1,065 Days between the “Africa to the World” series and this. Wild.

1,065 Days of (self) interrogation, iteration, frustration, and hesitation - all while still living and moving. It’s a wonder how life will continue to life despite whatever makes you feel “stuck”. Or how much can be going on underneath what seems like “equilibrium” or “steady progression” or nothing at all. But, we move.

In short, everything was put into question during these past 1,065 Days. Not just this thing that is Blueprints & The Culture Shift Theory, but also the true ‘endgame’ of it all. In essence, even the genuine feasibility and viability of the work and assumptions that underpin this very thing was put into question.

What does it really mean to leverage Brand to ‘shift culture’ and catalyze genuine prosperity for Africa and its diaspora? What does it mean to enable genuine value capture (or really value retention) for spaces that have been significant contributors to, but not meaningful beneficiaries of, our global consumption?

Is it actually possible? Does it actually matter? Are we too entrenched in our current systems and ways of being? In how we perceive and exchange value? Maybe the best case scenario is a few ‘looks’ here and there. A few extraordinary instances and examples that somehow were allowed to happen, while in aggregate nothing really changes.

Despite these questions, I kept coming back to this thought during the past 1,065 Days:

Because the systems and ways of being we have today were designed by others, there’s always space for new systems and ways of being to be designed, still.

Agency, a willingness to face things head on, to create, is all that’s needed. At the end of the day, choosing to not even try is a skill issue.

So we’re here. We’re back. With intent. Even if the speed of action varies over time. Even if all of this amounts to a small shift. That’s actually okay. There’s enough satisfaction to be found in that.

The Why Behind Blueprints & The Culture Shift Theory, and Everything Else

After posting the “Africa to the World, Through Brand” series, I realized that I never actually introduced Blueprints & The Culture Shift Theory. So, let’s do that now.

To be very frank, all of this (B&TCST, AZEKI ROAD, and even my career path) started from a place of mixed curiosity and frustration, turned determination.

Anecdotes from designers like Nifemi-Marcus Bello sparked my initial curiosity about the extent to which outside perceptions of what valuable ‘African’ design is and what African design “should” be, limit actual value. Especially when it comes to the value that Africa and its people, and more acutely its creators, are able to benefit from.

It was a curiosity that developed into frustration after realizing how pervasive and harmful this value perception ‘mismatch’ has been, and continues to be. Not just in the context of African design, but also in the context of cultural production from African and Diasporic communities in general - from film, to music, to consumer goods. And not just in the context of the production itself, but also in the context of one’s general willingness to invest and engage in such production.

It was a frustration that was rooted in a strong sense of pride and belief in these spaces. Spaces that I belong to. Spaces that, I believe, need to benefit from the significant value they continue to create. This curiosity-frustration-determination was the initial spark for everything. Add in my personal love for all things culture and an opportunity to incorporate my passion into my career viably, I became obsessed.

As a result, everything shifted towards understanding what drives value perceptions, their downstream implications on actual value, and how one might reengineer these perceptions to produce alternative outcomes. But then came the question that’s been on my head for years (especially during the past 1,065 Days):

What does changing these value perceptions actually look like, and how can this actually happen?

Images, “Inputs”, and Why Sustained Resonance is Key to The Shift

I came across a lot of inspiration during this time “off” which helped connect dots and brought more clarity to a potential answer for this question. One of those sources of inspiration was this conversation between Reggie James and Eugene Angelo, touching on the value of Images: ideas that are strong enough to inspire people to move, follow, and re-orient their ways of thinking. Though this conversation was originally in the context of broader conversations at the time on Mars, space exploration, and the “post-internet era”, the general idea of strong Images and the power they have stuck with me. It made me wonder:

How might Brands become strong Images that inspire people to think, and therefore value things, differently?

Excerpts from For The Culture, a book grounded in behavioral research and cultural case studies on why people buy and act the way they do, helped refine things further by providing insight into the relationship between Images and the people that are moved by them.

In the book, Dr. Marcus Collins makes the point that our actions, including what we choose to buy, value, and consume is, in large part, driven by our beliefs. Beliefs that are ultimately shaped by the two-way relationship between the cultural output we interact with (e.g. art, food, fashion, music, design) and our interpretation of those interactions. In other words, the cultural “inputs” we interact with, and how we feel and think about those “inputs”, create and strengthen certain ‘Images’ that then shape our beliefs. It’s these beliefs that then go on to drive what we value, what we choose to not value, and what other ‘inputs’ we choose to interact with, reinforcing this relationship.

With this, I realized that the question really is:

How might Brands be inputs into and strengthen an Image that inspires people to think, and therefore value things, differently?

Where this Image is a reality where global audiences elevate (and adjust) their value perception of goods and design from Africa and its Diaspora. Where, following that value perception ‘adjustment’, significant shifts happen in how value flows, is exchanged, and is retained by these spaces.

From this, it’s not too crazy to say then that specifically strong inputs (in this case, ‘strong’ Brands) that create lasting, positive impressions are the sort of inputs that will strengthen and reinforce this Image that raises the perceived value of African and Diasporan creation. Therefore, to make the ‘shift’ real:

We need more inputs.

More tangible proof that validates this greater Image.

And not inputs for the sake of it, but inputs (i.e. Brands) that resonate and last. Brands that can reach people at scale, repeatedly demonstrate their true value to provide that tangible proof, and sustain themselves long enough to become references that shift global perception.

Getting Back Into It…

Ironically, this brought me right back to my thesis. Which was a bit frustrating given the time wasted spent thinking and iterating and effectively sitting on my hands.…But again, we move.

So how can Brands become the sustained, scaled “inputs” that last long enough to help drive this shift and realize this Image (resulting in significantly more value being unlocked)? They need to exhibit high-impact, ‘Gazelle-like’ characteristics: sustainable, consistent growth and longevity that results in the creation of more value, the uplift of their ecosystems, and the provision of tangible proof needed to shift value perceptions.

