# Steve Chikwiri

> Software developer and tinkerer. Mobile apps, fintech, AI training in Malawi, and a graveyard of projects.

Site: https://steve.chikwiri.com
Email: stevechikwiri@gmail.com
GitHub: https://github.com/stevechikwiri
Substack: https://stevechikwiri.substack.com
Medium: https://medium.com/@stevechikwiri

## Projects

- 265 Charades (https://onelink.to/bh4cr2): A charades game built for Kenya, Malawi and South Africa. One codebase, three apps, mobile-money paywall. [2025 —]
- AI For The Rest Of Us (https://event.kachere.app/): Free AI training where everyone leaves with something they built. Three sessions, fifty-plus people. [2025 —]
- App financials: A unit-economics warehouse for 265 Charades. LTV, CAC, payback and a 24-month cohort projector. [2026]
- Manyumba: Real-estate listings pulled from Malawian WhatsApp groups and cleaned by an LLM pipeline. [2024]

## Community

- AI For The Rest Of Us (https://event.kachere.app/): Practical AI training in Blantyre. No slides, no jargon. You build a thing. Role: Organiser & facilitator.
- Kachere AI (https://medium.com/@stevechikwiri/kachere-ai-user-retention-problems-1dc85d3743cc): A free legal-aid assistant for Malawians, delivered over WhatsApp. Role: Builder.
- Hello World Malawi: A developer community for people getting into software in Malawi. Role: Organiser.

## Previously

- ChitChat, Senior Mobile Fullstack Developer, 2025 — 2026. Mastercard-backed fintech. Card deposits with 3DS, managed-account access control, and a greenfield corporate dashboard. Owned releases end to end.
- MoPhones, Product Engineer, Mobile, 2024 — 2025. Buy-now-pay-later. Owned the consumer app from first commit to 99.8% uptime. M-Pesa, the BNPL lifecycle, and analytics across every product.
- Brij Technologies, Lead Mobile Engineer, 2022 — 2023. Cross-border payments. Led four engineers across four countries. Rebuilt state management for a 45% speed gain.
- OrderPro Malawi, Principal Android Developer, 2019 — 2022. E-commerce. Rebuilt the app from native Android to Flutter and lifted conversion by 30%.
- UNICEF Malawi, Full Stack Developer, 2019 — 2021. Digital services. REST backend plus asset and inventory systems for internal teams.

## Blog posts

- [Transitioning from GUI driven development to AI agent driven development](https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/changing-mind-frames-from-building) (2026-07-28): I am handing you these tools with the premise that if you loop over them enough and in the right order, you will be able to answer any question thrown at you. Raw markdown: https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/changing-mind-frames-from-building/raw
- [M-Pesa vs Apple & Google Pay?](https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/m-pesa-vs-apple-and-google-pay) (2026-06-15): (From a LinkedIn post I wrote) Raw markdown: https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/m-pesa-vs-apple-and-google-pay/raw
- [Will it make the boat go faster? How clear metrics are central to building successful products and teams](https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/will-it-make-the-boat-go-faster-how) (2026-06-04): My experience working on products with performance metrics at the centre and the lack of them. Raw markdown: https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/will-it-make-the-boat-go-faster-how/raw
- [POSITIONING FOR PRODUCT MARKET FIT](https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/positioning-for-product-market-fit) (2026-02-04): Preparing for mass market adoption after winning over early adopters Raw markdown: https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/positioning-for-product-market-fit/raw
- [Vibe Coding an Entire App Without Losing My Mind](https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/vibe-coding-an-entire-app-without) (2025-12-21): Lessons from Building a Real World App with AI as Both Coding Assistant and Core Technology Raw markdown: https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/vibe-coding-an-entire-app-without/raw
- [Kachere AI: User Retention Problems](https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/kachere-ai-user-retention-problems) (2025-04-06): One of the issues I knew I’d face with Kachere AI as a legal aid assistant was low retention due to its gimmicky nature. Raw markdown: https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/kachere-ai-user-retention-problems/raw
- [Human Conversations are the Standard.](https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/human-conversations-are-the-standard) (2024-11-23): While keeping conversations within context is important in ensuring that the cost of running conversational AI applications is manageable, being too restrictive results in terrible UX. Raw markdown: https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/human-conversations-are-the-standard/raw
- [From Prevention to Relief: Health Aware's Role in Combating Cholera and Supporting Cyclone Freddy Relief Efforts in Malawi](https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/from-prevention-to-relief-health) (2023-04-25): In today's world, staying informed about health-related issues is crucial. Raw markdown: https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/from-prevention-to-relief-health/raw

## Killed by Steve (retired projects)

- Kachere AI (2024–2025): Retention. D1 21%, D7 7%, D14 0.3%. "A tool for emergencies is not a daily habit." https://medium.com/@stevechikwiri/kachere-ai-user-retention-problems-1dc85d3743cc
- Health Aware (2023–2023): The cholera outbreak ended. So did the need. "Some apps are meant to be temporary." https://steve.chikwiri.com/blog/from-prevention-to-relief-health
- Manyumba (2024–2025): Messy WhatsApp data. The pipeline cost more than the market paid. "Taught me LLM data pipelines the hard way."

## Machine-readable

- Full content: https://steve.chikwiri.com/llms-full.txt
- RSS: https://steve.chikwiri.com/feed.xml
- Sitemap: https://steve.chikwiri.com/sitemap.xml