In 2023, Ali Baba, one of Nigeria’s veteran comedians, nearly broke the internet when he shared that popular Nigerian skit-maker, Mark Angel earned over $300,000 monthly from his YouTube videos. The 32-year-old creator, became an internet sensation in 2016 when skits of antics with his little cousin Emmanuella started going viral. 

Skit-making is almost synonymous with comedy in Nigeria today. What started as a niche industry is now the third-largest entertainment industry in the country, worth about ₦50 billion ($34 million). At first, the process of creating this content was basic, requiring only a cell phone, editing skills and an internet connection. Now, as the industry grows and becomes more global, the skit-making process has become more complex; requiring larger teams, more money to execute, and a more strategic plan.

For over six years, Olufemi Oguntamu, CEO of Penzaarville Africa, has worked in the Nigerian creator space. His company, a talent management and media agency, is responsible for some of the biggest content creators and skit-makers in the country, including Broda Shaggi, Kie Kie, and Mr Macaroni, among others. 

According to a report published by Selar, in which they surveyed 2,000 digital creators, 29.3% of creators start hiring immediately after entering the business, while the majority of the sample study size, 37.6%, hired staff after six months. Due to the nature of their job, which requires a constant churn out of high-quality content, many creators often need to hire people to work with them to meet this demand. While production needs and costs differ from creator to creator, it’s almost impossible to do the work alone, no matter how small the project is.

“We have videographers, supporting actors, scriptwriters, production managers and assistants, make-up artists and costumiers, gaffers, and sometimes even a director,” he shared. “Sometimes, for the more popular creators, like Brodda Shaggi or Layi, we also hire security guards as shooting outdoors in Lagos can draw a lot of unwanted attention.”

Talent is often hired on a project basis, but some are more permanent than others, like production managers, who handle everything from liaising with other talent to planning and managing the creator’s time. The permanent employees are paid salaries, while other talents like videographers and makeup artists are paid on a project basis. Even after shooting, the post-production crew takes over; from the editors to special effects guys, to those who specialise in colour-grading. These people are hired to handle the post-production of these videos and digital products before they are ready for distribution. 

Many creators have different reasons for hiring, though the most obvious seems to be not having enough time to handle all the responsibilities that come with the job. The report from Selar confirms this:

On average, it takes about a week to produce and release a skit, and the costs can vary from between ₦800,000 to ₦1 million per skit on average, according to Oguntamu.

The effort put into these skits comes with a lot of material rewards. These skits attract millions of viewers and engagement to their social media pages. In 2023, Mark Angel gained over 197 million views on his Instagram account, which currently has about 3.15 million followers. Newcomer, Layi Wasabi, had the second-highest engagement, with 133.2 million views and 1.6 million followers, while Sabinus had 130 million views in total.

These numbers translate beyond stats to real money as these creators or skit-makers charge big bucks for promotion. Skitmakers can charge as high as ₦3 – 5 million for sponsored posts on Instagram, according to Oguntamu. Platforms like Facebook and YouTube offer direct monetisation options where they pay creators directly for their content.

“YouTube is a big market. Apart from monetising, it opens you up to a larger audience, even outside Africa. It’s interesting to note that creators who have a large audience outside Africa in places like Asia, Europe, and America, are paid more than those who have the majority of their audience residing here in Africa.”

Oguntamu adds that in order for creators to maximise their monetisation opportunities, it’s important for skit-makers to find their niche, and build a brand in order to be able to secure brand ambassadorships and partnerships when the proverbial stream of advertorial income dries up.

Beyond platform monetisation, there are ample opportunities available for creators. Endorsement deals, brand collaborations, and even physical appearances.

It’s also for reading delightful articles that make you sigh joyfully while sipping coffee/orange juice/beer/wine. Because, let’s face it, you’re really not going to read that article you bookmarked on Monday about understanding the intricacies of the Russian-Ukraine war.

So this weekend, we’re bringing you two articles we guarantee will spark joy. The first is about what it’s like to build a tech company outside of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. It might not be something you often think about, but like Nigerian music, it’s difficult to “blow” outside Lagos.

