!!! ..."Wewe ni mtu mdogo sana....na mwenye amekuandika pia ni mtu mdogo sana!".
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Rank: Elder Joined: 2/26/2012 Posts: 15,980
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masukuma wrote:by the way - the coffee maker you see in your office is a result of nearly 300 years of continuous improvement in addition to the fact that coffee is drunk worldwide...and it has a huge market in places with people who have higher disposable incomes... to my knowledge, the only people that consume ugali are the bantu populated areas of Africa (great lakes region and southern africa). Hata west africans don't eat it... create a business case for this market! Unakumbuka Bob Collymore's statement on Kenyan food? I suspect he had his eyes set on Ugali... Fufu is made the same way Ugali is made. If its a matter of market, wazungu make "grits" some kind of porridge that looks like ugali and corn meal which they bake. There's no excuse of not making the "ugali maker" "There are only two emotions in the market, hope & fear. The problem is you hope when you should fear & fear when you should hope: - Jesse Livermore
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Rank: Elder Joined: 10/4/2006 Posts: 13,823 Location: Nairobi
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sitaki.kujulikana wrote:masukuma wrote:
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Back to Ugali maker - who is this guy? Ama we are engaging in a science project whose monetization strategy involves throwing stuff onto a wall and seeing what sticks.
Rice cookers seem to be doing ok, at the end of the day any invention has risks of failing, even the car started like that, very few were willing to put aside the farasi. you are missing the point... ok... Rice has a global market! unlike Mokimo and Matoke or Ugali! Rice has 2.7 billion eaters in Asia alone - ok? sitaki.kujulikana wrote:masukuma wrote:by the way - the coffee maker you see in your office is a result of nearly 300 years of continuous improvement in addition to the fact that coffee is drunk worldwide...and it has a huge market in places with people who have higher disposable incomes... to my knowledge, the only people that consume ugali are the bantu populated areas of Africa (great lakes region and southern africa). Hata west africans don't eat it... create a business case for this market! Unakumbuka Bob Collymore's statement on Kenyan food? I suspect he had his eyes set on Ugali... I think worst case scenario, the Bantu people would still provide a decent market, that's roughly a population of around 100 - 150 m people. Who among the 100m - 150m are willing to cough out [INSERT DOLLAR VALUE OF YOUR CONTRAPTION HERE]. Remember that you are building a device that will only be used by a section of the poorest of the poorest on the planet. Remember that you are competing with 2 things 1) inertia - manual way of making it (also know as tradition also hidden behind ) 2) the fact that as soon as most of the people in these areas get enough disposable income to think of spending [INSERT DOLLAR VALUE OF YOUR CONTRAPTION] on a machine - they don't want to eat Ugali. Cars and horses are not good examples since they can be considered as Telegram vs Telephone - ok? People used to send telegrams and UPGRADED to Telephones. Where is the Upgrade in Ugali consumption? Who upgrades to eating Ugali? All Mushrooms are edible! Some Mushroom are only edible ONCE!
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Rank: Elder Joined: 10/4/2006 Posts: 13,823 Location: Nairobi
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murchr wrote:masukuma wrote:by the way - the coffee maker you see in your office is a result of nearly 300 years of continuous improvement in addition to the fact that coffee is drunk worldwide...and it has a huge market in places with people who have higher disposable incomes... to my knowledge, the only people that consume ugali are the bantu populated areas of Africa (great lakes region and southern africa). Hata west africans don't eat it... create a business case for this market! Unakumbuka Bob Collymore's statement on Kenyan food? I suspect he had his eyes set on Ugali... Fufu is made the same way Ugali is made. If its a matter of market, wazungu make "grits" some kind of porridge that looks like ugali and corn meal which they bake. There's no excuse of not making the "ugali maker"  excuses? it's a business case for Ugali! it's a simple thing! perhaps even a fufu maker would have more market since West Africans don't upgrade out of eating fufu! Someone needs to tell me who the niche market for the version 0.1 of the device is in terms of 1) age 2) gender 3) disposable income like... A busy single 30 year old woman, earning 100k a month who has insatiable need of eating Ugali. All Mushrooms are edible! Some Mushroom are only edible ONCE!
