Latest / Masterminds Podcast / Why Most Creatives Stay Broke, and How to Fix It: BlacVolta - Masterminds EP11

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Why Most Creatives Stay Broke, and How to Fix It: BlacVolta - Masterminds EP11 · Masterminds Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_05: A lot has been done within the creative industry.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_05: I calculated how much money I was going to make being in corporate for the next three years.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_05: I've been working for an American firm.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_05: I think it's time that we as Africans also put um our foot forward and also bet on ourselves.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: Creativity is supposed to be unlimited.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_05: But if you consume content to be able to copy other people out, then it's not creativity at all.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_05: Community is like the biggest currency in the world.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_05: Don't look at the numbers.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_05: But today, if Instagram crashes and Facebook crashes, you're gone.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: Creativity is us being able to bring something from within to effect change in the world.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_05: Now you cannot come into the country and mention night's life without black vote.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: Perfection is a scam.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: Which platforms would you say every creative must master?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the Masterminds podcast.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: Our aim is to sharpen your greatest weapon, your mind.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: My name is Richie Menta, and I'm going to be your guide on this exciting journey.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm sitting here with a man that I've respected for so long.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: I've watched what he does, I saw him start, and then I saw him build something even bigger than most people thought it was going to become.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: But before I introduce him, let me ask you this question.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: If you are sitting right now behind your PC or on your phone watching me from your 9 to 5 job because that's what you were educated to do, because everybody believes you are supposed to just work hard from 9 to 5 and then close and one day you retire and die unhappy.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: What if you have an idea?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: What if you have a concept?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: What if you have something burning inside you that you can offer to the world?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: What if inside you are a creative but you don't know how to bring this out?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there are a few exceptional people who found a way to bring out their inner creativity and create a career and still bless so many other people with their ideas.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: One of these people is this man here, Joey AJ, the co-founder for Black Volta.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: Charlie Joey, how be?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you so much.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_05: I'm good.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_05: I'm good.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_05: And thank you for having me on the on the podcast.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I'm so honored to have you here.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't joking when I said it.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: I really admire you because I saw you start, I saw Black Volta pop up here and then, and I was like, okay, it's cool.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's another blog.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: And then I just saw it transform into a brand, into a creative hub, into an event organizing space, so much.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, for those who don't know the journey, how were you able to materialize this?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_05: Interesting.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, that's uh that's a very heavy question.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_05: Uh but anyway, yes, my name is Joey AJ, uh, creative director, founder for Black Volta, uh, which essentially is going to become the biggest uh creative hub in Africa, uh, centered around entertainment, lifestyle, and media.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, very much recently we are venturing into tech also.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so my journey started uh I think it's it's been a has been a long time coming.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I've been in corporate for about 10, 11 years.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um I've worked um, I think 80% of that has been in multinational companies.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_05: So I've worked in Fortune 500 companies all across the world.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um, from mining to oil and gas to finance.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and then my very last thing was with General Electric, which is GE.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_05: GE Motors.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I led I was head of HR strategy and implementation for Africa.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_05: So I was covering 14 countries in in Africa.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um and then um I think for me the the blessing that I believe I have is that God gave me a beautiful eye.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_05: Um I take it everywhere, so I I see things a bit differently.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um something as simple as I know everybody watches movies in a specific way, wants to take out the content.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_05: I watch movies entirely different.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_05: I'm watching at camera angles.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_05: Why are they shooting from on top, overhead, and and stuff like that?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_05: So I've always had an eye for beautiful things, and I'm able to communicate that in a way where it appeals to people.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_05: So, because of the way um COVID came and um everybody started becoming digital and stuff like that, I decided to document my life.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_05: Essentially, Black Volta is just me documenting my life.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_05: So what I did was okay, I did a um uh it wasn't like your typical nine to five.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_05: Working in GE was more, you are uh it was flexible work.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_05: So you go to work at any time, you close at any time.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_05: So I had a lot of time on my on my hands, and I like the nightlife.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um, not the partying, the jumping around, the boozing and stuff like that.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like in the nighttime, people are more free.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um, people loosen all the corporate talk up, the corporate jargon, and in the evenings we are all the same.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_05: We have the same vices, we have the same problems.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_05: So I wanted to document that.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_05: So I go out, I speak to people, and I was just documenting that on my page.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_05: And you realize that um there was a huge um, for lack of a better word, a huge gap.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I I wanna if you do you have your phone with you.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I do.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_05: Can you Google the top 10 nightlife spots in Accra?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, and uh if you can give me like uh uh just just skim through the the the the answers you get.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_03: I got the area bar, twist nightclub, lunar rooftop bar, level bar and lounge, sky bar, enigma, plots, seven.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: They didn't even write the seven, just plots.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: Kruna, elite bar, yeah.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, so what if I told you that 50% of the people of the locations there are no longer existing?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not sure.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, you get what I'm saying.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_05: So starting off, I was like, okay, when I travel to other countries and I want to hang out or I I I'm looking for a place to to have fun or hang out.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_05: Immediately the people that I I talk to cannot give me that information.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_05: So the first point of call is to go to Google.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and it was at that point where 2021, it was the year of return, everybody was trying to come in.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_05: So there was this big buzz of coming back to your route.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_05: So imagine you have about 1.52 million people coming to the country every day, and this is your source of information for nightlife.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it was a bad look.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_05: So I decided to, you know what, I'll be the person to just document.