But exhibiting these behaviors requires Brands to have certain capabilities, such as: being in tune with one’s customer base and broader market to routinely generate demand, having the operational capacity to innovate to create more value, etc. All of which requires resources. Specifically, capital & value-creating, operational infrastructure. The sort of capital and operational infrastructure that still allows Brands to have some meaningful level of control. The sort of capital and operational infrastructure that Brands from these spaces still find difficult to access and build for themselves, in large part due to the very same value perception mismatch that also results in less investment, a greater perception of ‘risk’, and not so impactful engagement.

As a result, these Brands are handicapped, which further limits their (potential) value. Then, when you consider how consumer behavior is evolving and how technology is evolving - operating as a Brand with this handicap becomes exponentially more difficult.

But this last point about having to figure things out in the midst of these evolutions isn’t unique to emerging culture and consumer brands rooted in Africa, as ‘more established’ brands in other markets with significantly more scale, more revenue, and more robust operational infrastructure, are also having to navigate these shifts (something that I know intimately well from my own experiences).

In fact, these ‘shifts’, in a sense, have leveled the playing field to some degree, proven by the rise of emerging Brands from other spaces with strong cultural resonance that have achieved meaningful scale. Something, I’d argue, that’s been made possible by the way operational infrastructure, and capital as a result, has been democratized over time.

To that end, to transform Brands into the ‘scaled, sustained inputs’ needed to shift culture, closing the gaps in capital and operational infrastructure in light of these macro evolutions is key. And considering the fact that additional capital investment typically requires understood demonstrations of (potential) value first, enabling Brands with the operational infrastructure to clearly demonstrate and communicate their value becomes especially key*.

*along with enabling the “other side” to better understand the value that’s at hand, which is just as key.

…and Getting Going

I heard this quote during a panel on Africa’s creative and consumer industries during Wharton’s 2019 African Business Forum and I repeatedly came back to this quote since. Especially during the past 1,065 Days. Granted, the idea to provide the “architecture” (i.e. operational infrastructure) wasn’t (and isn’t) new at all. In addition to the numerous programs and initiatives executed by various groups over several years aimed at doing just that, I personally spent years testing different concepts to do this through AZEKI ROAD. From pure tech solutions, to providing agency-like services, I pitched and “tried” it all. Ultimately, nothing tangible truly came from these efforts which, along with other factors, led me to taking a step away.

Funny enough though, I was given the opportunity by a good friend in the middle of my ‘hiatus’ to help support Lagos Space Programme with their launch at SPACE 001, a new retail concept in NYC powered by the Institute of Black Imagination - which sparked even more inspiration for me.

Helping Lagos Space Programme achieve growth after re-designing their e-commerce, crafting the journey from the in-person SPACE 001 experience to online, and contributing to their overall strategy was reminiscent of not just my past efforts with AZEKI ROAD, but also the way growth capital value creation teams would work with companies in their portfolio (which was another source of ‘inspiration’ during this time). It reemphasized the value of strengthening operations for the direct, long-term benefit of the Brand, as these efforts made it easier for Lagos Space Programme to continue to demonstrate its value (and unlock more future possibilities).

It also highlighted a path to re-visit, scale, and optimize the efforts of enabling Brands grow and ‘strengthen the Image’ - a path that can be as much thesis driven as the way growth capital firms are thesis-driven when it comes to deciding what to invest in and how to create value.

The New Direction & Looking Ahead

So, after 1,065 Days of frustration, interrogation, reflection, inspiration, and being hands-on again, the ‘what’, ‘why’, and ‘how’ became clear - with everything flowing from this central thesis:

There’s significant benefit to be had for everyone in enabling Brands rooted in Africa and the Diaspora to become the needed inputs to adjust value perceptions at scale and shift global culture. To do this, enhancing and innovating with the operational infrastructure of these Brands to unlock more capital, sustainable growth, and sustained resonance is key. And lastly, doing this in a way that centers Brands and uplifts their ecosystem is both very much required and very much possible.

Thus, Blueprints & The Culture Shift Theory will host and amplify the thinking, the learning, and the research that seeks to validate this thesis. This space will be in service to creators and those looking to invest in and uplift creators alike; connecting the dots between capital, culture, design, technology, and engineering to create “blueprints” for this desired “shift”.

And everything else (at least, everything else that I do in this space) will in turn flow from B&TCST.

So, what does this all mean? A few things:

The ‘On Demand’ Series and more:

In parallel to the work I’ve done to make sense of everything, I also started researching the concept of ‘Demand’ more deeply. Inspired by some of the material mentioned here, along with others sources, learnings from my own experiences, and the belief that generating sustained demand is foundational to everything else, I began working on this: from developing “paths” to true Brand resonance, demonstrating what such resonance actually looks like, quantifying it, and wrestling with general assumptions about ‘Demand’ along the way.

Excited to start sharing pieces from this series soon, along with other series and “loosies” like this one in the future. More soon come.

Reviving (and Evolving) AZEKI ROAD:

Following the project with Lagos Space Programme and SPACE 001 (along with the broader, somewhat existential reflection that inspired this Catch Up), I’m opening things back up and establishing a more intentional connection with B&TCST and the underlying thesis.

I’m excited to re-position AZEKI ROAD as a value creation/Brand transformation engine of sorts, and use AZEKI to partner with Brands on executing the “blueprints” in real time. More soon come on this too, but in the meantime (and as always): Brand Owners, Brand Investors, and Creatives in this space - if unlocking that next stage of growth and true resonance is top of mind, I’m always happy to connect at info@azekiroad.com.

Other Endeavors??

Beyond AZEKI ROAD, I’m really interested in seeing where else the research and the discussions that happen through B&TCST can be applied. Though all of this started from a place of personal curiosity-frustration-determination over a particular phenomenon that I care deeply about, it’s not lost on me that researching and attempting to create ‘blueprints’ on how emerging Brands can sustainably transform and unlock more value can be applied elsewhere. Leaving that door open, but the focus now is simply providing and amplifying the research first.