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 8/25/2012 Posts: 1,826
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masukuma wrote:sitaki.kujulikana wrote:masukuma wrote:
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Back to Ugali maker - who is this guy? Ama we are engaging in a science project whose monetization strategy involves throwing stuff onto a wall and seeing what sticks.
Rice cookers seem to be doing ok, at the end of the day any invention has risks of failing, even the car started like that, very few were willing to put aside the farasi. you are missing the point... ok... Rice has a global market! unlike Mokimo and Matoke or Ugali! Rice has 2.7 billion eaters in Asia alone - ok? sitaki.kujulikana wrote:masukuma wrote:by the way - the coffee maker you see in your office is a result of nearly 300 years of continuous improvement in addition to the fact that coffee is drunk worldwide...and it has a huge market in places with people who have higher disposable incomes... to my knowledge, the only people that consume ugali are the bantu populated areas of Africa (great lakes region and southern africa). Hata west africans don't eat it... create a business case for this market! Unakumbuka Bob Collymore's statement on Kenyan food? I suspect he had his eyes set on Ugali... I think worst case scenario, the Bantu people would still provide a decent market, that's roughly a population of around 100 - 150 m people. Who among the 100m - 150m are willing to cough out [INSERT DOLLAR VALUE OF YOUR CONTRAPTION HERE]. Remember that you are building a device that will only be used by a section of the poorest of the poorest on the planet. Remember that you are competing with 2 things 1) inertia - manual way of making it (also know as tradition also hidden behind ) 2) the fact that as soon as most of the people in these areas get enough disposable income to think of spending [INSERT DOLLAR VALUE OF YOUR CONTRAPTION] on a machine - they don't want to eat Ugali. Cars and horses are not good examples since they can be considered as Telegram vs Telephone - ok? People used to send telegrams and UPGRADED to Telephones. Where is the Upgrade in Ugali consumption? Who upgrades to eating Ugali? A wazua poll should sort out the market need, I am sure majority eat ugali, you included. The reason I raised the car/horse is to show that at the onset some inventions seem worse off than the existing alternatives. Imagine the guy who were willing to get the car (ugali machine) vs those who were content with their horse (traditional sweat filled ugali cooking). Institutions, hotels would not mind a standardized way of making ugali, the busy household would not mind an efficient way of making the same.
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 8/25/2012 Posts: 1,826
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masukuma wrote:murchr wrote:masukuma wrote:by the way - the coffee maker you see in your office is a result of nearly 300 years of continuous improvement in addition to the fact that coffee is drunk worldwide...and it has a huge market in places with people who have higher disposable incomes... to my knowledge, the only people that consume ugali are the bantu populated areas of Africa (great lakes region and southern africa). Hata west africans don't eat it... create a business case for this market! Unakumbuka Bob Collymore's statement on Kenyan food? I suspect he had his eyes set on Ugali... Fufu is made the same way Ugali is made. If its a matter of market, wazungu make "grits" some kind of porridge that looks like ugali and corn meal which they bake. There's no excuse of not making the "ugali maker" excuses? it's a business case for Ugali! it's a simple thing! perhaps even a fufu maker would have more market since West Africans don't upgrade out of eating fufu! Someone needs to tell me who the niche market for the version 0.1 of the device is in terms of 1) age 2) gender 3) disposable income like... A busy single 30 year old woman, earning 100k a month who has insatiable need of eating Ugali. Just imagine an ugali cooking machine that self cleans, every bachelor would have it, especially male university students who keep ugali sufurias under the bed while fighting on who's turn it is to clean up. The machine will transcend age and gender, on the disposable income and engineer would have to point in the direction of how expensive making the same would be.
