The Future of the Creator Economy in Africa.
The African experience is unique and inexhaustible. It has its own path of growth and development, and at times we have been rather radical in our way of step. It’s no secret that the future of the creator economy is on the rise, with the recent success of crowdfunding, established artists and creatives are reaching a wider audience while raising funds directly from their fans.
I believe that the future of the creator economy in Africa is an exciting one, it is bright and can take off massively! I can’t wait to see what it holds. Before I talk about where I think the Creator Economy in Africa is headed, let's take a step back and see its current state and how it all began.
How it all began
The internet which enables modern-day connectivity was birthed in the 1960s, its creation gave rise to a lot of possibilities as it was rapidly improved. The Internet initially allowed multiple computers to communicate on a single network, and later gave rise to the creation of the World Wide Web by British Scientist Tim Berners-Lee. The Web was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automated information-sharing between scientists in universities and institutes around the world. Soon, the web started to evolve as more research and advancements were done. With the advent of social media, it began to connect people from all over the world with each other.
Before social media, creatives had other media platforms like the radio, televisions, newspapers, CDs, and cassettes that can be leveraged, but they were limited. Not everyone could get featured on television, radio, or newspapers. Not everyone could afford the cost to mass-produce CDs, cassettes and market them. Also, these means were limited by location, radios and televisions can only be broadcasted within a limited range as of that time.
Soon, the narrative began to change, people could write an article and have it reach anyone in the world. Platforms like YouTube began to make it possible for anyone to make video content and have millions of audiences without having to spend too much. Social media gave creatives a superpower, one that would change their lives for good. It gave people a new way to express themselves and share their creations with the world.
One of the previous problems creators had, was to effectively disseminate their creations. With social media, this was now less of a problem than it used to be, new problems began to set in. Creators needed a way to fund their creativity, they need a way to be able to sustain themselves while doing the things they love. Artists, writers, photographers, podcasters, and other forms of creatives spend a huge chunk of time creating value for their audiences and fans, but some of them only do this as a hobby, they have other income streams and use that to fund their creativity.
Creators are getting paid
It used to be very hard for creatives to earn from their creativity, but the narrative is changing, or has changed! Creators now have several ways of earning from people who love their work.
- Grimes sold her NFTs for about $6million.
- Mike Beeple sold a single NFT for $69.3million.
- In 2020, Gumroad creators earned 142milliion in total with 8 creators earning over $1million and over 170 creators earned at least $100k.
- Patreon’s creators now make over $1billion annually.
- TikTok announced a $1billion creator fund.
But what really has changed? Now, there are platforms that make it easy for creatives to express themselves and earn from their creativity while at it! A lot of companies are coming to this realization now and have started incorporating ways in which creators on their platform can earn from their creativity!
Everyone wants to pay creators
Earning as a creator used to be a big headache, thankfully, it isn’t as much headache as it used to be. Several companies have started to incorporate ways in which they could help creators earn from their respective audiences on their platforms. They’ve come to this sudden realization that creatives deserve to earn while doing what they are good at.
- Square(a financial service company), recently acquired Tidal(JayZ’s music streaming service) and JayZ joined the board of directors of Square!
- Clubhouse Launches a way to get creators paid.
- Twitter has started adding a Tip Jar to user profiles which is essentially a way to get paid as a creative, and recently, they announced super followers.
- YouTube launched several ways to help creators get paid.
- Hashnode launched a way to help their writers earn from their writings.
- Facebook also helps creators earn in several ways.
- Stir recently raised $4million in seed funding.
- Mighty Networks raises $50M to build a creator economy for the masses.
And the list goes on and on, hundreds of companies are building for creators. There has never been a better time to be a creator!
Why are companies building for creators?
Everything happening in the creator economy is happening so fast, it’s literally like the creator economy is on some sort of steroids. It’s just quite fascinating!
Late 2019, the world was hit by an unusual virus, one that stopped us from interacting with each other physically and forced everyone to remain in the shell of their homes. Covid hit us by surprise and changed quite a lot of things about how we live our daily lives, some of these changes are here to stay for good and have made us see some things in ways we previously did not see them. The pandemic led to a tremendous amount of new creations by creators. Every day, there was either a new podcast, youtube channel, newsletter, comedy skit, etc.
In 2020, Patreon Creators grew from 4million creators to 6million and moved from earning $0.5billion to $1billion. That’s more than their growth in the last 2years!
Gumroad creators earned $142million in 2020, which is a 94% rise in what they earned in 2019.
TikTok users grew from 35.6million in 2019 to 65.9 million in 2020.
Shopify's total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2020 was $977.7 million, a 94% increase from the comparable quarter in 2019.
These and a lot more are validations that it has never been a better time to build for creators! The creator economy is on a surge, a massive one, and companies are leveraging on this surge!
But how does all of these relate to African creators?
Africa is left out
I have written about what is going on in the creator economy around the world, but haven’t quite said a lot about how it relates to Africa or what companies are building for African creators, what they do, and how they have grown.
