Untold ZW, Year One Update — Growing pains
So it’s been exactly a year since I hit publish on the first Story Untold ZW video. One phrase to sum up the last year? Growing pains. It’s been a rollercoaster ride and I figured I should map out some of the things I’ve seen both positive and negative in this lengthy update. (sorry not sorry)
What gives me hope…
Since starting this journey I’ve always thought of it as a 5–10 year undertaking and that position is still the same — content is about surviving long enough to reap rewards. We’ve managed to survive for year 1 of 10 despite the fact that we do not have a revenue model just as yet. That alone calls for celebration — nothing wild, these are frugal times…
Since starting Wedunhu Media (Untold’s parent company) the long form interview we trade in is becoming more popular in Zimbabwe with many more players joining the space. More people are beginning to see the opportunity and value of content which happened much earlier than I anticipated but is still a good thing in my view. The sooner we get people accustomed to this type of content the better.
On the inverse side a natural question would be whether or not I’m cautious about the competition in this space. Truth is; as a bootstrapped media project the main battle for myself as a founder is figuring out how to survive. Staying alive is more important to me right now than being #1. That’s a conversation we can only have once we’ve proven we have what it takes to survive…
The past year has also seen us learn a lot about content — from distribution, videography, audio engineering and content planning, the structures are becoming more rigorous by the day. From a founder perspective experiencing all these roles first-hand is incredibly important. Knowing what makes the business tick and all that…
Another thing is that the content we’re making beyond video that people have seen thus far is in very clear templates which allows us to be more efficient. Having these processes down positions Untold well if we ever decide to expand into other mediums like text, image, and sound. It will take time for this content to become public facing but I’m still very excited about its existence and how it will gradually allow us to wean ourselves off depending too much on a single platform (YouTube I’m looking at you).
Our primary distribution platform (YouTube) isn’t monetised yet but this is actually a positive right now. Why? Well, I recently learnt that if the channel is registered as a Zimbabwean channel — all the AdSense revenue we get once monetised will HAVE to be received into a Zim bank account.
Whilst that’s possible right now, Zimbabwe is a very weird place when it comes to financial regulations and that position could change overnight. Ultimately, we’ll have to look into registering the account in a different country with more stable regulations to ensure we’re protected long-term.
What scares me…
My goal is to build a business that taps into the global economy — that’s the whole point of building businesses on the internet. Doing this in Zimbabwe is extremely tough. Sanctions mean we’re severely cut off from that global economy and so that means I have to be thinking about which country the company gets registered in. I don’t have the range for that yet and it will take a lot of hand holding and mentorship to figure out those gymnastics. The problem with stuff like this is it takes energy away from our core focus which should be creating content but it is what it is...
The second thing which has been pissing me off feels like an African thing. There’s a lot of sizing-each-other-up within media. What do I mean by that? When we reach out to guests people commit to making content but when it’s time to make the content things start coming up and we start rescheduling and what not. The reason why this frustrates me is because I know for a fact that no-one would dare stand-up a bigger platform like In-Conversation with Trevor. If you don’t respect the platform or you think we’re not ready to work with you, don’t say yes to the interview.
It sounds like a harsh thing to say but let me give context. STUDIO TIME IS PAID. Content roll-outs are planned in advance etc… When we agree to make an episode on a certain day we move around many things and other potential shoots. So when a person cancels a day or two before the interview — there’s a real impact on our bottomline and schedules. It happens often and has been the biggest frustration of been an independent creator.
That’s Africa for you — respect is afforded to those who drive Mercedes Benz and we’ll have to put up with being the ugly hook-up that gets chosen because you can’t leave the club alone. Again growing pains…
[That’s it for the positives/negatives from year one… If I think of anything else I’ll update the blog post.]
Other thoughts
From the onset of Untold, I’ve always been sceptical about large team sizes. We flirted with user acquisition agents early on and whilst most of the subscribers and followers we have on YouTube and Instagram were acquired this way — it became clear that we (the company)weren’t ready for paid expansion. We simply couldn’t afford it.
The money is also better invested in ensuring that we raise the quality of our content. Lighting, audio equipment and acquiring physical assets has become more important. It’s not just about quality of content but also if Untold ZW ultimately fails — hard assets like equipment are things I can sell and soften the landing.
Speaking of team size, going forward I’m optimising for a business that employs 3–5 people (myself included). That’s why those content templates I mentioned earlier are so important. Every thing must be plug and play.
Why a tiny team? Zimbabwe isn’t conducive to large startup teams in my view. Employees are looking at their stations as stepping stones. The moment they settle down and have families they relocate to more stable economies (all things considered, a reasonable thing to do). A smaller team allows us to pay more competitively, retain talent and also work with people who really want to be here and understand the scale of problem we want to tackle.
Ultimately though it’s important to mention what I initially said when I first wrote about Untold ZW. The goal is to build a content catalogue to be monetised passively years from now. The goal is to build a business that takes care of my family. Everything else is noise to me…