We spoke to three people building in Kaduna and Imo, and the story is worth every minute of your weekend. Read the story here.

Our second delightful story for your weekend is from our newsroom editor, who abandoned us visited Johannesburg last week for the grand launch of the new Showmax.

Pros of reading this article: Helping me meet my KPIs pictures of the MultiChoice office and also, paragraphs like this:

For four days in the first week of February, the Showmax team went to great lengths to show its guests—journalists whose stock in trade is skepticism—who were in Johannesburg for a grand launch, how much it believes in its ability to crack Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) in Africa.  

Read the story here.

Here’s what you can expect from future editions of TechCabal’s Weekend Features:

• Long-form content: These aren’t your bite-sized news stories; these Weekend Features will include well-researched, long-form stories that promise to keep you engaged for the weekend.
  
• Finding hidden gems: Learn more about the startups tackling the continent’s challenges in ways you never thought possible.
  
• Going beyond the hype: Dive deep into the intricacies and social impact of emerging technologies.
  
• Meeting the masterminds: Get exclusive insights from the incredible people driving the ecosystem forward, especially the underdogs.

TC’s Weekend Features is more than just reading; it’s an experience. We promise to keep you busy and interested with visually compelling storytelling, weaving together data, personal narratives, and expert opinions to create stories that inform, inspire, and entertain. Join us every Saturday as we explore untold stories that fuel Africa’s tech revolution in visually engaging ways. 

On December 4, Renike, an artist and illustrator got news about her images being used on TikTok and Instagram by an online store. On sending a message to the perpetrator to take them down, they claimed not to know that it was wrong. It wasn’t the first time this would be happening to her. In 2021, Renike found out that someone was selling large prints of her work, printing them on t-shirts for sale as well. They only stopped after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Renike and her lawyers.

Many copyright owners have to deal with intellectual property theft from online creators who seem to be uneducated on copyright laws and rights. This behaviour threatens creators’ livelihoods and undermines trust within the online ecosystem. 

Many online creators employ the use of music, videos, and photos from other creators while creating theirs, but there seems to be a lot of learning to do about what copyright entails and even how to properly interact with other creators’ work. Copyright is an intellectual property (IP) right under Nigerian laws, and IP is defined as anything that’s born out of intellect and enjoys protection under the law, but that’s not the only requirement for a piece of content to be considered IP. For anything to be considered IP and not just an idea, it has to meet certain criteria: sufficient work has to go into creating it, it has to be an original idea, and it has to be placed in a fixed medium of expression, i.e as a recorded song, a book, a movie, a logo, or a piece of art. This is outlined clearly in Nigeria’s Copyright Act of 2022.

According to a report, 97.7% of content creators view music as essential to creating their own content, so it’s safe to say that only very few creators don’t need to use other people’s work in their content. This is the case for Joshua*, a creator who makes funny videos that live on Instagram and TikTok. 

“Platforms like TikTok typically flag content that has more than 30 seconds of someone’s music or sound, but 90% of what goes into my videos is my own content,” Joshua told TechCabal. “I often tag and credit the creators if they’re not very popular.”

However, adding credit isn’t sufficient because each piece of content that counts as IP is considered an asset and can be monetised. This means that proper attribution goes beyond just giving credit to the original creator; it has to be done a certain way for it to be right and complete. This means that to use the copyright of someone else’s IP, you have to reach out to them, give them sufficient information on what the piece of content is to be used for and seek their consent. Otherwise, the piece of content is being devalued, and the original owner might be losing money, whether they know it or not. Of course, like many things, there are a few exceptions to the rule, according to Habibat Abubakar, an IP and tech practice lawyer at DLA Piper.

“There are exceptions, and we call them fair use,” Abubakar told TechCabal. “There are times when it’s permissible to use a creator’s work without getting permission from them, and these include for educational purposes or parody or satire. Commercialisation is completely out of the question, so it’s always a good idea to reach out to ask for consent.”

What actually constitutes IP infringement?

