The country I build from

I work from Cotonou. Not as a fallback, and not while waiting to be somewhere else. Everything I have made was made here, and the constraints of here are part of why it came out the way it did.

Why it matters to the work

Building from Bénin means you cannot assume much. Not the connection, not the payment rail, not that your user has done this before. That turns out to be a good school. You learn to design for the person who is actually there rather than the one in the persona deck, and you learn that an elegant flow which needs four things to go right is not elegant at all.

It also means the market is not crowded with people solving the same problem. At Koin Koin Vélo there was no template for how to run bike rental in Cotonou, so we wrote one. That is more interesting work than the fifth iteration of something settled.

Grand-Popo

My favourite place in the country. It sits on the coast in the south-west, near the Togo border, where the Mono river runs down to meet the Atlantic at the Bouche du Roy. Long beach, heavy surf, coconut palms, and a pace that is the exact opposite of Cotonou’s.

It is an old town and it shows: a former trading post, with the architecture and the history that come with that, and a strong Vodun presence that is lived rather than performed for anybody.

If you visit

Come in the dry season, take the coast road, and give Grand-Popo more than a day trip. Cotonou is worth its own time too, and if you want a bicycle while you are here, that part I can help with.