@Masukuma, do you think such a machine can be useful for people making the Ugali in 'wholesale' Eg Hotels, Schools, Prisons, Construction sites etc. That would reduce labour costs and the people can be re-deployed into other areas.

by the way - I never said it can never happen... I just pointed out the minefield that this is! the guy who builds one that will be a financial success will have my utter respect. building it is not the problem - it's evading all those potholes and minefields I have highlighted

yeah... that's my point! right... my analogy of the camera in 1996 is that exact hint. Of course hindsight is 20-20 and everyone is a genius looking behind - right? Here is what I think - OK. Hardware unlike software is much more difficult to innovate and release quickly simply because it has something nasty called DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS i.e. the way your product lands on the customer's feet/doorstep - you need to figure this out.

I gave the reference to "CROSSING THE CHASM". The Car when invented was on the left side of the Chasm - right. Smoky machine, slow and e.t.c.

Tech Enthusiasts and Visionaries bought into it - right? but it wasn't until until the Model T by Ford that the cars crossed the Chasm ok.

So if we could backup a bit to the Ugali Maker - we have a limited number of persons who eat ugali. I have my biases that Ugali is eaten less when people get better off, but that is just me - so let's ignore that.
We have an average disposable income for people in this market.
We have existing options Sufurias of all sizes e.t.c. cheap workers to stir the paste into being ugali and they are pretty good at it. Like all version 0.1. products your ugali maker will not make the best ugali EVER! right? Think Nescafe and Kawaida coffee. Right? So you if you are going to survive - you need to make some decision up front...
1) WHO IS YOUR CUSTOMER (the one buying Version 0.1).
2) WHY IS HE BUYING?
once you figure this out (you are in 1996) - iterate and iterate and iterate until you have a product/process that is attractive to the pragmatists) and you will be a financial success. The version 0.1. customer is not the customer who will make you rich (think Hotels, Prisons e.t.c.) he/she is a stepping stone - think war terms... you need to capture normandy before you can capture berlin...

In my opinion, who your normandy is should be best described by the the theory of disruption - lookup it up . in this case - your end goal is to ensure that all 150 million people who consume Ugali use your product and not the many sized cooking pots they have [THIS IS BERLIN]. How will you attack that market? The theory gives us hints - for example... attack persons who are not consuming Ugali and are desperate to do so. Since the normal person has to make a decision - do I buy your (possibly more expensive) product or do I make ugali the same old way I was used to - which produces better Ugali that your version 0.1 product [YOUR NORMANDY].
Your version 0.1 will be a crummy product and you need a customer to buy it so that you can continuously improve in order to cross the Chasm and sell to everyone (150 million people).
Examples of this are all over - Equity bank with banking kawaida mwananchi before eating the cheese that was barclays...
Digital cameras went through the same process - version 0.1 was terrible compared to the then kawaida film product - but it was marketed to a section of society that did not care about the shortcomings since they were non consumers of the existing film technology and with time it disrupted the film technology. Transistor radios and TVs disrupted Vacuum tube companies in exactly the same way by selling crummy but portable products to young people who wanted to listen to Rock music away from the parents who owned the big bulky machine that was the Radio. Your product has to replace the current ugali making process but you need to start somewhere... with someone....

So again.. WHO IS YOUR VERSION 0.1 CUSTOMER? A PERSON WHO WILL OVERLOOK ALL SHORTCOMINGS FOR SOME ADDED BENEFIT AND SHOULD IDEALLY BE NON CONSUMING.

By the way - if you are able to figure this out... the same model can be used to disrupt MPESA and Equity bank.... coz it's almost a reverse of the existing disruption model. Since the majority of the consumers are not well off and the service is fairly good.

Let's say the machine is so far an abstract entity, it can basically be used by anyone like say an anthropologist or psychologist, or creative designer. In this case I'm thinking of all three.

1. The machine has been dissolved into wazua logic - a pastime of a given quality

2. So wazua is a machine about machines

3. The wazua machine can be better controlled by using it along say, 'metacomputing'.

Posting on wazua can turn out to be real money making business . . .

The ugali machine can be anything.

hard does not imply valuable...

Exactly... so far we have been focusing on the device and not the environment it will operate in. Kinda reminds me of the Legendary Pets.com... an it's crash... hey.. how hard can it be? it's a huge market.. america has 100 million homes... 75% have dogs and that means they eat dog food... this is a billion dollar industry! if we could nail 10% of these customers we are good!... and what is pet food anyway? it's dead cows in cans! All we have to do is create a website - a customer comes makes a request and we drop the dead cows at his door step - DEAD SIMPLE! hmmm.... then they discovered the small nuances around shopping for pets. The Ugali maker for "enterprise" has to co exist with current tech! moto ya kuni. Coz Will they use stima to cook the Ugali and kuni for mboga and nyama? By the way - why is there no stew maker? hmmm - I digress! I remember my high school setup... huge huge drum like sufurias and an elaborate fire system. how will you deploy your solution here? context is KING! How do you "plug in" your solution into that existing kitchen setup? My advice - don't try and eat the elephant in one bite! figure out where you are going to start - this is a learning process. P.S. customers don't care about your smell detecting system, hardness detection sensors. They want Ugali at less hustle and should not be considered expensive ugali! build from someone who does not eat ugali for some reason but would like to... labda wamama wazee.... they don't have nguvu to mix the thing! or someone... some widowers or lupita... build from there!

Problem of thinking in 2D. Does your TV use Makaa of firewood? SMH

We're living in the 21 century. Nothing is made to use firewood or makaa as the source of energy. So clearly you aint the target market. And guess what? LPG can still be used as electricity. Do you charge your phone or power your computer using makaa? This was an intelligent discussion until you showed up . Good luck with catching up

@Anti must still be waiting for a steam engine car that is powered with makaa and firewood

You!

I do not know if you are just plain dumb or what. You are more hopeless than your minions woodbrain and sikujua. From tvs to phones and computers what about the damn ugali cooker? All except the ugali cooker. You are trying too hard to sound knowledgeable. If you live in your 21st century, make the thing and stop running your mouth like a frigging jackass. Your minions can provide you cheap unthinking labour as you make it.