These past 1,065 Days have been a lot, but the time served as a great reminder that having time itself is a blessing, and creating space for new inspiration never hurts. At the same time, I’m happy to truly get going again and be about that action because to be real, this all could have (and maybe should have) happened much sooner than the 1,065 Days it took, but hey.

We move.

Because of all of this - honestly, the time is now. At the beginning of this series, I made the point that true realization of “Africa to the World” must be inclusive of product and enterprise, and I argued that it’s through these mediums that the economic benefit to those on ground can actually happen. In Part 1, I shared a set of principles and a framework for action based on entrepreneurship development research and the opportunities that still exist to center and empower businesses, brands, and the value creators behind them. To recap, in order to realize Africa to the World through product + enterprise in the form of brand, I believe that it’s key to:

 Operate in harmony as an intentional ecosystem, with the entrepreneurs, the value creators, at the center

Create the space and provide what’s needed for entrepreneurs to build and pull in what they need for the enterprise to thrive

Focus on sustainable, inclusive growth trajectories that center longevity

In Part 2, I shared my own research on brand entrepreneurs based in Nigeria grounded in these principles - uncovering the desires, motivations, habits and emotions of this group and building a foundation for solutions that enable their growth and scale using a design-driven approach.

As this series comes to a close, my hope now is to inspire action, collaboration, or at the very lease more intentional conversation around seeing more enterprises and brands from Africa thrive. Especially those at the intersection of commerce and culture, where I feel like the potential to positively shift things through economics and image is highest (and I’d argue both are needed, and are deeply connected). This hope is pretty much the motivation behind translating my thesis to this format, and in starting Blueprints & The Culture Shift Theory in the first place - I want to continue to learn in real time, share in real time, build in real time, connect with others all for the purpose of making this more real.

With that all said, happy to connect on Twitter with people who share this interest of realizing ‘Africa to the World’ through product and enterprise (especially at the intersection of commerce and culture) - especially those who are currently operating in the space (entrepreneurs, operators, investors, educators, government reps, etc.)

Introducing AZEKI ROAD

Speaking of building in real time and taking action, since starting this work and coming out of my research with brand entrepreneurs based in Nigeria, my focus has shifted to exploring how to apply these principles and enable emerging consumer brands and businesses based in Africa more broadly. While working on my thesis, I connected with entrepreneurs and brands operating across the Continent (including Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa, in addition to Nigeria), and to little surprise - the general themes and insights were constant:

1. First, they too desire to grow their business to international scale sustainably, shifting perceptions of what can come from Africa, bringing value back to the Continent, in spite of challenges in financing, genuine demand generation, infrastructure, and talent. And second:

2. They desire to express and convey their brand value through their own means, in spite of needing to be creative to overcome obstacles and extremely resourceful in their execution (given the structural challenges mentioned in Parts 1 & 2)

Because of this, in comes AZEKI ROAD.

AZEKI ROAD is a brand studio/lab that’s ultimately in service to the value creators and enables growth and scale. The intent is to serve as the ideal operating partner, and create the path for brands to be truly global through strategy, experience design, and additional services. AZEKI ROAD aims to enhance brand operations, with an initial focus on sustained demand generation.

The initial focus on demand generation (and market orientation) comes from both the key characteristics of high impact enterprises mentioned in Part 1, and the belief that sustained, genuine demand (which not only involves bringing customers in, but also maintaining their energy over time) will unlock the other things needed to achieve scale: improving access to financing by demonstrating value, creating an easier path to expanding distribution, etc. To make that sustained demand generation possible, the goal is to deeply partner with brands and enable them to attract, captivate, and resonate with (global) audiences over time.

With that said, if you’re a brand owner, brand investor, enabling brands based in Africa in any way, or just curious to learn more, also would love to connect on this too. Feel free to reach out at info@azekiroad.com or follow @azekiroad on socials.

To recap, the principles that guide this approach to growing and scaling Africa-based enterprises (and in this specific case, cultural and consumer-oriented enterprises) are:

Operating in harmony as an intentional ecosystem, with the entrepreneurs, the value creators, at the center

Creating the space and providing what’s needed for entrepreneurs to build and pull in what they need for the enterprise to thrive

Focusing on sustainable, inclusive growth trajectories that orient enterprises towards longevity

To move to action, this is where a human-centered (or in this case, an entrepreneur-centric) design approach can be useful, and what was the focus of the second half of my research1. The goal was to provide a starting point for stakeholders, and demonstrate how to develop a deep understanding of who the entrepreneur is - because genuine and intentional ideation and iteration can only happen with that deep understanding. In my case (and as mentioned at the beginning of this series), I centered consumer brand entrepreneurs, a subset of that intersection of commerce and culture, and narrowed the scope further to those based and operating in Nigeria (building off of the research done in Part 1). Through that lens, the question that I sought to address was:

How might we enable consumer goods & brand entrepreneurs based in Nigeria to create more value, capture more value, and thrive overall?

Through the approach and the insights generated from this research, I want to show what the output could look like, and more specific to underlying motivation for all of this, build a foundation for realizing “Africa to the World” through brand.

A Quick Note on the Approach:

Now, there is a lot of content out there on human centered design, design thinking, or other related content on the process itself, its benefits, as well as some valid critiques on how it's currently framed. What matters most and what I want to focus on is that the way to move from principle to action and address the barriers that entrepreneurs face in a design-led way is to:

Understand, Create, & Test

In an iterative manner, where you are constantly in dialogue with not only who you’re looking to serve, but also with others within the ecosystem that can play a role in the shift. 

The focus here (and for my research at the time) was in Understanding and creating a foundation on top of which solid, highly resonant creation can happen. 

