Built in Africa

On this episode of Built in Africa, we take a look at how Y Combinator-backed Eze Wholesale is altering the global landscape of the used smartphone market.

Image credit: Techjaja.com.

 Narrator: In 2017, two friends, one a software engineer, and the other, a petroleum engineer, saw an opportunity. They became wholesalers in the used smartphone market currently valued at a whopping $46 billion. 

They operated this business for over two years before they eventually realised that the used smartphone market had more issues than they thought. This problem gave birth to an entirely new business.

[Theme song]

On this episode of Built in Africa, we explore how Y Combinator-backed Eze Wholesale is altering the global landscape of the used smartphone market.

David Iya and Joshua Nzewi are childhood friends, and they ran a couple of businesses together up until they got into the university.

By 2016, Joshua had become a petroleum engineer at Shell while David had worked as a software engineer with two US-based Internet companies.

One day, David called Joshua telling him about a business opportunity he had in mind:

Joshua Nzewi: So one day he called me the scan the arbitrage opportunity between buying phones locally and selling them online. And that’s what brought us into that.

Narrator: Having run businesses before, it didn’t take long for the two friends to kick this off. They did this for two and a half years but soon began to notice a trend.

Joshua Nzewi: For about two and half years where we were just trading devices, buying them from individuals and selling them overseas. Until we went to trading conferences where we realised that there are inefficiencies in the market at a much higher level where companies are moving a billion dollars in devices a month. And realising this was not just a problem in the United States but also abroad as well. So the channels in which people are able to source these devices and then resell them.

Narrator: So in January 2020,  they built Eze wholesale to try to solve this problem.

Joshua Nzewi: So we created this online marketplace that would enable people to transact a lot faster, with more security and safety, and transparency, and much more efficiently than people are currently trading now.

Narrator: Globally, the used smartphone market is valued at $46 billion, and in markets like Nigeria, it has continued to grow in importance. The International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts that used smartphone shipments will exceed 330 million units with a market value of $67 billion by 2023.

Here’s how this process works. 

Ben lives in the UK and uses an iPhone X. But, he’s tired of it, so he walks into a carrier store and drops it off. The carrier store then auctions the iPhone X and other phones that have been dropped off to wholesalers.

The wholesalers are tasked with the responsibility of effective distribution to those who need them. And this is why weeks later, Tobi buys that iPhone X in Nigeria for much less than its original cost.

As a B2B platform, Eze Wholesale allows traders to place, buy, and sell used smartphones. Sellers can post the devices they have in stock, and then buyers can buy directly from them via the platform.

For Eze wholesale, the aim is to open up the market for all and eliminate the middlemen in this space.

Joshua Nzewi: What we’re trying to do in this space is open the market up, so that anyone can trade in it confidently, and reduce the number of middlemen that exist in the market. Because of the inefficiencies in the way people trade, seven to nine people will touch each and every device before it’s sold to the end consumer. That’s a lot of value lost along that supply chain, and we want to reduce that as much as possible.

Narrator: So how big is the problem they’re trying to solve, really?

Joshua Nzewi: It’s big business in Nigeria but it’s big business in just about every single country, even the United States. So a lot of the companies that deal with acquiring these devices, through the various means, buy and then resell. They sell at cost or below cost just so they can continue reselling. This is just because of poor distribution channels and not having a good enough network to get all the devices out there.

Narrator: Apparently, it also affects buyers too and a number of people have fallen victim to fraudsters and have lost thousands of dollars.

Joshua Nzewi: On the buyer end, individuals are weary to trade just because of the risk involved. So typically, when you do a transaction, the wholesaler will ask for the full payment to be sent upfront. And so that leaves a little room for the buyer to dispute the transaction or get some protection. So (if the wholesaler says) “I have devices, wire me the money upfront then I’ll send you the phones,” so you wire someone the money but then you never receive any device.

Narrator: To mitigate this situation, Eze Wholesale operates an escrow system to handle payments and limit fraud, and a rigorous inspection process to verify the quality of the items.

Joshua Nzewi: We are a B2B marketplace in the simplest sense. So we allow people to… we allow sellers to post the devices they have for sale and people to purchase those devices directly through the platform. We handle all the money that happens in transactions. So we receive the payment from the buyer, the seller ships the devices to us, we inspect the devices, we then, upon confirming the devices have good enough specs, we release the payment to the seller and then the devices to the buyer.

Narrator: Although Joshua won’t state a figure, he says Eze Wholesale takes a cut from each transaction done on the platform. And in the last 12 months, the startup has processed $10 million worth of devices.

In March 2020, the 19-man team got accepted into US-based accelerator, Y Combinator, raising $150,000 in the process. Joshua recounts how YC has benefited his company.

Joshua Nzewi: I think YC helped us from a business stance. From knowing which customers to double down on to build the business. They also gave us access to a lot of resources that helped with our development stack and the internals of the business, such as setting KPIs, using the right sales methods and tactics. So from a fundamental business level, they definitely helped us quite a bit. But really everything in the industry, we’ve had to figure out ourselves.

Narrator: Although Joshua likes to think of Eze Wholesale as a global product due to its presence in markets like Dubai, Hong Kong, Mexico, and Ukraine, he believes one of the platform’s biggest markets will be Nigeria in the long run.

However, it hasn’t been an entirely smooth ride for the startup trying to navigate the West African market.

Joshua Nzewi: I guess the biggest problem we’ve encountered is trust. So getting businesses to trust us, trust our platform. And by that I mean sending the money to us first. That’s been the biggest thing, especially as we started to reach out to companies in Nigeria. They were asking, “why should we trust you? How are we sure that you’re not trying to scam us in this market.” So I think that has been the biggest component that we’ve struggled with; getting people to trust us.

Narrator: Consequently, Eze wholesale is trying to build up trust, little by little.

Joshua Nzewi: One way is we’ll do sample orders with people. So very small transactions where there isn’t much risk. So we start out with like one, two phones just for them to get a sense of how we operate and the timeline which they expect to receive them. And that’s been the main way. Some people have requested to meet in person, or they ask for pictures, videos… But we found that doing a sample transaction is the best way to go about it.

Narrator: So what does the future hold for Eze wholesale?

Joshua Nzewi: We really want to serve the Nigerian market and then expand to other African markets as well. We’ve spoken to some companies in Ghana and South Africa but this is a market that I’m sure every country is participating in and I think there’s a lot of value to be derived from the platform that we are building. So we really want to expand our footprint within Africa to serve every country that we can. We know, first hand, from doing businesses in Nigeria how much a smartphone impacts someone’s life.

Thank you for listening to  Built In Africa.

This script was adapted by Emmanuel Paul

Research and interview by Tage Kene-Okafor

Sound design by Oghenekaro Obrutu

This is a production of Techpoint Africa

I am Emmanuel Paul

Please subscribe, share and drop a review of this podcast, by searching for ‘Built in Africa’ on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also email us feedback at [email protected]

For more stories on startups and innovation in Africa, please visit Techpoint.africa

Narrator: Mental health in Africa is often misperceived, leading to the stigmatisation of people with mental health issues. Because of this, those in need of treatment usually put it off. The cost of therapy doesn’t help either.

On this episode of Built in Africa, we put the spotlight on Shezlong, the first mental health-tech solution in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

According to a survey carried out by Egypt’s Ministry of Health in 2018, about 25 million people in Egypt — a quarter of the population — are suffering from a range of mental illnesses. 

SFX: Ambulance siren. 

In 2014, Ahmed Abu ElHaz, an Egyptian software engineer, was in an accident that almost cost him his limbs. 

Ahmed Abu ElHaz: I had a severe depression after the accident and I wanted to go to a therapist to recover. But unfortunately, in Egypt, and similarly around Africa, it’s very difficult to find a good therapist. 

Narrator: Given his previous background as a consultant with the World Health Organisation on mental health, Ahmed decided to build a platform to tackle the problem he faced.

Ahmed Abu ElHaz: I thought about how we can connect licensed therapists with anybody having mental disorders in a convenient, private, and anonymous way. 

Narrator: Ruminating on how to tackle the problem, he considered stigmatisation, misconception, contradictions, and religious stance on mental health disorders, and concluded that online was the way to go.

