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From the foundations of classical product management to the thrilling journey of launching a startup, our discussions are all about the product. Creating the right product that genuinely solves real problems is an exhilarating challenge - sometimes tough and often demanding, but always worth it.
We explore the three essential ingredients for building a successful product: vibrant team culture, robust strategy, and, most importantly, exceptional execution skills. Our mission is to inspire and equip you with the insights and tools to transform your product journey from "product pain to gain."
Join us as we uncover the strategies, stories, and secrets that turn challenges into triumphs, guiding you through the fascinating process of building products that matter.
Tune in and be part of our journey!
Welcome everyone to another episode of Product Pain to Gain . I'm really excited today that I have, Gloria with me here in this episode. Gloria is quite experienced
Felix:with building a startup, and she built her own idea with COMESO, and we will learn in a second what exactly the idea behind COMESO is. Is also very involved in AiDiA, which is, Afro German community, which is really cool to to help people build their own companies. Yeah.
Felix:So today we are talking a bit about COMESO, about the journey, also from a product perspective, but also kind of about building a start up and building such an idea, which is also quite an interesting one. So let's dive in directly. Gloria, so happy that you are in this episode today.
Gloria:Hi, Felix. Thank you so much for this opportunity. And, yes, I'm also happy to be here.
Felix:Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, COMESO, let's let's start first with a high level intro to understand what is COMESO doing?
Felix:What is the idea behind COMESO?
Gloria:Okay. So, I think I would start like to start it from a different perspective because mostly people don't even know what COMESO actually means. And, COMESO's actually, we came up with a unique name that I wanted to establish into a brand. So Commiza's just a mixture of, commitment. So we took the c and the o to the, to our medical, then we took the m and the e, and then we took solution and we took the s and the, oh, so it's Komazo commitment to a medical solution.
Gloria:And, yeah, that's what our aim is. And also how the whole brand identity of Komiso is built around. The Komiso logo itself is also very unique. I think we're assigned, which also, refers to commitment, as historical sign from my heritage. And yes.
Gloria:So how I came up with the ideas that I grew up in I I was born in Ghana, and then under 3 years, my parents decided to move from Ghana to Germany, and we left our relatives behind. And, unfortunately, one of my beloved aunties stayed seriously ill, and my mother had to support her with health care financing. And, unfortunately, we couldn't ensure that the money that we spend was spent on its actual purpose. And I also noticed that a lot of diaspora in community, like, people that live abroad and support the health care financing of their relatives back home suffer with similar challenges. And, well, however, my auntie, unfortunately, passed away, and, it really got into my mind.
Gloria:And I noticed, like, so many in my community are facing similar challenges with securing and supporting. And I was like, this could be so easy to establish, so easy to solve. And that's how I came up with COMESO. So the vision of COMESO is to, have every health care facility, abroad, branded, with a COMESO logo. Just ask how you see Visa or Mastercard, and you know that's where you can pay.
Gloria:And, wherever you said or whoever you send a health care voucher to, they can redeem it at any of our health care serve services. So we have a platform of health care providers locally that accept our payment method that we are currently rolling out. And, yeah, setting up our life this very soon. So that's the vision to have, like, a platform of, purpose driven health care payments to in to redefine remittances and ensure cross border payments for people that are living far.
Felix:Awesome. I mean, I love the idea and, and, you know, I I told you, a couple of times already that I think it's such a wonderful idea, such a powerful and life changing idea. Right? You have a lot of different startups, I mean, kind of industrial solutions or cybersecurity. And all of those, they help businesses to do something.
Felix:I think there's something powerful and something, I would say, yeah, empowering also in solutions that help people with a very specific need. So that's quite cool to start with such a vision. But again, like, the vision is simple to explain, I would say. It's kind of on a high level. Getting it done in the end probably isn't all that easy.
Felix:So let's start from the beginning. How did you start how did you come up with the idea of now seeing that problem and doing something about it? How did that get started?
Gloria:So I think what actually encouraged me was my university environment. So I was I I study at a universe at, I study at an entrepreneurial university, so they support, you entrepreneurship and everything that came comes along with it. So we had, incubator training, just, let's say, a 1 week workshop, where you can just drop your idea and then you find some cofounders virtually back then as well. And, and I was very eager to win because at at the end of these 5 days, you were able to win, like, a grand prize of €500. And I was like, I'm definitely going to attend, make sure that I win because I'm not wasting my 5 days to not be on the 1st place.