To build that understanding, I conducted 1-on-1 interviews with entrepreneurs, and did ethnographic research on ground; being in conversation and partnership with operators and other stakeholders and getting a real sense of their operational challenges and lived experience - in a process that spanned over two years. In general, taking an intimate approach and combining it with more common, large-scale methods like surveying (which was the typical and usually only approach I saw in past research, which doesn’t capture the needed nuance in my opinion). Together, all of this could be powerful in building an even more holistic picture. 

Building on this, I sought to capture and frame things around these operators’ desires, motivations, current habits, and emotions. This comes back to the the theme of Part 1 and understanding the gaps in current enterprise development activities in Nigeria more broadly: we need to understand where does the entrepreneur want to go (their desires), why do they want to go there (their motivations), and what are they currently doing and dealing with that either helps or hurts their ability to get there (their habits and emotions).

Lastly, with the second and third principles in mind, the questions I asked and observations I especially took note of were focused on understanding their experience and (potential) ability with high-impact, or Gazelle-like characteristics by framing things against these four main themes:

1. How oriented are they to the market they target like, and what is their current experience with generating and sustaining demand?

2. How innovative are they and their operations (especially when it comes to infrastructure)?

3. What is the quality of their business networks and their ability to access resources, especially capital? And,

4. What are their current experiences with people development, team building, and ultimately becoming more decentralized over time?

By framing the research in this way, I wanted to make that connection from understanding current state to driving towards the ideal more tangible - and product actionable insights that can get things going.

The Brand Entrepreneur: Who They Are

Figure 1: ‘The Brand Entrepreneur’ Persona from my thesis

To start things off, I want to walk through the persona developed from this first phase of Understanding (one way to capture and represent the learning from this part of the process). With this, the desires, motivations, habits, and emotions of this group can be more easily digested and the voice of the entrepreneur can always be present in some way (especially if being in constant dialogue with the creators themselves isn’t possible). 

Desires

For the entrepreneurs and brand owners in this space, the ultimate desire they have is to achieve genuine growth and scale of their businesses. Not much of a surprise, this desire for growth and scale isn’t limited to local markets, but also includes a true international presence as well. It’s clear that  ‘Africa to the World’ (and in this specific case, ‘Nigeria to the World’) is very much top of mind, and these creators intend to use their brands and businesses as vehicles to make that happen.

It’s important to emphasize also that this desire isn’t a desire to achieve growth and scale by any means necessary. Just as it is important to them to take their brands to new heights, it is just as important for them to do it in a way that elevates and empowers the local ecosystems that they’re a part of. They see their brands as a means to create value for both themselves and their spaces and communities. 

Motivations

What motivates these desires comes from a shared drive to contribute to their space in a positive manner, though how that drive manifests is best captured as a spectrum between being economic driven versus more product driven. 

Being economic driven equals seeing brand as just means to the end of creating, capturing and bringing value to their community. As a result, all actions are done through this lens. Having high-value job creation as an explicit goal, seeking international scale to unlock the economic potential that can come from exporting, seeking to partner with or build out local supply chains to ensure value retention - all of it is done with the economic benefit in mind. 

On the other end, being product driven means being more focused on how brand can shift narratives of what can come from Nigeria (and the Continent more broadly), specifically through the quality of their product. How people view and perceive the product and the space(s) it comes from, what people imagine when they hear the name of those spaces, its people, etc. That’s the focus - with an understanding that positive perception and associations opens doors and drives willingness to pay (which again equals more value capture, ideally).

Regardless of where entrepreneurs fall on that spectrum, the critical thing is that both ends (and anywhere in between) are very much aligned with the goal of improving things through their businesses and recognize the importance of scale to do that. 

I want to call-out that these desires and motivations are really just expressions of ‘Africa to the World’ - and should be the same desires and motivations of the entire ecosystem. The fact that these things aren’t shared across the ecosystem is what frustrates entrepreneurs the most, and is a huge factor for their desire for a path forward that truly centers them.

Current Habits & Emotions

Moving to the current realities (really, frustrations) expressed by current consumer good operators, their habits demonstrate that they are more than willing to be creative and resourceful for the sake of their business thriving and achieving their goals.  What was common throughout was the openness to any sort of genuine support that can enable their desire for (international) scale and growth. 

The entrepreneurs I connected with also saw being innovative and pulling in structure as ‘necessary evils’ - understanding that they need to operate in spite of the current conditions they find themselves in. This, as you can imagine, creates a lot of frustration and stress, especially when coupled with the success of their business operations being over-reliant on them individually. And while having a more decentralized business is valued and desired, a lot of these operators end up making do with what they can and shoulder most (if not all) of the responsibility due to inaccess to quality networks and resources, and/or the skepticism developed over time due to past disappointments. 

It’s through this dichotomy between what’s truly needed to achieve their desires and their current realities  they face that the needs of these entrepreneurs become clear.

The Brand Entrepreneur: Insights

Building on the persona, I’ll share the insight statements I put together, which was helpful in framing key needs and current circumstances in an actionable way with some context. From these needs, the focus then becomes: 

‘What are the sort of things that we can do to address and act on these insights, given our understanding of who the entrepreneur is?’

Will add some commentary and talk about the implications of addressing these needs as I go, but the real aim is just to share these insights and open things up for discussion, follow up, etc..

Access to Financing & Resources (i.e. Business Networks)

When it comes to financing and access to resource networks more broadly, the brand entrepreneur:

1. …seeks financial resources that are genuinely accessible and flexible to help ease their operational pressures and accelerate their growth

2. …is willing and able to be creative in order to get the required capital and resources they need to survive (and hopefully thrive).

3. …desires networks to the right (genuine) people/pool of resources, yet knows that this is (too) entirely dependent on who they are able to connect and pull together on their own.

