Oladipupo Fredrick is a Senior software engineer and founder of BabySteps App. He works at the intersection of engineering, product strategy, and early-stage execution.
Building impactful products as a solo engineer in Africa comes with unique challenges: limited resources, diverse user needs, infrastructure gaps, and varying levels of internet and smartphone access. While some of these challenges exist globally, they are often amplified locally.
When I embarked on creating BabySteps App, a parenting support for children aged 0–3, I quickly realised that success required more than coding. Anyone who has built a commercially successful product will agree: development is often the easier part. Successful products demand careful prioritisation, strategic architecture, trade-offs, and thoughtful market engagement. Here, I share lessons for African techpreneurs building meaningful products for Africa and beyond.
A common trap for engineers is building imaginary products, validated only in our heads. We design, critique, and convince ourselves the idea is in demand, often relying on colleagues or friends for feedback. I’ve made this mistake twice; both products failed before launch.
Most successful products solve problems that real people actually have. Rare exceptions exist, but the vast majority benefit from early customer validation. Feedback from friends and family often produces false positives; they want to support, not critique. The most valuable insights come from potential customers, which is why defining an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is essential. An ICP helps you focus on who should validate your idea, what to build, what to deprioritise, and where to find users. For BabySteps, the ICP was clear: mothers aged 25–40 in Lagos or Abuja with babies aged 0–2, seeking simple guidance without being overwhelmed.
Once ICP is defined, you can validate with conversations, surveys, questionnaires, or ads. For BabySteps, surveys and questionnaires were not effective. Direct conversations were insightful but time-consuming. The most valuable data came from targeted ads offering a free PDF on child milestones in exchange for email and answers – classic lead magnets.
Startups by default are risky, and for solo founders, resources are finite. Staying lean early is critical: build only what addresses the core problem until you validate product-market fit. Overbuilding makes pivots costly, both in engineering and emotional investment.
Every BabySteps architecture decision was influenced by scalability needs and constraints. VPS hosting offered control and predictable costs; a fully managed database ensured security without complexity. A single microservice allowed rapid iteration and maintenance. Engineering choices prioritised reliability over real-time perfection: milestone notifications were batched to accommodate low-bandwidth users, and time zones were carefully managed to deliver accurate insights. Expansion to the UK and USA introduced latency and compliance challenges, requiring updated privacy policies. Security and abuse prevention were handled largely by SaaS solutions like Cloudflare, freeing me to focus on application-level concerns.
These experiences reinforced that engineering decisions are rarely purely technical; they are shaped by constraints, trade-offs, and user needs. Solo developers benefit immensely by leveraging mature SaaS and managed services.
As engineers, we love to build, but endless feature additions can delay launch. A live product with one feature serving ten real users is more valuable than a feature-packed app still on localhost. BabySteps App launched with milestone tracking, basic meal recommendations, and a handful of articles. Growth should be incremental; avoid the perfect-app trap.
Launching successfully requires addressing distribution and visibility. Distribution is easier than ever via app stores or the web, but visibility remains the hard part. For BabySteps, I started building a presence on social media months before launch, wrote early blog posts, and reached out directly to potential users. Paid ads, particularly on TikTok, helped test messages, keywords, and traffic quality. Even a small budget can reveal what your customers actually want. Early metrics should focus on downloads, sign-ups, subscriptions, retention, and product-page performance; heavier analytics using tools like Astro or Amplitude can come later.
African engineers have a unique opportunity to make an outsized impact. By combining technical skill with product sense and disciplined execution, you can launch products that touch thousands or even millions of users.