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Rank: Elder Joined: 10/4/2006 Posts: 13,823 Location: Nairobi
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sitaki.kujulikana wrote:masukuma wrote:murchr wrote:masukuma wrote:by the way - the coffee maker you see in your office is a result of nearly 300 years of continuous improvement in addition to the fact that coffee is drunk worldwide...and it has a huge market in places with people who have higher disposable incomes... to my knowledge, the only people that consume ugali are the bantu populated areas of Africa (great lakes region and southern africa). Hata west africans don't eat it... create a business case for this market! Unakumbuka Bob Collymore's statement on Kenyan food? I suspect he had his eyes set on Ugali... Fufu is made the same way Ugali is made. If its a matter of market, wazungu make "grits" some kind of porridge that looks like ugali and corn meal which they bake. There's no excuse of not making the "ugali maker" excuses? it's a business case for Ugali! it's a simple thing! perhaps even a fufu maker would have more market since West Africans don't upgrade out of eating fufu! Someone needs to tell me who the niche market for the version 0.1 of the device is in terms of 1) age 2) gender 3) disposable income like... A busy single 30 year old woman, earning 100k a month who has insatiable need of eating Ugali. Just imagine an ugali cooking machine that self cleans, every bachelor would have it, especially male university students who keep ugali sufurias under the bed while fighting on who's turn it is to clean up. The machine will transcend age and gender, on the disposable income and engineer would have to point in the direction of how expensive making the same would be. Ah! now it cleans itself! The reason I ask these questions is because I have researched into the hardware making business - ok? It burns people! Right now the only phone manufacturers that are making money are Apple and Samsung... the rest are dying or at best breaking even... yes akina HTC and Huawei. These are companies that have huge distribution channels and sell worldwide. What will be the cost of the version 0.1 product? Remember this is HARDWARE ok? Anyone who has dealt in hardware knows about the huge costs to start before even releasing a version 0.1. Tooling, prototyping, shipping e.t.c. And I am looking at a version 0.1 product that is competing with inertia... who is buying this contraption and for how much? are we selling to 100k people initially? How are we getting it to these people? Hardware is a business that makes grown men cry... musicheze nayo!! it all sounds good to say "why can't we build X for ourselves" - until you realize how much money you will sink into a product that potentially no one will buy! All Mushrooms are edible! Some Mushroom are only edible ONCE!
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Rank: Elder Joined: 2/26/2012 Posts: 15,980
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masukuma wrote:murchr wrote:masukuma wrote:by the way - the coffee maker you see in your office is a result of nearly 300 years of continuous improvement in addition to the fact that coffee is drunk worldwide...and it has a huge market in places with people who have higher disposable incomes... to my knowledge, the only people that consume ugali are the bantu populated areas of Africa (great lakes region and southern africa). Hata west africans don't eat it... create a business case for this market! Unakumbuka Bob Collymore's statement on Kenyan food? I suspect he had his eyes set on Ugali... Fufu is made the same way Ugali is made. If its a matter of market, wazungu make "grits" some kind of porridge that looks like ugali and corn meal which they bake. There's no excuse of not making the "ugali maker" excuses? it's a business case for Ugali! it's a simple thing! perhaps even a fufu maker would have more market since West Africans don't upgrade out of eating fufu! Someone needs to tell me who the niche market for the version 0.1 of the device is in terms of 1) age 2) gender 3) disposable income like... A busy single 30 year old woman, earning 100k a month who has insatiable need of eating Ugali. When Steve Job introduced the Ipad to the market, many skeptics told him that it would have no market since the laptop and mobile phone are already in use...look back to that statement today, even a poor man with no income wants to own an ipad or something that looks like it. In short, demand is created. Maybe you should stop being simplistic, You are telling us since we have sufurias and wooden mwikos then there's no need of an ugali maker...(note Ugali is eaten by close the the 130M population in East and Central Africa). Let me remind you that before the gas cooker you have in your house ever existed, people were still cooking. Does that ring a bell? If there exists rice cookers, crock pots, chapati/roti/tortilla makers, and Rotisserie machines all which are making money then there exists absolutely no reason for not having the Ugali maker. Heck, that may even make middle-class women to start binging on Ug "There are only two emotions in the market, hope & fear. The problem is you hope when you should fear & fear when you should hope: - Jesse Livermore
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 9/11/2015 Posts: 1,024
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sitaki.kujulikana wrote:Anti_Burglar wrote:sitaki.kujulikana wrote:Anti_Burglar wrote:There was a time when Binyavanga Wainaina was speaking when he 'came out'. He was speaking about the same thing - about why we always have to be 'traditional'
Ati why we cannot 'add value' to potatoes and make crisps. As if eating potatoes as crisps is better than eating potatoes as mukimo.