The key here is improving access in ways that reduce the need for entrepreneurs to be creative in the first place. For many of the entrepreneurs that I connected with, they were stuck between two undesirable options: either try to force fit themselves into venture capital money which had its biases (mentioned in Part 1), or go for traditional bank loans and supposedly ‘specialized’ funding sources that still had unrealistic expectations around cost of capital, time horizon, and requirements. 

Now for some, and tying in the third point, they were able to work their way around this due to their personal background and access to networks and resources internationally which eased things to a certain degree. But the thing is, for brands to really thrive, for ‘Africa to the World’ having a better chance at being a sustained concept, more equity is needed and entrepreneurs should be able to have a shot that’s as independent as possible from their personal privileges - which creates the space for some potentially interesting solutions.

Infrastructure Pulling

On infrastructure, brand entrepreneurs:

1. …see infrastructure as something that they need to develop and pull in themselves to grow and scale their business the way they want to, again due to the lack of options to outsource or rely on outside of their immediate scope.

2. …seek to first augment what’s currently available, then build from scratch as a secondary option, as efficiency and creating more time to spend on growing the business is the true goal.

3. …aim to leverage local sources of infrastructure as best they can but are ready to weigh their options and consider leveraging international sources given how much they value effectiveness and quality, even though looking internationally is not ideal for multiple reasons.

While brand entrepreneurs understand the need to innovate and build out their own infrastructure given current circumstances, the key is that this isn’t desired at all. On top of that, doing so takes considerable energy away from other critical activities needed to reach the scale they desire. 

While there’s value in being as vertically integrated as possible, to be real this isn’t feasible (nor really efficient) for everyone to pursue. Because of this, I’d call out the real opportunity being other entrepreneurs to come in and provide potential “infrastructure-as-a-service” type businesses as a desirable alternative for entrepreneurs, especially if it involves working with and improving local ecosystems (which has the benefit of both aligning with the brand entrepreneur’s goal and helping avoid additional costs and risks associated with relying too heavily on outside resources).

Talent & Organization

From how brand entrepreneurs choose to build their own infrastructure, or how they focus heavily on talent, the why behind it all is being able to deliver quality. Quality, and how it impacts value capture (especially abroad), is always top of mind for these operators , and having a team where everyone contributes towards and can deliver repeatable quality without heavy reliance on the brand entrepreneur is the ideal. In this context, brand entrepreneurs:

1. …are willing (and have been willing) to take on the responsibility of training their employees to standard, especially because of the dearth of talent that exists in the market. At the same time they..

2. …need resources to not only develop their staff, but also develop themselves to further maximize their success. And lastly they…

3. …are extremely open minded to leverage any best practice or perspective on talent and organization development where the value is clear, as they are acutely aware of the positive relationship between investing in talent development and the success of their business.

Similar to infrastructure, the true ideal is alleviating as much pressure as possible - enabling businesses and brands to become less dependent on the brand entrepreneur and more decentralized. In addition to training programs and hubs dedicated to developing creative and entrepreneurs in certain sub-sectors of the culture/consumer industry, there’s opportunity for genuine ecosystem-level coordination to address other aspects like connecting talent to businesses in need, giving owners and teams the tools to create and manage scale (beyond going from idea to starting up), etc. as long as the value proposition and the alignment between the outcome and the brand entrepreneurs desires are clear.

Demand Generation & Market Orientation

Last but not least: demand generation and the overall ability to attract, develop, and retain customers. Summarizing the core needs and insights in this area in the context of the brand entrepreneur, they:

1. …need the means to establish deeper understanding, relationships and feedback loops, with their customers in the ways that they want to - since control allows them to execute against their vision.

2. …desires access to new markets, customers, and ways to convey and capture value to bring in their most preferred source of capital - revenue - and as a result, are willing and open to innovate however possible to do this. 

Ironically, throughout my conversations this was the area that entrepreneurs had the least concern about relative to the others, with some citing that financing and infrastructure were the barriers that prevented them from supplying more demand. While fair, it was also interesting hear other entrepreneurs view marketing ability and demand generation as more than just selling more at the current state, but also increasing the value of their current supply, being able to connect directly with and curate experiences for customers to ensure long term value, and better leveraging tech to do all the above (especially given the context of this work being during the pandemic). With revenue being the ideal source of capital for everyone I connected with, it’s clear how being able to execute in this area is critical. Thus, I wouldn’t want to look over the opportunities to ease and enable brand entrepreneurs here too.

Looking Ahead

Thinking about the desires, motivations, habits, and needs of the consumer good and brand entrepreneurs that I connected with throughout those couple of years, the main takeaways are that:

This group does envision a future where they use their brands and businesses as a means to uplift the country

They’ve demonstrated a willingness and desire to go above and beyond to build uplift local systems too, and 

They need solutions that alleviate operational pressures and enhance what they’re able to do best

Since wrapping up this work back in 2021, I’ve continued to explore what further understanding and creating in service to the above could look like myself (will get to that later), but I really want to emphasize the above for the sake of encouraging others to build and continue building too.

On that note, and taking a step back to generalize this even further and connect back to the principles from Part 1, an intentional understanding of the who, what, and why is foundational for the rest of the process. I’d encourage those interested in other sectors at the intersection of commerce and culture to constantly look for opportunities to collaborate, build relationships and build community. Be open to the messiness and iterative nature of the process. Center the value creators and involve them as much as possible throughout. 

It’s through these actions and through these principles that I believe “Africa to the World” through brand, product, and enterprise can be more than what it is today.

A Quick Shoutout…

Many thanks to:

This Is Us NG

MEROK

Tomato Jos

And all of the other brands, creative and consumer entrepreneurs that I had to chance to connect with, learn from, and be inspired by.

Operating in harmony as an intentional ecosystem, with the entrepreneurs, the value creators, at the center

Creating the space and providing what’s needed for entrepreneurs to build and pull in what they need for the enterprise to thrive

Focusing on sustainable, inclusive growth trajectories that orients enterprises towards longevity

Now, I want to take the time to dive into the research that forms the foundation of these principles, highlighting the key thoughts and observations that connect the potential value these principles have and their ability to address the (in)effectiveness of past and current actions.

