From prototype to market: Making what customers will love

Ivan Karugaba displays an improved design of a Microfuse stick at the National ICT Innovation Hub in Nakawa. 
Karugaba, a Ugandan innovator of a computer stick has big dreams of being the next ‘Bill Gates or Steve Jobs’ in the world of tech.
He represents the tenacity and resilience of what it takes to innovate.
Karugaba has spent the last seven years developing  the computer stick, or call it the microfuse stick – its trade mark name- designed with normal computing programmes.
The portable computer stick is a simple plugin that can turn a screen monitor or TV into a smart screen for computing or entertainment purposes.

Once it hits the market, it is set to replace the current computer systems unit.
Last month, Karugaba ‘punched the air’ in celebration after being selected as a beneficiary of a US- based technology mentorship programme.
Karugaba received the good news about the mentorship programme through an email, in which he told his wife, “It is a life changing opportunity, and a turning point in my career.”
The soft spoken innovator had plans of travelling to the United States of America this year to seek partnerships from high tech companies.

But for now, the travel plans have changed. He will instead spend the next eight months for mentorship under Qualcomm, an American high tech company.
The tech company provides resources, exposure and support to African startups to access the company’s state-of-the-art capabilities suite for mobile platforms and technologies, including 4G, 5G, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and machine learning.
Karugaba’s story is seven years of hard work and grit for what it takes to build an innovation from scratch to a minimum viable product that is ready for the market.

From ideation to viable product
His initial research process and product development for the microfuse stick started way back in early 2016 as a research project at Makerere University.

In the same year as the idea crystallised, Karugaba left for Shenzen city, the ‘Silicon Valley’ of China to make the first device prototype and also worked as a product developer at Shenzhen Ebyton Technologies.
 It is in China that he built viable contacts and knowledge. On his return, Karugaba brought on board a team of other engineers who utilised the Uganda Industrial Research Institute (UIRI) premises to continue developing the product prototype.
The prototype was then put to test with in-house product testing of five samples and use-case demos to focus groups such as students, lecturers and homesteads.

At the end of 2020, the team had made a breakthrough and decided to hit the market with a minimum viable product launch consisting of  a batch of 100 units that was meant to do market tests and the first pilot. 
For now, Karugaba has made a number of changes to the original design such as increasing the storage capacity from 32GB to 160GB to suit market needs.
Final plans are being inked to build local manufacturing capacity such as localisation of product components such as packaging casings and actual production.
“We intend to be Africa’s largest manufacturer of consumer electronics,” Karugaba boasts.

Building a successful product
For one to build a successful product, it begins with inventing or innovating something new. You start with an idea and do research.
What triggers an innovative idea could be the discomfort, and the environment one perhaps plays in, or it could be an incentive.
As you develop your idea into something tangible- whether that means building your business, or designing and creating a product to manufacture or sell; there is someone else who might be doing the same thing.
Patrick Mugisha, an innovation expert and founder of Innovent Labs Africa, says one of the crucial questions every founder faces is the degree of their idea or solution in comparison to the problem which they are trying to solve.

There are many schools of thought behind this phenomenon with an analogy of technology push versus market pull.
Mugisha borrows from Paul Scott, a UK based tech expert, in his article on prototypes, in which he says, “innovators can use the market pull approach to provide products the market demands.”
Meanwhile, the technology push approach attempts to interest the market in new products based on new solutions.
Mugisha explains that quite often, for any industry, the greatest challenge is to develop products customers want and will purchase.
There exists a fine balance between providing just what the customer is known to want, and what the producer believes is a far superior solution set.
However, for one to develop an idea into a successful product, one needs to use human-centered design philosophy.

Human-centered design, popularised by IDEO.org, is a mindset that overlays design thinking to ensure that the products are actually relevant and beneficial in the long run — for the people they are intended to serve.
This provides a mindset and tools to ensure these products actually improve the lives of the end-users or beneficiaries.
 To make this more clear, any business can use design thinking to build a solution that is capable of making money.
For example, a company may use design thinking to create a video game or TV show for children. Applying human-centered design on top of this will ensure that the show actually serves the needs of the people watching it.
Once this is identified, the innovator moves to the stage of prototyping.

Arthur Mukembo, the Future Labs Lead at Innovation Village, says prototypes are meant to determine whether concept solutions work. This can be tested in the market, as an innovator moves on to build a minimum viable product (MVP).
“Having gotten market feedback, you need to build your minimum viable product which helps in validating the market demand,” Mukembo says.

Standards
As an innovator prepares for full commercialisation of their product, the desire to understand the necessary acceptable industry standards cannot be overstated.  
Mugisha explains that with the current ecosystem, it is important for early innovators to make sense of the standards such as product certification and system certification, which may include good manufacturing practices.

In this case, he refers to Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) as a governing body which provides the best defined practices in many different areas.
A standard is a document that contains rules, guidelines or characteristics of product.  
In Uganda, UNBS develops standards that provide requirements for materials, manufacturing, testing, packaging and labelling to ensure that products, processes and services are fit for their purpose.

Standards are developed at different levels ranging from individual, to national and international levels.
According to literature on the UNBS website, it stipulates that the parties may agree on the standard based on consensus which is built on science, technology, and best practices including regulatory and society needs.
UNBS operates a Product Certification Scheme in accordance with the provisions of the Certification Regulations of 1995.
Under this scheme, manufacturers apply for and are granted permits to use the Uganda Standards Certification Mark (The Quality Mark known as ‘Q mark’) on their products after demonstrating compliance. 

IP protection
Mugisha says the bottom line is that innovations require intellectual property rights protection.
Intellectual property rights vary in fees and application.
A registered trade mark is a way of protecting your brand identity, while the embedded technology in a product can be protected using a patent.
 The appearance of the innovation is also protected using the design, and the software in the product protected using copyright.

Abraham Ageet, a senior patent officer at Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB), provides an example that if one chooses to go for a patent, there is a staggered approach on paying the fees.
 For a Ugandan national, application fees is Shs100,000, followed by examination fees of Shs150,000. Once an innovation qualifies for patent protection, a grant certificate is awarded at Shs90,000.

Getting support
Innovation requires a high thought process, funding and necessary technology tools which might not be at the disposal for a young innovator.
There are a number of innovation centres that are providing a lifeline for innovators to turn their bright ideas into marketable products.
Such initiatives include; the National ICT Innovation Hub based in Nakawa that provides ICT innovators facing challenges of workspace and internet connectivity.

The Uganda Industrial Research Institute (UIRI) is another good setup for industrial innovators.
UIRI assists in providing business incubation to innovative, early stage entrepreneurs with mentoring and support in strategy and practice of growing a sustainable business.
Other Kampala based private innovation hubs include; The Innovation Village, Hive Colab, Outbox and a number of incubation hubs being run by banks.  

These provide mentorships for startups to grow and scale from promising ideas into fully established sustainable businesses.