Foundry Conversations Podcast Episode 5: Launching African Creatives with Chidi Nwaogu
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EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Chidi Nwaogu is an Acumen Fellow and the co-founder of Publiseer, a platform that helps African writers, musicians, and other creatives earn an income by sharing their work. In this episode, Chidi tells us about accompanying talented people through the publishing industry, designing successful ventures, and why humility is the most important quality in entrepreneurship.
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What is Foundry Conversations?
Foundry Conversations is an initiative created by members of The Foundry at Acumen Academy. We chat with leaders like you who are tackling the world’s toughest challenges. Together, we explore the most critical issues in their communities, how they navigate this complex moment in time, and what moral leadership means to them. You’ll get an inspiring glimpse of their vision for a better world, and practical ideas for creating the change that matters most to you.
Full Transcript
GUEST: Chidi NwaoguHOST: Daisy Rosales
Podcast Intro
Welcome to Foundry Conversations. This podcast is brought to you by a global community of builders and innovators committed to a meaningful, positive impact. We chat with leaders around the globe like you who are tackling the world’s toughest challenges. In this space, you’ll hear guests share about the most critical issues in their communities, how they navigate this complex moment in time, and what moral leadership means to them.
Chidi: Sometime in 2016, my twin brother recorded a studio album and he wanted to make money out of it. And someone introduced him to a platform called Tunecore that can help him to make money out of it. So Tunecore is more like an aggregator that gets your content to online retail stores and service providers like Amazon and Spotify. And my twin was really excited to make money this way. He did some social media campaign. He had huge sales from downloading streams, and it was time to take his money.
And that was when he experienced the most problem from using this platform. So TuneCore and every other existing aggregator, they primarily pay routes via PayPal. And this is something that we don’t have access to here in Nigeria or in Ghana. So my twin had to go for the alternative payment method, which was check payment. But two months down the line, the check never came. So he reached out to TuneCore to know exactly why. And that was when they told him that he had taken his money.
But then the question was, how can he take his money when he didn’t receive the check? Then they investigated and realized that someone in Oslo, Norway intercepted his check and used a fake ID and took his money. And he was really devastated. And so we started publishing together in 2017 August as a platform that helps independent and under-staffed African creatives. This means writers, musicians, filmmakers, video game developers. We help them to more focus on the creative process, and we handle the business part. We handle the tedious, but the important business of transforming their creativity into work for them.
So the kind of work we do for them is we help them to fine tune the content to industry standard so that they find a chance to compete in a global scale. We help them to protect their work from intellectual property theft and illegal distribution, so they truly own their content. And then finally we distribute their content to 413 partner stores so that they easily get discovered. And we’ve done this for about 7000 creatives from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Egypt, and we’ve helped them to generate at least $208,000 in revenue for themselves.
Daisy: I’m Daisy Rosales, and this is the Foundry Conversations Podcast. Today’s guest is Chidi Nwaogu, a cofounder of Publiseer. Publiseer is a digital platform that helps independent and underserved African creatives, typically those from low income and disadvantaged communities, to earn above the minimum wage and live above the poverty line from the sales of their creative works.
Chidi, welcome to the show.
All right, so tell us more about the space that you work in. You gave us a little bit of context in your personal story and the founding story with your twin brother. What do you think is the biggest problem that you’re tackling? And how is Publiseer responding to that as an innovation?
Chidi: Yeah. Thank you very much. So the biggest problem we are tackling is in the part of quality. About 50% of creatives worldwide are unable to get their content to well-established online retail stores and digital service providers like Amazon and Spotify. And those who eventually get their content on this kind of platform, they often get their content returned or rejected by the end customers due to errors. So what we do at Publiseer is we give these creatives the ability to turn their role work into professional masterpieces.
We help them to bypass the problem of poor quality, so their content never gets returned. Then we put our time into protecting their content and we monitor their contents across all stores. For example, in the past, creatives have lost a lot of money by other platforms illegally distributing their content, or people monetizing their content without any deal settlement. So what we do is we make sure that their content is exclusive and that their content never gets sold or never get downloaded or streamed without them making money out of it.