To do that, I’m going to take a step back and expand the scope a bit; looking at entrepreneurship and venture development more broadly and using Nigeria as a case study, before narrowing back down to brand later on. Ultimately, enabling cultural enterprise is a subset of enabling enterprise in general, and it’s important to go over where we are, where we’re coming from, what’s been done in the context of enabling African (and in this example, Nigerian) enterprise in general. From there, imagining what needs to be done to move forward in my opinion becomes easier, and this approach further emphasizes how generalizable these ideas and solutions can be.

So, let’s get into it.

Entrepreneurship Development in Nigeria - Where Do We Stand, What’s Been Done About It, and What’s Left to Do?

With rising unemployment, lagging economic growth rates, and a weakening currency plaguing Nigeria both during the time of this research and now, many have looked to entrepreneurship and venture development as the key to improve the current socioeconomic situation. This desire is mainly driven by what MSME (micro, small and medium sized enterprise) development has done in other emerging markets1. So naturally the question then becomes “if such a path has worked for others, why not for Nigeria?”

As you can imagine then, there’s been a lot of energy and activity to support entrepreneurs and their businesses, but a lot of this activity has resulted in mixed outcomes. 

Let’s start with access to financing and capital, which if you were to ask any entrepreneur, would be called out as the biggest pain point they need to overcome. There has been so much activity, both public and private, to address this pain point, yet if you were to talk to most entrepreneurs today it would still be called out as an issue. Programs like the Small and Medium Enterprise Equity Investment Scheme, the Bank of Industry, and the Agriculture and Rural Development Bank were created by the Nigerian government to provide capital to emerging enterprises at generous rates, and also (where appropriate) incentivize traditional capital institutions to do the same. At the same time, microfinance banks, private equity firms, and venture capitalists sought to play their own roles, either by filling gaps still left by the public programs or by focusing on particular sectors (i.e. the near exclusive focus venture capital activity has had on the tech sector). Still, many entrepreneurs still complain about access to capital, calling out the (still) high cost of capital, lack of inclusivity, and the inequitable distribution of funds due to administrative failings, politics, etc2.

On the other hand, capital allocators do have a reasonable argument to defend themselves regarding the issue of access: many have noted  that there aren’t many ‘bankable’ MSMEs and entrepreneurs who have the capacity to generate viable financial returns3. Assuming this to be true, then the natural next question is “What will help/What has been done to de-risk these MSMEs and make them more viable?” In comes this idea of ‘entrepreneurial capacity’ or “entrepreneurial competency”.

 In a 2009 paper, Benjamin Inyang and Rebecca Enuoh defined ‘entrepreneurial competency’ as “clusters of related knowledge, attitudes, and skills which an entrepreneur must have” to perform, maximize profit, grow their enterprise, etc4. Think business plan creation, financial management, or talent development. They also cited many government-driven programs and initiatives led by educational institutions that sought to address these skill gaps - emphasizing that people are aware of the need to develop entrepreneurial competency to yield entrepreneurial success, and have been trying to address it. At the same time, independent incubators and  programs have also popped up to address these same challenges, coupled with providing shared space, business tools, and other resources. Despite this, the perceived value of these efforts is mixed at best, with access and overall usefulness still being the main concerns for entrepreneurs. At the same time, researchers have questioned the ‘quality’ of entrepreneurial outcomes coming from such programs and the long-term (needed) benefit of mainly short-term/one-off touchpoints.

A New Approach: Guiding Principles for Genuine Entrepreneurship and Venture Development

With many entrepreneurs across various sectors still having to operate and scale their ventures almost in spite of the activity aimed to ease capital access, capacity building, and infrastructure (another big pain point for many, which I’ll touch on later), clearly there’s a misalignment between everyone involved and an opportunity still to make things better. I argue that in order to do that, all of us will need to re-orient ourselves towards three core principles in future actions:

Operating in harmony as an intentional ecosystem, with the entrepreneurs, the value creators, at the center

Creating the space and providing what’s needed for entrepreneurs to build and/or pull in what they need for the enterprise to thrive

Focusing on sustainable, inclusive growth trajectories that orients enterprises towards longevity

An Ecosystem with the Entrepreneurs Truly at the Heart of It

Taking a step back and looking at everything that’s been done and everything that’s been said at this point, I’d argue that the two root causes for the mixed effectiveness of past solutions are:

1. Past initiatives and actions, on both the public and private side, being too ‘top-down’ in their design and implementation, with a general disconnect between them and the current short- and long-term realities of entrepreneurs. The fact that there have been continued complaints of the same issues made by a large number of entrepreneurs, plus the little genuine progress seen at scale, further emphasizes this disconnect. In a way, a lot of these efforts have either not reached their intended audiences or are being misused or misinterpreted by those audiences, either scenario limiting the overall effectiveness of said efforts, and demonstrating a lack of true fit (either due to program/service itself or in the way it is distributed/implemented). 

Ironically, the way to correct this is very similar to the way a successful entrepreneur should seek to meet the needs of and satisfy their customers. Deeply understanding and tailoring solutions to the needs and habits of entrepreneurs (even if the goal is to spur behavior change) is the way. This looks like being intentional upfront on what type of entrepreneur or sector one is serving, and centering that entrepreneur throughout development. This looks like doing everything that is needed to truly enable them to grow their enterprise and thrive. This could even extend to co-creating solutions and programs alongside entrepreneurs, making it even easier to have their needs top of mind. But adopting an entrepreneur-centric approach alone is not enough if we also continue to allow…

2. A severe lack of coordination within the ecosystem, mixed with an overreliance on or genuine lack of trust skewed towards a few entities (particularly the Government). Examples of this today are expressed through sentiments like:

 ‘Stakeholder X is not doing enough and it’s 100% their sole responsibility to do something’ 

or 

‘Stakeholder X is an enemy of progress and we have to go it alone’

Taking a step back and using the positive outcomes achieved in other markets that were in similar situations in the past, this lack of coordination first starts from a genuine misunderstanding of the roles everyone is supposed to play. Professor Fiona Murray and Dr. Phil Budden from the MIT Innovation Initiative laid out what a functioning ‘innovation/entrepreneurial ecosystem’ looks like through their work of analyzing past success stories and partnering with regional ecosystems themselves: from the stakeholders involved, the ideal roles for each, and numerous positive outcomes that can be achieved with this framework in their 2019 paper5. 

