RUDIDO –Accelerating Africa’s Innovation Potential Through Entrepreneurial Education
Over the last decade, the number of people with ideas has increased, whether it’s an idea for a new business, product, or project.
People want to find out how they can go from having an idea, to gaining customers and expanding into new markets. People want to understand their ideas better & learn what they need to know at their own pace & convenience.
And that is exactly the reason why Rudimentary Alternative is creating an ideation learning tool to make this idea-building process quicker and easier while guiding you along as you go from point-A to point-B on your idea-building journey.
The demand for ideas has reached a point where almost every profitable & non-profitable organization launches a new program or competition calling out people with ideas to apply. While this seems like great news, unfortunately, Africa still has the lowest rate of innovation in the world.
And these are my thoughts on some of the challenges limiting Africa’s innovation potential.
Idea scouting
Each program or competition has its own unique set of requirements, including a limited number of slots available to the applicants, but this does not limit the thousands of applications that are received every year.
According to the Lagos Startup resource guide by the Lagos Founder Institute; they mention over 250 Accelerators, Incubators, Investors, etc, in just Lagos alone. Can you imagine the enormous number of ideas received and vetted by idea-scouts across Nigeria Annually? We’re talking about millions of ideas.
Idea scouting has become the new mass empowerment scheme; with the same familiar problems of the traditional employment system. Millions apply even though a limited number of slots are available.
Interconnectivity among Idea-scouts
Venture-builders, accelerators, Incubators, and organizations seeking people with ideas are not connected to gain in-depth insights about each idea’s lifecycle.
The gap in this collaboration makes it difficult for idea-scouts to fully access the idea-stages of each application received, in-turn making it almost impossible for applicants to cross-learn and evolve their learning experience through multiple idea-scouting organizations, which negatively impacts the applicant’s experience.
Types of idea-stages
What makes an idea real enough to be worth a shot? Is it passion, market-demand, a successful launch, revenue, expansion potential, or everything?
I’ve broken down the idea-stages into these five.
1. Still in my head
You probably woke up that morning with an idea in your head, you’ve given it some thought and with some guidance, you believe in it enough to see it through. Everything about this stage is brand new; it’s a new idea, a new product, or a new project. You are probably new to the whole starting an idea thing and not sure what to do next.
2. Kinda tested it
Now you’ve done some research about your idea, and have figured out your D-I-Y (Do It Yourself) method to test for product-market fit, gone through some incubation or mentoring if you’ve got an MVP; you’ve tested it with a small number of users and are still refining your idea as you get feedback. Everything about this stage is bootstrapped; you’re funding your idea out of your pocket leaving you with about three months of runway time to make this idea work.
3. Getting ready to launch
Ok, so somehow you’ve pulled it off; you’ve finished working on your MVP and maybe even registered your idea, and your next thought is ‘How to get your idea into the hands of paying customers?’. It all comes down to some expensive marketing tactics, or old-school word-of-mouth referrals; depending on how large your contact-list is and how great your product or service is to merit a referral.
You also need some partners, some exposure, and a really good business plan to secure funding for your Launch, if you plan to accelerate your Launch.
Things at this stage are not entirely brand new anymore; while it’s true that you could be launching a new business, product, or project idea at this stage, you could also be promoting your already existing business by offering a new product or service.
4. Money in the bank
For your idea to make enough money to become profitable and sustainable, it means that you have got a registered idea that has its corporate account, you’ve tested your idea on a wide scale by successfully launching your idea’s product or service to the public, and can congratulate yourself on having paying customers and reaching the success milestones that were set for your idea. At this stage, your idea has been validated by the sales and can take care of itself and grow at its own pace.
5. Ready to scale
Here you plan to repeat the stage 1–4 process all over again but this time, you have a brand name, a validated product, knowledge of the market from experience, audited account statements, a large customer base, and maybe even some investment connections or partners under your cap, so it’s a little easier this time since you have the historical and real-time data about your idea to validate your expansion goals.
Let’s think a little
Could there be a better way to scout for ideas?
Could there be a convenient way to access the historical & real-time data about an idea?
Can we tell what stage an idea is at from an application questionnaire alone?
Can there be a better way to promote innovation-learning techniques and methodologies to a wider audience?
Can there be a better way to build ideas?
These are some of the questions that came to mind while creating RUDIDO.
RUDIDO — Ideation Learning tool
To achieve the innovation growth we visualize at Rudimentary Alternative and promote idea-equality, visibility & transparency, we created an ideation learning tool that addresses the innovation challenges mentioned in this article.
We are creating the digital infrastructure that attracts people with ideas and idea scouts ( venture builders, incubators, accelerators, organizations & investors) to connect and ideate on one platform, offering a convenient idea-journey and better learning experience for people with ideas and idea scouts.
To find out more about the benefits RUDIDO App offers its users; how your organization can easily scout, onboard, and manage a larger pool of ideas, or how it helps people with ideas start, build and grow successful ideas, join our waitlist to get the inside scoop.
When ideas are being put into a box, it stifles innovation, limiting the visibility and ability of these ideas to impact society. Join Rudimentary Alternative as we unbox the gift of ideas with the launch of RUDIDO app in 2021.