According to the Nigerian Copyright Act of 2022, any use or copying of images, music/sound or other forms of IP without permission or consent, especially for commercial purposes, counts as infringement. In such cases, the original owner has the right to seek legal remedies. These typically start with issuing a notice to the infringer, notifying them to take down the piece of content, and in the case where this doesn’t work, issuing a cease-and-desist. If, after the cease-and-desist, they don’t comply, the court can grant injunctions that legally bind the other party to remove or delete the content or be held in contempt of court or face legal ramifications. 

Caleb Nmeribe, another associate at DLA Piper, expands more on these rights. “There are safeguards under this law that are meant to protect creators from infringement. You have the moral right to safeguard your work from (commercial) exploitation, the right to be attributed and associated with your work, and the right for people to seek consent for the use of your work,” he explained.

Other IPs include trademarks, patented designs, etc. The owners of these IPs can sue for the use of their property if infringement is discovered. Creators need to be aware of what counts as intellectual property, how it can be monetised, how to protect their IP assets, and how to properly interact with other creators’ assets as well. The Copyright Act also helps to protect against digital piracy. It also has provisions that protect creators from infringement and devaluation of their works: people can ask for their work to be taken down, and even repeat offenders could have their social media accounts taken down. 

Content creation is a business for many, and for businesses to grow and work, they have to be built on the right structures, which include integrity and the right moral code of ethics. For the creator economy to grow and thrive as much as we want and expect it to, being completely aware of what copyright law entails and what counts as IP infringement is the best way to work properly with other creators and not stand in the way of them getting their coins. 

Numerous initiatives, such as coding boot camps, mentorship programmes, and scholarships have emerged to provide women with the necessary skills and knowledge to thrive in the tech sector. One such initiative is The Future is Female Mentorship Programme, which trains female founders in communications, public relations, and working with tech media. Claudine Moore, founder and convener of the programme told TechCabal that since its inception in 2020, the number of applications they receive has increased every year, with applications coming in from Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Uganda, South Africa and a few others. She emphasised that there’s more the growing representation of women in the industry enables more women to apply and participate.

Another notable programme is the Google for Startups Accelerator: Women Founders, which provides equity-free support, mentorship, training, and networking opportunities for women in tech across the continent. Notable alumni of the accelerator include Clafiya (founded by Jennie Nwokoye), a health-tech startup that raised $610,000 in a pre-seed round earlier this year. 

She Code Africa, a non-profit organisation geared towards providing and upskilling for women and girls interested in STEM, has over 30 thousand members in their community. The organisation often collaborates with others to organise seminars, conferences and boot camps that teach young women relevant skills needed to thrive in the rapidly changing industry. 

Undoubtedly, for women, there’s a growing interest in STEM-related and tech roles, but the gap is still wide, and the journey is still long. Perhaps one of the greatest factors that point to this disparity is the difference between the sheer number of mentorship programmes for women, compared to those geared towards funding women’s startups. 

The pressing problem of many mentorships and not enough funding. 

According to a 2022 report by Partech Africa, only 3% of venture capital funding in Africa goes to startups with a female CEO. This means that male-led startups are 33 times more likely to secure funding than female-led startups. While investment in female-led startups has grown in the past five years, and there are a few VC funds and organisations providing investment opportunities for female-led startups, the disparity is still high. 

Brenda Wangari of Madica attests to this fact: “There has been limited access to investor networks coupled with little representation of women in the sector. Investors have also been investing following various patterns which have locked out women founders from funding opportunities,”  she told TechCabal. 

According to the Diversity Dividend report by Disrupt Africa, which surveyed over 2,000 African startups, approximately 14% of them had at least one female co-founder, and 10% had a woman CEO. Despite the fact that female-led startups typically perform better than male-led ones, in 2022, male-led startups received 96% ($4.6bn) of the total volume, leaving female-led ventures with 4% ($188m). According to a report published by Disrupt Africa in 2022, in the dominant countries with startup founders (Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt), the percentage of funded startups with at least one female co-founder was less than 30% across the board. 

Even more concerning is the record low in funding that the first half of 2023 the ecosystem has recorded. According to a report by The Big Deal, “Single female founders and exclusively female founding teams raised just $22 million in equity funding in H1 2023, the lowest 6-month number since H1 2021.” 