Ahmed Abu ElHaz: The online therapy, definitely, it’s more convenient than clinics in different ways. The first thing is the people. It’s easier to share their emotions and share their thoughts in their houses, rather than going to the clinics.

Narrator: And so, in 2015, Shezlong was born as a video conferencing platform with a focus on mental health. With only three therapists initially, the platform was limited to Egypt and other Arabic-speaking nations.

Ahmed realised very quickly that the problem was two-pronged. To build a client base, he needed online awareness campaigns to destigmatise mental illness. On the other hand, he also needed to hire qualified therapists to provide service to said clients.

Ahmed Abu ElHaz: The main issue of mental health, it’s an untapped industry especially for people and government. The governments, especially in emerging markets, don’t put suitable budget for mental health and they don’t invest a lot to provide loans to protect the patients and the therapists. On the other hand, the people don’t have the awareness and the culture to go to the therapist, if we have depression, for example, and personality disorders.

Narrator: But he eventually surmounted the initial challenge. Today, Shezlong now engages over 300 licensed therapists who specialise in depression, anxiety disorder, psychotic disorder, addiction, among other fields. It has grown into a global product, used across 60 countries, and is available in English, Italian, Hindi, Swedish, Turkish, Greek, Urdu, Deutsch, and French.

Shezlong has managed to create a sub-niche in the area of European and American expatriates who require the services of culturally familiar therapists. These expatriates, Ahmed says, make up 30% of Shezlong’s clientbase. 

Along the journey, Ahmed enlisted the help of other professionals like Mohamed ElShami, who served as the Medical Director, now Medical Advisor, and Shaheer Shaheen, who serves as the CTO. Ahmed is the CEO of the company.

Shezlong works sort of like a marketplace for mental health services. Both clients and therapists can access the platform via specialised apps available on the Google Play Store and App Store. An internal team of medical personnel ensures that only qualified therapists can sign up; they also check their excesses and call them to order when required.

For the sake of anonymity, clients are encouraged to sign up using pseudonyms.

Ahmed Abu ElHaz: We are using the latest technology in video conferencing in a secure way. We secured collaborations with the highest secure video platform. And we are using Amazon Web Service to secure our servers.

Narrator: In the coming months, a chat interface will be integrated into the platform to speed up client-therapist conversations. 

Clients can choose their therapists in most cases. In some cases, however, recommendations are made after they fill an 18-question questionnaire to determine their state of mental health. 

Therapists on the platform offer services ranging from consultation, to diagnosis, to referral to a health facility or treatment and follow-up. They can bill per hour or for every 30 minutes spent with a client. In Egypt, a session costs $20 on average. It however varies across other markets.

Of course, there’s the risk of therapists charging and serving clients outside the platform but Ahmed says they have this covered.

Ahmed Abu ElHaz: We have a rigid contract with our therapists to address that. And on the other hand, we provide for the therapists a lot of tools. Not only payments, the administration work, the patient filing system and all the secretary administration and like that. So it’s easy and it’s convenient for them to take sessions inside the platform rather than talking to clients outside the platform.

Narrator: For quality assurance purposes on therapist-client conversations, which by the way are not recorded, clients are encouraged to give honest feedback.

Ahmed Abu ElHaz: Our customer success team ensures that after each session they take the review of the customer to know whether the therapist provided good quality or not.

Narrator: And if there’s a problem that requires the intervention of the medical team, they are contacted to take relevant action, which can include calling defaulting therapists to order. And of course, clients can rate the services of the therapist via the app.

You are probably already thinking, “but how does Shezlong make money?” 

Shezlong currently has 83,000 unique subscribers who either use it on a pay-as-you-go basis or subscribe to bundles of 5, 10, 15, or 20 hourly sessions that are subsidised at 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% discount respectively. Normally, the first session on each bundle is free.

On the therapist side of things, Shezlong charges a commission.

Ahmed Abu ElHaz: We take like 30% from each psychotherapy session.

Narrator: Shezlong also employs a B2B business model through which it charges corporates bulk amounts to provide mental awareness programmes for their employees.

In 2020, at the peak of the pandemic, most healthtech platforms attracted more users by incorporating telemedicine into their services to avoid hospital visits. Interestingly, it was also a good period for Shezlong, as it increased its user base by 3.5x. 

Because of a peculiar circumstance in Egypt, Ahmed says Shezlong is exploring the addition of health insurance services.

Ahmed Abu ElHaz: In Egypt unfortunately, health insurance doesn’t cover mental health. But in the MENA region, in some other countries, we are now contracting with these insurance companies to provide our service to them.

Narrator: One major challenge that the Shezlong team faces is the hiring of technical talent to manage the platform.

Ahmed Abu ElHaz: It’s not easy to do that because all our talents are travelling abroad. We are promoting stock option plans to provide stocks for talented people, hiring talents from India for example.

Narrator: Ahmed adds that they will soon include a new hiring-stock model with a particular focus on bringing in talent from abroad.

Attracting investor interest is another challenge that hasn’t been easy to overcome either.

Ahmed Abu ElHaz: In Africa especially, we don’t have specific investments for health-tech; majority of investments come to car-hailing and logistics. So it’s hard to find a passionate investor in the health-tech domain, especially the mental health domain.

Narrator: Nevertheless, Shezlong’s first-mover advantage in East Africa and other parts of the continent has seen it attract several investments from Africa and the MENA region. In 2016, it got $15,000 to push the first MVP from an accelerator programme sponsored by the Egyptian Ministry of Telecommunications. 

In 2017, it raised $150,000 in a seed round from Endure Capital, A15, and Karim Hussein. And in 2018, it got into the 500 Startups accelerator where it raised another $350,000 in a bridge round from the accelerator and four other investors.

Shezlong also bagged some awards from Forbes as the most innovative platform in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and also from the Ministry of Communication in Egypt.

To power its operations during the pandemic in 2020, Shezlong got $450,000 from Asia Africa Investment & Consulting (AAIC), a Singapore-based investor focused on healthcare startups in Africa. Also in the same year, it got a $100,000 grant at Expo 2020 Dubai.

Going forward, Ahmed wants to focus outside the continent to draw more funds.

As for future plans, Ahmed highlights two.

Ahmed Abu ElHaz: Our plan is two things. Horizontally to expand Shezlong in sub-Saharan Africa and the MENA region. Vertically, provide different services. Already in mental health we provide video conferencing. This year, we will launch a texting therapy model; like a WhatsApp or chat model to talk to therapists via texting. Also, we will provide group therapy for customers who need it.

Narrator: Currently, Shezlong is in the process of raising a Series A round, expected to close in Q2 2021, towards expansion to Saudi Arabia. 

Thank you for listening to  Built In Africa.

This script was adapted by Oluwanifemi Kolawole and edited by Muyiwa Matuluko

Research and interview by Oluwanifemi Kolawole

Sound design by Oghenekaro Obrutu

This is a production of Techpoint Africa

I am Emmanuel Paul

Please subscribe, share and drop a review of this podcast, by searching for ‘Built in Africa’ on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also email us feedback at [email protected]

For more stories on startups and innovation in Africa, please visit techpoint.africa

Credits:

Photo by Iwaria

Narrator: Where would you rather find love? From your inner circle? You know, leave fate to bring your soulmate your way. Or would go the unconventional way, scrolling through a list of potential partners from the comfort of your room? Maybe unconventional sounds easier and quicker, but what about trust issues and the general cultural bias, particularly in this part of the world?

As unpopular as the terrain is in Africa, the online dating industry continues to attract a fair number of tech entrepreneurs. Adetolani Eko, Moronke Anifowose and Osagie Omonzokpia make up a team of such entrepreneurs. 

On this episode of Built in Africa, we focus on Vybe, a Nigerian online dating startup that is designed to help Africans connect with other Africans both online and offline infuses a conventional touch into the online matchmaking process to retain the regular style of dating.

The software engineering trio of Adetolani, Moronke and Osagie began their foray into the business of love in April 2019. But it wasn’t without the initial skepticism.

Adetolani: We were a bit sceptical about it in the sense that there was no market leader that I could say, okay this is who we are following for this particular continent. 

Narrator: That’s Adetolani Eko, co-founder and CEO of Vybe. By the way, Vybe is spelt VYBE.

