Why Global Product Playbooks Don’t Always Fit

Abstracts

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Global product strategies often borrow from Western playbooks - lean startup, waitlists, freemium, pricing hacks - but many fail in new markets with different realities. This talk explores why context and localisation matter, with examples like telco airtime balances - styled payment rails, M-Pesa

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In today’s world, we’re told that the “textbook” ways of building products - MVPs, waitlists, freemium pricing are the path to success. But outside the West, these playbooks often fail. Markets with different adoption curves, infrastructure, and behaviours require different strategies. Even global companies like Meta, Netflix, and Spotify have leaned heavily on localisation to succeed. In this talk, we’ll explore how context and local realities - from telco airtime balances - styled payment rails to M-Pesa to rethinking waitlists - can drive product design, pricing, and adoption when textbooks don’t fit.

Description

Much of product development discourse is shaped by practices from Silicon Valley: lean startup methods, waitlist validation, growth hacking, freemium pricing, blitzscaling. These are often presented as universal best practices.
But in many parts of the world, they don’t map cleanly onto local realities. Markets may have different infrastructure, cultural behaviours, or economic constraints. Adoption curves can be steeper, and pricing often has to lean on traditional systems instead of fully disrupting them. For example:
Telco airtime balances styled as payment rails
M-Pesa reshaping mobile money & fintech revolution
Azza and Swiftbon are redesigning how social commerce will go
Waitlists falling short in low-trust or fragmented markets

Importantly, even global products - from Meta to Netflix to Spotify -localise heavily when entering new markets, adjusting pricing, features, partnerships, and distribution to fit context.

This talk will explore the pitfalls of blindly adopting Western playbooks and why localisation is not an afterthought but a strategy. Attendees will learn what it means to design for the realities and context of the market they operate in.

Outline
- The dominance of Western playbooks in product discourse
- Why do they fail in different market contexts
Case examples: telco airtime styled payment rails, M-Pesa, waitlists, pricing adaptations
- How global products succeed through localisation (Meta, Netflix, Spotify)
- Principles for contextual product design and adoption
- Building playbooks that blend global lessons with local realities

Key Takeaways
- Western product playbooks often fail outside their context
- Context and localisation are not optional - they’re competitive advantages
- Global products thrive in new markets by adapting pricing, features, and go-to-market strategies
- Traditional systems (telcos, cash, distribution networks) shape adoption more than disruption
- Product leadership requires balancing universal lessons with local realities