The key point that I want to emphasize here is that everyone (The Government, Capital Providers, Educational Institutions, Established Corporates, and Entrepreneurs) has a role to play. We cannot be reliant or shift all responsibility to one or a few stakeholders and expect them to operate outside of their true role and strengths. Instead, we must understand how our strengths and capabilities fit, and constantly seek out opportunities to build connections, create space for one another, and align on incentives, a point that other researchers like Onyeka Ofili have also emphasized6.

Now, this is not to take accountability away from stakeholders that have significant sway in how things turn out, like the government (a common entity that is called out and many times rightfully so). Especially considering the potential harm such stakeholders can create through their actions. Instead, this is to emphasize and recognize the power of other stakeholders in the ecosystem (especially the Entrepreneur), while also highlighting the true role Government is meant to ideally play: the facilitator and the regulator, which leads me to the highlighting the foundation for the second principle:

Creating the Space for Entrepreneurs to Build & Pull-in What They Need

Infrastructure (along with financing) is overwhelmingly cited by many entrepreneurs, researchers, etc. as the major barrier preventing enterprises (and for the general populace) from thriving. At the same time, infrastructure is something that many see as being the sole responsibility for the government to create and provide, in addition to the responsibility of maintenance, even though history shows us that this is not the sort of role the government has played in the success of other markets.

This is something that Clayton Chrsitensen, Efosa Ojomo, and Karen Dillon raise in the Prosperity Paradox, making the point that ‘infrastructure’ as we understand it was actually born from, and is effectively sustained by, entrepreneurial efforts and commercial activity. It’s only later in the process of developing infrastructure that the government comes in to regulate and standardize for the benefit of the general population, beyond commercial purposes. They further emphasize this point of the infrastructure being truly birthed from entrepreneurial activities through examples like the Aravind Eye Hospital in India establishing its own training program for employees and manufacturing its own subcomponents in order for the core business to thrive, and early American entrepreneurs and financiers being responsible for early railroad development for the sake of transporting their goods before the government came in to regulate and support these networks7. 

If we take this to be true, and combine this idea with the first principle, we should actually be looking to enable entrepreneurs to address the infrastructural gaps that prevent their enterprises from thriving themselves, either by:

1. Incentivizing and supporting entrepreneurs in a particular space to incorporate more ‘infrastructural’ elements into their operating model, or

2. Creating the space and means for entrepreneurs to address these gaps in service to other businesses and encourage competition to ensure customer quality.  

We need to allow and encourage entrepreneurs (or even other stakeholders with the capacity and desire to innovate) to ‘pull in’ the infrastructure that they need. Now, this is where I want to re-emphasize the importance of ‘incentivizing’, ‘supporting’, and ‘enabling’, as well as bring up the first principle again to make clear that this is not to excuse the role that other stakeholders have in partnering with entrepreneurs to make this possible and easier to do. Instead, the main question I believe that other stakeholders and we as a collective should be asking ourselves is 

‘How might we make the process of entrepreneurs pulling in infrastructure more feasible, viable, and desirable for them?’

Embracing Inclusive, Sustained, ‘Gazelle-like’ Growth as the Focus

With an ecosystem working in harmony, truly centering the entrepreneur, and creating the environment for them to build and thrive, the next question then is what should these entrepreneurs and ecosystems be driving towards? What is the goal?

Coming back to the idea of ‘Africa to the World’ and enterprise development being the key, having ventures scale and grow beyond micro- and small-sized status should be the end goal, no? But then, to what extent should we look to have these entrepreneurs build scalable businesses? Is all growth the same? This is where the third and final principle comes in.

The quality of entrepreneurship in Nigeria (and by extension the Continent) has been a topic of discussion in the past, with some calling for less ‘distribution agents’ and ‘informal’ storefronts and more high potential enterprises like those in tech8. This has been coupled with an increase in tech-based startups and venture capital activity (from both local and foreign investors) over the past couple of years. Along with this has come increased expectations for and value in venture-like growth trajectories and returns. 

Now, while I do think the amount of energy in internet-based tech startups is deserved, should continue, and is critical to a thriving Nigeria (and Continent), the high-velocity growth expectations (among other factors in the current venture/tech ecosystem) is very exclusionary to a whole range of sectors and enterprises that are just as worthy of attention and investment (including many cultural oriented sectors). Not to mention, such a hyper-focus on growth can (and has) lead to adverse outcomes too, with more emphasis being put on raising capital and paper valuations versus genuine value creation and longevity.

Interestingly, there does exist a defined class of businesses that historically contribute the most towards value creation and are oriented more towards the long-term. ‘Gazelles’, as named by Robert Birch, who in during deeper exploration of his previous work around how small businesses drive the economy in the US, refined his previous conclusion by specifically calling out a group of businesses that enter a period of ~20% year over year growth over a four year period and during that time have the largest economic contribution (in terms of job creation and revenue generated), even though they make up 2-3% of all firms9. As others have dove deeper into this concept, it also turns out that this dynamic  is also consistent in markets beyond the US as well10.

On top of this, ‘Gazelles’ (otherwise known as high impact firms) also tend to be more diverse industry-wise, and are older in age11 - both observations lending themselves well towards genuinely realizing ‘Africa to the World’, especially as a part of that reality requires enterprises that can last and become institutions themselves that feed back into the ecosystem.