Adetolani: We decided to carry out some surveys and customer interviews. So we called different people we knew and also strangers. We didn’t tell them what we were working on, we just sort of asked them “what they thought about online dating? What are the general issues you face while looking for somebody or finding a partner online? Have you tried dating services? What was your experience, what were the things you liked and did not like?” 

Narrator: The result of the survey bolstered their resolve; they built an MVP app which they launched in April 2019. 

Adetolani: The feedback was amazing. We hit about 1000 users in less than 48 hours of launching the beta app. So we initially planned to do a sample size of about 500 users but users kept coming in and our servers even crashed at a point

Narrator: The less traditional means of finding love has been around for a while but it became widespread with an increase in the use of Internet tools. While it is yet to be widely embraced in some climes, the online dating industry is worth more than $3 million globally. However, the Nigerian market is quite young.

Because of this reality and the existence of competition, Vybe had to offer a different touch to make it stand out. The team had the perfect idea.

Adetolani: Because of the peculiarities of the African market, the market we are going after, we noticed that it’s not enough to do an online thing. We decided to create an offline section where people can meet from time to time. A good example of that was a speed dating event that we had some time, late 2019, where we brought different single people together and then you’d go on short speed dates. And the event was incredibly successful

Narrator: However, the numbers recorded from the physical events paled in comparison to online matches, but it was a necessary setback for the moment. Osagie Omonzokpia, the Chief Technology Officer explains why.

Osagie: The speed dating event was free but it was for registered users only. So you register and we select, because we wanted to control the size. That was our first major event and we didn’t want something we could not handle. So after we’d gotten about 180 people registered, we selected only about 50 so we could have 25 pairs.

Narrator: Eventually, offline events would become a major revenue generating source going by the number of registered interests.

It isn’t surprising to find out that despite the interesting touch, there remains the need to give users some sort of assurance; the skepticism and trust issues persist. To combat this, they employ some machine learning.

Moronke: When you check some other dating apps, you see things like  shoes, you don’t see human pictures there. We make sure you put your own picture there and then we use machine learning to verify that the image you’re uploading is actually your own image.

Narrator: That’s Anifowose Moronke, the Chief Operations Officer (COO) explaining the verification process.

Moronke: And then we also encourage users to get verified. So with the verification system, you’ll have to give us a lot of information about yourself and then we have to do our own validation. So like checking your ID card and all of that to make sure you are verified.

Narrator: Of course, users can report suspicious accounts and repeat offenders are scrutinised and made to go through proper verification. Also, attending any of Vybe’s physical meet-ups comes with an added advantage.

Moronke: On the app, we promote that you should believe verified accounts more than those that are not verified. And once you come to our event and we can see you physically, definitely, you are verified automatically on the platform.

Narrator: This gives other users the idea that you can be trusted, thus increasing your chances of getting matched.

Interestingly, all these are available for free. But that’s only for a start. Subsequently, Vybe will take on a subscription model.

Adetolani: So yeah, we’re going with the freemium model where we will have the free users and the paid users. Free users will have access to a limited number of features, while paid users will have access to all features available on the app with no ads. 

Narrator: That was Adetolani again. So what’s the pricing model like?

Adetolani: Because we know the market we operate in we decided to go with a cheaper model. For casual dating, we’ll be charging between ₦1000 to ₦1500 per month for a premium user. And then for serious dating where we have a lot of features, it’s been ₦3,500 to ₦5000.

Narrator: That was Adetolani talking about pricing. For perspective ₦1000 is a little over $2 and ₦5000 is between 10 to 12 dollars.

Until they start charging users, the business will keep depending on in-app ad revenue from targeted promotions. 

But self-funding can only go so far, considering the activities already in motion, so the founders are on the lookout for external funding. The challenge, however, is how to convince investors that there’s a future for online dating platforms in Nigeria and Africa. 

Admittedly, there are popular online dating apps catering to users globally, but they are sometimes faulted for not matching Africans with other Africans. The founders of Vybe believe they have conveniently tapped into this gap and this serves as an advantage that would keep them around for a long time.

With high hopes drawn from over 10,000 downloads by users between the ages of 18 and 35 from at least 65 countries in less than two years, Vybe appears to have a future on the continent as long as it keeps evolving. 

It exhibited this during the COVID-19 induced lockdown in Nigeria. Vybe was able to remain in the minds of new and existing users by introducing virtual game nights and speed dates.

Adetolani: So, we know it’s a market that is always going to be accessible and as the times continue to change, we are also ready to change our model. We see that it’s a very sustainable market and as long as people keep coming, we can keep generating ad revenue. And as long as we continue delivering great service. You’ll have people that will want to pay for the premium features to get the best experience on the app. So I think we are gonna be around for a while.

Thank you for listening to  Built in Africa.

This script was adapted by Kolawole Oluwanifemi and edited by Muyiwa Matuluko

Research and interview by Kolawole Oluwanifemi 

Sound design by Oghenekaro Obrutu

This is a production of Techpoint Africa

I am Emmanuel Paul

Please subscribe, share and drop a review of this podcast, by searching for ‘Built in Africa’ on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also email us feedback at [email protected]

For more stories on startups and innovation in Africa, please visit techpoint.africa

This episode is brought to you by HostGator, web hosting that scales from easy to expert. Visit builtin.africa/hostgator to get up to 60% off on your purchases.

Credits:

Narrator: Since 2008, after the likes of Uber and Airbnb ushered in the era of on-demand marketplaces, hardly a quarter has gone by without a new ‘Uber for X’ launching, at least in the US and other developed countries.

On-demand marketplaces made the sharing economy thrive. An economic model for peer-to-peer-based activities, the sharing economy allowed people to monetise their time for specific tasks or services. These marketplaces also automated the matching of supply and demand, as well as pricing.

Despite the many benefits of the sharing and gig economy, workers usually find what they do one-dimensional, prioritising consistency and efficiency over individuality.

Enter the passion economy, a model that allows individuals to monetise their skills.

On this episode of Built in Africa, we put the spotlight on how eCommerce platform, Selar is working to grow Africa’s passion economy.

Digital platforms that employ the passion economy model like YouTube, Substack, and OnlyFans highlight the user’s individuality. These platforms can be very niche, though, leaving a variety of content uncatered for.

In the same vein, some kinds of content would flop on these global platforms. However, they’d do well on a niche geographical platform.

Selar is one of such startups trying to take advantage of this opportunity. Based in Lagos, Nigeria, Selar (spelt S-E-L-A-R) wants to help Africans monetise their skill, knowledge, and content from anywhere in the world.

Douglas Kendyson: So if somebody is like writing like an eBook or if somebody is creating like a course.

Narrator: That was Douglas Kendyson, founder and CEO of Selar. Douglas says that when he started Selar, African digital product creators weren’t regarded as people who create much value.

Douglas Kendyson: I mean, maybe people rate like influencers. But nobody has really thought of digital product creators as a thing. However, for me, I just always felt, even while we were building it, that this sort of should be a thing.

Narrator: However, that notion is gradually changing, and he believes it’s thanks to the work platforms like Selar do, enabling digital creators to sell eBooks, courses, provide training and coaching, among other content.

Douglas Kendyson: So many people are creating very sensible value on different fronts and in different formats that they’re worth selling locally, and they’re selling locally. I mean, I have like coaches that sell coaching memberships and programmes for like 350k, 600k. It’s weird because you would think, I mean, Nigerians don’t have money for that, but people are paying for that a lot.

Narrator: For perspective, ₦350,000 to ₦600,000 converts to anywhere between $700 and $1500, depending on the exchange rate. For many Nigerians, this is worth way more than their combined salaries for a couple of months

The journey to building Selar started in 2016 when Douglas was a Customer Success Expert at Paystack. You may remember Paystack as the YC-backed Nigerian fintech startup that was acquired by Stripe for $200m in 2020.

In 2016, Paystack only worked with businesses and rarely with individuals.

Douglas Kendyson: But then we kept on getting like emails of people that just want to sell their… either like eBook or something and I was like, well we can’t serve them at Paystack. So I was like, “oh let me make an MVP”.

Narrator: With the help of a couple of friends, the MVP was completed in 2017. 

To sell, well, Selar, Douglas relied solely on one-on-one online discussions with creators, rather than placing ads.

Douglas Kendyson: I was never comfortable with ads because I’m a very poorly-obsessed person. I think I was always very concerned about ads because I don’t want to do ads and then bring a thousand people, only for them to be disappointed.