Gloria:And, that's how it actually started. So back then, my cofounder, she's no more my co founder, more unfortunately, but, back then my co founder was very, eager, to, to start this journey. And, somehow we got, to another pitch competition where we also had opportunity to win, a grand prize. And that's where we also came along our first angel, support. So we received an angel grant, from an established bank and a very established entrepreneur back then.
Gloria:His name is Jacob Fati. He's also the, founder of FitX, a very big fitness chain. So that's how it started. We received grants and, that we noticed that we have a network. So he introduced us to one of our first, healthcare providers in Ghana, back then.
Gloria:So, it was an awesome pharmacy chain. So which also gave us, like, an idea on how we can design the go to market strategy to work with partnerships. And, yeah, and that's how it started. Then we got another grant, another, scholarship, another network, another support. You'd be just traveling all around to build, like, a network, to understand the ecosystem first and, and understand the regulations as as well.
Gloria:And and that's how we navigated, and that's how how we actually started. Yes.
Felix:Okay. Quite interesting. So so going to those competitions, I think it's a it's a wonderful topic. Right? So usually what they say is you need to prove the idea, and in product management, you do that quite often.
Felix:As a startup founder, you have to do it as well. And that gives you immediate feedback. Right? Seeing that the idea is interested there's interest in the idea and there's people, liking it, is also very motivating, I think. But then again, like, there's 2 people.
Felix:You have a cofounder. You get some money. But, of course, you can't, like, do everything yourself. What skills did you need to get into your team that you personally didn't have or that you needed, external help for?
Gloria:That's actually a very good question because at the beginning of a start up, you actually don't know what you need. You probably need everything. But mostly start ups say they need money, but in our case, we noticed that we need, like, more computer science skills. So though my university, all my studies have marketing, computer science, and management, we still needed, a a full stack developer to develop our app. And, we were also very very big in our thinking and very complicated in our thinking and instead of focusing on the problem.
Gloria:So we knew that the solution was this is what we need, but to test what the solution actually is, to eventually understand that the solution is not an app. So at the beginning, we were like, we need to build an app. We need to build an app. However, we were also very distracted because everyone around us was like, yeah, you have to launch within a year. The scholarship ends with after a year and this and that.
Gloria:But the high regulated market that we, want to explore does not allow us to go live within a year. So we ended up in our workshop, and then we noticed that what we are building is not what's or what we think that we are building is not what actually our customers need. What we are what we actually need is a solution of the problem. And to test the solution, we just need to develop a a system which is selling vouchers. So we needed to sell vouchers and, so we broke down the whole idea into a very, very minimal viable, scrappy product.
Gloria:And, with the little money that we had, we were able to just reach out to someone on Fiverr, design a very, very crappy solution. And we're like, okay, this is what we want to go to Ghana with. So our entrance market right now is Ghana. And, we the health care providers that we already built relationships with, we were able to reach out to them and and and ask them to even test our dashboard. So what we did is we set up a GoFundMe account within our community, asked people if they wanted to donate.
Gloria:Then we converted the, the donations into health vouchers in Ghana locally with the health care providers that we're working with, tested the use acceptance between the potential beneficiary and the, health care providers there. And, ask people if they wanted to test the the technology, if their onboarding was seamless, if they have any questions. So, we gave out free health vouchers basically for individuals that were not able to pay for their, medication. But at the same time, we were able to test if people would even understand using our technology. And we even found out things that we shouldn't even build or implement in our, let's say, authentication process.
Gloria:For example, no one in not email is not very established in Ghana as how it is in Germany. So we took out, email registration and replace it to a mobile number registrations. So this is how we were able to, to conquer all the challenges that we had, like, especially with IT, which is, like, one of the biggest challenge that, startups mostly especially tech startups mostly encounter. They'll come up with a great IT solution, but, then they have the problem that they don't have anyone to build it with. So we had to break it down to the core problem that we wanted to solve, the core problem that was needed to solve to validate the business.
Gloria:And then we found it with a minimal, resources that we found on the Internet with Fiverr or some developers that build it a bit very scrappy so that we can test it.
Felix:Very interesting. I think it kind of the first thing you you you feel when you have such a big idea is how to break it down. Right? How to make it how to break it down with the tangible, and also kind of not not only pieces that are tangible, but that are also executable with the money you have, with the resources. You have quite an quite an interesting journey.