However slow, there might be some promising progress. Maya Horgan-Famodu, founder and partner at Ingressive, told TechCabal, “I’m seeing more women represented across all the tech venture funds across Africa; almost all of them have at least one female partner or one female C-suite executive. There is significant representation on the investing side, female and women of colour and indigenous African women are well represented. I’m also seeing female-only investment firms, both investors at these firms and portfolios that are only dedicated to investing in women-owned businesses. For example, Moremi funds, it’s the gender lens investing fund of funds,” she added.

Brenda Wangari shares this sentiment: “There have been promising recent developments. We are now witnessing more female-led African companies raising significant capital as well as managing funds that are actively writing checks. There has also been a rise in communities like Women Who Build Africa, which is solely focused on bringing together and supporting women in the African tech ecosystem.”

In 2021, Eloho Omame and Odun Eweniyi founded First Check Africa, a female-focused angel investment fund. The mission was simple: to make it easy for African women to raise capital and invest in tech. Combined with the work of women like Yemi Keri and Ivana Osagie of Rising Tide Africa, Fatoumata Ba of Janngo Capital, Maya Horgan Famodu of Ingressive, Lisa Thomas of Samata Capital and many others, there’s hope that the ecosystem will grow to a point where female-led startups will secure equitable funding and have access to all the tools they need to grow. Claudine Moore believes that women supporting women is the fastest way for this growth to happen. “What’s important is women supporting women, which is why I created the Future is Female Mentorship program.” 

The participation of African women in tech has witnessed incredible growth over the past five years, and this trend is expected to continue in the coming years. With increased access to education and training, the rise of mobile technology and digital platforms, and a growing recognition of the importance of diversity and inclusion, African women will make even greater contributions to the ecosystem. The future of tech in Africa is bright, and it is being shaped by a new generation of women who are determined to make a difference.

Eden Life, the Nigerian home service platform that provides laundry, cleaning, and meal-delivery services, is launching a new marketplace product as part of its broader strategy to expand into the larger retail market. The marketplace will allow vendors and small businesses in categories like beauty and cosmetics, electronics, food, and medicine to sign up to sell on the platform. 

“Our vision is to 10x the quality of life. Marketplace will enable us to scale our vision to 10x the quality of life across Africa,” said Deji Adeleye, the head of marketing at Eden.

In response to the dwindling purchasing power in Nigeria, Eden Life has been forced to rejig its model. The company launched in 2019 as a home management service to “improve people’s lives” by outsourcing their laundry, house cleaning, and meal delivery needs to vetted professionals. But its subscription model and cost have cut it from a larger market.

In 2021, Eden Life had a customer base of around 600 people paying an average subscription of ₦42,000 monthly, 40% higher than Nigeria’s minimum wage. Its CEO, Nadayar Enegesi, envisioned the company as a concierge for busy Nigerian professionals. But this focus leaves Eden Life susceptible to subscriber loss as an increasing number of the country’s middle class relocate abroad in one of the worst brain drains since the 1980s.

However, Eden Life has been testing new verticals in an expansion move to shore up its customer base. In July, the company launched Homemade by Eden, a quick-service restaurant. Now, it is adding more categories to its e-commerce model, as Nigeria’s e-commerce market is expected to hit $16 billion by 2028, according to a report by RationalStat, a market intelligence firm.

Eden Life’s entry into e-commerce means it will compete against market leader Jumia and its rival Konga. “[We want] to be bigger than Jumia,” the company said.

The company will charge a commission on the sales made on its marketplace, betting on a wide range of vendors and customers who get onboarded.

But Eden Life’s e-commerce efforts will rely heavily on an efficient logistics model. In a flash promotion for its quick-service restaurant in late July, its online platform collapsed after it promised to deliver a variety of meals for just N1,000. On the backend, the company expected no more than 400 orders, which tracks closely with its subscriber numbers, but it received nearly 2,500 orders within 24 hours, which put pressure on fulfillment abilities.

