TL;DR: Africa's small businesses need advice designed around how they actually think, talk and work. For Esuite that means trust as UX, never guessing what people didn't say, bold design, phone first, and choosing substance over speed.
On product building, I learnt trust-as-a-UX
At 9Mileon we kept telling people, "We were not a loan company. Neither a savings company." We were a trust company that happened to move money. I designed the guarantor flows, trust scoring that improves as you prove yourself, and disbursement that protects both sides.
Now, Esuite is the same idea at a bigger scale: a consultant that earns the right to advise you. I call it "the KPMG for the 94%". Big firms have advisers. The other 94% have WhatsApp and insha-Allah.
How I design for people who won't read your app
Many Esuite users are brilliant operators with moderate to low literacy, or very little patience for screens. My mother is dyslexic, so I learnt early about reading ability and intelligence as a special gift. These decisions came from that:
Talk. Patience. And the listen: I can boast that I'm among the few who have the heart and soul to design for people like my mother, because it needs the experience of them. Plus patience, care, a sense of mission, and zero merchandise or exploitative mindset.
Don't guess what people didn't say. If someone skips a question, Esuite marks it "NOT PROVIDED" instead of inventing an answer. AI that fills gaps with confident fiction is how small businesses get bad advice from smart-sounding machines.
Techies think that beige and nude signals class and luxury. I say ishhhh! .... Wasn't I glad to see Paul Graham's (PG) thoughts on color resonate with my bold brand color .... Because to a seemingly nonchalant ICP that I serve, a mute color might well become a mute app. Esuite uses one bold red, #901708, with big type and strong attention, moving us away from boring-ness towards expressiveness.
Never overwhelm. Solo/MSMEs at 9pm do not want a 'detailed' report. Esuite works like a good 'oversabi' aunty rather.
Homework over instant answers. Esuite prepares the way a good adviser comes to the meeting ready.
Phone first, because the office is the phone. Everything is designed for one hand, a small screen and bad network.
Speed is cheap, but reputation isn't. Small business owners don't easily forgive and they don't forget. One bad experience becomes a trend, and a free brand identity. So when AI tools got dramatically better this year, I didn't keep polishing the old version to ship faster. I rebuilt the parts that would have embarrassed us later, giving up speed for substance. In this market, damage is lasting, trust me.
What a super design generalist actually does
I don't write code. My Python ping-pong ball once flew through the roof and never came back. Neither did I, for a while.
I rather hold the whole picture: the stats, the market, who the user really is, what the brand promises, what the strategy needs, what the product must guarantee, how we'll tell the story, and now the agents. Then I direct specialists, human and AI, so it all lines up.
My coding agent once profiled my working style and called me "The Visionary Operator": a systems thinker who also cares about pixels. It also said I obsess over the little details, and then stack too many ideas into one request. Guilty. But still shipping systems.
Peter Thiel asks founders what important truth very few people agree with them on. Here's mine: Africa's small businesses might be unsophisticated. But, their founders are super sophisticated.
You know 'Hipsy Betsy' is your typical small business owner. She can tell a fake Patek Philippe, one of her wigs is your year-long rent, if it's not Prada bag, pass. She can't be the last to order the latest iPhone. Let me spell it out, she passes on you because you ain't as sophisticated. You pass on her business because it's missing same sophistication.
The Y (pun on why) is worth solving for.
Back to all together - the artisans, the hustlers, including Hipsy Betsy. These 94% need empathy-designed solution, delivered in a way that respects how they actually think, talk and work, not the other way round. That's a design-thinking problem, and I happen to be a designer who learnt the system hardcore.
Previously: Everyone Said Niche Down. I Went Wide.