Narrator: Douglas recalls that they sent at least over 500 Instagram DMs to potential users during this period. Of course, you can imagine how slow the conversion rate for that approach would be.

 So Selar remained in a semi-stealth mode for over two years. Meanwhile, Douglas remained gainfully employed, so his attention was divided.

Douglas Kendyson: I’ve always just kept a job. I was at Paystack from 2016 to 2017. I worked at Flutterwave from 2017 to 2018. Then I moved to Dubai to work for a robo-advisory startup.

Then recently, I also worked for another YC-backed payments company in the UAE building like Plaid for the Middle East and emerging markets in general. I only just quit my job this month. So this is the first time that I’m probably jobless in the last 4 years.

Narrator: Despite Douglas’ divided attention, things began to look up in 2020 when he decided to approach things differently 

Douglas Kendyson: All of 2020 was now a process of me trying to be more intentional about how we did things. Whether it was with the product, whether it was outreach, whether it was sales or content marketing – which was very key – on Instagram reaching the right people.

Narrator: The effort paid off as Selar began to pull in impressive numbers by the second quarter of 2020, keeping up the momentum until the end of the year.

For someone who has worked in two prominent Nigerian fintech startups, the comparison and competition between Flutterwave and Paystack isn’t alien to Douglas. 

In 2020, both Flutterwave and Paystack launched storefronts, which Douglas prefers to refer to as checkout pages, for individuals looking to sell their products online. Naturally, one would expect these to spell trouble for Selar, given the competition’s financial strength.

But Douglas is careful to brush off any comparison between Selar and the other two platforms. In his opinion, Selar is more than a checkout page. 

Douglas Kendyson: I think, at the end of the day, for Flutterwave and Paystack, they have a lot of physical product sellers that would need to use their platform. And the cost of making a website is expensive so they made a simple page for them to add their products and a checkout page for everybody to move. That serves the purpose it’s meant to serve. 

Narrator: But with Selar, things are different. Most of the platform’s features are centred around how best creators can sell their digital products. From how files are being accessed, to hosting video-based courses, to issuing coupons to early buyers, among other things.

Douglas Kendyson: While I definitely don’t want to make it about “oh we have more features than them”, because that sounds dumb, but I think you probably want to start from the approach in which we take things. We are helping people sell digital products and everything around that, everything we’ve built, in terms of the product, in terms of the different things that these guys can sell on our platforms, whether they are eBooks or courses, tickets, etc.

If you were to try to do that on those platforms, you would have to end up doing a lot of engineering on that front, which doesn’t serve the purpose. However, with Selar, you get a simple platform that actually helps you achieve that purpose of selling your digital content.

Narrator: This doesn’t mean that Selar excludes  physical product sellers.

Douglas Kendyson: I have a lot of wig sellers that sell natural wigs to a lot of customers in the US. The whole point is giving everybody that unique, smooth experience to sell their content, locally and internationally.

Narrator: On one front, Selar is an eCommerce store builder for creators to sell almost any digital product. On another, the platform facilitates cross border payments, leveraging the payment channels on Paystack, Flutterwave, Stripe, and PayPal

Douglas Kendyson: And all that comes fully integrated into Selar. So someone that signs up on Selar today has 6 currencies by default. All they have to do is set the price they want, like naira or something, and then when somebody from Ghana visits their page, it will show them the Ghana equivalent. They pay and the user gets their money back in naira.

Narrator: With most of its progress achieved last year, Douglas says Selar has facilitated cross-border digital trade between Africans; Nigerians, for example, are selling so much content to people in Ghana and Kenya, and vice-versa.

Selar is free to use. Any digital creator can create a profile and start selling. But Selar then begins to charge creators when they make a sale; between 4% to 10% per transaction, depending on the currency used.

In December 2020, the startup introduced a subscription model where creators were to pay between $15 and $30 monthly for more features. Although it was received well, it’s still up for review and remains a secondary source of revenue to Selar’s commission fees.

Douglas Kendyson: Making money via processing is definitely still profitable for us. But I guess we are definitely also going to try to push our subscription model. I mean, I’ve always heard that MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) is nice. But just seeing the numbers, I’m like “wow, I actually kind of really love the idea of this”, just money coming in every month. Obviously it would just have to depend on us giving value that people are happy to pay for.

Narrator: So far, the startup has no less than 17,000 merchants from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa. And in 2020 alone, they processed $270k (₦100m) in gross merchandise volume (GMV). 

While Douglas admits that these figures don’t paint the full picture, he believes they prove that there’s lots of room for growth, and Selar is barely scratching the surface.

He often reminisces about the little progress made after years of iteration and how challenging it was to acquire customers at first due to a lack of credibility. Nevertheless, customer referrals were crucial for Selar’s growth, which, according to him, speaks to the platform’s stickiness.

For now, the Selar team has Douglas as a solo founder alongside two content writers, a software engineer, and a salesperson. 

Douglas Kendyson: I kinda did start it with friends but they didn’t have the bandwidth for it for the longest time so they sort of left earlier

Narrator: From launch till date, the only outside investment the startup has gotten came in 2018 when it received the $10,000-Tony Elumelu Foundation grant.

While it’s too early to talk about profitability, Douglas confidently remarks that Selar makes a decent profit to handle any recurring expenses ‘for quite some time’. 

Raising money to accelerate growth is one of his plans for 2021. However, it’s not a priority.

Douglas Kendyson: I’ve just grown my team from 3 to 5 so I kinda really want to build a system that works, make it a stable process, and just keep building our product, because we have so many people that depend on this. Hopefully, I guess once the dust settles (of which, will it ever settle?), then maybe I will open that conversation again 

Thank you for listening to  Built In Africa.

This script was adapted by Heritage Kene-Okafor and edited by Muyiwa Matuluko

Research and interview by Heritage Kene-Okafor 

Sound design by Oghenekaro Obrutu

This is a production of Techpoint Africa

I am Muyiwa Matuluko

Please subscribe, share and drop a review of this podcast, by searching for ‘Built in Africa’ on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also email us feedback at [email protected]

Don’t forget to visit builtin.africa/hostgator to get up to 60% off on your purchases.

For more stories on startups and innovation in Africa, please visit techpoint.africa.

This episode is extracted from a Techpoint town hall meeting with Peter Salovey, president of Yale University, enjoy.

Build the money of the future at https://currency.techpoint.africa/

Build the money of the future at https://currency.techpoint.africa/

Narrator: Intro

The speakers on the panel, in the order that you hear them are:

• Panel moderator, Christine Edith Dikongué. She is the co-founder of AfricaHacks, a digital startup mentorship platform.
• Wiza Jalakasi, Head of Global BD & Research, Hover Developer Services and;
• Oluwatobi Otokiti, founder, ProductDive & Senior Growth Product Manager at Flutterwave

Panel session

01:36 – What does building products with African design mean to you (panelist)?

06:29 – What roles do languages and currency play in building products for Africans?

10:22 – Other specific considerations to keep in mind when building for different African regions

16:00 – Post-COVID, do product teams really need to be on the ground to build products that solve real problems for Africans?

17:37 – What are some frameworks, tools and platforms that African product designers can use to reach more people like them?

19:04 – Oluwatobi on whether product teams need to be on ground

21:52 – Building digital solutions that solve actual problems

28:55 – Audience question: Recommendations for first-time founders on getting their product into the market.

Narrator: Outro

Please subscribe, share and drop a review of this podcast, by searching for ‘Built in Africa’ on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also email us feedback at [email protected]

For more stories on startups and innovation in Africa, please visit techpoint.africa

This episode is brought to you by PureVPN; a secure, fast, private, and unrestricted way to access the internet.

Narrator: Africa!!! Home to 1.25 billion people, over 60% aged 25 and below. With such a youthful population, it is no surprise that potential talent abounds, especially in cutting edge sectors like tech. And with thousands of tech companies already established and hundreds more coming up, quality is brewing every day.

Over the past decade, a variety of tech talent companies have sprung forth on the continent, with the primary aim of connecting said talents to local and international clients. Names like Lagos and San-Francisco based Andela and Ethiopian-based Gebeya come to mind.