The company said it has learned from this experience and will work with more delivery partners to fulfill food and non-food orders on its new e-commerce platform, where order volume could soar to tens of thousands if the service gets off the ground. “We’ve partnered with specific fleets and businesses, and we’re growing our database of riders and delivery services in order to ensure that our customers get their orders by the time they need it,” Olumide Yomi-Omolayo, Eden Life’s Brand Manager, told TechCabal.

Additionally, the product infrastructure will allow vendors access to a dashboard to generate discount vouchers for specific customers, get ranked in their various categories, see locations where customers are ordering from and best-selling products, handle requests, and get feedback. Vendors also have access to information on the kind of customers that are buying from them. Customers who want to buy from the marketplace can be assured of safe payments, be able to monitor their orders in real-time and enjoy other services from Eden. 

If you sit beside software developer Victor Ekwueme while he’s writing or coding, you may think he’s a snob who only wants to be in his world; he would have his earphones on, and his stare at his screen wouldn’t waver. What you may not realise immediately is that he cannot see you. His earphones are for him to listen to his screen reader telling him what key he’s hitting. 

Ekwueme, 44, is among the nearly seven million people who are blind in Nigeria. He was born to renowned professor of music, composer, and actor Lazarus “Laz” Ekwueme and Lucy Ekwueme, a professor of music education.  

Before he became visually impaired, he earned a degree in computer science from the University of Lagos in 2002. In 2004, after getting his first master’s degree in information technology from the University of Nottingham, Ekwueme noticed that his sight was failing. Whenever he looked down, he could only partially see objects in his upper vision field, and if he looked up, he could only partially see things below. A medical diagnosis later revealed that he had retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic eye defect affecting 1 in 4,000 people. It is incurable; this bug he could not fix. 

Rather than take the blow sitting down, Ekwueme decided to take matters into his own hands. “I felt that as I was losing my vision, there was little time left for me. So I started consuming as much knowledge as I could find,” he told TechCabal. “I read various books because I felt they would help me if I lost my vision. I read developmental books as well, but that’s when I came across an MIT course on EdX, Introduction to Python Programming.” 

In 2011, after he won the Apps4Africa hackathon for his app called HospitalManager, his eyesight deteriorated to the point where he couldn’t continue working on creating the app. He decided then to get a job. 

As his eyesight declined, Ekwueme had to get an assistant to navigate daily life. His assistant, Tobi, a computer science student, introduced him to the screen reader on his personal computer, which allowed him to do certain tasks independently. 

Initially, Victor listed his disability on his CV, and, perhaps unsurprisingly,  he hardly ever got called for interviews. He decided to remove that detail, and the interviews started coming. Despite his obvious skills, no one offered him a role. 

“I remember once I went for an interview, and they gave me an assessment. My assistant was with me, and I mentioned that he’d read the assessment without giving anything away. The recruiter in charge said I should read it myself. I told him I was blind, and I couldn’t, and they just cut the interview short,” Ekwueme revealed.

Many people with visual impairments can relate to Ekwueme’s story. In 1994, Opeoluwa Akinola, CEO and co-founder of AccessTech, had the same experience. Akinola also has retinitis pigmentosa. As a young graduate of the  University of Lagos, Akinola interviewed at an audit firm. Due to the confidential nature of the job, he wasn’t allowed to have an assistant read documents for him. He didn’t have access to assistive technology to work independently. This was the moment Akinola decided that he’d make sure that people with visual impairments did not get axed out of opportunities because of their disability. Twenty-six years later, Akinola created AccessTech, an organisation dedicated to providing assistive technology tools and training blind people on digital skills.

AccessTech wants inclusion through assistive technology 

Though officially incorporated in 2020, AccessTech dates way back to when Akinola vowed that blind people would stop missing out on jobs on a large scale. Between 1999 and 2007, he trained as a computer technician, taught himself how to use the computer and then developed the curriculum at the Nigerwives Computer Training and Braille Production Centre, an NGO that taught blind people digital literacy. While working as a consultant, he also got certified as a professional in accessibility core competencies. He’s one of the three people who are certified in Nigeria. 

