Epic article David! Would love to share some notes and perhaps have a more meaningful conversation. We at Bettr.App, are building for the Creators in Africa. Would love to give you an inside view and get your thoughts on if we're heading into the right direction. tobie@bettr.app.
As usual, this was a learning opportunity for me. I sincerely appreciate the attention to detail and research that produced this, David. You are right on point regarding the difficulty of monetising creativity...and also on the issue of payment. As an indie book publisher and author, I can confirm that the main problem, besides distribution, is the ease of payment for creative content.
Again, as you have noted, my ability to earn from my 'creative content' has been very much tied to the fact that I created a business to leverage my social capital on and that has worked as well as the time and effort I have been able to put into it. I am going to learn more about the social tokens you mentioned. Ideas like that always intrigue me.
PS: I need to be linked into the African Tech Roundup circle and any other tech/info initiative that you have access to.
This was very insightful and brilliant. You adequately highlighted the problems creators in Africa face and I totally agree with the suggested solutions.
There's a lot of infrastructures that need to be built for creators in Africa, and tbh I feel we aren't anywhere close yet. The creator economy all around the world is still in its infancy, and it's quite sad that the African market is left out of the suite of tools that can help them monetize their creative works.
I figured that there's a lot of sensitization that needs to be done regarding creator monetization. Quite a lot of African creators are not aware that they can make a lot of money through crowdfunding, value proposition, and channeling of their audience from their contents to their business. There's a lot of creator education that needs to be done!
This is something I genuinely care about and I and a couple of folks started building out a suite of toolkits that we feel can empower African creators to earn from their creations. We started out with a feature that lets their audience support/tip them through a custom payment link they created(you can check it out here https://getfidia.com). Our ultimate goal is to build an infrastructure that lets African creators share their works, monetize their creativity, and connect more with their audience.
Thank you for writing this piece, it was indeed a good read!
And oh, I wrote about what I think about the future of the African creator economy is and some of the problems it faces(which you've explained more extensively here).
Hi Bello. First, thank you for reading and engaging with this essay. I appreciate it. I stumbled upon your Medium article while researching this, actually. I liked it and it helped frame my thinking. Keep up the good work. There’s so much we have to build, but I know we’re more than able.
I'm not sure we need a Substack clone in the sense that it'll be a service specifically for Africans. An ideal situation would be one where Substack and other services like it take these nuances into account, regardless of the country from which they're built. If you want to build universal products, then you have to make them truly universal.
Epic article David! Would love to share some notes and perhaps have a more meaningful conversation. We at Bettr.App, are building for the Creators in Africa. Would love to give you an inside view and get your thoughts on if we're heading into the right direction. tobie@bettr.app.
Hi Tobie. Thank you for the kind words. I’ll check it out, and we can also schedule a call for next week: calendly.com/davidiadeleke
As usual, this was a learning opportunity for me. I sincerely appreciate the attention to detail and research that produced this, David. You are right on point regarding the difficulty of monetising creativity...and also on the issue of payment. As an indie book publisher and author, I can confirm that the main problem, besides distribution, is the ease of payment for creative content.
Again, as you have noted, my ability to earn from my 'creative content' has been very much tied to the fact that I created a business to leverage my social capital on and that has worked as well as the time and effort I have been able to put into it. I am going to learn more about the social tokens you mentioned. Ideas like that always intrigue me.
PS: I need to be linked into the African Tech Roundup circle and any other tech/info initiative that you have access to.
Thank you, David.
Nicely written.
Thank you, Aadil. I'm glad you think so!
Great insights
Thank you, Prince!
Nah, this is great writing, salute!
Thank you!
Love this :)
Glad you do. Thank you, Busayo!
This was very insightful and brilliant. You adequately highlighted the problems creators in Africa face and I totally agree with the suggested solutions.
There's a lot of infrastructures that need to be built for creators in Africa, and tbh I feel we aren't anywhere close yet. The creator economy all around the world is still in its infancy, and it's quite sad that the African market is left out of the suite of tools that can help them monetize their creative works.
I figured that there's a lot of sensitization that needs to be done regarding creator monetization. Quite a lot of African creators are not aware that they can make a lot of money through crowdfunding, value proposition, and channeling of their audience from their contents to their business. There's a lot of creator education that needs to be done!
This is something I genuinely care about and I and a couple of folks started building out a suite of toolkits that we feel can empower African creators to earn from their creations. We started out with a feature that lets their audience support/tip them through a custom payment link they created(you can check it out here https://getfidia.com). Our ultimate goal is to build an infrastructure that lets African creators share their works, monetize their creativity, and connect more with their audience.
Thank you for writing this piece, it was indeed a good read!
And oh, I wrote about what I think about the future of the African creator economy is and some of the problems it faces(which you've explained more extensively here).
You should check it out!
https://medium.com/getfidia/the-future-of-the-creator-economy-in-africa-f8350cf7c6aa
Hi Bello. First, thank you for reading and engaging with this essay. I appreciate it. I stumbled upon your Medium article while researching this, actually. I liked it and it helped frame my thinking. Keep up the good work. There’s so much we have to build, but I know we’re more than able.
Thanks David!
We're more than able!!
Insightful!
Having a substack clone for Africa that hits all the boxes you ticked will be great.
Monetization. Can be done with MoMo or Crypto.
Do know anyone currently building that?
I'm not sure we need a Substack clone in the sense that it'll be a service specifically for Africans. An ideal situation would be one where Substack and other services like it take these nuances into account, regardless of the country from which they're built. If you want to build universal products, then you have to make them truly universal.
The big question is are these guys willing to take those nuances into account.
Do we have to wait for them to.
It's a similar situation with onlyfans payment.
You're right. All of these are worth thinking about.
Take a look at the creator economy market map you posted on the article.
I see a possible niche for Localization across all categories.
Maybe along the line the big boys can acquire the local solutions when they come to their senses.
Yes, yes!