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_05: No, it wasn't even a business thing, just to document nightlife, go to the spaces, create content around what they particularly do.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_05: And I think within the hospitality sector, there was a huge gap for content creation where you realize you go to their pages, there was nothing there, there was no content, nothing of that sort.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_05: So I think I picked up Aliby Jamestown Cafe as a project pilot for myself to go, like, you know, I I'll shoot all your content on your pages for you from photo to because I have the eye, so from photo to video to everything.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_05: Completely changed the narrative when it came to certain spots, and then a cut on.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_05: So other hospitality firms and nightlife spots were like, you know what?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um, we want you to come and capture content for us.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_05: And I think because of my corporate background, I just added the whole business um structure around it, and then it became a thing where I now shot content and then use that to drive business operations for the businesses.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_05: For the name Black Volta, uh, when I was doing this, I didn't have a name for it.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_05: I was just posting the content, I didn't have a name for it.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_05: But it was at the time that everybody wanted to name something Afro something.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_05: Afro, Afro this, Afro that, Afro.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but I wanted I wanted a name which resonated with Ghana and Africa at the same time.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_05: And one day I think we're coming back from an event, I was crossing the Adomi Bridge, and then I think I just had an epiphany to call it Black Volta.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_05: So that's where the name came.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: Water is life.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I burned the idea.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so long story short, that's the the the inception of uh Black Volta.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: So this means you actually started it as sort of a side hustle.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, not a side hustle.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_05: I wasn't trying to monetize Black Volta.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_05: You were just living out your passion.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_05: Up until now, I've made it a point that if it becomes overly work, so some I think we've gotten to the point where you probably hear a lot of like now, most of the clients just feel like maybe we are not we are not difficult, we are not easy to work with.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_05: But I've I've made it a mantra in our business that if it becomes overly work, I'll probably say no to it.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, so if it's either I want to be there or we want probably that's why we are we are partnering we might necessarily just do it because of the money.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: That's good.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: So it means you're staying true to being a creative.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of creatives get lost when they turn from being a creative to trying to be too business-like, so the passion starts to fade away and the intentions aren't pure anymore.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: And and the audience can tell.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, because it begins to lose its uh its uh its uh uh uh um authenticity.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it does.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: But now the question is that how I mean I understand that your corporate background helped you to be able to shape this into a business, but one thing most creatives are suffering with is finding that perfect balance because some are too creative.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: There are those, like I said, who lose themselves and become too business-minded, but some too are so creative and they don't understand how to monetize it.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: So, what were the first steps you took in building your creative idea into a business?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think very first of all, was and very dear to what we currently do is to build systems around the things that we do.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um for the creative industry, I keep telling people that before you actually jump into it, you have to ask yourself a very big question.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_05: Why am I doing this?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_05: Because um, in as much as there are creatives who jump into it and then become, then you start thinking about monetization and stuff like that.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_05: You see the question you just asked me.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_05: Not every creative idea or creative venture has to be monetized.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_05: You need to ask yourself what you actually want from the creativity.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_05: If it's an expression of who you are and your thoughts, and you don't want to monetize of it's that's that for you.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_05: But if you are somebody that wants to monetize off of your creativity, there has there you you you need to spell it out.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_05: And for me, I was doing both.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_05: I was doing corporate, so I didn't just jump from corporate into the creative scene, I was doing it side by side.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, um, but at a point, what I did for myself was I thought, okay, first of all, how am I going to pay my bills with creativity?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_05: I may not be able to pay my bills with what I'm doing right now, but I'm still going to be subsistent on the corporate job.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, if I'm to leave the corporate job, what will it take for me to still be able to fend for myself and my family?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_05: That means I'll need to monetize.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_05: So I think what the defining factor for me was one, I calculated how much money I was going to make being in corporate for the next three years.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_05: So I was like, okay, if I continue to do this quote unquote 95, and G is one of the highest paying firms around.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_05: So in the next three years, has your position been filled?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: Can I go this way?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_05: So I calculated that I was like, okay, at the third year, the money that I have calculated, will it be enough?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_05: And then will I be fulfilled enough to have left what I'm doing?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_05: And for me, the answers kept going no, no, no, no, no.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_05: So I was like, okay, you know what?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, let me take a chance on myself.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I built systems with the knowledge that I had from um the corporate, and then infused that into the particular business.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_05: So things like um registration of businesses, getting potential partners to work with, building a solid team, uh, building systems around how financing, how um things like payroll, things like admin, things like uh customer service would also work.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, okay, if I've been working for a firm like GE, which is 175 years, an American firm, and this is a guy who took a chance on himself and has built a global brand.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I think it's time that we as Africans also put um our foot forward and also bet on ourselves.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_05: So it's just a chance I took on myself.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: So that sounds more like instead of chasing the business and chasing the money, you built value.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: You worked internally to make sure what you had was strong enough and that rather attracted the business.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's great.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: But what would you say, based on your experience over the past few years of doing this effectively?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_03: What would you say the opportunities are in monetizing creativity?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: Because so let's say I've started at build value.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: Take me, for instance.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_03: I've been doing this out of passion, haven't made anything from it.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: What are my opportunities?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: When this podcast goes global and it's trending, how do I make money and become like you?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think I think um a lot has been done within the creative industry.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um uh let me take you a bit back.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um, creative economy is around five billion dollars.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_05: That's only in Africa.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_05: We make a 3% of that globally, right?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_05: And what people have been able to do with that is I mean, like, let's even put things like when it comes to monetization, I mean, everybody keeps looking at like brand deals.