Felix:I I totally, liked also the fact that you basically started with solving the problem in an almost not automated fashion. Right? So having solving the problem maybe if it if it's not an app yet, but it you can try it out. And finding these ways to solve the actual problem without the solution being there yet to then see how the totally interesting approach to it. I I really, enjoy that.
Felix:So you talked a little bit about the financial services and the highly regulated markets versus you being requested to go live in a year. Was that your biggest challenge? What what challenges did you face on that journey?
Gloria:I think that was the biggest challenge because, I found myself around this incubator as under pressure because everyone was like, yeah, you have to go live. You have to everyone is like waiting for us to go live, but we are not even building it for these people. We are building it for our community. And though, those people are already waiting for a solution or they do, they know that they need a solution, but the, the market is not created yet. We are the one where who decides to create a market.
Gloria:We are the one who decides to launch our solution. We need to be fast, but, like, even looking back, everyone or every competitor that decided to take wanted to take over on the race got already shut down by the regulators. So, the biggest challenge is so far, yes, the, the regulations that we, experienced. So, not because they are against us, but because we are working together with them. So we have regular calls with the authorities.
Gloria:We introduce them to the business model. We go through with our lawyers with the, with even, long term, solutions with the authorities. So we just want to make sure that everything that we are doing is regulated, is compliant, and we we don't want to get shut down. Because once you got shut down, it's even harder to get whitelisted. So, we we want to make sure that everything that we build is compliant and stable.
Gloria:So, as it is, the foundation always takes longer than the bricks after. So, yeah, that's one of the challenges that we, experienced. And, within the journey, we noticed that, other, other startups are also facing these challenges, but rather than solving the challenge of going through the challenge, they'd rather give up. So, one of our biggest challenge is just the resilient. I think it also comes with the German paperwork that we are used to, and, we are very grateful for this skill that we have as well.
Felix:I think it's, it's quite interesting. Yeah? Solution sounds simple. The value is immediately there. But then, again, as you are in a in a fintech space, as a as you are handling financial, information, and the whole 9 yards of what banks have to comply with with also apply to a Fintech startup, which is quite unfortunate, but, also gives you some competitive, advantage if you if you go through that.
Felix:I think I heard that through.
Gloria:And especially I would like to add as well is we are not only navigating the and that's what people also don't understand, or like people from outside don't understand is that we're not only navigating the, let's say Ghanaian or the African side, since we are having a market that sends to one, market to another market, it's like we are having both regulators on our side. So we have the European context, We have to, and we have to apply the European context to the African context than to the Ghanaian context, because if you want, you have to measure, you have to make the measurements good enough and fast enough and calculations good enough and fast enough to understand, okay, this is how I did it in Ghana. If we want to scale it to Nigeria or we want to scale it to let's say Uganda, we have to do it this way and that way. So there's so many things that you have to and I I actually recommend learning it at the beginning first to understand actually recommend learning it at the beginning first, understand at the beginning how much resource do you need so that when you're ready to scale up into this market, you don't have to actually find out and waste money and time to find out.
Gloria:So I rather prefer to take your time at the beginning, set the foundation, set the planning, and then later you can be fast and strong as well.
Felix:Mhmm. Absolutely. Very interesting. So so where's Komezo now? What is your kind of current current stands, and what is the next kind of upcoming things that that will happen?
Gloria:So, 2 weeks ago, we won, our last competition. We we participated at the startup academy in Frankfurt. We, incorporated our entity in Frankfurt. So we are Frankfurt, a startup now and, also Ghanaian Incorporation. So since we are a financial institution, we do have to, incorporate at every in every country that, we do financial services.
Gloria:And we are just getting ready to go for our next test round, launching our next, testing beta version of COMESO. So we established all the payment provider partnership. We established all the health care provider staff partnerships. We are now, going and preparing for our onboarding journey and, looking for test users as well to test the technology, to test, the whole process, and to also give us feedback on on the pricing. So, it's one of the most challenging that we also encountered is the, financial planning.
Gloria:So we do not have experience, of course, in how to, make a financial planning or projection of how much how many transactions do we expect, how many transact how is the transaction history going to be? It's quite difficult because, we are also working with different currencies. So, maybe shout out on this place if anyone is out there that, thinks that our idea is very, insightful and, and powerful. We would love to exchange your experience, on how you solved it. But this is something that we are currently, struggling.