So we make sure that they actually get what is due to them. Also, we also help them to grow their social media following. We help them to gain new fans. We help them to more like to get into the industry and dominate it. What we do is we just help them to go from point A to point B. The way we like to say is that we help them to start. We help them to do everything from media to monetization from start to finish. All they have to do is they just have to focus on creating the product.
Daisy: One thing that I just love about your model is what you said, it’s beginning to end. And so what you’re saying is that they have something fantastic to share with the world and what you’re doing is helping them elevate it so that it is fit so that it’s ready and that they’re ready to actually capture the value of people enjoying their work, appreciating their work through this whole process in which you’re supporting them to be the best version, to offer the best version of their art to the world.
So that’s really fantastic. What do you think has been a barrier to creating something like Publiseer?, Why are these marginalized creatives left behind by everyone else?
Chidi: I think the reason why before publishing none has been created is that most people have been focused on the short-term monetization. They’ve been focused on how they can quickly turn a creative into money in very little time. But this often leaves the first time creatives with no avenue to grow their career. This leaves people that don’t have any name in the industry to have no opportunity to get from point A to point B or to move up the ladder.
And at Publiseer we’re taking a different approach. We are focused on the understaffed, we’re focused on the independent creators, those that don’t have any other means to achieve this without us. That’s our mission to help them above the minimum wage and to leave above poverty strictly from the sales of the creative works that we help them to distribute here.
Daisy: That makes so much sense. It’s creating an access point for people who have fantastic art that the world needs and making it possible for them truly to share that and to reap the rewards of doing so. That’s really fantastic.
I really appreciated the story about your twin brother and what happened with his creative work. Can you tell us more about what gets you up every day to do this work?
Chidi: I think I have a first hand understanding of what it takes or the pains and the challenges that these first time creatives that they undergo trying to monetize the creative content. So I am a published author and I’ve published about three books and my twin is a recording artist. And we spent years trying to make money from our creative content, and we understand how painful it was for us to do it with no help from anybody. It was really difficult. It felt like nobody was actually listening or nobody actually had interest in what we were doing.
And I don’t want other people to — the mission is to make nobody feel like that. The mission is to make people, after they’ve created something amazing, they should never feel for a single day that nobody cares. The aim is that we just want to discover local African talent, just discover those that have amazing breathtaking work and give them that avenue to keep doing what they love doing, which is to create to give them that Avenue to become full-time creatives.
So that’s what makes my twin and I to get up in the morning — to make sure that nobody feels the same way that we felt when trying to launch our careers, to always make them know that there’s always somebody there and someone in Publiseer always cares. And we always do everything that we can do to make sure that they are a success.
Daisy: I’ve noticed that as you talk about your work, there’s such a strong spirit of accompaniment, of walking alongside creatives so that they can do work that is meaningful to them and that there’s dignity for them in this market that is so hard to navigate, as you said, unless you are already well-resourced or well-connected.
I’m curious from the perspective of the consumers of content, the listeners, the readers out there. Why do you think it’s important for them to have access to the kinds of creatives you’re supporting? Why is it important that the work that these creatives are doing is getting out into the world?
Chidi: [Some people think Africa is] just a land where it’s full of corruption, full of lack of creativity or lack of development. Some people don’t have that clear understanding that Africa, we have some of the best talents in Africa. We have amazing people. Some of the best music comes from Africa, some of the best literature comes from Africa. We have a lot of talented, beautiful minds, and a rich heritage. And we have this amazing culture, people that have existed for thousands of years.
And what we are trying to do at Publiseer is to make the world see that part of Africa, to see that beautiful part of Africa because Africa is much more, and the world has to understand that it’s much more than what the media paints it to be. It’s actually a beautiful continent with so much amazing things going on in it.
And that is what we are giving to those that consume our content. A holistic picture of Africa through written words, which is books, through spoken words, through music, movies. That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to change that African narrative, change the way the world sees Africa and make the world see Africa from a very proper lens, which is the right lens.
