👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Milestones

TECHCABAL’S 2022 NEWSLETTER MILESTONES

Hi everyone, Timi here. 👋🏾

Right before we get into the business of bringing you Africa’s biggest tech stories, I’d like to review the important newsletter milestones we reached in 2023—and no, this isn’t because we’re still trying to shake off the holiday haze.

Regular programming and meme-ing will return in tomorrow’s edition, but for today’s, we’ll highlight the milestones and challenges we faced in 2022.

As a bonus, this edition will also feature a Meet the Team blurb; we want our readers to meet the scribes behind TechCabal’s pens—or the faces behind the memes. 

But first, here are the milestones we reached in 2022.

1. TC Daily reached 100,000 subscribers: Just in case you missed it, we reached 100,000 subscribers in Q3 2022. We’ve got readers from Nigeria, Kenya, the US and over 50 other countries. 

2. We built a referral system: 2022 also saw us launch V1 of our referral system. The premise is simple: if you love TC Daily, tell enough people about it, and we’ll give you stuff like Netflix subscriptions or Jumia vouchers in return. 

3. We launched two new products: Building on the successes of TC Daily and The Next Wave, we launched two new digital media products: Entering Tech and TC Weekender. The former is a one-stop shop for Africans who want to get into tech—it already has 20,000 subscribers, btw. TC Weekender features listicles of the most important African tech stories you missed during the week. It has about 15,000 subscribers now, and you can become one of them by signing up here. 

4. The 1,500 edition of TC Daily: Sometime last year, in Q1, we crossed the 1,500 mark for TC Daily editions. We didn’t get to celebrate this as we’d planned, but we’ll plan ahead for the big 2,000.

All these milestones were not reached without challenges, and so we’ll highlight what we didn’t get right and how we’ll change that this year.

👉🏾 TC Referral Programme is on hold: V1 of the Referral Programme came with bugs, and so we’ve put it on hold so we can squash them out. We’ve received feedback about the visibility of referral counts and it’s something we’ll work on for V2. We don’t have a launch date yet but it should be out in Q1. We’ve received some feedback already but if you noticed something, please reach out to us at newsletter@techcabal.com. 

👉🏾 Scaling: We’re presently at 130,000 subscribers and we’ve got a long way to go before we hit our 300,000 subscriber mark. Sometime this year, our head of growth Tracy Olisa and I will write about scaling email-based products on the continent, but this year, we’re looking to scale up our growth.

👉🏾 Optimisation: TC Daily doesn’t look great on everyone’s devices; we know. We’ve added a couple of new features since 2021; from crypto market, to title anchors and share buttons, there are new updates that might have made TC Daily a bit harder to read. We’re working on this in 2023 and you should start seeing changes before the year runs out.

We’re not planning on launching anything new this year—but then TC Weekender wasn’t in the plan last year too, so who knows, the market might change.

There’s a lot more I’d like to write about the mechanics of growth we’ve employed—and perhaps digital products on the continent, but I’ll save it for when Tracy and I write to you about this later in the year. 

In 2023, we’re focusing on growth and impact. More impactful stories, longer, richer and deeper dives. How will we get there? Here’s the team who will drive the vision. 

MEET THE TECHCABAL TEAM

Adrian Ephraim

Adrian is the new editor-in-chief of TechCabal. He is an award-winning writer and editor who has told stories about subjects ranging from high-profile individuals in business, entertainment, and politics to drug dealers and addicts in dens and in crime-ridden areas. The team has already caught his excitement for the impactful storytelling we are set to do this year. Adrian enjoys running, binge-watching documentaries, and DJing. Follow him on Twitter. You may find that you share his eclectic taste in jazz, hip-hop, R&B, and AfroTech music. 

Koromone  “KK” Koroye

Koromone is TechCabal’s managing editor. When she is not acting as the newsroom enforcer, she is interviewing female founders and entrepreneurs within the ecosystem. She also writes a flagship called Centre Stage that tells human-angle stories about the people building great products and services in Africa. Koromone has a healthy obsession with black coffee and exercise, and you can catch some of her workout videos on Twitter.

Olumuyiwa Olowogboyega

Olumuyiwa is another new member of the TechCabal newsroom, but this is not his first time working at the publication. He was a staff reporter for TechCabal, and after working in communications for several African startups and creating his own newsletter, Notadeepdive, he returned to the publication as newsroom editor. When he’s not working, Olumuyiwa can be found watching YouTube videos and arguing about media ethics on Twitter. You can scroll into any of his debates on Twitter.

Kelechi Njoku

Kelechi is a senior editor at TechCabal. He edits the publication’s newsletters and daily stories, and other content across the business. He is the guy who decides which jokes and memes make it to the newsletter (we are not sure whether you should thank him or boo him). He also writes the column, My Life in Tech. He enjoys exercise and geeking out on Twitter about recipes and Nigerian cinema.

