Four lessons from M-Pesa on Innovation Adoption

M-Pesa is a mobile phone-based money transfer service that originated in Kenya in 2007. Originally intended as a niche tool to help Kenyans with microloans, it became clear that the local population had other needs. Innovators have to understand the people and their unique situations to succeed. M-Pesa's developers learned this and redesigned the app to meet the market's demands. The key factors were understanding local practices and people, being led by user feedback, having the freedom to redirect the product when necessary, and thinking strategically about local trajectories. By following these steps, M-Pesa became one of the most successful mobile financial services in the developing world.