The story so far...

I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to apply everything I've been learning over the past year at Buildcamp...this has been happening at the same time with me figuring out what it is that I uniquely do best—that aligns with who I really am, that gives me authenticity, allows me to use my specific knowledge, that gives me a competitive advantage, and that makes me irreplaceable! I haven't figured it all out yet but my intuition tells me I'm close - so I'll just start by sharing what I've been working on and see where this goes.

A twitter screenshot — I started learning how to code with AI in July 2025

The process

I've built a full-stack blog publishing platform that I'll use to share what I'm working on in Kuruman; I've noticed some really big opportunities that I don't yet see anyone here taking advantage of - large scale business problems in the informal sector that no one is solving. With my experience in tactical empathy with customers in the mass market segment, designing and building apps and inbound sales I believe I have something unique to offer.

A photo of a main street in Kuruman, Northern Cape province in South Africa — A typical day in Kuruman

I started working on some projects that show my outcomes focused design process - how I create digital technology solutions for small businesses and entrepreneurs. It's hands on and combines having face-to-face interviews with people to understand their specific problems, with long hours behind a laptop designing and building an easy-to-use solution that achieves business outcomes. Talking face to face with customers makes all of this digital work real and tangible for me, and gives me a lived experience of the massive impact that problem solving applied through design can have in Southern African communities. Africa is the world’s fastest-growing tech market and more people have access to the internet, smart phones, and apps which they use for every part of life: banking, insurance, shopping, transport, learning, business, etc.

Discovery

First problem we're solving is my own one as a small business owner. Let's strip down how I make money and design a solution to help me reach new clients over and over again.

Lean canvas for Hloho Nolo Personal Software Studio — A lean canvas showing Hloho Nolo's revenue model

❓What specific problem are we solving?

I have no way to reach new clients in other parts of the world. No repeatable way to keep getting clients.

👤For who are we solving this problem?

A small business owner that offers both digital and in person products and services.

Understanding the customer

Creating and sharing content on the internet is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to reach people - sharing my work; the process and results. I'm enjoying writing lately cause it's helping me get better at communicating my ideas and it teaches me to simplify complex concepts(UI design, app development, Business terminology) for non-technical audiences who care more about how it helps them than what it's called or how it works. I'm also reading more - so creating a blog feels like the most natural form of content for me. I'd like to create YouTube content as well - but it will only be to support articles from the blog.

We need to design a solution that addresses my needs:

I need to create and distribute content
I need to build an audience and have direct contact with them

The whole process of creating the content has to be simple and convenient, and preferably happen in one place without having to switch between many apps. I want to free up as much time for building products and talking to customers - anything else has to be easy and not take up too much time.

Understanding the business

Product Engineers can make money by doing for clients/showing clients how to do for themselves/collaborating with clients to do:

Customer interviews
Design products
Build products
Hire out products (SAAS subscriptions)

For now I'm only focused on doing for and with clients. To define business outcomes we need to figure out where the most opportunity for increasing revenue is. Since I'm starting out, I've narrowed it down to these two:

Get customers
Get a repeatable way to get leads

Design

What we design has to align customer value with business value; address my needs and achieve these business outcomes. It won't work if it just meets my needs but doesn't grow the business.

Customer value

Create and distribute content
Build an audience and have direct contact with them

Business value

Grow revenue (clients & subscribers)
Get leads

A South African Product Engineer — I used these tools to design and build the simplest working version of the solution so I can test it

Development

I built the simplest working version of the solution.

It's customized specifically for my convenience and how I work, a dashboard with these app features:

Creates and distributes content (Blog publishing platform)

- I enjoy writing, I want a super easy way to create and share blogs.
- I want to be able to choose who can read the blog: anyone in public or just people on my email list(Subscribers)
- I want to show whether the blog post is about discovery(understanding the business and customer), design(how the app looks and works) or development(building the app)
- I want to add images/photos and links to the blog post.
- I want to be able to highlight parts with colours.
- I want to see a preview of what the published blog will look like before I publish it.
- I want to see how long it'll take to read and how many words a blog post is

[Component Here]

[Titles Component Here]

[Writing Component Here]

Generates leads (Email list)

I'll use this email sign up form to collect emails by adding it to blog posts and free resources that I give away so I can generate leads.

[Email Component Here]

Other features

These other features add value to how I run my business by providing the convenience of doing everything from one place. I've added tools that are important to help me run smoothly and streamline repetitive tasks so I can spend more time designing and talking to customers.

Subscriptions: Shows me my software subscriptions: costs, renewal dates and reminders
Company documents: Organizes my company compliance documents and reminds me of renewals and submissions
Subcontractors: Organizes them and keeps their information, rates, contacts, etc.
Analytics: Shows me the number of website visitors, the most visited pages, and where in the world visitors are.

[Sidebar Component Here]

Full-stack Next.js App

A screenshot of a full-stack blog publishing platform — A screenshot of the blog publishing platform from inside

Hlohonolo.ai has a company marketing page and a full-stack blog publishing platform in one. The public have access to the marketing page and blog - and only I have access to the blog management and creation dashboard. The app is an internal tool designed and customized for how my company works. If you'd like to take a look at the blog management platform dashboard and how it works just pop me an email at mokhachane@hlohonolo.ai and I'll send you temporary logins.

The results

Money story

Money story visual — Exec-ready framing to communicate the financial impact of design work

Money stories help to share the business value of design work with decision makers and go-to-market executives in a language they understand.

I'm creating blog posts to share my process and results, and make my thinking visible to business owners looking to unlock new revenue streams by giving customers more value. I made a list of my ideal customers that I'm going to reach out to. The list is about 25 names long, and counting.

(Total prospects x Expected Conversion %) x Product/Service price = Acquisition revenue

Out of the 25 leads I expect that between 4-8% will convert.

(25 x 4-8%) x R80 000 = R80k - R160k (around $5k-$10k)

"Adding this blog publishing platform and email list feature will get me R64k - R128K in new customer revenue"

I'll share my progress so we can track if investing money in a personalized design solution for your business is really worth it!💪🏾

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