Trying To Build an African Next Gen Media Startup

Last month, Tech Nova GH ceased to exist.

In September 2023, I officially decided to rebrand Tech Nova GH. For the past six years, I’ve been writing about tech in Ghana but decided to that it was time for a change. The world is moving fast, and there are developments happening in other parts of Africa which I think are in our ballpark. With that in mind, we decided to fully pivot.

Thus, Tech Labari was officially born.

The Media Guy

My day job is a UX Designer. I’ve worked for companies including Flutterwave and Jetstream Africa, designing interfaces and conducting user research.

But when my work is done, I’m late deep into the night working on media. I’m like the Batman of Media.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been drawn more into “media”. I consider myself a news and media junkie, constantly checking updates around the world.

But I’ve always thought something was missing in the Africa side. My Twitter/X feed is dominated with US news. I’ve tried to look for more African tech content but it’s mostly at times inconsistent.

Attempts At Building Media

If you’ve been following my writing, you would know I’ve tried diving into different media stuff.

After I worked on Tech Nova, I wanted to see if I could work on media partnerships. I looked at examples like “Vox Media” and “Conde Naste” and how they were building their own media and wanted to try that experiment locally.

I didn’t want to start another site. I just wanted to join forces with other. And so I did. And then the Labari Media Group was started.

It was hard to maintain to be honest. And that didn’t go through.

But I tried again and created the “Labari Magazine” website. It would focus on entertainment news, media and women.

But it was difficult maintaining two media sites (all by myself) and so I had to sacrifice one.

Labari Magazine had to go.

Finding A Business Model and Creating a Next Gen Platform

Let’s face it. Making money in media is no easy task. Even the giants like Buzzfeed and VICE all faced trouble with financials.

Since running Tech Nova (now Tech Labari), we haven’t made a profit. The business model for most media platforms is advertising and subscriptions. But in Africa, finding people to subscribe can be a hassle (Believe me, I tried). But it can work once you build the audience.

Right now, I’ve relied mostly on bootstrapping with sponsored content and ads for our business model.

The next gen media startup with Tech Labari will definitely have to invest more in video and audio. We’re making that push right now by starting with a couple of podcast shows. We launched “What’s Your Story” last October. This year, we launched the Labari Media Podcast where we interview guests in different industries.

Our next push will be in video. We already have our YouTube page set up and we’re hoping to push some original content there for the foreseeable future.

The last push will be in events. As much as we’re a digital platform, we want to push towards offline experiences as well. We’re currently in the planning stages but we’ll definitely be having some events rolling out in the near future.

Set Up to Fail

There’s no way to sugarcoat this: We’re set up to fail. Trying to push a media startup makes no sense in this climate. The business model for media is not great for investors especially in Africa.

But regardless, there is a need for media to cover all the important things happening in tech and media on the continent. TechCrunch can’t do all the coverage.

Much kudos to TechCabal and others doing well with their media brand. There’s more space to continue to push media and I think Tech Labari can be a part of it.

We’re hoping to raise some money to recruit more staff and help because it’s not easy to build and scale.

Six years is a good run. Writing about tech started from a simple blog but now it’s grown into a small media startup.

But it’s not been easy. Bootstrapping has been a lot. Scaling is even more difficult. A media platform is not a charity. Trying to convince people this is a business will take some work. Creative work doesn’t need “exposure”, it needs investment.

If you’re open to helping out, I’m always available.

Hopefully, we have more runway to work with.