But for Adewale Yusuf, ex-publisher of Nigerian-based tech publication, Techpoint Africa, these names were just scratching the surface. More work needed to be done.

On this episode of the Built in Africa, we put the spotlight on how Nigerian-based startup, TalentQL, wants to build a pipeline of quality African talent for local and international companies.

Adewale would better appreciate the intricacies of the market in 2018 when Techpoint Africa held its first African tech talent meetup in Europe. This was done in partnership with US-based seed accelerator, Techstars.

Majority of the people in attendance were software engineers who originally plied their trade in Africa but now led dev teams in Berlin and other parts of Europe.  

Adewale Yusuf: From the developers that came, one thing I realised is, the only thing Africa has to offer the world is talent.

Narrator: That’s Adewale Yusuf. 

Inspired by the quality of talent present, he made up his mind to play a part in building tech talent in Africa. Right there and then, the seed for the idea of TalentQL was planted.

But it wasn’t until about 2 years after the meetup that the idea began to materialise. To kickstart the project, Adewale first stepped down as the publisher of Techpoint Africa. Meanwhile, he had enlisted the help of professionals in the talent recruitment space: Opeyemi Awoyemi and Akintunde Sultan.

Opeyemi is the co-founder of cloud-hosting company, Whogohost; and Jobberman, one of Africa’s largest online recruitment companies.

Akintunde, on the other hand, is the founder of non-profit tech accelerator, DevCareer. The organisation is well known for its efforts to equip up-and-coming African developers with laptops and guide them on a path to proficiency. It has attracted the attention of global beneficiaries, such as Twitter and Square CEO, Jack Dorsey. 

Together, the trio launched TalentQL in November 2020. A moniker for Talent Quiet Location, its mission is to hire, develop, and manage remote African talent for global companies.

But with a plethora of established companies which provide similar services, how will TalentQL stand out from the lot? 

Of utmost importance to the team is its intention to source for talent outside of Nigeria’s largest tech city of Lagos. 

Adewale Yusuf: Why are we really stuck in Lagos? Why is everyone here?

Narrator: Well … overcrowded as Lagos is, it remains a bubbling tech ecosystem, host to majority of the country’s most innovative startups. But no thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, companies are beginning to rethink the idea of maintaining a physical presence in Lagos, with some opting for their employees to work outside the city.

This is where TalentQL is rearing its young head. 

Adewale Yusuf: Any talent that doesn’t deal with customers directly, we want to make sure that they don’t have to live in Lagos. We want to make sure they live in a place where there’s no traffic and there’s electricity.

Narrator: So if not Lagos, where?

TalentQL’s model includes building talent campuses in less crowded cities with proximity to top tertiary institutions. Adewale believes this is a perfect combination for talent to thrive.

While a number of cities fit this description, top of the pile for the team is, Ile-Ife in Osun state, Nigeria. 

Adewale Yusuf: So our first campus is in Ife. The reason we are choosing Ife is simple. Within an hour’s drive to Ife, we have more than 12 higher institutions. And we realised that if we want to build this thing to be sustainable, we need to go to where talents are. And in the first place, talent relocated to Lagos for opportunities. So we are now taking the opportunities back to the talent, that’s what we want to do.

Narrator: Beyond Ile-Ife, the idea is to set up future TalentQL campuses around similar educational cluster cities like Enugu and Kaduna.

Adewale Yusuf: We are going to look at wherever we know that talent comes from those areas. And talent for us, we look at higher institutions, we look at resources and where life is better, security and some of the things that we really need, including internet and all these.

Narrator: With Ile-Ife as the centre of operations, TalentQL’s value proposition spreads across three offerings.

The first one is hiring and managing engineering talent for global companies rethinking their hiring strategy in the wake of the pandemic.

In addition to managing these developers, TalentQL trains them to imbibe client’s culture, work ethic, and professionalism.

Adewale Yusuf: We are not project based, we are engineering-based, we are talent-based. And why our team is different is we make sure these talent, they understand not just your culture, they understand how you work. We take all the headache off you.

And our campus, we are going to supply with electricity, internet and everything possible. There’s even an option of we giving them accommodation to live. But we are taking them out of Lagos.

Narrator: The second offering is what the company calls the talent pipeline. Now, it’s no news that a good number of developers use companies in Nigeria as a stepping stone to seek opportunities outside Africa.

For instance, while running Techpoint Africa, Adewale realised something.

Adewale Yusuf: A lot of our developers, when they come, they get better. Once they get better, they move on to another company that pays better and they move on to an international company in Canada or somewhere else. That’s a reality. It’s not going to go away anytime soon and honestly, in truth, we shouldn’t even stop it. Because what we have to offer the world is talent”

Narrator: Presenting a win-win solution for both developers and companies, TalentQL plans to help upskill these developers and create a talent pipeline for interested local companies.

The pipeline works this way. TalentQL starts a 6-month programme for the best beginner to intermediate developers with little to no work experience. Working remotely in TalentQL’s campus, these developers will get hands-on training of concepts in the space their employers play in.

Adewale Yusuf: And we move them from P0, we call them P0, to P1, P2. By the time they’re joining your company, they understand culture, they understand everything and they are working with your team. Now they are well-trained people that are now coming with the experience. Not just local experience, they’re coming with international experience.

Narrator: The first cohort programme will be piloted with fintech companies between the first and second quarter of 2021. For this cohort, engineers in US-based Stripe and Square, UK-based Monzo, and German-based N26 will act as instructors and mentors to the developers.

Although similar to the first, the third offering is for local companies whose developers can have access to TalentQL’s workspace. The startup will manage their developer teams remotely while their clients in turn take care of payroll and options such as accommodation.

Of all its three offerings, the talent pipeline is what gives TalentQL an edge. Adewale compares it to Andela’s previous business model, where they employed and outsourced hundreds of junior developers. But unlike Andela, TalentQL isn’t keeping these engineers on its payroll but rather, building a decentralised platform for companies that need their services.

Adewale Yusuf: By the time people are exiting from your company, you don’t need to think twice, you have your pipeline already. These people have been in the system, they understand the system. You don’t need to start rehiring. So we just take the headache of hiring off

Narrator: That being said, the company’s focus right now is on engineering talent. However, with time, TalentQL will dip its hands into other talents in design and content.

On challenges the startup might encounter going forward, Adewale affirms that with over 20 years of experience in running companies and building talent between the founders, they understand what’s in store for them.

Adewale Yusuf: All of us, all of the co-founders, this is not the first time running a startup.

Narrator: It also helps that they recently received valuable validation by way of a $300,000 pre-seed investment led by Lagos-based investment firm, Zedcrest Capital, with participation from some other local investors. 

What’s imperative is that they are riding on the wave set by their predecessors.

Adewale Yusuf: There are a lot of challenges we are not planning for now that will even come, directly or indirectly, but we are betting on the future of talent for Africa. That’s the most important thing.

Thank you for listening to  Built In Africa.

This script was adapted by Heritage Kene-Okafor and edited by Muyiwa Matuluko

Research and interview by Heritage Kene-Okafor 

Sound design by Oghenekaro Obrutu

This is a production of Techpoint Africa

I am Oluwafemi Kolawole

Please subscribe, share and drop a review of this podcast, by searching for ‘Built in Africa’ on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also email us feedback at [email protected]

For more stories on startups and innovation in Africa, please visit techpoint.africa

This episode is brought to you by PureVPN; a secure, fast, private, and unrestricted way to access the internet.

Narrator: Growing up in Mali, Moulaye Tabouré was quite passionate about art and fashion. His studies took him to France, where he noticed the trend of Europeans taking particular interest in art and fashion depicting African culture.

Moulaye Tabouré: We realised that first, a lot of the artisans’ work that we had and came with from Africa were actually very praised and looked forward to in Europe

Narrator: That’s Moulaye Tabouré, co-founder and CEO of Ivorian-based eCommerce platform, Afrikrea.

In 2010, after over 5 years studying in France, Moulaye returned to Mali to work as an auditor with PricewaterhouseCoopers and, later, Alstrom. It was during this period that Mali came under intense pressure from militant Islamist terror groups like Ansar Dine.

Moulaye Tabouré: So the country was closing up; less and less tourism. Meaning more and more artisans were actually struggling to keep up. So they were starting to move away from ancestral craftsmanship to going to work, for example, in the mines just trying to survive and make ends meet for their families

Narrator: Meanwhile, a different group of designers began to gain international recognition from names like Burberry and IKEA fabrics because of their modern twist to African fashion.