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_05: Everybody looks like uh I'm I'm sure now you get a lot of brand deals, you get a lot of influenza like um uh deals and partnerships and stuff like that.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_05: But I think now even creating the content itself can be able to monetize on its own.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_05: So back in the day you create the content and you're like, okay, how am I going to make money off podcasting?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_05: But now tools have been made readily available for you to actually just create the content and then you make money off of the content.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_05: It's just like music, you understand?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_05: Back in the day, you make the music, and it's like, okay, how am I if I don't play a show, how do I make make money off the off that?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_05: But I think now with the fact that I mean in music, people didn't used to understand things like royalties and stuff like that.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_05: But now you make music, you understand, and then you can live off that your whole life.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: And that's important because I know a lot of creators out there, you know, people confuse being a creator with wanting to be a celebrity.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: There are people out there who don't want to be celebrities, they don't want the brand deals, they don't want the influencer gigs, they just want to create, they just want to create and then to be able to make money off it.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_05: That's that's essentially it.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think one of the most viewed videos on the internet is Gangam Star.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_05: Have you heard him do any other thing again?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_05: I'm sure he's doing something else, but yeah, he's probably monetized off of that song his entire life.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I don't even know the person behind Coco Melon.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, but you understand I'm not sure the person's even a celebrity.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, as you mentioned, the person is not a celebrity.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna walk in here right now and I'll send them to buy rice for me.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_05: So so so to be able to just um I think now the tools are available um to be able to just monetize off of your creativity without a second person or even dealing with any of the agencies or dealing with anybody whatsoever.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_05: You wake up in your room, you post on TikTok, you go and sleep, you've gone viral, you're making money.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_05: I think um we are in a really great space.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: And it's true.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I should let you guys know, like when I finished writing my book, one of my biggest hurdles was how am I going to publish the book?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: I spoke to a friend, um, Grace, Grace Dockers, she's also an author, and she told me, Oh, Richie, you can do it yourself.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: Just go online and check it out.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: So I checked it out, and within a few days, it was up on Amazon, up on Barnes and Noble, up everywhere, yeah.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_03: Just by sitting behind my computer and saying everything up.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of people need to get out of the fear of thinking that being a creative right now means you need to rely on other people.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, yes, yes.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_05: The systems exist.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_05: I think I I I think um a lot of a lot of and and I like um platforms like this that can uh readily educate people to make uh um them understand that you don't necessarily, as you mentioned, need other people to be able to harness your creativity or monetize off of your creativity, yeah.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_05: Just understand that there's the systems and there's knowledge, so understand the systems and the tools in order to be able to make money on your own.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_03: Because as a creative, you need the space to keep creating.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: I can tell you this from running links for a long time.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: The most difficult part is having to wear different hats, where I have to go in the studio, produce, write a song, and then go chase a meeting down that is going to bring in revenue to shoot the video, and then it's it's stressful.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: I I always say, as much as it's built me and built my character, if I had born into I was born into a world where I just had to create that's it, and everything would work on its own.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_03: I would have had a much smoother ride, you know.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_03: So I I want people out there to know it exists now.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's possible to be creative.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe you're a good video editor.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's all you are.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_05: That's all.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_05: That's it.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_05: You don't need you don't need anything else attached to it.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um you will live in Ghana where people feel like they need to wear multiple hats to be able to make money.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_05: It can be true because of the way the economic systems are, but now I I keep going back to the fact that knowledge is power, right?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_05: So within your creativity, you can actually go like I don't necessarily need to wear multiple hats.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_05: I don't need to be a creative, be a business person, finance person, uh admin person.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: I can just create and then be able to live off that and and I I think one thing I want creatives to also keep in mind is that creativity is supposed to be unlimited.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I believe a lot of creatives copy too much, and they copy because they are chasing the success, they are chasing the hype, well, they want to trend.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_03: So, oh, this person did this and it worked for him.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: So let me do that as well.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: But it shouldn't be like that.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the reason I can take time off my regular day to come sit here and do this is this means something to me.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not trying to do it for attention, I'm not trying to do it for anybody.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: I want to do this.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: If I didn't want to, I would be sleeping right now.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's the first step in actually building value.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's taking something that you want, something you can be dedicated to for so long that it will eventually build the value and make the money.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but when you are trying to copy, like by now, I'll be dancing on TikTok or Charlie.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_03: Money days.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_05: I think I think I think a lot of creators fall into that trap of uh copying.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_05: Um, my own my own idea and thoughts around copying is um I just feel like when you're copying, I I feel like you lose you, you're not if you're copying, you're not really necessarily a creative.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's what I feel like.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um if you are copying off of someone, that means you're consuming a lot of content.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, for me personally, I can go on some of our our pages, right?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um, that we uh we manage and stuff like that, and I realize over the course of four days, I haven't consumed anybody's content.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_05: Because I put we produce the content.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_05: You're a producer, yes, we're not a consumer.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_05: So you produce the content.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_05: So imagine you are doing this particular podcast.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe you find inspiration from other good podcasts.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but you will not necessarily because you are creative, you will not necessarily sit down and be consuming content from other people.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_05: That's when you fall into that gap of ah, actually, this guy's sound and my sound, or this guy's videos and my videos.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_05: How is this guy getting one million?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_05: What do I need to do?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_05: Then you be then you start focusing yes, it's a trap of then you start focusing on all the wrong all the wrong things, and then you are not necessarily creating yourself.