You should try to solve local problems first. A popular solution in foreign countries may not have good crossover appeal in Nigeria.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Nigeria has several problems looking for solutions. Examples include helping people travel around more securely, finding affordable healthcare, enabling MSMEs to find more customers.

Thank you, You made a nice suggestion, "helping people finding affordable healthcare"

That is a service many would want in the US as well though.

Office 365?

This is a deeply patronising and offensive statement. The ancient Benin kingdom from which these artifacts were stolen still remains till today and despite corruption in the country, they have managed to keep all their remaining artifacts safe through the centuries.

Nigeria’s corruption problem is orthogonal to its ability to keep its sacred cultural artifacts safe. In fact due to deep cultural and religious reasons, the chances that Nigerians would rob the Oba (King) of Benin’s palace is near zero.

I say this with the full authority of being a native of said country and culture.

It’s because where the money goes is where it circulates, which ultimately affects the GDP.

Every dollar that leaves India, Nigeria or any other developing country is one less dollar that can pay for jobs (plumbers, electricians, doctors etc) in the local market.

South Africa used to have very restrictive currency export controls partly due to apartheid-era sanctions, and one consequence is that it stimulated domestic production and innovation, perhaps far more than any other African country. They’ve now relaxed those controls but it is arguable that they were necessary at that stage of their economic development.

Real-time payment platforms that interconnect all the banks in the country are not new.

Heck, Nigeria rolled out a very advanced one about 7 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16374597

From the article: “NIBSS Instant Payment is so far, the most innovative and revolutionary e-payment solution designed by NIBSS to service the banking industry. NIP is the first and only point to point funds transfer service that guarantees instant value to the beneficiary. Nigeria is the only country in Africa and essentially, the world to have deployed such a solution.”

From first hand use, the platform delivers sub 30 second Interbank transfers, serves over 180 million people across Nigeria, complete with 2-factor security, and SMS notifications to both parties. The transaction cost is N100 (USD 0.33) and it has been operational since 2011.

It makes you wonder if the $15-$30 wire transfer fees in the US is a severe case of regulatory capture.

I wish I could upvote this twice. Distribution is the biggest problem in mobile.

I'll add that even after acquiring a user, engagement, apathy, and not being a 24-hour uninstall statistic are close seconds.

I'm working on a solution that's currently in private beta but it should be in public beta in a few weeks.

It is no different than anywhere else, there are tons of web sites and packaged software to chose from.

The only thing is that the gold rush of the app stores is gone.

I disagree. Yes the web is also competitive but it's 100x easier for a simple reason:

The next site ia just ONE single click away. The next app is few clicks and a download away, even without any sign-up, an app install is a gigantic conversion breaker. This is not comparable with websites at all. Anyone who does new apps in 2017 must have a good plan.

I don't agree, just because it is a click away don't mean the user stays long enough, does anything meaningful or even returns.

We primarely discussed the user acquisition costs in this thread and I pointed out a huge conversion breaker in the acquisition funnel of mobile which just let the costs skyrocket. If users stick or not after being acquired is as important but another discussion (rentention & churn).

If they click on link and close the window without doing anything relevant, they weren't acquired.

But the funnel till this point you mention is MUCH cheaper on the web than on mobile (where people also install and deinstall right away or never use that app). And this 'being cheaper' is the whole discussion around.

Well it is a matter how much marketing money you have spent to make them click on the link in first place.

Well chosen name.

Two questions:

1. How does this square up with the efforts within the Serverless community? https://github.com/serverless/serverless

2. Does OpenFaas assume that the smallest unit of work for each function or domain of functions is always a unique container? In other words, does it support scenarios where one needs to deploy a new function into an existing/running container?

The Serverless Inc project helps you deploy to closed-source cloud vendor function products using YAML. OpenFaaS is an open-source Serverless framework to do largely the same thing, but you can use cloud servers or your own on-prem equipment. Checkout the intro for more comparisons to other projects https://blog.alexellis.io/introducing-functions-as-a-service...

My team and I are working on solving the 3 biggest problems in mobile app management - distribution, monetization, and enterprise mobility.

Our idea is to build a platform for discovering, managing, and monetizing apps. Kinda like a Spotify for Apps.

So essentially, we've built a mobile app that lets you run embeddable apps (applets) in containers (i.e. webviews with native hooks), and developers can hook the applets up to a mobile backend-as-a-service similar to Firebase.

Businesses can also use it to manage and setup shared workspaces that contain private, work-related apps, and get all the benefits of enterprise mobility (BYOD, security, etc) without all the complexity.

We've just finished a successful private beta and are gearing up for a limited public beta. Check it out - https://formelo.com

If anyone is interested in participating in our beta run, shoot me an email - niyi @ formelo . com