Now, AccessTech partners with organisations in the US, Europe, and Asia to provide assistive technology in the form of devices and training on how to use and maintain such devices. One such partnership is the Assistive Technology Experience Centre in Lagos, in partnership with Microsoft AI4 Accessibility which was launched in April 2023. It’s within this programme that they have collaborated with Ekwueme to teach rudimentary data analytics to young people with visual impairments.

“The objective of this training is to open up opportunities for blind persons as data analysts. Most blind children are relegated to the humanities while growing up; they’re not allowed to explore their talents. Most blind people typically end up as lawyers, teachers or in the civil service. We believe that opening up a tech career will help them diversify their opportunities,” Emmanuela Akinola, co-founder and COO of AccessTech, told TechCabal. 

As an expert in data analytics, and with his disability, Ekwueme is the perfect tutor in the training’s pilot edition. The participants are advanced users of computers with screen readers and have a good understanding of statistics. 

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), approximately 26.3 million people in the African Region have a form of visual impairment. Of these, 20.4 million have low vision and 5.9 million are estimated to be completely blind. It is estimated that 15.3% of the world’s blind population resides in Africa. AccessTech has considered this and is not limiting its scope to Lagos. They’re hoping they can partner with the Nigerian government to include visually impaired persons in the three million technical training programme instituted by Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s minister of communications and information technology, and eventually expand their footprint to other African countries.

“The goal is to have blind people amongst them and reduce digital illiteracy among persons with disabilities,” Akinola said. 

Ekwueme, who has another master’s degree in intelligent computational systems from the University of Dundee, believes in the training because he wants more people with visual impairments to be skilled in technology to enable them to contribute better to society. 

“It’s so that blind people are not just limited to craft-making like tie-and-dye or bead making. We can train them to be properly assimilated into society in high-tech jobs to grow in the industry and be (financially) independent,” Ekwueme said.

The training, which started on October 21, will run every weekend for eight weeks. Ekwueme, now an Odoo specialist and data scientist at Chams, a Nigerian company providing integrated technology solutions, is living proof that with enough access to assistive technology and more accessible digital products in Africa, people with visual impairments can live independently and with dignity. 

Academia is not an unfamiliar terrain for Ekwueme, with both parents being professors. In the future, Ekwueme hopes to earn a doctorate in artificial intelligence. 

Vella Finance is dropping its crypto-based offerings to focus on SME banking. In an email to users and subscribers on Monday, October 23, the fintech announced that they would be shutting down all crypto-based services on Monday, October 30.

Launched in 2021, Vella’s focus was to enable crypto-spending in Africa and provide infrastructure for businesses to collect payments globally. Though the fintech already has products that service small businesses, it’s ceasing all crypto-based operations — trading, deposits and wallets, fiat and crypto swaps, and crypto — to focus on providing end-to-end business solutions for small and medium enterprises in Africa. In a conversation with TechCabal, Tolu Adedayo, co-founder of Vella, cites business decisions as the main reason for the conclusion. 

“We’re going fully into SME Banking. Banking requires playing in regulatory confines. We already serve businesses from the onset backed by user and transactional data. It just makes sense to offer an end-to-end banking system to better serve them. It’s a business decision; there’s no way we will run banking and crypto together,” he said.

One of Vella’s prominent products is Launch by Vella, a service that allows small businesses to register with the Corporate Affairs Commission for a fee of N18,000 ($14). According to Adedayo, the switch was also informed by a drive to fulfil the needs of SMEs. 

Adebayo told TechCabal that, “A good number of the SMEs driving Nigeria’s GDP are informal and are financially underserved. What we do at Vella is help them formalise via Launch by Vella, give them instant business bank accounts, and provide them with payment infrastructure to enable payment collections locally on their websites/online stores. Vella also allows them to create invoices and payment links for free.”

Alongside these existing features, the fintech will launch new features in its new business model to cater to these needs. 

“We will be announcing new features in the coming weeks that solidify our full entrance into the business banking space,” Adedayo added. 