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_05: So I think um a lot of copying just has to do with a lot of people just consume creatives consuming a lot of other contents, which necessarily doesn't help them if you are consuming.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_05: Consuming content is to better your craft.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_05: But if you consume content to be able to copy other people, uh then it's it's not creativity at all.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: Carbon copy.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_03: But what about community?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, what effect does community have on the creative economy?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um good great question.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um a lot of stats are being thrown around.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, we have the youngest population in Africa.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_05: Uh we have 60% of us in Africa under the ages of 30 years.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_05: 30 years.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_05: That's crazy.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_05: 60 percent.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_05: 60 percent since the first time ever.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so um and and and uh to to even answer that, uh, I went to a this conference and uh they were speaking, it was in the UK, and they were speaking a lot of jargon, right?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_05: It was a creative um panel and they were speaking a lot of they had put on these guys who were 50, 60, and they were talking about um monetization.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_05: So they started talking about things like traditional banks and how um they lend and like uh they started using words like geopolitics and all those things.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_05: And I was in the room, and for me, I understood it, but I was like, okay, if two-thirds of the population are under the ages of 30 years, and you're telling them about monetization, and then you're telling them, which may be true, but about how to make money using tools that were 10-20 years ago, they will not understand this.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_05: You cannot explain to someone on TikTok, a 22-year-old, about the traditional ways of making money and banking.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_05: It makes sense to them, but you need to appeal to that particular thing.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_05: So for me, I feel like community is like the biggest currency in the world, right?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, let me give you a typical example.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_05: There are six billion people in the world, right now, it's eight.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_05: About eight, eight people, about eight billion people.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, now active users on Facebook day to day is three billion.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, that's the biggest continent.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_05: Can you get me?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_05: Now, Mark Zuckerberg, imagine he created Instagram, and every day there are three billion people liking his post or liking Instagram.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_05: What does that give him?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_05: Like what value does that give Mark Zuckerberg?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_03: He's built a community, yes.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_05: What he's been able to do is within that three billion people, he's brought all of them together.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_05: And imagine he wasn't even selling ads.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_05: Let's say he was not selling ads, his own product, every single day.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_05: He has this cap.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_05: And for those three billion people, he's showing you this particular cap every single day.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_05: Buy it, wear it, style it, do it every single day.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_05: Imagine over like maybe like one month, at least one billion people will buy their pattern.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_03: So now that you said this, I'm going to go check some of the ads.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_03: They could belong to Mark Zuckerberg himself.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_05: So I feel like um we a lot of us get caught in this loop of likes and follows, and um, it's good, like in the interim, followers and stuff like that builds credibility, especially within Africa, yeah.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, where we are very much centered on what it looks like.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_05: If you're looking for an influenza campaign outside and they're looking at Ghana, they'll look first of all, they'll look at how many followers the person gets, yeah, and stuff like that.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so that that can help.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_05: But even with our particular business, we had to engineer ourselves to get out of that trap.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_05: Because from a strategy standpoint, we were like, okay, we are building one of the biggest media platforms in Africa.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_05: We are currently about two, but we have about two million followers across all our platforms.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_05: Imagine two million people actively just going on our various pages.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_05: But think about it, Mark Zuckerberg's platform is Instagram, we are on that particular platform.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that audience may not be our particular audience.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: You've not built your own audience, yeah.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_05: You get what I'm saying, to be able to sell your own product.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_05: You get what I'm saying?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_05: It may be an audience for you to market other people's things for them, yeah.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_05: But today, if Instagram crashes and Facebook crashes, you're gone.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, just off the internet, yeah, no one knows who you are and what you are.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_05: So I feel like community is really uh important because it takes you out of that particular loop.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, right, and then you can be able to if you want to monetize and sell your products and uh push a particular narrative, you have your core group of people who actually do that.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_05: You get what I'm saying?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_05: So with the links and what you guys do, you may be online, but uh I'm sure you guys are building something of your own particular community where okay, if it's links TV, if it's Link this Links platform, if it's like I saw you guys have that with the headphones.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_05: You get what I'm saying?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_05: That community is okay.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_05: I want to be a part of links.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, what yes, I ascribe to be a part of links by having their particular headphones, and you can only do that with community, you can't do that with your likes and your follows and stuff like that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I think a lot of people don't understand the difference.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: People think trending, going viral, having, you know, like you can go on a TikTok page, right?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: And the person has a thousand followers, and one video has two million views, and that alone should show you that just because something went viral doesn't mean you've built a community.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, you don't, you don't, you don't, you you haven't built any particular community, you've just gone, you've just gone viral.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_05: And beyond the virality, it's like, okay, then what next?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_05: I need to get the next viral moment.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and that is drawn a lot by algorithm.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_05: If you continue on that particular path, you'll be a slave to the algorithm.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, there's a point where you just need to just shut down and go like, okay, so if I need to be able to trend and I'm trending and I'm trending and I'm trending, and let's say in two weeks I get sick.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_05: But if you're able to build a community and probably start selling digital products or anything, and you ascertain the risk involved, if you fall right now, let's say you had you did a million reverb headphones, yeah, and you get sick in the next two years, that money will still be running, yeah, regardless of whether you guys go viral or not.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_05: So those are some of the things that I feel like creators need to start waking up onto.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I think also a lot of creators don't look for impact.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: They you see, one thing I know from success is the successful person is one who wants to serve and not one who wants to be served.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: So when you are looking to trend, you are looking to have a viral moment, it's a selfish reason.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: But when you are looking to impact society, like as you're telling me the Black Volta story, you are not telling me a story about, and I wanted people to follow me, I wanted people to see.