Daisy: That’s beautiful and challenging, I imagine, to be working in so many ways against the tide. To create something new, walking with creators who are doing their important work for the first time and advocating for them and also working with them to rewrite this narrative, as you’re saying, bringing more exposure to the fullness of humanity as it exists in Africa.
Among all of these challenging endeavors, I am curious about one that you want to talk about that you’re currently facing as a leader. One challenge. And how are you navigating and wrestling with that and note that we’re not looking for answers necessarily, but just to hear something that you’re working through right now.
Chidi: One of the challenges that we have is in the part of copyright infringement, and we’ve been able to try and cut that down, but it’s necessarily still a challenge. For example, when we first started the business, we had situations where — and we still do have, anyway — we had situations where people would upload content on our platform for distribution, and this content does not necessarily belong to them, maybe completely did not belong to them. And so they submitted on our platform for us to distribute, and then we distribute only to realize that the content does not belong to them.
And often it could be that the real owners of the content try to sue us or force us to bring this down. And this makes us really pissed because we spent so much money in fine-tuning this content and promoting this content and in trying to make this content monetizable — to realize that the content was not really the creative content in the first place. But then we got into a program by Google called the Google Allied Program. And what this program did for us is that it gives the opportunity to be able to run our data or our content against Google Play Store database.
So we can run our books against Google Play Books or the music against Google Play Music. And we can understand if this content has already existed before. It’s still present, maybe about 20% to 30% present. But every day we always look, always figuring out more intelligent ways to make sure that we completely get that challenge.
[Music]
Daisy: I’m curious in this whole entrepreneurial journey, where, as you look back, do you see that you perhaps failed along the way? And what did you learn from that?
Chidi: Publiseer is not the first startup company that my twin and I had created. So when we started Publiseer, we were a people of numbers because Blackbook and Prayhouse we all focus on numbers because we’re always trying to get people to join the platform and then advertise to them and make money. So usually typically the people were the product in the last two companies. But at Publiseer, the people were no longer the product, but rather they were the tool to create the product, and the products were the creative content.
So we were focused on just making out as much creative content as possible. But then we did not understand that content needed to be of certain quality for them to really make sense. And so we distributed a lot of content when we started the company, but then we often had them returned. That was when we discovered that over 50% of content gets returned.
So we started asking lots of questions. First we almost shut down the company because we were thinking that maybe we were not in a very interesting space. But then we began to rethink everything. We began to understand that people were not the product, now. The products were the creative content, and we needed to make them of certain quality to be able to monetize them effectively. So we put a lot of money into the fine-tuning process, even if we knew that it was going to reduce our profit margin. But we just took that risk and that bet and we did it. And then eventually, eight months later, we became profitable.
But the lesson we learned from that part was that if you pursue excellence, if you put so much time in making something excellent, then no matter where you are, no matter what you’re doing, the world is going to make a beaten path to your doorstep. The world is going to definitely turn its radar towards you. The question is, are you ready to pursue excellence? Are you ready to make sure that whatever you do is certain standard, that can never be disputed?
Daisy: I’m so glad that you persevered as well. I’m really glad that Publiseer exists. So for these last few minutes of our interview, we are going to do some rapid fire questions.
And here’s the first question, what’s one value that you care most about?
Chidi: For me, it’s humility because I believe that no matter what you’ve achieved in life, no matter where you’ve been, it’s always very interesting if you’re humble enough to keep learning. Because a lot of people after achieving so much in life, they feel like they are not teachable anymore, that they know everything.
And I think that humility to keep learning that humility, to understand that you can be wrong no matter what you’ve been able to achieve in life, that you can be wrong, that humility, that you can also fail that you’re not always having that overconfidence, that you can never fail.
So I believe humility is the greatest value that I always pray that I never lose, no matter what happens to me. I’m always staying humble to keep learning and to keep growing.
Daisy: And that posture of curiosity that leads you from one thing to the next, particularly, it seems, running a business that, at its core is discovering new voices, new talent all the time.
