The Field Notes

Essays from the people actually shipping product in Africa.

Long-form notes from cohort instructors, members and co-founder Ayobami Osho. No thinkfluencing. Just operators writing about the work.

Featured · PM Africa AwardsSeptember 18, 2024 · 9 min read

What Winning "Community Champion" Taught Me About Building Real Communities

I just received the Community Champion Award at the PM Africa Awards. The question in my head wasn't "how did I win this?" — it was "what does it actually mean to build a community that matters?"

Ayobami Osho · Co-founder · Payments Product Lead, Paysend

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All essays

August 2025

1 post

Craft·9 min

The Onboarding Redesign That Did Not Work, and What I Learned the Second Time

The redesign was beautiful. The metrics moved the wrong way. Six months later we shipped a uglier, simpler version that worked. The story of the gap between those two versions is the most useful thing I know about product judgement.

Sade Bakare · August 19, 2025

June 2025

1 post

Career·8 min

From Engineer to PM: The Six-Month Bridge That Actually Worked

Six years as a backend engineer. Then I made the switch to product. Most of the advice on the internet about this transition is wrong, or at least incomplete. Here is what actually worked.

Daniel Mwangi · June 24, 2025

May 2025

1 post

Career·9 min

The PM Interview Loop, From the Other Side of the Table

I have run more than three hundred PM interview loops in the last four years. The patterns that separate the strong candidates from the strong-on-paper candidates are not the ones the prep guides talk about.

Ireti Sanusi · May 13, 2025

April 2025

1 post

Payments·10 min

The Naira Card That Almost Broke Me: A Cross-Border PM Story

We launched a single card product that was supposed to take three months. It took thirteen. The story of what we missed, what nearly killed the project, and what shipping it taught me about cross-border product management.

Folake Adeyemi · April 8, 2025

March 2025

1 post

Craft·7 min

How I Write a PRD That Survives Contact With Engineering

Most PRDs die on first contact with the engineering team. Mine don't, and the difference is not writing skill — it is three small structural choices I make every time.

Kehinde Mensah · March 11, 2025

February 2025

1 post

Career·8 min

The Quiet Skill PMs From Africa Have That Their European Peers Don't

After six years of moving between Lagos, London and Dublin, I have noticed one thing African PMs do better than almost anyone else — and most of them do not even realise it.

Zola Nkosi · February 18, 2025

January 2025

1 post

Programmes·12 min

Designing Cohorts That Actually Ship: Notes from Eight Iterations

We have now run the Payments PM Series eight times. The first cohort had a 38% completion rate. The latest hit 91%. Here is what changed — and what we got wrong on the way.

Amina Adeleke · January 21, 2025

December 2024

1 post

Mentorship·7 min

What I Look for When I Mentor a PM (and What I Quietly Disqualify For)

I mentor four PMs at any given time. People assume I pick the most polished CV. I don't. Here is what I actually look for — and the three things that get a soft no from me.

Chinedu Okeke · December 9, 2024

November 2024

1 post

Member Story·9 min

From Lagos to London: How the Cohort Got Me to a Wise Offer in Six Weeks

I joined the Payments PM Series sceptical. I had done two cohorts before and they were mostly vibes. This one was different — and six weeks after demo day I had a Wise offer in hand.

Tolu Adebayo · November 4, 2024

October 2024

1 post

Payments·11 min

Constraint-First PLG: Why Payments Products Don't Grow Like SaaS

Every PLG playbook on the internet was written for SaaS. Then you join a payments company and discover the rails decide what's possible long before the funnel does.

Ayobami Osho · October 22, 2024

September 2024

1 post

Community·9 min

What Winning "Community Champion" Taught Me About Building Real Communities

I just received the Community Champion Award at the PM Africa Awards. The question in my head wasn't "how did I win this?" — it was "what does it actually mean to build a community that matters?"

Ayobami Osho · September 18, 2024

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