The Assumption We Kept Encountering
When we started Switchiify, the most common question we got from investors wasn't about our technology or our market. It was: "why are you doing this in Rwanda?" The assumption embedded in that question — that serious technology companies are built in specific places — is one we've spent four years proving wrong.
What Kigali Gave Us
Building in Kigali forced us to solve problems that companies in San Francisco can ignore. Internet reliability. Power consistency. Access to hardware for testing. We solved all of them — and the solutions we built in the process turned out to be useful for our customers in markets with similar constraints.
The biggest advantage of building in Rwanda wasn't infrastructure. It was perspective. We built for users in markets that most tech companies treat as afterthoughts. When you start with those users, you make different design decisions — and those decisions tend to be better.
Where We're Going
Switchiify is a global company now, with team members in twelve countries. But our headquarters is still in Kigali, and that's intentional. We want to keep building products that work for the widest possible range of people — and we've found that staying connected to our origin helps us do that.