Building to Learn

While in school, you probably worked hard on a lot of projects, not because they'd make you money, but because you wanted to learn something new. Maybe you worked hard on a research paper, or a school project or practiced really hard for a play for your drama club. You probably put in a lot of effort, had a lot of fun doing it and money wasn't in the picture!

But what happens after school?

Suddenly, hard work with no pay doesn't make sense anymore. Because – you need to pay bills. Even beyond bills, more money is always nice. You can afford a holiday or buy nice things.

So we end up so fixated on acquiring money in the short-term we forget or deprioritize improving our skills or exploring what we might be curious about.

But I'm slowly coming to learn that this might be short-sighted. Investing in ones growth shouldn't be something done only at school or left to chance with your day-to-day work. We need to be more intentional about it.

All successful companies also know this. They spend millions on R&D efforts trying to figure out what to do next. They realise without this, they face the risk of becoming redundant.

Why wouldn't we do the same, invest serious time/money to learning and upskilling.

This is a privilege.

It's obviously not possible for everyone, I understand that. Sometimes, it's just not feasible. The time might not be there. We might have other pressing commitments we can't avoid. And it's not always free to learn. It's unfortunate, but it's true.

However, if you have the slightest capacity, I strongly believe it's worth it. Especially, while you're younger. It took me a long time to realise this. After getting into the job-market, my drive to learn profoundly new things dwindled. I was learning, but it all stayed in my comfort zone.

Now beyond work, I strongly believe in pursuing projects outside of work.

I decided to challenge myself

Towards the end of last year, I gave myself permission work hard on something that would potentially not have monetary gain. The idea is to learn how to develop an idea from scratch, build it out and get users. I want to learn the ins and outs of what it takes. Not just see people doing it on Youtube. Experience trumps theory.

What am I building?

An expense manager that automatically tracks all my transactions. I know, it sounds like yet another expense manager.But I don't think there's one serving Kenyans well enough.

There are expense managers, but most require manual input, or feel like they were quickly put together for a school project. They aren't full-fledged products. It's also something I think I and many others would benefit from. Think of it like a Kenyan Mint app, automatically tracking expenses allowing you to budget and improve your spending habits.

Will I make money from it?

That's not the main point. I'm building it because:

I want to make something that helps people manage their money better.
I want to see if I can create something people actually use.
I want to learn about all the things that go into making a successful product.
I think it will be cool to build a mobile app as a web developer.

I'm just a month into this, and I'm already learning a lot. It's interesting interacting with a mobile's native features, like SMS capturing (since I'll be tracking transactions based on transaction receipts). I'm also learning that designing for mobile is significantly different than designing for desktop. You can't just present the user with all the features, you have to be strategic about it, while still making sure they find them.

As I'm pursuing this project, this is the framework I'm using:

I'll time box it: So that it doesn't run forever.
I'll write down what I learn: It might be useful to me or others in future.
I'll share it with others: I'll post my work online and get real feedback from real users.
I'll try collaborate with others where possible: It's more fun this way.

I don't know what will come of this, but my hope is to build something that solves a real problem for people. And in the process, become the kind of builder who can do that again and again.

It's my belief that experience always trumps theory.