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: No, you saw a missing link.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_03: You saw the fact that way, people are coming to Ghana.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: I know Ghana has a beautiful nightlife scene, but they are not experiencing it.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: How do I show them how beautiful this is?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's a selfless goal.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: So in serving Ghana and serving the nightlife scene, it's like the world rewarded you with a platform so that you can continue to serve.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: So when people jump into creativity with, hey, I want to be famous, it's it's a it's it's it's a line of servitude.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it is.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_03: So, me, I always look at impact more.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when I started this content and everything, one thing I had to remind myself, because I tell my artists and my talents all the time, is don't look at the numbers, don't care about the numbers.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_03: And it it actually did show because I post content as and when.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: I can post one thing and it gets 5,000 views.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: You post the next thing, it gets 1 million views.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: There's no reason this one got this and the other one got that.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: But all I do care about is what I posted.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: Did it touch somebody?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, did it affect somebody's life?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, something happened to me five months when I started posting my short videos, and it made me feel so good.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_03: I went home and told what I feel about it.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: I'm on the right track because I went to a pharmacy to buy something, and it's a pharmacy I go to all the time.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then the guy was like, Finally, I was like, why?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: He said he keeps hearing, I come to the pharmacy, but he's never been, it's never been his shift for him to meet me, and he's been waiting to meet me.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm used to it.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I thought you'd come to say, Oh, Richie thing, so kidney's manager, all that kind of stuff.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: Then he was like, I watch your videos all the time, it inspires me, it makes me want to be greater.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, Oh wow.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I'm actually affecting people's lives, yeah, and that made me feel good.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I I believe that's the essence of creativity.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_03: Creativity is us being able to bring something from within to effect change in the world.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: I like, I like I'm stealing that, I'm stealing that.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_05: I'm stealing that from you, and I'll be using it.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but as you mentioned, I think I think that's it.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_05: I think um it's a job of servitude, and as you mentioned, the world will reward you for that particular service.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, there's been countless times where particularly I uh I was it like two days ago, I I went out and I was in the washroom at one of the locations, and I was wearing the shades, and this guy walked up to me.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_05: He had never been to Ghana before, and they were like, ah, yes, these guys, these guys, you know them, right?
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_05: I like all they like what they do.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_05: This is the reason why I came to Ghana.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_05: I've never been to Ghana before, but these people make Ghana look nice and stuff like that.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_05: Do you know where can you like do you know where I can meet them?
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, oh, I also only follow them on Instagram.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_05: I also understand.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_05: So um, I think um a lot of the joys from creativity, as you mentioned, comes with the fact that you are able to impact um someone's life positively.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that's the blessing that comes with the creative space.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: So, what would you say are the three traits that you've seen in successful creatives?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um in successful creatives, um what one that I uh which has been bastardized.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_05: I know the word has been bastardized, like right now.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_05: When you when you even say it, people roll their eyes, but it's a big one is consistency.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_05: Like when you mail, yeah, okay, let's be consistent, I can be able to mean posting every single day.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_05: It's um uh I saw a post yesterday by Rookie Ryder.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_05: She owns uh the Ceph uh skate park and she mentioned that um the thing about passion, passion, passion, and consistency is showing up every single day.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_05: That's okay.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_05: And it's a very like it sounds easy, but it's a very, very difficult task.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_05: There's a time I have for it, and I say it's simple, but it's not easy.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, yes, you think it's simple, like at some point in time the the I keep telling people that why we've decided to stay in nightlife hospitality for the past two at a point in time for like two or three years, we used to go out every single night.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's crazy.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_05: Can you go out every single night from Monday to Saturday?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_05: Every weekend, but then again, you get me.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_05: So it's not like and it's not even for parting purposes.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_05: When you see me outside, probably I'm out for like all of two hours, I'll meet you, we'll schedule a podcast.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's one thing.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_05: I'll get someone who we talk to, go like, oh, I have this brilliant idea.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_05: So 80% of probably me going out is for business, but it takes so much energy, energy and discipline.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_05: So if you tell me to come to anywhere before 6 p.m., 7 p.m., I won't be able to make it, right?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_05: But my thing is if we've been able to build a business around the concept of Richie, imagine you had a location, right?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_05: Like you had the biggest bar, biggest lounge in the country, and you you already told me that you will not be able to go out every single night.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_05: And I came with a service that will provide content every single night for your people to go, like, okay, this is what is let me know where to sign.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_05: You get what I'm saying?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_05: So um, a lot of the money or the things that you are making is is is tied to you making other people's lives easy.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you're solving problems.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, okay.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_05: So my my my problem is go and sleep.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yours is go and sleep and let me take care of whatever that needs to be taken care of.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: So that means first one is consistency.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I think first one for me the great people who are doing amazing stuff is uh creativity.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I think another thing too is that the most successful creators who built um successful things around them have a solid team and strategy behind them.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um I think um working with people and and creativity, you can't necessarily you may not be able to do it alone.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I mentioned before that you may not need people, you understand, but once you become a creative and you start monetizing, it's an enabler.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah right.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not saying in the mini initially, Gwen, you may not have the team to be able to shoot this particular thing.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_05: But if now there are tools for you to be creative enough to make money to build a team.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_05: If I can shoot a podcast, put it online, make a thousand dollars, yeah, and I can hire a team that will cost me$500, it will make my life much more easier.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_05: So I think um consistency is one, building a um a solid team.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_05: And I keep saying it, systems is everything.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_05: What apps are you using?