Moulaye says these separate events led him to seriously consider how best to help African designers overcome their dependence on tourism to sell their products. 

On this episode of Built in Africa, we put the spotlight on how Ivorian startup, Afrikrea, is building the online infrastructure for African culture commerce.

Moulaye quickly realised that he could not start this project alone. So he reached out to his long-time friend, Kadry Diallo. Together, they began working on his idea as a side project codenamed ‘Afrikrea’. This was in 2014.

 Moulaye Tabouré: We noticed that in pretty much any country you go in the world, you have a museum for African art, you have people that sell African items in shops or any other market. Unfortunately, these artisans themselves in Africa, the ones creating it, the ones actually initiating all of these are not getting most of the value. 

Narrator: According to Statista, Africa’s eCommerce opportunity is estimated to be around $19.8 billion. On the other hand, McKinsey & Company estimates that by 2025, the local manufacturing industry will grow to more than $900 billion.

While this shows signs of promise for African online retailers to pursue a global push for Africa’s fashion industry, issues have come up to stifle collective progress. For one, cross-border shipping and handling, and marketing are barriers to African fashion designers reaching global demand actively.

Similarly, difficulties arising from accepting online payments from platforms like Shopify exist. As with other eCommerce platforms, Shopify encourages African online retailers but does not build its platform to cater to their specific needs like payments.

These were the problems Moulaye and Kadry sought to solve with Afrikrea. Their research led them to studying business models of successful art-based online marketplaces like US-based Etsy.

Moulaye Tabouré: If people could make DIY products in the US and sell them for billions of dollars on Etsy. It didn’t make sense that we couldn’t make something similar for African creatives recognised all over the world.

Narrator: It soon became clear that they needed to give the project their full attention.

Moulaye Tabouré: Kadry was, at the time, in a corporate job at EDF, the energy provider in France. And so we both quit our jobs to go full time.

Narrator: Now after multiple iterations, which helped them realise the need to expand beyond craftspeople to anyone making Africa-inspired art, fashion, or beauty, Afrikrea.com launched officially in 2016 with help from a third co-founder.

Moulaye Tabouré: The product finally took off, after years of struggling, when our third co-founder joined us; our CTO and magic man in residence, Luc B. Perussault Diallo. He has 20 years experience in eCommerce. He has built platforms that process hundreds of thousands, even millions of people over the years. So, basically now he wanted to do something in link with Africa.

Narrator: Now based in Abidjan, the capital city of Ivory Coast, Afrikrea’s mission is to enable African designers to create storefronts, receive payments from customers globally, and lower shipping costs for delivery. 

Narrator: Moulaye is particularly proud of Afrikreas shipping feature which he says offers competitive prices, thanks to a special arrangement with global logistics giant, DHL.

Moulaye Tabouré: For example, people in Nigeria, they can ship into the UK for less than $20, up to 2kg. That’s pretty much the best deal you’ll ever find in this zone of the world.

Narrator: Designers can also generate payment links which they can share on social media, their website or anywhere else.

Moulaye Tabouré: Kind of like they can do with PayPal, except if they send the link from Afrikrea and someone pays on it, we take zero commission on it. This is because we estimate that it’s our job to facilitate revenue for our sellers.

Narrator: Creating an Afrikrea account to list items is free for designers. And, as long as they make no sales, they won’t be charged. However, after an initial sale, they are required to pay $10/month on top of a 5 to 8% commission per sale.

Moulaye maintains that the pricing is perfect for those who need the service.

Moulaye Tabouré: Most people are worried, when we do that, ‘would people be able to, every month, make sales worth what they pay on the platform?’ But to answer that, it’s pretty simple; we cost the same thing as a Spotify subscription and half the price of a Shopify one. So the idea is that anyone serious about exporting and doing their business online will find our price not only affordable but very complete.

Narrator: Afrikrea also offers an escrow wallet feature which helps establish trust between the designers and buyers, especially across international waters. 

Speaking to cross-border transactions, Moulaye says they have integrated multiple payments solutions into the wallet infrastructure. So Afrikrea can pay designers in the 50 countries Afrikrea is currently present in.

The startup also enables efficient exchanges between buyers and sellers before, during, and after an order through its messaging system, which Moulaye says records over 30,000 messages a month. 

In total, Afrikrea’s global infrastructure of African culture eCommerce spans 150 countries, including the US, UK, and most parts of Europe. 

Narrator: Between its second and fourth year of launching officially, Afrikrea raised over 1 million euros in several seed rounds. The startup gained further international acclaim as one of ten finalists at the Jack Ma Foundation Africa Netpreneur Prize Initiative 2019, taking home $65,000 in grant money.

Further monetary validation would come via a $1m funding round in February 2020. Africa-focused VC fund, Saviu.vc, led the round. Long-time investor, Id4 Ventures and Showroomprive, France’s second-largest fashion and beauty e-commerce platform, also participated. 

Moulaye is quick to point out that despite these investments, they are very focused on revenue generation.

Moulaye Tabouré: I think I’m very happy to say that we are funded basically by our customers. That’s the most important thing I hope that every entrepreneur could achieve. So yes, making revenue… over the last 18 months, we made over $2 million in revenue. So for the first time now, our revenue is able to sustain most of our cost.

We are not yet profitable, in the sense that we still burn some money to support our designers on some services.

Narrator: The goal is to achieve profitability in 2021 while doubling its revenue and sustaining most of its costs.

As of this publication, Afrikrea claims to have processed over $7 million in transactions from 7,000 sellers across 150 countries.

Moulaye Tabouré: We process over 600,000 euros a month, so well over half a million dollars in transactions, every month on the platform. And this is done from 7000 sellers all over the world, like I said. We are very proud to have not only designers in the 50 African countries but also buyers that are 40% in Europe and 30% in the US. So we have a completely global business from both sides of the deal.

Narrator: While these metrics and achievements look impressive, things weren’t always this rosy for the Ivorian startup. 

Moulaye recalls that when Afrikrea started, the team realised its first group of African designers did not trust each other. 

Moulaye Tabouré: We had a lot of trouble with initially. For example, designers not believing that being together could help them grow their business individually. They were afraid of competition and they didn’t realise that.

Until now, most of them still have trouble realising how effective the community is in terms of cross-selling. That’s one thing, because more than two-thirds of our purchases are done through more than one seller. But also, we have a lot of operations that are only available because they are all together.

Narrator: For instance, the DHL deal was only possible because Afrikrea promised to aggregate volume en masse. 

Moulaye Tabouré: And what is even better is that as we can do it in all the countries we manage to become a very important customer for DHL, which allows us to have even better services for the designers individually.

Even DHL, when we met them, they told us that a lot of startups had tried to sell them the exact same dream of being able to do a lot of volume very quickly. But we are the only ones that moved, in 1 year, from 150 shipments a month to 10,000 this month (November).

Narrator: With a successful partnership and thriving business in place for more growth, Moulaye sees Afrikrea dealing with products outside African fashion.

Moulaye Tabouré: For us, the plan is to evolve to become more than just African fashion. We want to become the number one export partner for anyone that wants to transact between Africa and the world and really put African culture on the map.

Narrator: However, he is not quick to forget why Afrikrea started in the first place.

Moulaye Tabouré: Our main concern is really to come back to where we started to make sure that people in Africa can realise how valuable their culture is, their talent is, their business can be, and that it is affordable for everyone and anyone that has the will to serve properly.

Narrator: This includes women who account for about 90% of the platform’s sellers. 

Moulaye Tabouré: I think that’s a very big number to keep in mind; a lot of women are generally underestimated in what they’re able to accomplish and what talent they have. We learn, we show and prove with the numbers we have that you can build big businesses when you are a woman in Africa. And that’s not only something you do in your spare time but it can even, if you want, grow it into a full-fledged company all over the world.

Creativity and culture is one area in which Africa can not only generate revenue but excel and probably be one of the best in the world. We already do it with afrobeats from Nigeria and I want that to keep growing and be open to even more people with all the other aspects of our culture.

Thank you for listening to  Built In Africa.

