In our last post, we described the inventory management problem facing African businesses. Manual counting, outdated spreadsheets, invisible shrinkage, and no real-time visibility into stock levels.
Today, we are announcing that PrimeStock — our inventory management system — has entered the pre-development phase.
Why Pre-Development, Not Development
We learned something from building Novic Flights: do not build first and validate later. Build what the market tells you it needs, not what you assume it needs.
So before writing code, we are talking to business owners. Retail shop managers, pharmacy operators, restaurant owners, small wholesalers. We are asking them the same questions: how do you track stock today? What breaks? What would you pay for? What do you not care about?
What We Are Hearing
Three insights have emerged so far.
- Simplicity is not a nice-to-have. It is the requirement. Business owners do not want a feature-rich inventory platform. They want something their least technical staff member can use on their phone without training. If it takes more than two taps to log a sale, they will not use it.
- WhatsApp integration matters here too. Owners want stock alerts on WhatsApp, not in an app they have to remember to open. When a product drops below restock level, they want a WhatsApp message telling them to reorder.
- Existing inventory software is too expensive or too complex for this market. The solutions that work for a Walmart or a Shoprite do not work for a shop with 200 SKUs and three staff members.
What Comes Next
We are designing PrimeStock around these insights. One clear action per page. WhatsApp alerts for critical stock events. Pricing that makes sense for small and medium African businesses. We will share more as we move into active development.