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um, what are your scheduling times?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_05: What like there has to be a system around the things that you do.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_05: So they're just not doing for doing particular sake.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_05: So I think for me it's systems, I think consistency and then uh building a solid team.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_05: And look at it, the best creators in the world.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um, time announced um Kai Sinat as the number one creator in the world.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_05: Shout out to Chef Abyss on that, she's also a Ghanaian creator on that.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but if I and I met Kai personally when he came to Ghana.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, before the light off.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, the day of the light off.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_05: So I was in Kempinski with him, okay, and I was having a conversation, like we we spoke, and for what he does, if you see the systems that he's built around what he does, he has a backpack, he has about 30 backpacks with Wi-Fi within them, and his team for the Wi-Fi, there's one person who just carries that particular Wi-Fi with him.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_05: There's his security guard, there's his um, so he's built a whole system around live streaming, yeah, right?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_05: And that has made him who he is right now.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_05: So I just feel like having all those three things is amazing.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_05: Look at Kai streaming, going online every single day for eight hours, nine hours is for happy.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_05: That's crazy, yeah.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_05: But the thing is, if you're sleeping and then you're going, like, okay, you know what?
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_05: I want to see what Brick is doing today, you go on a live stream.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_05: So people know you for being consistent.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_05: Now you cannot come into the country and mention nightlife without black voter, yeah.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_05: Forget about it.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_05: It's because of how consistent we've actually played our particular brand to know that, okay, you know what?
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_05: To the point where now, if you want tally, oh, I want to know what's good.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I can't go out.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_05: You know, go to that black voter page.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_05: You get what I'm saying?
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_05: So I think with consistency and building a team and systems just brings credibility too.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_03: As you're talking about systems and platforms, advisors, which platforms would you say every creative must master?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_05: Uh that's a hard one.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_05: That's a hard one.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um uh I think it goes back to what I mentioned that what is the in what's in it for you?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, if you're someone who's looking to monetize off of your craft, I think the best ones are probably TikTok and Facebook.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_05: For a social media person, right?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_05: I think your best ones for if you want to monetize off of your creativity, I would say go on Facebook.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_05: Facebook especially.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_03: So show me how do I monetize Facebook?
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_03: As I'm here, I'm not making anything from Facebook.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_03: So show me.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_05: I think you need to post more.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, I think the algorithm rewards um uh YouTube actually post more.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you also need to look at your your professional.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, if you have like a business account, go into your professional dashboard.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_05: There are a couple of things that they ask you to do.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and um things like engagement and talking and stuff like that on the particular page, they'll guide you through it.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_05: I think they're easing up the requirements that are required for you to actually monetize.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, I know a lot of creators in Ghana, and I I like that you asked that particular question.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_05: One of the problems that I have um within the creative economy is I I see a lot of master classes like pitch, but I what I what I I I wish more creatives could do was actually teach us how to do some of these things.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, like okay, we are in a creative economy, you sit down, we do pitch deck, uh panel, we talk about uh can someone just open a put us in a room, give us a whole dashboard and tell me how to monetize.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_05: Like, show me what do I need to do to be able to monetize my craft.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_05: Do you get me?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, even posting with hashtag show me how to do it, yeah, to be able to get like show me, you understand?
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_03: I think we have a a gatekeeper mentality in this country.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's like when somebody learns something, yeah, they want to guard it.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, because think about it between you and I, I'm sure there are creators, young creators who are there and going, like, ah, I yes, I want to do a podcast like Richio, but how do I like how is Richie making money from the podcast?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_05: Like, show me you understand, even if it's not on the podcast.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_05: Richie, can you show me?
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, I have brand deal.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_05: You just say brand.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_05: What does that mean?
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_05: What does it mean?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_05: Like, how do you get the how do you package the podcast to be able to get a brand deal?
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, this is what I did.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_05: I insert some ads into it.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_05: I did a I did this, I got a brand, like show me how to actually do it.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so I I I I really wish um uh um most creatives at the very high level can really start honing down on practicalizing how to do their creativity and and that's what these kind of conversations are for.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because I I believe in sharing the knowledge, you know.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_03: I know a lot of people think if you share knowledge with other people, you give them an advantage.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: But the truth is, when you help boost the entire economy, there's a shared value that starts to happen.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: Let's say we share enough information about making money as creatives in Ghana, what starts to happen is if Facebook realizes that Ghanaian creatives are monetizing, they're making a lot of money, Instagram sees this, TikTok sees this, they start to bring us more opportunity as a country.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_05: It's the truth, it's the post, is the end.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I'll give you a typical example.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_05: If you realize on YouTube and Facebook, now you're seeing a lot of content from Nigeria.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_05: Nigerians are now teaching other creatives how to make money.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I saw a one last time where the they interviewed skits, how the skits people make money.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_05: So you go on Facebook and you're seeing Sabinos and you're laughing.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_05: And you're how's he managing how is he making money?