This script was adapted by Heritage Kene-Okafor and edited by Muyiwa Matuluko

Research and interview by Heritage Kene-Okafor

Sound design by Oghenekaro Obrutu

This is a production of Techpoint Africa

I am Heritage Kene-Okafor

Please subscribe, share and drop a review of this podcast, by searching for ‘Built in Africa’ on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also email us feedback at [email protected]

For more stories on startups and innovation in Africa, please visit techpoint.africa

Build the money of the future at https://currency.techpoint.africa/

Narrator: It is a cozy Sunday afternoon as I walk into a dimly lit movie theatre in Lagos, Nigeria. 

Already seated are hundreds of guests, including celebrities and members of the press like myself. As I make my way to empty rows in the middle, I spot a few extra-young faces in front, two of which I later learn are part of the cast for the movie about to be screened to a select audience, 1 week ahead of its premiere.

Popcorn in hand, I settle in my seat beside other adults as the last of the theatre lights goes off. Then the huge screen lights up as the movie opens to pre-colonial scenes of Oloibiri, the South-South Nigeria town where crude oil was first discovered in commercial quantities in the 1950s. The lead character is Bukky, a happy-go-lucky eight-year-old whose blissful life is abruptly interrupted by major events that will change the course of her destiny.

Following a successful premiere event that was held on December 11, 2020, Lady Buckit and the Motley Mopster became Nigeria’s first feature-length animated movie to make it to the big screens. You may recall that a similar project, titled SADE, only made it to press briefs in 2018 but never took off for undisclosed reasons.

Animated in 4k resolution, at 24 frames per second (for a cinematic effect), the movie is estimated to have cost over $1m to produce. And with themes that centre around education, family morals and a fair share of humour, it infuses Nigerianisms with other seemingly foreign elements. Unusual names such as Ladybuckit, Sleeperhead, Pantylegs, Dustee, and Mopps come to mind. 

On this episode of Built in Africa, we explore how Nigeria’s first feature-length animation movie came to life, the brains behind the project, their process and what all this means for the Nigerian animation industry.

The seed for Lady Buckit and the Motley Mopsters was planted in Blessing Amidu’s heart during a casual family moment in 2017.

Blessing Amidu: “We were actually watching cartoons. I usually sit down with my kids watching cartoons” 

Narrator: That was Blessing Amidu, mother of four and Executive Producer of the movie.

On this particular day, one of her sons, who was five at the time, walked into her room wearing only his underwear and a pair of slippers in hand.

She fondly remembers teasing him for looking like a cartoon character. 

Her daughter, 12 at the time, had a light bulb moment and before they knew it, mother and daughter were bouncing off ideas for cartoon characters inspired by the five-year-old.

Blessing Amidu: “We put two and two together and then we started looking at the names. I went to bed, I woke up in the morning, and I had some names in my head. Then we started piecing the names together; Pantylegs, for example, came from my son because of his underwear

Narrator: The initial plan was to build an entertainment facility, reminiscent of Disneyland, so she founded Hot Ticket Productions, of which she is currently the Chief Executive Officer. 

But Blessing soon realised that she was putting the cart before the horse.

Blessing Amidu: It came to a point that we decided that what we needed to do was showcase the characters first on the international stage.

Narrator: Borrowing from Disney’s playbook, a story with relatable characters needs to be told first, before real-life experiences can be built around it. Hence began her quest to produce a homegrown feature-length animated film.

Narrator: Blessing’s first attempts at producing a full-length animated film were unsuccessful, but she didn’t relent.

Blessing Amidu: When I believe in a thing, I go after it totally. Yes, it wasn’t quite as easy, especially considering the huge financial investment. But looking at my kids and knowing what I wanted to achieve, I knew that this was just a piece of cake.

Narrator: A major turning point would arrive when two key figures came on board in 2018 – renowned Nollywood producer, Chris Ihidero who took on a consulting role and Adebisi Adetayo, who joined as lead animator and director.

Blessing Amidu: The first two teams were also fully Nigerian. The challenge we had with the first two teams was basically around finances, as well as finding the right set of skill combinations. Those were the first two challenges we had and then we had to finally put together the third team, which is what we have now. 

Narrator: And who better to lead the technical side of things than Adebisi Adetayo, a seasoned animator with over two decades of industry experience? Adebisi particularly remembers how excited he was to jump on the project.

Adebisi Adetayo: I’ve been producing animations for quite some time, though not on a full scale. But when I saw the script [for LBMM], it thought it was beautiful. Every part of it is something I desired very much to bring to life. The storyline is outstanding. Unlike what is expected of a Nigerian animation, this has very unique characters. And that was one of the things that got me very much interested in the story. 

Narrator: For about half of his time in the industry, Adetayo has run Third Academy of Art & Design. Also known as 32ad studios, the Lagos-based animation studio also doubles as a training centre. This explains how he could single-handedly assemble all 38 animators that worked on the project in record time.

Blessing Amidu: We’ve not had to seek any external expertise whatsoever. Everything is totally Nigerian, from script to director, cast, crew, animation, technical team, everything totally.

Narrator: Oh, that was Blessing again.

Of course, you can’t have an all-Nigerian production without a notable Nollywood cast which includes household names like Bimbo Akintola, Patrick Doyle and Kalu Ikeagwu. Alongside these veterans are also 12 and 14 -year-old Jessica and Davids Edwards who voiced the main character, Bukky and supporting character, Tamuno respectively. 

However, a project of this magnitude cannot escape the usual challenges faced not only by filmmakers but also technical talent, especially in Nigeria. 

This includes usual suspects like unstable power which could be any animator’s nightmare.

You see, depending on the hardware setup, rendering just 1-minute of high resolution animation could take as much as 6 weeks of uninterrupted processing. The total runtime for Lady Buckit and the Motley Mopsters is around 80 minutes. How long do you think that would take to render? You do the math.

But Adebisi and his team found their way around this using a 2-year-old custom setup which they were able to scale for the project.

Adebisi Adetayo: The time that we have is very short, compared to elsewhere in the world. What we did was to enhance what is publicly available to people. With the fact that it was enhanced in-house gave us the privilege to tweak it whenever we wanted to. So we were able to make adjustments on the platform. So it was taking something off the shelf and then building on it. It is not something you’d find in the open market, it’s 80% unique to us.

Narrator: Of course, forces of nature like the coronavirus pandemic are harder to plan for. The outbreak threatened to stall production schedules. 

Blessing Amidu: We had to work all through the period of the lockdown. Most of the animators have had to spend all their time, day in, day out, back to back. If it had not been for the dedication of the team, we wouldn’t have gotten to this extent.

Narrator: Apparently, with funds already sorted out, the technical team was hardly constrained. 

But beyond that, lead animator Adebisi also acknowledges that everyone on his team went through the proper learning process and this played a pivotal role. 

While anticipating how the groundbreaking movie will spur more Nigerian creatives to go into 3D illustration and animation, he advises that free basic tools and resources are available to start learning with. Some of which are Blender and Autodesk Maya.

But this begs the question. If just about anyone can access animation tools, why is adoption slow? Why is a Nollywood feature-length animation just gracing the screens in 2020? 

Adebisi Adetayo: One of the greatest reasons why it took this long is that our education system has failed. Completely, it’s a failure, that’s why it took this long

Narrator: Indeed, there’s only so much impact Adebisi’s 32ad studios, and other pockets of training centres across the nation, can make in a nation whose educational system does not cater to the needs of the industry.

Not many would have been as fortunate as Adebisi to get the proper training abroad

Adebisi Adetayo: That line has to be sorted out. If I did not have the proper education, this would have not been possible.

Narrator: Nevertheless, Blessing is optimistic that the legacy Lady Buckit and the Motley Mopsters is about to create will endure. Going forward, there are plans to distribute to video streaming platforms and cinemas screens in Ghana, Cameroon, and other parts of the world. Beyond distribution, they are also exploring other marketing channels. 

Blessing Amidu: We have a toys facility in mind. We do have merchandising but we are also looking into games and an educational facility as well.

Narrator: Riding on to the exposure her movie will bring, she looks forward to more success stories to the nation’s entertainment industry.

Blessing Amidu: We do appreciate the fact that Nigerians have showcased a lot of creativity, when you look at the other shorts that have come out. By shorts, I mean in animation. This would be like a pacesetter when it comes to feature-length. We are hoping that going forward, because we’ve been able to do this, every other person will see that it’s actually possible to do this in Nigeria, regardless of the challenges.