Gloria:However, we're also preparing, to, reach out to investors as soon as we validated the business model because we see a huge scaling potential, especially because of the, the markets that needs the solution. And, yeah, that's so that's where we are right now. It's quite exciting. It's, sometimes I don't know what will happen next. That's mostly how you feel as a startup founder.
Gloria:You wake up and you'd be like, what surprises things happening today? But so far, we don't have any funds stocked yet. We don't have any, transactions being stocked yet. So, I'm still in a good place. It can be worse looking at my other Fintech friends that are waking up every morning.
Gloria:And, but yeah. So so this is what's going on. It's quite exciting preparing for outgoing life and, being ready to scale as fast as possible.
Felix:Absolutely amazing. Very, very insightful also to to understand and learn about those challenges with the with the multinational situation. Right? Normal normally, in a start up, if you go, like, a beachhead segment market focus, for example, you you start in a specific geography, and then you move to the next one where you all already, from the beginning, have to handle 2 different geographies with completely different systems and then also deep rooted in their regulatory environments and banking financial services industry, which is quite amazing. Any suggestions for building a product or building a solution in in financial services?
Felix:What did you what would you do different next time when when kind of setting up these environments or setting up a a solution for that?
Gloria:Okay. So building a product and building a solution from from my perspective, coming from a high regulated market, there are 2 different things. So you can build a solution, which is going to be, accepted by, by the regulators. And then you're on, on the market, but you can have a product, which is not the, a validated regular regulated solution. So you can have a product, but it can't be live.
Gloria:Why it get it was shut down. But you have a solution that everyone can work with and everyone says it's it's acceptable to work with.
Felix:Let let me just jump in, like, a little bit understanding better. Product meaning, in that case, you have an app, and I let people in country a download that app and country b download that app, and I can make it act as if it transfers money or I can find ways to transfer money. But solution means what does solution mean? Maybe I'm asking that question. What is what is the difference, there?
Felix:What is what is a solution from a from a regulator perspective?
Gloria:So the solution is, for example, you have like us, we we have a problem, and this could be a solution if you if you design, is a solution like a a journey that, everyone would be able to adapt to it, and it will actually solve the problem. So our aim is to solve, health care financing, and not only for the sender because, they have they're relieved to have a purpose driven solution, which is transparent. It's also from the health care providers because they basically have challenges accepting health care financing. Of course you can directly send it to the healthcare, provider itself, but we notice on this is what the feedback that we receive that, many of the funds that being sent from the, diaspora is being is either stocked in, in the process. So the remittance solutions that is being sent, is being used is not stable.
Gloria:And then the, the money can't be, directed to the beneficiary. So mostly the beneficiary will be sitting in the waiting room until the health care provider confirms that the money arrived. So depending on how ill the, the beneficiary is, they can't access healthcare until they pay. So this is the solution that we are providing. Without, with our solution, the beneficiary does not have to wait until a confirmation before they can receive the treatment.
Gloria:And the health care fund provider does not have to find which payment goes direct goes to which beneficiary. They just have to redeem it, and they don't have to allocate where the funds is coming from. When is it coming? Is it stuck? So we are focusing on this solution.
Gloria:Yeah.
Felix:Alright. Then one more question, which is also kind of interesting, and you're talking about a beneficiary. I mean, in essence, you have maybe maybe you tell me I'm wrong, but you have 3 different customers, right, or 3 different profiles. You have the people sending money, if I understand correctly. You have the people receiving the money or receiving the not receiving the money, receiving the health care.
Felix:And then you have the health care providers in essence. Right? How do we is that increasing complexity? What is the is the the challenge there?
Gloria:It's not really increasing complexity. It's more a b to b to c model. So, it it it makes us flexible, honestly. So however, who you are talking to, you focus more on the c, purpose or the the benefit of the c, or you focus more on the b to b relationship. So on a b to b relationship, it's easy to scale because definitely every health care provider wants to benefit from additional revenue through, remittances from the diaspora.
Gloria:So when we come from this perspective and also they have to pay a commission fee to accept this, or to even to use this, payment method for their patients. So, it's not from this perspective, it's not, complex at all. However, we experienced the complexity when we were when we didn't know how to sell and give the storytelling for our innovation. So we went more focused on the c level. So yeah.