All right, so complete the sentence: Communities are amazing because…
Chidi: Communities are amazing because together we can achieve more. I always believe that what one person can do, a community can even do it much better. There’s a sense of collectiveness.
I would say also that you are as good as your community. You’re as good as the people that surround you. If you are a billionaire and you live in a very exquisite life, but then the people around you are suffering and they lack basic human requirements, basic things that humans require to be able to live a comfortable life, then you’re a complete failure because you’re as good as the people that are around you.
If you’re not able to help people around you, if you’re not able to make lives of people around you better because you are in it. That means that you’ve completely failed as a person, no matter how much money you have, you’re a complete failure.
Daisy: One cartoon character that you love.
Chidi: So I don’t know if you know Pinky and the Brain, if you permit me to say the both of them Pinky and the Brain. Because the reason why I love those guys is because every episode they’re always failing. Every episode, they fail at something. They will try to do something that episode and then fail. And then the very next moment, Pinky tells Brian, “What are we going to do?” And then Brain says, “Same thing we do everyday, try to take over the world.” Same energy, same passion.
They’re always trying to do it, to take over the world. No matter how much they failed, they’re always stuck to their mission. And that’s what true entrepreneurship is all about.
Daisy: That dogged determination. Who is someone who inspires you?
Chidi: It would be Bill Gates. And the reason why Bill inspires me is mostly what he has done for Africa in terms of eradicating polio. This is someone that has obviously he’s one of the richest people in the world, and he could spend his time doing other things. Obviously, he could spend his time buying yachts and traveling halfway across the world in private jets. But then he’s thinking about how you can make the lives of people at the bottom of the pyramid in Africa better. How to make Africa a free continent. I want to live a life that people’s life became better because I lived in it, because I existed. I want to leave a footprint in people’s life and in people’s hearts. And what Bill Gates has done so far is inspiring.
Daisy: Yeah isn’t it wonderful to look back and be able to say that someone’s life was better because of something that we contributed, that we did. Last question, what are you most proud of right now?
Chidi: I’m proud of the work that we do at a nonprofit organization that I created called Savvy. Savvy was my own effort to help, a collective effort that I led, to help people who recently lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic — to help them to become gainfully employed by providing them with the necessary knowledge, skills, resources, tools, support, network and community to create sustainable and profitable and innovative businesses and to succeed as entrepreneurs. Just being able to impact the lives of over 4000 individuals in about 137 countries.
They’ve gone on to create over 1000 businesses. And it’s amazing to see how fast it has grown. And also, I’m proud of the fact that my twin broth and I, we’ve been able to stay in business. We’ve been able to stay as business partners since 2006. People often fall apart, but we’ve been able to stay together no matter the challenges that we face together, we’ve been able to do that, and we’ve been able to create impact together. And to me, I’m really proud of that.
Daisy: That is absolutely an accomplishment to work with someone for so long and be able to tackle so many problems together. Well, Chidi, thank you so much for being with us today. Your story is inspiring. All of your entrepreneurial spirit, combined with humility and curiosity and also a posture of collectivism, really inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing your story.
The music for Foundry Conversations was composed by Amadeus Foundation and recorded by Amadeus String Youth Orchestra in Bello, Colombia. Amadeus cultivates the emotional intelligence of children and young people at high social risk through music addressing their need for social inclusiveness.
Do you want to listen more Foundry Conversations? Click on the following links to meet more Foundry members and their work to build they are doing to build a more just, inclusive and sustainable world:
- Episode 1: Meet The Hosts.
- Episode 2: Platforms for Activism with Irene Milleiro.
- Episode 3: Mental Health Care in India with Rashi Vidyasagar.
- Episode 4: Stories of Sexual, Reproductive and Health Rights in Bangladesh with Syeda Samara Mortada.
- Episode 6: A Social Media Platform for Voices Unheard with Vijay Sai Pratap.
- Episode 7: A Transformative Youth Orchestra in Colombia with Daniela Ocampo.
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