Thank you for listening to  Built In Africa.

This script was adapted by Muyiwa Matuluko

Interview by Oluwanifemi Kolawole and additional research by Muyiwa Matuluko

Sound design by Oghenekaro Obrutu

This is a production of Techpoint Africa

I am Muyiwa Matuluko

Please subscribe, share and drop a review of this podcast, by searching for ‘Built in Africa’ on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also email us feedback at [email protected]

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Additional music from www.zapsplat.com. Photo Credit: Global Partnership for Education – GPE Flickr via Compfight

[Voices: Call and response]

Narrator: The voices you just heard are from a regular pre-primary class in rural Kenya. Only that the language of instruction is neither English nor Kiswahili, the two officially recognised languages of instruction in the country.

Teaching in Kiswahili or English is not an issue if you were in Nairobi, Mombasa, or the 30% of counties that make up urban Kenya. But for kids in the remaining 70% of counties, it’s definitely inconvenient.  

Abdinoor Almahdi: Imagine walking into a classroom, you’re just like me (I only know Somali) but the syllabus is in English or in Swahili or in French or some other countries like Rwanda and Djibouti. It’s like adding insult to injury.

Narrator: That’s Abdinoor Almahdi, a Kenyan information technologist and telecommunications engineer, and the brain behind Kenyan edtech startup, M-Lugha.

On this episode of Built in Africa, we tell the story of a young innovator building digital interactive apps in several Kenyan native languages, to support early childhood learning, despite locational challenges.

Abdinoor grew up in Northern Kenya, a predominantly nomadic and pastoralist region, where most of the people speak only either Somali/Kalenji, as opposed to the country’s official languages of English and Kiswahili. 

Abdinoor Almahdi: And actually it is almost 80% of the landmass  of Kenya. When I say ‘Northern Kenya’, we’re talking about almost 10 counties. And it’s where actually they experience the most severe educational crisis because of the socio-economic issues we have, from famine to droughts, sometimes flooding and cross-border conflicts. And then above all, now we have a language barrier.

Narrator: A 2016 UNICEF report titled “The impact of language policy and practice on children’s learning” confirms that one of the fundamental challenges of learning in most African nations is the rich diversity of indigenous languages. More often than not, the language of instruction differs from children’s mother tongue.

Abdinoor Almahdi: Imagine telling me this is my head and then still translating it into English or French, like ‘this is your head’. So it’s like you’re translating from unknown to unknown, instead of known to unknown. I know my mother tongue, so why don’t you use what I know to teach what I don’t know? So actually the first few years of education, we struggle a lot. Some of them even drop out. Because you take more time learning the language than even actually acquiring skills.

Narrator: Fortunately, this worrying situation has not escaped the notice of the Kenyan government. About three years ago, the government introduced learning with an indegenous language into the new curriculum, such that textbooks for basic subjects were produced in Kiswahili. However because the focus is only up to the Grade 3 level, the initiative has limited reach, not to mention the generally unfavourable reception by stakeholders.

Abdinoor saw an opportunity in all these. 

Abdinoor Almahdi: Actually, from personal experience, I could not even read or write until Grade 7. Grade 8 is when I started learning a few things here and there. So that’s why I went back to class, I ditched my telecommunications career. I did a masters in education technology.

Narrator: As a prerequisite to graduation, he had to come up with a technology-based project aimed at enhancing life. His idea? A fun and simple learning app that translates Kenya’s early years syllabus into mother tongues. And so, in January 2019, the M-Lugha app was created.

You’re probably already wondering, “how is an app that translates learning materials any different from translated books?”

Abdinoor Almahdi: What we are providing is an offline digital interactive content where you just see an image of a dog, you click and it gives you the English word and your local word for it. But if you give me a Hausa book and English book but I don’t know how to read and write, how are you helping me? They cannot differentiate. So the solution is interactive digital content, which has voice overs, which has animations and the kids can just interact and something like that.

Narrator: M-Lugha started with just three native languages, Somali, Kalenjin, and Massai. 

In a bid to simplify navigation for the kids, Abdinoor decided against cramming all translations within a single app. 

This explains why if you search for ‘M-Lugha’  on the Google Playstore, you will find several versions. So, for example M-Lugha Somali Mathematics, M-Lugha Somali Environmental Activities and M-Lugha Somali Language Activities are all 3 different apps on the Playstore. 

So every language and its corresponding subjects is a different app on the Playstore. Abdinoor explains the reasoning behind this seeming complexity.

Abdinoor Almahdi: This app is designed specifically for children. You know, when you design for children, you don’t give them something that complicated. You give them something they can easily navigate. For example, you give them M-Lugha Somali and the 3 apps. For them to go to the dashboard and then click M-Lugha and then go to choose the subject they want.. These are small kids. We are talking about early childhood education (ECD). You are talking about Pre-Primary 1 and 2. So that’s why we made it easy for the kids.

Narrator: As of this publication, M-Lugha supports twenty native languages, most of which are predominantly spoken by nomadic people 

Abdinoor Almahdi: We are talking about Massai, Tokana, Nandi…. So most of them don’t live in a cosmopolitan region.

Narrator: So for a comprehensive study, a pupil will need not less than three M-Lugha apps, each deliberately sized around 17MB to 34MB each. 

Oh, did I mention that the apps aren’t free? Yes, they each attract an annual subscription fee of 500 Kenyan Shillings (approximately $5). And in line with the offline strategy, relevant apps come pre-loaded on customised 7-inch Android tablets which cost north of $100 a pop.

Mhmmm, you’re thinking exactly what I’m thinking right now. An average rural dweller will not be able to afford this. Abdinoor is not oblivious to the fact. 

Abdinoor Almahdi: My business model is working with the county governments and also the national government, NGOs like UNICEF that support education. So mostly I don’t deal with parents directly, unless they can afford it.

Narrator: Obviously, there’s a dire need for funding, but so far, Abdinoor hasn’t been able to raise any, no thanks to a regulatory bottleneck. You see, one has to get approval from the Ministry of Education before commercialising such a solution as M-Lugha. 

Abdinoor Almahdi: Actually, that has been my major roadblock to success. Because whenever you go to the NGOs and even the county government, they ask if the app has been approved by the Ministry. They cannot take something that has not been approved by the Ministry. And then the Ministry requested 2 million shillings, that’s $20,000, to approve my apps.

Narrator: But things are starting to look up.

Abdinoor Almahdi: It has involved a lot of back and forth but eventually, the Minister of Education intervened. He gave them a call. He told them ‘it is a startup, how can he afford to pay 2 million shillings? Besides, he is bringing a solution, how can he even pay for his solution?’. So that’s when they gave me a subsidised rate and they started evaluating. I’m happy to say that right now,  we are at the final stages of getting approved by the ministry.

Narrator: Abdinoor is optimistic that as soon as this hurdle is surmounted, he will be able to access funds. For now, he has gotten access to aids from educational support groups and county governments. He’s also considering offering installment plans for parents.

However, a little form of encouragement is coming from urban users. While they do not need the app for basic learning, parents have embraced it as a means to help their kids speak their native language. This contributed largely to the 15,000 free downloads recorded during the pilot test.

Although he is riding solo at the moment due to shortage of funds, Abdinoor enlists a number of professionals in app and web development, animation, and translations on a gig basis.

All these do not discourage Abdinoor from having lofty plans for his product. He wants to extend M-Lugha to countries with similar languages like Botswana, Rwanda, South Africa, Somalia, and some parts of Ethiopia. 

The startup also has plans to deliver standalone translation apps to these locations on request. All these should be possible with the right partnerships with telcos, NGOs and education support groups.

Thank you for listening to  Built In Africa.

This script was adapted by Oluwanifemi Kolawole and edited by Muyiwa Matuluko

Research and interview by Oluwanifemi Kolawole 

Sound design by Oghenekaro Obrutu

This is a production of Techpoint Africa

I am Precious Mogoli.

Please subscribe, share and drop a review of this podcast, by searching for ‘Built in Africa’ on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also email us feedback at [email protected]

For ad placements: [email protected].

For more stories on startups and innovation in Africa, please visit Techpoint.africa