Building for nobody: Ghana’s product-obsessed entrepreneur problem

By J. N. Halm

Pay me a visit in my office one of these days, and you might be surprised by the gift I have in store for you. Tucked away in a cabinet behind my desk is a box containing a variety of products. That box has been in that corner for more than three months, and to be frank, it has become a bother.

I intend to take it out one of these days and send all its contents to a boarding house, girls’ hostel or even a children’s home of my choosing. You might be wondering how I managed to acquire a box of perfumes, liquid soaps, boxes of tissue paper, and even sanitary pads. Before you say anything, let me state it clearly: all those products are of good quality. So this has nothing to do with quality.

It has everything to do with me making the same mistake over and over again—a mistake that is not unique to me but one I have been observing across Ghana’s entrepreneurial landscape for years. A friend came along some months ago to introduce a business and showed me a catalogue of some amazing products.

I instantly fell in love with those products. There were no competing brands in the market with those features and attributes. I was banking my hopes on the market falling in love with those products knowing that if it did embrace those products, I was going to make a killing, or so I thought.

In all of my excitement, I forgot one very important thing—those products were not meant for my personal use but for customers. I loved them and I believe many would too. Unfortunately, I never went out to find out from those customers if they wanted those very products. I did not do any proper market survey.

This is the case with many entrepreneurs. We fall so deeply in love with our products that we forget who the real end users of the products are. It is a romance that is killing businesses faster than any economic downturn or regulatory challenge ever could.

The figures are hard to ascertain, but it has been estimated that as high as 70% of all businesses collapse within the first three years. While many factors contribute to this high failure rate, I am convinced that at the heart of this epidemic lies a fundamental misunderstanding of what business is actually about. Many Ghanaian entrepreneurs believe they are in the business of selling great products, when in fact, they should understand that they are in the business of solving customer problems.

The Product Love Affair

Walk through any entrepreneurship hub in Accra, Kumasi, or Takoradi, and you will encounter the same phenomenon repeatedly. Entrepreneurs who can speak for hours about their product features, their manufacturing processes, their quality standards, and their innovative approaches. Ask them about their customers, however, and the conversation becomes noticeably shorter and significantly less confident.

This product obsession manifests in several telling ways. I have sat through countless business pitches where entrepreneurs spend 80% of their time explaining what their product does and only 20% discussing who would want to buy it and why. They can quote production costs down to the last pesewa but struggle to articulate their customer acquisition strategy. They know exactly how their product compares to international standards, but have little insight into how it fits into their customers’ daily lives.

The tragedy is that this product-centricity often stems from genuinely admirable impulses. Many entrepreneurs tend to be quality-conscious, detail-oriented, and deeply committed to excellence. These are valuable traits, but when they become the primary focus of business strategy, they can become liabilities.

Consider the case of a young entrepreneur I recently came across. She had developed what was genuinely a superior palm oil product—cleaner, more nutritious, and more sustainably produced than anything else in the market. Her packaging was on point. She could spend hours explaining the intricate details of her extraction process and the scientific benefits of her approach. Yet when I asked about her customer research, I discovered she had never actually spoken to the women who would be buying and using her product in their kitchens.

The Customer Invisibility Problem

What makes this situation particularly frustrating is that successful businesses in Ghana—those that survive and thrive—consistently demonstrate the opposite approach. They start with customer needs and work backwards to product development. They view their products not as masterpieces to be admired, but as tools to solve real problems in their customers’ lives. Talk to any successful entrepreneur, and you will realise that the breakthrough came because they wanted to solve a problem for someone.

For instance, out of frustration for not getting access to financial help on time, someone started a very successful money-lending business. Out of frustration for not finding cosmetics made with her skin type and tone in mind, a brilliant young lady started a successful global cosmetics brand. Not finding a suitable old people’s home for their parents, a group of sisters came together to establish a home of the elderly that offers excellent care to the aged. In other words, all these successful entrepreneurial ventures were started with the customer—and the customer’s problem—in mind.

A study published in the November 2010 edition of International Business Research was very clear about the problems with Ghanaian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Titled “Market Orientation and Business Performance among SMEs in Ghana“, the study consistently confirmed what many Ghanaian business owners seem to have forgotten: companies that prioritise customer orientation and inter-functional coordination significantly outperform those that focus primarily on product excellence. The study found that firms need to be more customer-focused, monitor competitive trends, and respond to market intelligence to survive, given the evidence of their financial, technical, and other constraints.

Yet despite this clear evidence, the pattern of product obsession continues to repeat itself across Ghana’s business landscape. Entrepreneurs continue to build what they think customers want, rather than what customers actually need. In the end, they end up building for nobody but themselves.

The Psychology of Product Obsession

Understanding why this happens requires examining the psychology of entrepreneurship itself. Creating a product—especially a good one—provides immediate gratification. You can see it, touch it, and demonstrate it. It represents tangible proof of your capabilities and vision. Customer research, on the other hand, is messy, time-consuming, and often humbling. It requires acknowledging that your brilliant idea might need significant modification or, in some cases, complete abandonment.

Moreover, in Ghana’s business culture, there is often more social recognition for the entrepreneur who creates something impressive than for the one who sells something successfully. We celebrate innovation and creativity—both important qualities—but we sometimes forget to celebrate the equally important skill of understanding and serving customers.

This cultural bias toward product excellence over customer understanding creates what I call “the expertise trap.” Entrepreneurs become so knowledgeable about their products that they assume everyone else shares their enthusiasm and understanding. They mistake their own passion for market demand.

I witnessed this phenomenon clearly during a recent discussion with the founder of a technology start-up. The young man had developed an impressive solution for managing local building projects for Ghanaians living outside of the country. The technology was sophisticated, the user interface was elegant, and the potential benefits were substantial. However, when we spoke to some potential clients, we discovered that most Ghanaians living outside of the country were still comfortable falling on their network of family and friends to oversee such projects and saw the solution as an unnecessary complication rather than a valuable one.

The Market Research Deficit

Part of the problem lies in how many Ghanaian entrepreneurs approach market research. Too often, market research becomes a token exercise—a few conversations with friends and family, perhaps a small survey, but rarely the deep, systematic investigation of customer needs that successful businesses require.

Effective customer research is not about asking people if they like your product. It is about understanding their problems, their current solutions, their frustrations, and their aspirations. It requires spending time in customers’ environments, observing their behaviour, and listening not just to what they say but to what they do not say.

The most successful businesses treat customer research as an ongoing conversation rather than a one-time activity. They understand that customer needs evolve, that markets change, and that staying close to customers is not a luxury but a necessity for survival. Customer-centric businesses know that in a rapidly-changing world the one constant they can count on is that customers will always have needs and that those who provide for those needs are going to continue to stay in business for a long time.

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