Hamz Tech Journey

🖥 lesson 3 — what is an API and why everything uses one every app you use is not built from scratch it is assembled from pieces that other companies built — called APIs API = a set of rules for how two pieces of software talk to each other real example when you pay with telebirr inside another app that app did not build a payment system it connected to telebirr's API and said "process this payment" telebirr processed it and said "done — here is the confirmation" that conversation happened in milliseconds and the app developer wrote maybe 20 lines of code to make it happen this is why small teams build powerful products fast you do not build everything you connect everything want to add payments —> Chapa API want to send SMS to ethiopian numbers —> Africa's Talking API want to add AI —> Claude or OpenAI API want maps —> Google Maps API your first product will be 80% APIs you connected and 20% unique code that reflects your specific insight about the problem that 20% is where your value lives if you are learning to build something — share this with one person 🙏 evening lesson: why every business fails without one specific habit — and how to build it from day one #HAMZ_TECH_JOURNEY

Wishing you a wonderful Eid filled with love, laughter, and all the things that bring you joy.✨✨✨ #HAMZ_TECH_JOURNEY

💡 business lesson 2 — zero to one thinking there are two types of businesses 1 to n — copying something that already works and doing it slightly better 0 to 1 — creating something that does not exist yet most people build 1 to n businesses another food delivery app another ride-hailing clone another generic chatbot the problem — you start 10 laps behind companies that already own the market 0 to 1 businesses are different they create a new category and the first person to create a category usually owns it for years the biggest 0 to 1 opportunities in ethiopia are hiding in plain sight every business running on notebooks instead of software every process done manually that a phone could automate every problem that global tech companies have not solved for amharic speakers or ethiopian farmers or informal traders the next great ethiopian tech company is not going to be a copy of something from silicon valley it is going to be built by someone who looked at their own city and saw what was missing if you know someone building something in ethiopia — share this with them 🙏 tomorrow morning: what is an API and why every app you use depends on one

🖥 lesson 2 — server client and database every app you have ever used is built from exactly three things 📱 client — your phone or browser asks for information and displays it 🖥 server — a computer running code receives your request processes it and sends back a response 🗄 database — permanent organized storage remembers everything even when the server restarts here is a real example you open telebirr to send money your phone (client) sends a request to telebirr's server the server checks your balance in the database confirms you have enough funds records the transaction updates both balances sends a success response back to your phone your phone shows "transfer complete" three components one second millions of times per day the lesson for building in ethiopia most local businesses store this kind of data in notebooks or excel files that is the gap a proper database replaces that immediately and creates real value if you found this useful share it with one person learning tech 🙏 evening lesson: why most founders build the wrong product — and the one habit that prevents it #HAMZ_TECH_JOURNEY

💼 business lesson 1 — the technician trap most people start a business because they are good at something a developer thinks "i am great at coding — i should start a software company" a designer thinks "i am great at design — i should open an agency" and they do and most of them fail not because their skill was bad but because they confused the skill with the business here is the difference doing the work = technician building the system that does the work = entrepreneur if your business stops the moment you stop working — you do not have a business you have a job with your name on it the goal is to build something that runs and grows whether you are in the room or not that is what separates a freelancer from a founder i mapped my own week today and was honest about which category each task fell into the result surprised me if you know someone starting a business — share this with them this is the lesson most people learn too late 🙏 tomorrow morning: what is a server and why every app you use depends on one

💻 lesson 1 — how the internet actually works every app you use every day runs on the same infrastructure when you open telegram in addis here is what actually happens 1. your phone asks a DNS server "where is telegram" 2. DNS replies with an IP address — the physical location of the server 3. your device connects through physical cables including undersea ones 4. the server processes your request and sends back your messages 5. your phone displays what came back the whole journey — less than 1 second the reason apps feel slow in ethiopia is because our servers are far away physically every extra kilometer of cable adds milliseconds and milliseconds add up this is why where you host your product matters enormously for your users that is lesson 1 if this was useful — forward it to one person who is learning tech or building something that is all i ask 🙏 evening lesson: why most businesses fail before they even start — and it has nothing to do with money 🌱

starting today i am going to teach everything i learn — two lessons every single day 🌅 morning — a tech lesson how software works how the internet works how to build things from scratch 🌆 evening — a business lesson how to find real problems how to build companies how to get customers how to grow this is not a highlight reel this is the full journey — from someone who knows almost nothing right now to building a real tech company if you know someone learning tech or trying to build something — share this with them this channel is about to become a free daily tech and business school 📚 #HAMZ_TECH_JOURNEY

you asked about my daily routine and work ethics so here it is 🙂 i wake up between 6 and 7 first thing i do is pray and reflect quietly before the phone before the noise before anything that 10 minutes sets the tone for everything that follows i dont have a perfect rigid schedule honestly but i have a direction for every day loosely planned in my head the night before enough structure to move forward not enough to feel like a prison my best work happens late at night when everything is quiet no notifications no people no noise just me and whatever i am building or learning thats when i go deepest during the day i work in full focus one thing at a time no multitasking i found out a long time ago that doing many things at once means doing nothing well when something goes wrong — and it does i dont panic i dont quit i sit with it i reflect on what happened and why then i move i only compete with who i was yesterday not with anyone else comparison is a waste of energy i dont have two values i hold more than anything show up every single day no matter how you feel and keep your word — to your team to your audience to yourself i celebrate the small wins with my team because waiting for the big ones to feel good is how you burn out the thing i am most proud of — i lead by example i never ask any person to do something i am not willing to do myself the thing i wish i did better — writing things down more i keep too much in my head ngl 😅 and if you are just starting out the only advice i would give you is this do not wait until you are ready start messy start confused start scared but start my family is my anchor in all of this on the hardest days they are the reason i push through rest is not laziness rest is part of the work i learned that the hard way documenting this whole journey. the wins the confusion everything — Abdlhamid