These are the idlers in our midst.
Why want to fix what is not broken? Because Mzungu are doing it? We are not referring to adding value but increasing efficiency. For example the typical household chores take up a whole day and these are duties that would easily be compressed into a couple of hours. The reason the ugali example comes up is due to the fact that the same is not a common meal in the west as it is especially in Kenya and thus the lack of ways to make preparing the same more efficient come into question. Of course there are more examples like why would people especially in rural areas suffer when rivers dry up, while building dams is a technology even beavers have mastered. Efficiency? In ugali cooking? Let's see: 1. Boil water 2. Add the flour 3. koroga 4. Pakua Which step is inefficient and needs increased efficiency that the cooking machine can and will provide? you don't get it, ugali is used a representation of the wider picture. Either way lets look at ugali, how long does it take to cook ugali, how long does it take to train someone to make proper ugali, what is the variation in taste and texture even after the training. If we had the machine hata Lupita would not have issues making the same. I mean you could as well say the building concrete mixers are a waste since you just need a casual laborer mixing the same. Lupita cannot and must not finger lack of a machine for her lack of ugali cooking skills. She is just plain lazy as far as ugali cooking is concerned. Anyway, ugali indeed can be used as a representation of a wider picture for example it has been eaten at statehouse. Hence if that is a message being conveyed then Ndemo and his sympathizers should be held and grilled by bunge la mwananchi.
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 9/11/2015 Posts: 1,024
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masukuma wrote:sitaki.kujulikana wrote:masukuma wrote:murchr wrote:masukuma wrote:by the way - the coffee maker you see in your office is a result of nearly 300 years of continuous improvement in addition to the fact that coffee is drunk worldwide...and it has a huge market in places with people who have higher disposable incomes... to my knowledge, the only people that consume ugali are the bantu populated areas of Africa (great lakes region and southern africa). Hata west africans don't eat it... create a business case for this market! Unakumbuka Bob Collymore's statement on Kenyan food? I suspect he had his eyes set on Ugali... Fufu is made the same way Ugali is made. If its a matter of market, wazungu make "grits" some kind of porridge that looks like ugali and corn meal which they bake. There's no excuse of not making the "ugali maker" excuses? it's a business case for Ugali! it's a simple thing! perhaps even a fufu maker would have more market since West Africans don't upgrade out of eating fufu! Someone needs to tell me who the niche market for the version 0.1 of the device is in terms of 1) age 2) gender 3) disposable income like... A busy single 30 year old woman, earning 100k a month who has insatiable need of eating Ugali. Just imagine an ugali cooking machine that self cleans, every bachelor would have it, especially male university students who keep ugali sufurias under the bed while fighting on who's turn it is to clean up. The machine will transcend age and gender, on the disposable income and engineer would have to point in the direction of how expensive making the same would be. Ah! now it cleans itself! The reason I ask these questions is because I have researched into the hardware making business - ok? It burns people! Right now the only phone manufacturers that are making money are Apple and Samsung... the rest are dying or at best breaking even... yes akina HTC and Huawei. These are companies that have huge distribution channels and sell worldwide. What will be the cost of the version 0.1 product? Remember this is HARDWARE ok? Anyone who has dealt in hardware knows about the huge costs to start before even releasing a version 0.1. Tooling, prototyping, shipping e.t.c. And I am looking at a version 0.1 product that is competing with inertia... who is buying this contraption and for how much? are we selling to 100k people initially? How are we getting it to these people? Hardware is a business that makes grown men cry... musicheze nayo!! it all sounds good to say "why can't we build X for ourselves" - until you realize how much money you will sink into a product that potentially no one will buy! I agree with you. If Ndemo insists, they can go ahead and make that thing. I think he just wanted to get more phone calls. I feel used.
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