Daniel Adeyemi

Daniel Adeyemi is an award-winning senior reporter. He writes investigative and analytical pieces about big tech and high-growth companies operating in Africa. He also shares insights from investors in the African ecosystem through his bi-monthly column, “Ask an Investor”.  Follow him on Twitter to keep up with his work. Outside of work, Daniel can be found volunteering at TEDxLagos, playing football, or reading. 

Abraham Augustine

Abraham is a journalist and researcher obsessed with digital economies in emerging markets and Europe. He writes about them when he is not questioning popular narratives about Africa’s tech innovations with atypical sobriety and offering fresh perspectives about them in TechCabal’s weekly newsletter Next Wave. Despite his obsession with digital economies, Abraham would pick a hardcopy book over any digital format. According to him, “The more ancient, the better.” Itching to say, “Me too?” Shoot him a message on Twitter.

Damilare Dosunmu

Damilare is a staff reporter. He investigates and writes about the culture, management, finances, and visions of tech and tech-enabled businesses. If his name sounds familiar you’ve probably read his popular investigation of payroll startup Bento’s toxic work culture or Kuda Bank’s ₦6 billion loss. When he’s not churning out stories, he’s swiping half his fortune off his card to buy food for his two cats. No, cat food is that expensive, and his cats are rather picky. But hey, they look cute! Follow his Twitter and you might catch a pic of them.

Timi Odueso

Timi is a staff reporter at TechCabal where he presently manages the execution, growth, and delivery of the publication’s digital media products. Over the years, Timi has built a reputation as a relentless and brilliant content and product strategist, whether it’s building the content arm of literary festivals like the Abuja Literary and Arts Festival in Nigeria or executing a three-pronged mental health product, Safe Place Nigeria. When he’s not managing digital products at TechCabal, Timi moonlights as an award-winning writer with publications in Tordotcom,  McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Nobrow Press, Lightspeed Magazine, Lolwe, and many more. You can find him on LinkedIn and Twitter at @timiodueso.

Ngozi Chukwu

Ngozi is a junior newsletter writer. You often catch her punny humour here on TC Daily. She also writes TC Weekender, a weekly newsletter that rounds up the most interesting stories about the ecosystem. Her most-read story from last year is the Paystack Mafia. She is on Twitter but the only messages she responds to are invites to play any of the games she develops for the publication.

Caleb Nnamani

Caleb Nnamani is a junior reporter. He explores the intersections between technology, business, and culture. When he is not chasing funding news or writing stories about the African tech market, he is screenshotting cute pictures of cats and dogs—he loves them. He also loves memes, and you’ve probably laughed at a few of his meme choices here on TC Daily as he regularly writes for you here too. Tech stuff aside, Caleb also writes poems and children’s stories, a few of which have been longlisted for awards. 

Ephraim Modise

Ephraim is an award-winning writer and junior reporter at TechCabal. Working from Botswana, he writes stories about the tech ecosystem in the Southern Africa region. He regularly contributes to the TC Daily newsletter too. When he is not warming his writing chair, he is chairing the World Bank Youth Forum for Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, and South Africa (BELNASA). You can also find him cheering for youth empowerment in non-profits such as the Global Schools Program. You can connect with him on Twitter here.

Muktar Oladunmade

Oladunmade Muktar is a junior reporter. He covers stories about the human and business impact of technology on the continent, and the people behind it. He often contributes to TC Daily and Digital Nomads, a weekly flagship about Africans that have migrated out of their homes in search of better opportunities. Muktar is a cinephile (read as “a Christopher Nolan fanboy”), a bibliophile, and an audiophile. As a Nigerian lawyer who once served as president of Ghana Model United Nations, he probably has the most diplomatic answer to the age-old question, “Nigerian Jollof or Ghanaian Jollof, which is sweeter?” You can ask him on Twitter.

Hannatu Asheolge

Hannatu is an editorial assistant at TechCabal, where she provides administrative and editorial support to the team. She often writes about female founders and tech consumer behaviour like she did in this article about Africa’s used iPhone market. When she is not saving drafts, she is saving the world. Hannatu volunteers with charities like TheirWorld to improve access to rural education. She also co-runs a health community for women and writes an infrequent fashion blog (yes, fashion blogs are lifesavers). 

IN OTHER NEWS FROM TECHCABAL

German BioNTech acquires Tunisia’s InstaDeep for £582 million. 

How a South African hacker group stole millions in resources from cloud platforms to fund crypto mining.

YC-backed Releaf raises $3.3 million pre-Series A to improve technologies for food processing in Africa.

Ghanaian e-logistics platform, Jetstream, raises $13 million pre-Series A. 

OPPORTUNITIES

• The GROW Impact Accelerator is now accepting applications from agritech startups offering solutions to the problems facing the processing, packaging and transportation of food. Apply by January 30.

• The 100x Impact Accelerator is open to applications from impact-driven social enterprises that work across eight sectors including health, climate and education. Selected enterprises selected will receive £150,000 grants and access to LSE’s world-class expertise, plus a 12-week programme of bespoke support from experts and social unicorn founders. Register by March 10.

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