The truth is, hundreds of companies are building amazing products for creators around the world but the African market is left out! These companies are not intentionally leaving out the African market space, but the complexities of expanding into Africa are what limits them.
The above tweet shows a Nigerian creator complaining about Gumroad not having payment options that works in Africa.
The above image is a response Gumroad gave a creator who requested more payout options asides from Paypal and transfers. Many of these companies building for creators remit payments to them using PayPal, Stripe, or wire transfers. Stripe does not work in Africa, while PayPal is not widely supported in Africa, and only very very few African countries can receive payments from other countries using PayPal.
Why should we care?
It becomes a very big problem if we do not have enough African companies helping African creators get paid, and the ones that do so outside of Africa cannot be easily used by Africans. Imagine creatives in Africa not being able to earn from Tip Jar, get paid on Clubhouse, get patrons on Patreon, or receive coffee money from BuyMeACoffee or Ko-fi? How bad can it be? That is the current reality of the creator economy in Africa!
African creators are incredibly talented and they are creating as much value as creators outside the continent. They deserve to earn from their creativity, their fans deserve to be allowed to support them, they deserve to get paid!
Being a creator in Africa is hard enough, earning as a creator in Africa shouldn’t be so hard.
Companies building for creators in Africa
While I’ve clearly pointed out that there aren’t enough companies building for creators in Africa, there are a few notable ones that have built(or building) amazing products around this space.
Fidia
Fidia provides creators with a suite of toolkits aimed at empowering them. Fidia’s goal is to enable creators to make a living from their creativity.
With Fidia, creators can:
- Create a profile for their creative works.
- Create a payment page(s) that helps them receive monetary support from their fans.
- Communicate effectively with their diverse audience using our easy and customized mailing list/membership subscriptions.
- Sell digital products.
Fidia would be available for use soon. To get early access to Fidia, visit — https://getfidia.com
Shukran
Shukran enables creators to get the support they need from people who enjoy their creative works regardless of their audience size or algorithm.
Selar
Selar is an e-commerce tool creatives & entrepreneurs use to sell their content, products, and services across borders without any hassle.
In 2020, Selar grew to 17k users and $270k in revenue, they are focused on building the passion economy of Africa by allowing creatives to easily sell their digital products. Selar currently covers 4 countries in Africa(Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa).
Honeycoin
Honeycoin is building a way for African creators and millennials to build wealth and manage their earnings all in one place. It was founded in 2020 and is currently in private beta.
Africreators
Africreators is a tool that helps you sell your digital products (ebooks, videos, music, any type of file ) via Mobile Money and credit cards. It is aimed in Francophone-speaking African countries and was launched in September 2020.
Paystack Commerce
Paystack Commerce is a toolkit for African creators to bring ideas to market beautifully.
Flutterwave Store
Flutterwave Store also allows Creators to set up online stores seamlessly with their payment Infrastructure.
Where the creator economy in Africa is heading.
The number of curated content and creations by creatives is growing exponentially within and outside Africa. This growth has given rise to the need for tools and platforms that empower creatives. Some of these tools are being built(or have been built), but more representation is still needed in the creator economy startup space in Africa. Interestingly, some Africans found ways to use tools like Patreon, Gumroad, BuyMeACoffee, etc. But the caveat is that they first have to send their money to a foreign account, before sending it to their bank accounts in Africa. This means they get to lose, money due to payment processing and conversion fees.
Earning as a creative shouldn’t be so stressful, which is why we are building Fidia! At Fidia, here’s where we think the Creator Economy in Africa is headed.
1) Being a creator will become a full-time job: This is already happening! Creators are leveraging on their creative skills and earning a living out of them. We believe this will soon become the new “normal” and we would have more people doing it.
2) Numerous companies would begin to help creators earn: There has never been a better time to build for creators and several people and companies are beginning to realize this. Most of the companies that currently build for creators in Africa were launched in 2020, during the pandemic. More will be launched and existing companies would begin to incorporate ways that let creatives earn from their products.
3) More people would be encouraged to do what they love: The rise of companies and the success of existing creators will inspire more creatives, it will encourage them to come out of their shells and do the things they love. There is a warm and satisfying feeling that comes with doing what you love while living your dreams. That is the kind of feeling companies like Fidia amongst others will create.
4) More people would start appreciating the efforts of creators by giving back to them: Creator Crowdfunding isn’t so popular right now in Africa. However, people are beginning to become aware of it and quite a lot of creatives have started adopting ways in which they could earn from their audience. It is on the rise, and we see it growing exponentially over the next few years.
In the Tweet Quoted below, popular Nigerian music artist Blaq Bonez was able to earn from his audience through the creative video he did for his birthday.
In this video, he also gave a list of Creators who were a part of the reality TV show, Big Brother Nigeria(BBN) Season 5 and what they’ve been able to receive from their fans.
Korty, a popular Nigerian YouTuber requested that people send her money to appreciate her creative works on her Birthday
To her surprise, her fans came through for her and sent her not just money but gifts as well!
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Interested in Fidia? To get early access to Fidia, kindly visit our website and register — https://getfidia.com
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