So then, how does a firm become more ‘Gazelle’-like (aka high impact)? It turns out that beyond the entrepreneur desiring to grow and scale their business, which is key, these enterprises also tend to:

1. Be highly oriented towards the market that they serve, i.e. they are highly in tune with their customer and are able to market to them effectively. 

2. Have a high capacity to innovate and continuously improve their operations and offerings over time - be it product, service, or process.

3. Be highly networked and have the means to access resources (capital or otherwise), and

4. Be relatively decentralized at scale, as in - they tend to be less dependent on the owner, and others within the venture can and are empowered to effectively lead and direct various functions of the business as it scales.

I want to point out, just as many researchers in the space have also done, that these characteristics can be developed at any point in the life of a venture, and aren’t inherent to a specific type of venture, entrepreneur, or industry. Also, note the connection between some of these characteristics and some of the ideas mentioned earlier, such as: the high capacity to innovate and the ability to ‘pull-in’ needed infrastructure to thrive, or the idea of decentralized, high capacity leadership and that being a very important  ‘entrepreneurial competency’. All of these ideas point to the same general principle. Bringing in the first two principles, the objective for the entrepreneur-centric (or the value creator-centric) ecosystem becomes clear:

How might we work together to enable the value creator to build, scale, and have their business exhibit high-impact qualities consistently over time?

Closing Thoughts and Bringing This to Life

Collaborating with each other as a cohesive ecosystem and enabling entrepreneurs and their businesses to demonstrate ‘high-impact’ qualities: marketing well, innovating (including pulling infrastructure in), easily accessing resources, and operating in a decentralized way as they grow, is what we need to make ‘Africa to the World’ more than just a saying or a collection of isolated examples. Creating the space, providing the tools, and sharing accountability with each other as we execute on these principles is what we need to do if we want to realize the growth, scale, and sustained value capture of the cultural and commercial value coming out of the Continent. It’s what we need to do if that cultural and commercial value is to then be used to improve things on ground and create even more opportunity for others. While I used the past and current actions and situations in Nigeria to highlight this, these principles are applicable across the Continent and really aren’t that unique to Nigeria’s situation. To a certain degree, similar challenges are being faced in other markets across the Continent (and even beyond).

With the principles and the approach in place, now the next question is:  ‘How do we actually move into action?’ The next part of this series will be me using the study I conducted with consumer good entrepreneurs based in Nigeria (the second part to my thesis) as an example of what the start could look like. 

The focus of that study (and the first step of moving from insight to action) was understanding the desires, motivations, habits, emotions, and needs of this target group to build the foundation for more effective solutions.  Taking a design-led approach to this (surprise, surprise), it’s important to understand the current context in order to know where things need to go - just as we did to get to this point.

We’ve probably seen the closest realization of this idea at the intersection of commerce and culture, specifically through music. Genres like Afrobeats and Amapiano have made waves far beyond the Continent, while global interest in other cultural exports like film and fashion have grown over the past few years. On top of this, we’re living in a moment where the Continent (+ The Diaspora) have been able to shift and influence global culture once again, only this time more transparently than in the past. But, how does this translate into genuine value capture and genuine economic improvement on ground, especially since we know significant value is being created? How does this not become “Africa for the world”, where the Continent continues to be seen as just a resource for the rest of the world to just consume? 

How does this dynamic translate to product and enterprise? I’d argue that including product and enterprise into the conversation of ‘Africa to the World’ will better position the Continent to bring that value back. Thus, how can (cultural) exports be the foundation for the economic development that we can all agree is needed? Given that there aren’t many Africa-based enterprises doing this at scale, with most still in the ‘emerging’ phase in terms of size, enabling entrepreneurship and venture development will play a key role in making this happen. It can’t just be left to transient cultural, consumer, and economic trends alone. 

It’s these questions and ideas that form the foundation for both this series, and my thesis work through the MIT IDM program that inspired it. Coming from a background that mixed engineering, business, and design applied to consumer brand via different angles, I was deeply interested at the time of my thesis in exploring how can we get brand (i.e. product + enterprise at the intersection of commerce and culture) to enable this genuine realization of ‘Africa to the World’ to the benefit of Africa. With the thesis done, but the actual job itself not being finished, I want to use this series to make the research and the approach to the ‘how’ more accessible - hopefully spurring conversation, collaboration, and action. 

For the sake of not dragging things out, the operating ‘principles’ to realize this idea of ‘Africa to the world’ through brand and enterprise are:

 Operating in harmony as an intentional ecosystem, with the entrepreneurs, the value creators, at the center

Creating the space and providing what’s needed for entrepreneurs to build and pull in what they need for the enterprise to thrive

Focusing on sustainable, inclusive growth trajectories that center longevity

This series will walk through the underlying research that inspired these principles, and then demonstrate how these principles are put into practice through the specific question I sought to address with my thesis (inspired by my background and my origin):

How might we enable consumer goods & brand entrepreneurs based in Nigeria in particular to create more value, capture more value, and thrive overall?

While this work was done through this specific lens, these principles are really applicable to any industry and country within the Continent (and beyond). It’s my belief especially that these principles can and should be used to enable value creators at the intersection of commerce and culture, where the Continent has a huge advantage. Again, the purpose of this is to share, hopefully inspire, and drive action - because ‘Africa to World’ doesn’t need to remain just a slogan or a rallying cry. We’ve seen the beginning of it becoming real right before our eyes, and now is the time to keep it going, so that  ‘Africa to the World’ doesn’t just actually mean yet another iteration of  ‘Africa for the World’. 

The Series:

Part 1: A look at broader entrepreneurship development in Nigeria and building the principles from the ground up.

Part 2: Uncovering the needs of consumer goods & brand entrepreneurs through the principles

Outro: Recapping and calling to action.