O MANNY's

"The mistake a lot of us make is to look at the folks at the (bottom) and assume that they must need the same types of services we need," Rangan says. "Everybody needs food. We need education, and so do the poor. We need banks, so they must need banks. But that's the wrong way of approaching it. The ecosystem in which they live is very different from ours. They're on weekly or even daily wages, and their family circumstances are different. So we've really got to dig in and figure out what their real needs are and their pain points."

Moreover, more than half of South Africa's population had no access to a bank account. This was largely because half of the population lived below the poverty line, and banks, understandably, were not eager to serve a moneyless customer base.

A company introduces a mobile phone bank only to realize that people in those situations were looking for easy money transfer and not a bank.

I’ve often come across entrepreneurs who want to start a business but the only info available to back their evidence of a market need for their service is themselves. Basically if I need it then this particular person most need it is the wrong mentality to have. You need to understand how your target perceives the product, how they use it, why they will pay for it, and what benefits they like.