When Your App Goes Down, People's Lives Go on Pause | Lessons from Uganda

In 2018 I worked at one of Uganda's biggest ride-hailing companies, first onboarding riders at the academy and later working in software quality assurance. With people talking about building the next ride-hailing app, I wanted to share what I saw from the inside. The app is one part of it. There is also training, support, testing, downtime, fraud and the everyday reality of the people using your product. These are lessons from my experience, for anyone building something people will depend on. CHAPTERS 00:00 The work behind the app 00:35 Lessons from my 2018 experience 01:24 The app is only the surface 05:51 Understand your actual users 08:31 Onboarding is a whole operation 12:17 Quality before release 12:59 The technology behind the product 17:12 Downtime has a human cost 20:41 Fraud and safeguards 22:46 Understand the operating environment 24:30 Before you build: the checklist 25:17 Build with your eyes open PUBLIC SOURCES SHOWN Daily Monitor, Uber exit and Uganda's ride-hailing market: https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news... My original post: https://x.com/allanktumu/status/20954... Uber Engineering, testing: https://www.uber.com/us/en/blog/shift... Uber Engineering, fraud and risk: https://www.uber.com/us/en/blog/risk-... The public Uber engineering examples are separate from my experience at the unnamed company in 2018. I'm Allan Tumuhimbise. I build products including ProGigFinder, SenteMe, SkyLume TV and Today's Big Deal, and share what I learn along the way. X: https://x.com/allanktumu Today's Big Deal: https://todaysbigdeal.com #Uganda #TechInAfrica #RideHailing