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_05: And then he went through step by step of how he was actually able to make money, and that has opened a whole new generation of young people who are now into skit making, stopping their corporate, and then trying to make money, and then that attention is what um governments and things like that.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_05: I know you've been very vocal on the fact that the creatives need to take themselves seriously for government to be able to take us seriously.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_05: So if we are able to go, like, okay, you know what, this is how we are monetizing off our particular craft, it's not vibes, it's not vibes, it's not vibes and inshallah, then uh I think a lot of people and policymakers will actually take us a bit seriously, yeah.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: Hmm.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, you mentioned Facebook.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_03: How about TikTok?
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_03: Because I know TikTok feels like a myth because a lot of people say you can make TikTok from outside Ghana, but as a Ghanaian creative, can you make money from TikTok?
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, I think I don't really I I personally we don't necessarily play a lot in the TikTok space, so I'll be able to mention that beyond the Fact that brand use and influencer um um uh money is in there, I think a lot of people are also um what they are doing is they are launching digital products, okay, right?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_05: So ebooks, um digital products, um softwares, um merch, they are selling online in real time.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_05: So if you go to China like this, they are having instead of having like something like what um shout out to Dulcie, what Dulcie did with the Core Switch, they bring all the people to Accra More.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_05: When they are right, yes, what they are what they are actually doing is how about all these people being online and you starting a live and selling online, oh line right, you get me.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_05: So they are selling online digitally to people.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_05: So maybe that's one avenue of making money online.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_05: I know the platform also rewards you for being live um for a very long period of time.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_05: And then the contents that you particularly post.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: But you're perfectly right on digital products because in this era that we are in, maybe let me even just mention two platforms that people can use easily to monetize.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, with whatever website you're using, whatever platform, you can connect it to Shopify.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and anybody can go to Ryan.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'm giving you free tutorials.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_03: Anyone can go to Shopify right now, create your own website and everything inside Shopify, put your product in.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_03: Now, once you have your product in Shopify, you can put it up in YouTube, in Instagram.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure by the time you're watching this video, I have a Shopify link down there.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what product it will be, but it will be there.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: But then I know people ask, but Shopify is an international brand, how do I monetize it?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_03: There's also PayStax.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and PayStax is able to monetize for anybody in Africa.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_03: So you can have your link, which makes payments directly to your bank account or to your Momo, and people can pay with card or Momo or anyway.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_03: So you link your Shopify to your PayStax and it's on all your platforms.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_05: We are even thinking too far.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_05: Let me plug myself uh ourselves in here.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_05: So we are launching the Black Volta app.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so we are launching the Black Volta app.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_05: It's uh it's uh it's being launched at the Africa FinTech Summit in a month.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_05: And what we've been able to do is to integrate uh uh places, events, so ticketing solutions, events in real time, and then uh an e-commerce store for young creators.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, so you put your your shop on there, you understand, set up your delivery and things like that, and then it it runs through.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_05: So it's like our mini one-stop shop for uh Ghanaian creators to see what's happening in real time, book events, and also um monetize off of their particular commendable.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_03: Charlie, you're doing good though.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_05: At the same time, that same day, we are launching the the the Black Volta card.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um I getting a personalized Black Volta card.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes, yes.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but uh this is what we've been able to, as you mentioned, uh uh, so this is the Black Volta card.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, so same thing as you mentioned around community, building a community is um we have this big community of people on Instagram, on Facebook, on Snapchat, and what we've been able to do is trying to drill down our community and then build a product out of it.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you understand?
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_05: So, our creatives out there, I'll I'll I'll ask that once you are building this huge following of people that are loving what you are particularly doing, turn that into a product.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_05: The product doesn't it doesn't have to even be tangible, it can be things like I'm sure off of what you started off with music, you built a creative agency, yeah.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly so build a creative agency, a booking agency.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_05: You have a booking agency, you have a creative agency, you have a product, you have a book, you are you understand?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_05: So turn your community that you have within your creativity into a into something, into a product.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_05: It can be, it may not be tangible, you understand.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_05: It can be digital, it can be a book, it can be uh an event, it can be anything, but just make sure that there's a long-term goal for you to actually turn your community into something valuable.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_03: You know, one of the terms that are being used loosely the most right now is multiple sources of income.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody wants multiple sources of income.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_03: But what creatives don't understand is the way to get multiple sources of income is to create these products.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes, I can't split my time.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, as I'm sitting here right now, I can't do anything else.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_03: I need to be sitting here.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_03: So in doing this, I'm losing money somewhere else.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_03: But when you create multiple products, I can be sitting here and somebody's buying my book.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, understand.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_03: Do you get it?
