Week 3 Build in Public: What We've Learned Growing Design Yangu (April 7, 2026)
Week 3 of building Design Yangu in public — what's working, what's not, real user feedback, and what we're shipping next. Kenya's first M-Pesa print-on-demand platform, built transparently.
Three weeks in. We are officially past the 'is this real or is this still just a side project' threshold. Design Yangu has users. Real users, not friends-who-felt-obligated. Designers who found us through KOT or through another designer's story. Buyers who paid via M-Pesa for a product they found online. This is the most honest weekly update I can give — what happened, what I learned, and what I'm fixing next.
What happened in Week 3: the Eid al-Fitr rush was our first real demand test. We had zero payment infrastructure failures during the holiday window — Daraja API performed perfectly. We had three orders where the customer's phone was off during STK Push — we're building a retry mechanism this week. We onboarded two new designers, both from outside Nairobi (Nakuru and Kisumu), which proves the platform works for designers who couldn't access Nairobi's printing networks before. Blog traffic grew 47% week-on-week, driven almost entirely by organic KOT sharing rather than paid ads.
What I'm fixing in Week 4: the marketplace empty state when no designs match a search is too clinical — I need to make it warmer and more guiding. The checkout page needs a proper mobile keyboard experience for the M-Pesa number input. And we're adding a 'Recently Sold' signal to the marketplace to create social proof for new buyers. Building in public is uncomfortable and necessary. Every week I find three things that matter more than I expected and three things I overestimated. Follow the journey at designyangu.com. Share this if you believe Kenya deserves platforms like this. — Ian. 🇰🇪🏗️