Less than eight years ago, the way people interacted with money was vastly different. But with the rapid growth of fintechs across the continent, money habits have changed and continue to. Josh Chibueze, co-founder and CMO at Piggyvest, in his keynote speech at Moonshot by TechCabal on October 12, shared some of the impact that fintechs have had and how they’re changing the habits of people who spend. 

“Before fintechs, it was hard to save and manage money. People used to open several bank accounts just to have different savings accounts. Fintech has changed our interaction with money, and a lot of impact has been made.” 

According to Chibueze, the advent of fintechs has hacked three key things: accessibility, control and flexibility with money. More people can now save in bits and access quick credit loans. Fintechs have revolutionised the banking industry in Nigeria and Africa, providing channels that reduce income inequality and poverty. Piggyvest, for instance, has paid back over $1.1 trillion since it launched in 2016. Fintechs have also done the work of helping to bank the unbanked and helped to improve social donations across the world.

However, the industry is not without challenges. Fintechs have to deal with regulatory issues from governmental bodies and authorities, fraud and also have to efficiently manage customer expectations and maintain their trust. Chibueze believes that collaboration is the future of fintech and one way to overcome these challenges.

“People often say that fintechs will overthrow traditional banks. I don’t think so. Collaboration is the way forward and will lead to exponential results. We all have a common problem, and we need to collaborate to solve these problems and create an inclusive financial future for everyone,” he said.

Another thing we can look forward to in the future of fintech is hyperfocusing. Chibueze believes that soon, we’ll see fintechs honing in on specific problems that the banking and financial industries face. 

In 2015, Emmanuel Osho started repairing his friend’s devices in school. Being in a private school that didn’t allow students to leave whenever they wanted, he identified a market and soon, alongside some of his friends, started Tinc. In the beginning, Tinc just focused on providing IT support for students, and eventually other individuals and companies. In the six years since they started, the company has evolved from just providing IT support to building custom PCs for clients and customers. 

Custom PCs are specially built for users who have specific needs that a general-purpose PC cannot meet. With custom PCs, users can select the different hardware that makes up their PC, optimising for the specifications or parts that matter more to them. For example, a data scientist might invest in more RAM storage, while an animator will focus more on the Graphic processing unit (GPU). Each PC usually costs nothing less than $1300 because of the specific parts. 

According to a forecast study, The Africa Gaming Market size is estimated at USD 1.92 billion in 2023, and is expected to reach USD 3.33 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 11.62% during the forecast period (2023-2028). There’s clearly a demand for custom PCs, as gamers, animators, video editors, etc., need specific hardware and specially built computers to be able to create properly and in due time. Workstations.co (by Tinc) are keen on being one of the suppliers to meet that demand. 

Called Workstations.co because the people who use high-end custom computers call them just that; the startup is constantly working to meet this demand. Typically, people who need custom PCs import them from abroad, which often costs more, takes more time and in the case of damaged or defective hardware, have them wait longer for replacements, which sometimes costs them money.

Osho told TechCabal, “For these professionals, getting a custom PC is often the difference between being able to undertake a project or not. Delays in getting custom PCs imply that many hours are lost in productivity as a slower system means longer waiting time.”

Workstations.co not only build these PCs, but also provide IT support in the form of repairs, updates and replacements. Building custom PCs requires in-depth technological knowledge of specifications, parts and even assemblage of these parts. This is the knowledge that Osho and his team have built over the years of identifying, importing and replacing hardware parts in devices they repaired. In the two years since, Osho and his team have built over 50 workstations for 25 customers across different professions in different locations like Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan and Kogi. 

According to Osho, there are many opportunities for growth for the startup. “There are a lot of opportunities, from working with more freelancers around the globe to working with global organisations in the core industries that we’re focused on to shipping these same Custom Built Workstations.co PC to other African countries.” 

Even though the work is capital intensive, Osho says they’re currently bootstrapping as they make PCs that cost nothing less than $1300. 

“Our goal from the onset with every [one] of our products was to get to product market fit before even involving investors. This is so [that] when funds come in, it’ll be used to accelerate growth. Right now, we are still bootstrapping, but we are open to having investment discussions.”  Osho says. The startup is also working on a product that can automate their process, therefore saving time.

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