Gloria:Why would you want to send money to your relative? Why would you want to, be in control of the funds? You know? So if you come from this perspective, you'd be very, this innovation really does not make sense or does it even make sense? But, when you come from the B Com, perspective and you combine the whole B2B2C business model, then you understand that there's huge potential in it.
Gloria:It's it's I don't know how I know others' innovations also had their challenges, especially when it's something that they never knew or it's, not in their problem field, you know? So, I'm I'm I know that and I definitely I have to because, it's like our innovation and we believe strongly in the solution and the potential in it. It's going to be a big, big journey, and you we definitely need to be very resilient. It's I somehow think that's gonna be like Spotify, like how they started. I don't know if you know their journey.
Gloria:So, let's say in my startup found a bubble in my mind, the the ambition is huge. I remember the first time I pitched Combezo back then, they were, like, ambitious. But the the journey that we came along and the the partnerships that we established so far are committed. So it it it's a long journey, but if it's it was if it wasn't, if it wasn't a solution, then people wouldn't partner with us. Things wouldn't be enabling for us.
Gloria:So therefore, I'm very, very confident in in our journey.
Felix:Yeah. Absolutely. I think that's that's usually with the big ideas. And and oftentimes, you only see the launch day or the release of of such a solution, and you do not see the the journey that leads to war. And I mean, you have you have that with, like, Spotify is a simple example.
Felix:But if you look at, for example, Uber, the pitch for Uber is a one minute thing. You can easily explain what Uber does, the challenges they had, and then the also I mean, there's a ton of books and research about it already. But, like, changing their direction or adjusting their go to market to make it more specific or target a certain group, I think that is such a such a powerful lesson also. And I think it's it's it's great to see, and and and learn from you also how how things got started. Maybe as a last thought for today, what would you suggest to someone having such a huge idea, in their minds and maybe being a bit overwhelmed by it's too big.
Gloria:Okay. So with having this big idea, first things first, your network is your net worth. So make sure you already build the relationships. I'm now sitting here talking about Uganda and, Nigeria. We already have our foot in this country.
Gloria:So we already have connections. We already know how we can establish this big idea. So this is first thing that I have to be very confident with. And I definitely also have to recommend at the beginning of every startup journey, everyone is like, oh, you're at this event, you're going to this event. You're only at events.
Gloria:You are building your network. You need to be at these events at the beginning of your journey to understand who to reach out to, who are the ecosystem players, who are the big players, you know, make yourself out there. So people know about your idea and people will make network for you when you don't have time for networking anymore. So right now I'm not more as out there at every event as how I used to be before. But people are and people know.
Gloria:So they reach out to me, I have a new connection. So their network is definitely very, very important. And I also encourage to, to just, just start. So, I remember when I started, everyone was like, oh, how is this going to work? And this and that and blah, blah.
Gloria:And this one also gives like a quite, intro to IDEA. I remember when we started with IDEA and no one actually believed in it. And however, now it became the biggest, business and culture, platform in Germany. We are now establishing, in Europe. We have partnerships with very successful and established companies like Google, PayPal, LinkedIn.
Gloria:So, just start, make yourself, in circles around people that encourage each other, that, understand the vision, that are that are resilient and that have drive because that's how you can actually grow. Don't turn yourself around, back, from people that think negatively, that think small of you. Just be brave. I think that's very, very important that who the people that you surround yourself with because then you don't have to think of things that are not possible. Like I get so much triggered when you tell me oh this is not possible.
Gloria:I get like goosebumps because for me everything is possible. I find every solution no matter how difficult it is. Like I can break my mind 2 hours to find a solution. I will definitely find a minimal viable solution. So this is what I can share, with everyone.
Gloria:And, yeah, and also find mentors, people that, see the potential in you and just, like, give you some words of encouragement, to keep keep the pace. Yeah.
Felix:Absolutely. I think those are absolutely fantastic. Closing words. Thank you, Gloria. I think, that was was a very insightful session, also very motivating session.
Felix:Not only because you personally are very motivating, but, but also the idea and I think the, the aspiration behind it is is such a powerful one. Yeah. Looking forward to the next conversation, and wishing you all the best for COMESO and AiDiA and, yeah, the the next month years.
Gloria:Thank you, Felix. You as well. Much success, and looking forward to more insightful podcasts of yours.
Felix:Alright. See you soon. Bye.