what if the hardest part of tech is not learning code but staying consistent long enough to become good 😅 today i realized i'm not just learning AI or programming i'm trying to build a real tech company from scratch with my team here in ethiopia i keep seeing problems everywhere and instead of waiting until i'm ready i'm starting anyway ngl building in public feels uncomfortable sometimes 😂 people see the confusion and beginner stage too but maybe thats how real growth looks maybe one day this whole journey will help someone else believe they can start too next step learning foundations and building small projects daily documenting this whole journey. the wins the confusion everything  #HAMZ_TECH_JOURNEY

was talking to a shop owner today — just asking about how he runs his business i didn't pitch anything i didnt mention my idea i just asked him to walk me through his day and in 10 minutes he told me more valuable things than i could have gotten from 100 surveys 😅 thats what i learned today — most founders ask the wrong questions "would you use this app" tells you nothing "tell me about the last time this went wrong" — now you're getting somewhere brian chesky did the same thing with airbnb didnt ask hosts if they liked the platform showed up at their houses and watched them struggle to take photos that one observation doubled their revenue the truth about your business is already living in your customers daily life your job is to watch it not convince them of it next im doing 5 of these conversations myself this week — no pitching just listening documenting this whole journey. the wins the confusion everything #HAMZ_TECH_JOURNEY

i was doing it the hard way and didn't even know it figured out how to process 11 customers with 5 lines instead of 50. small thing but it felt huge still got typos in my code but we keep going 💪 documenting everything. the wins and the embarrassing parts #HAMZ_TECH_JOURNEY

how do you know if the problem you want to solve is actually real 🤔 i used to think having a good idea was enough turns out thats exactly how you waste months building something nobody needs real problems have one signal that never lies people are already solving them badly like that shop in merkato tracking stock in a notebook that notebook is the proof — nobody builds a workaround for something they can live with walked around today and saw like 5 of these hiding in plain sight ngl 😅 next i'm learning how to talk to real people about these problems without asking the wrong questions documenting this whole journey. the wins the confusion everything #HAMZ_TECH_JOURNEY

started learning python and building today honestly i didn't think i'd get it but i built small billing calculator — like for a restaurant in merkato — and something just clicked it's nothing fancy. but i realized every app, every bot, every ai tool is just… data being stored and moved around. that's it struggled with the discount logic for a bit ngl 😅 but figured it out documenting this whole journey. the wins, the confusion, everything if you're also starting from zero reply with🔥 #HAMZ_TECH_JOURNEY

I started this journey not knowing what I was walking into. I thought building a business was about having a good idea. I was wrong. Over the last few days I learned 5 things that changed how I see everything. Why skilled people fail at business. Why copying is always the losing game. Why your purpose matters more than your product. Why struggle is not a sign to stop. Why knowing yourself is the most strategic thing a founder can do. I am sharing it here because I think it should have been. Next part is where the real work begins. #HAMZ_TECH_JOURNEY

I learned something today that made me trust AI differently. AI never actually gives you a certain answer. What it gives you is a prediction — with a confidence level attached. Like a weather forecaster saying 70% chance of rain. Not certain. Not guessing. Somewhere in between — based on patterns. Every AI tool I use is doing this underneath. Face unlock. Spam filter. ChatGPT. All of them saying — this is my best guess, and here is how sure I am. Now I'm thinking about what it means to build a product where being wrong has real consequences. #HAMZ_TECH_JOURNEY

Most people starting a business focus on the product, the market, the competition. Very few stop and ask the most important question first. Who am I — really? Not who I want to be. Not how I present myself. Who I actually am today. My real strengths. My honest weaknesses. The gaps I have been pretending are not there. Today I did that audit on myself. Honestly. Without polishing the answer. It was uncomfortable. And it was the most useful thing I have done since starting this journey. Because the business you build will always reflect the person you are. Not the person you hope to become. Before you build anything — have you ever sat with that question honestly? For me — really sitting with it took more courage than I expected.

Today's concept was one I thought I didn't understand. An algorithm. Turns out I follow algorithms every day without knowing it. The Ethiopian coffee ceremony — wash, roast, grind, brew, pour, serve — that's an algorithm. Same steps. Same order. Same beautiful result every time. A computer algorithm works exactly the same way. Precise steps. Guaranteed outcome. Now I can't stop looking at repetitive tasks around me and thinking what are the steps hiding inside this? Because if there are steps there might be a product.

I learned something today that I wish someone had told me earlier. There are two types of people when they face a difficult challenge. The first type thinks: "I can't do this — I'm just not built for it." The second type thinks: "I can't do this — yet." That one word changes everything. It is the difference between a closed door and an open one. Between giving up and growing. Between protecting your ego and building your future. Scientists call it the growth mindset. And research shows it matters more than talent, intelligence, or experience. Did anyone ever teach you this growing up? Drop your thought in the comment section👇

AI model: A model is what you get after training is done. All the patterns locked in. Frozen. Ready to use. Like a master chef after 20 years of practice. You don't see the learning anymore. You just see someone who knows exactly what to do. When I use ChatGPT I'm not watching it learn. I'm talking to a finished brain applying everything it already knows. That one idea changed how I see every AI tool I use. #HAMZ_TECH_JOURNEY