What 2021 has taught us about building a consumer-focused product (Stax)

It’s been a year since we (Hover Development Services) took a leap of faith and launched Stax.It was a big leap from B2B (Business to Business) to B2C (Business to Customers) and it was filled with lots of learning curves.

In the last couple of months, we have learned so much as individuals and as a team. We wanted to share these learnings with you, so we asked every team member to share one lesson 2021 has taught them about building consumer-focused product with focus on Stax and these were their answers:

Alex Kombo (Principal Andriod Engineer)

Feedback from early users of your product is important. The experience these users get is key in cultivating an early following that onboards the next hundred or thousand users. I’ve learnt to listen to our users more and gained valuable insights from team members.

Peace Itimi (Head of Growth)

Growth is a lot of things acting together.

Itunuoluwa Ayanfe (Visual Designer)

You need to stay on your toes at all times to tackle any obstacles that may come your way, with speed and tact. You also need to be empathy-oriented because you are dealing with humans, not just numbers on the screen. They are not just your users, they are real people.

Tobi Akinpelu (Senior Andriod Engineer)

People are less likely to uninstall your app if it came through referrals. Word of mouth is the best and most reliable way to get long-lasting customers.

Wangu Mwenda (Senior UX Researcher)

When things aren’t working in the way you anticipated, keep trying new ideas. Ben often says “you can’t keep treading water” and that’s really it. You have to keep moving even if you don’t completely know where you’re going yet.

David Kutalek (CTO)

Marketing is super important!

Blessing Abeng (Senior Communications Mgr)

The customer’s needs should always come first. They want to know that you care about them and truly see them. So, make it easy for them to understand who you are and what your solution can do for them. As a rule of thumb, KEEP IT SIMPLE. Leverage storytelling and use examples they can relate to. The only way to achieve these is to ask questions and truly listen to what they are saying and not saying. What is said and left unsaid are equally important.

Ben Lyon (CEO)

Trust is everything. Reliability plays an outsized role in trust.

Jess (Head of Product)

Jess couldn’t decide one, so these are three lessons she learned:

The path to scale involves more tradeoffs and complexity than I ever could have imagined.

People are getting ripped off by telcos and banks. I knew this before, but after looking at some 250K USSD transactions this year, it has become the most motivating aspect of this for me. Stax NEEDS to exist in this world — people have an inherent right to access their information and money. they shouldn’t be charged a toll by redundant gatekeepers. DEATH TO FEES.

Communications really matter! A lot.

As we continue to learn, we will continue to share with you. Consider this our gift to you and we hope to achieve two things by sharing this:

If you are a Startup founder building a B2C company, we hope that these lessons make your journey easier and faster.

If you are a Staxxer, we hope that you see that we are learning daily to ensure that Stax is the best it can be for you. We built Stax to reduce the barriers to financial inclusion and we are achieving that daily by making it easier for you to access your money, send money, buy airtime, all offline. You can trust that we will continue to make Stax better and share our learnings along the way.

Happy Holidays.