Disruptive, impactful technology is built with a strong Agile mindset. It all comes down to the fundamentals - human-centric design, extremely lean product planning, strong tech practices, and steadfast focus on the intended impact to real users.

A lean product mindset helps execute disruption in unchartered territories and create high impact. Wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a cheatsheet that would work in different instances and scenarios, even under an unimaginable number of constraints?

In this talk, we share our secret sauce - the simple, repeatable principles that have worked for us time and again. 

One such circumstance: Amid Covid-19, a time of crisis became a catalyst for transformation in the rural communities of East and Southern Africa

A ship sets sail from Europe carrying Covid relief supplies for African farmers. By the time it hits the shores of Kenya, a system to ensure fair and equitable distribution of the supplies has to be put in place. This is an unknown market. Supply of electricity and internet is inconsistent. The target users’ tech literacy is limited. How do you launch a fail-safe product within a short, immovable timeline, and within several constraints? 

Despite this seeming like an uphill task, we built a distribution platform in 45 days. What’s more - it saw 10x the adoption that was predicted. Not only was the product lean and functional, it scaled seamlessly beyond the planned 200,000 users to keep up with unprecedented demand from 2 million users. 

One year later, what was once an emergency Covid relief project has evolved into a massive platform that has created and engaged an entire ecosystem around farmers. It has unlocked network effects that will add value to several lines of business, and can be launched in other geographies with minimal changes. 

This is just one instance of how large change can be effected with a lean way of thinking. We believe we have mastered the formula and listeners can use it to craft their own success stories.