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody is still streaming my song from 15 years ago.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_03: So if you want, if you are a creative, don't just focus all your energy on what you can put out as a person with your time.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_03: Also create things that can also like make money over a long period of time.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_05: And and also, and also do that within uh, as you mentioned, within the context of what you're doing.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_05: If it's only the podcast that you're doing, find a way to monetize of the podcast by streaming.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that same podcast can give you brand deals, that same podcast can get you free equipment where you are amplifying for them.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that same there are so many things that you can do within one use one idea and then get multiple sources of income.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_03: So multiple sources of income doesn't mean you have to be a doctor and a farmer and then I wish people would understand that term better, but let's let's move away from that.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_03: So, as we're just talking about this whole splitting, when you're talking about being a creative, especially in social media, do you think it serves you better to be versatile or to stay in a niche?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_05: Uh as I mentioned, I think I can only speak for my journey.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think what I advise people is to go in neck deep and be known for something.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you understand.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_05: Niche may not be a very good um sounds restrictive.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, it sounds very restrictive, very combative.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you understand?
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, oh yeah, this is my niche, and that's about it.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_05: But I think you need to stand out for something.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_05: You should be known your brand or who you are, your creativity has to stand out for something.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_05: So if it's um whatever that you're particularly doing, um, they may be uh uh don't get trapped in that loop of doing what everybody else is particularly doing.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_05: You can stay within a uh uh a huge umbrella, you understand?
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_05: If you are saying stay within your niche, doesn't necessarily mean okay, I'm doing uh this particular music and then I'm I don't go into fashion and stuff like that.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_05: But within music, there are so many things that you can do within music.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, is it music?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_05: Are you an artist?
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_05: Are you a production person?
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_05: Can you become a business person?
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_05: But just be known for something.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_05: If I see you as a Richie today, doing uh producing a fashion event, I'm like I understand okay, maybe you're creative in that, but I we know you for what you do.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_05: Anything that revolves around the music business, the entertainment business, and stuff like that, that's where we'll find you.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_05: If we see you at GRA's office the next day doing tax and auditing.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_05: I'm from GRA because I click you get me so so and and with that, um, when you start to build a pest for creatives, when you do that, you build a personal brand.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_05: And it will shock you where it will take you.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_05: Right now, you look online, the algorithm is pushing a lot of things to us.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_05: But if you are known for something, it will shock you where it will take you.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_05: There are people all around the world, you understand?
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_05: Now, I get um um uh we are we're having a black voter creator mix in DC.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, um, they're asking us to also come and speak on creativity in Ethiopia, right?
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_05: What I'm what I'm talking about from a uh uh a West African standpoint.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_05: So once you start creating and stuff like that, people around the world know you for something, yeah.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_05: And once you are known for something, you become uh an industry expert in it.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_05: You don't necessarily need to, but they know what you stand up for, and those are and that's how you make money.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_05: Brands who are looking for influencer gigs, they already know who they want to work with, things that align with their particular brands, you understand?
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_05: But if you're hopping from here to there to there to there to there, it's like okay, you know what?
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_05: I want to market my product, but you're all over the place.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_03: So are you telling me if somebody brings me 50k right now to do dance video for them?
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_03: I should say no.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_05: But dance is within entertainment now.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_03: That's got no idea I'm coming for you.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but but so what I'll just say is I think uh niche may be a bit combatitive, but just go deep, you understand?
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_05: Have specific knowledge in what that that word is called specific knowledge in what you're particularly doing, and I think um that will really help you, uh, as opposed to being a jack of all trades.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_03: But earlier on you were talking about consistency.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_03: How do you then prevent or manage burnout?
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's exhausting being creative, you know.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_03: One thing people don't know is mind work can actually be more stressful than body work.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_03: So, how do you prevent burnout?
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I I I think I mentioned this before that um if it becomes overly work, I'll turn it down.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_05: That's right.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_05: So um to say that we use a lot of barriers in what we are particularly doing.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_05: If you don't set barriers for yourself as a creative, you you you stay in a loop forever.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, right.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_05: Today you are being invited here, they say do this, do that.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_05: You are going here, you're doing that.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_05: If you don't set barriers within your particular spaces, the burnout is going to be particularly real.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_05: Especially now that you open your Instagram, you're like, okay, you're doing a podcast, and someone has also done a podcast, has one million followers.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_05: Like, ah, no, we need to work harder.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_05: You guys need to come early.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_05: You you you you get what I'm saying?
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_05: So I think setting barriers is one thing.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_05: Uh taking breaks is another thing.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_05: Very, very important, very, very, very, very important.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, for me personally, um, I do a lot of things around signaling and noise.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_05: So when I wake up in the day after my prayers and stuff like that, I list about the top 15 things I need to do every single day.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_05: That's what I do.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_05: I put it on the board.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_05: So I have a board.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_05: I'm a visual person.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_05: So I put it on a board, I write it on a on a I write the 15 things I need to do every single day.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_05: And then I highlight the top five things that I'll have to achieve by the end of the day, whether I like it or not.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_05: There are 15 things I need to do during the day.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_05: But those five things you need to do no matter what.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_05: I don't care whether it can be something as simple as um going to take measurements for a kaftan or something.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_05: I put it down there.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_05: But before the end of the day, I come back to that board and I ask myself whether I go and I went to do it or not.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_05: Or not.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_05: Because you're very efficient.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, because you realize after that day, then you go like, ah, I have so many things to actually do.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_05: Then you touch bits and pieces of one, two things, and then you carry it to the next day, and you carry it to the next day, and you carry it to the next day.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_05: It's not a you might not get it 100%, but at least you've every single day you're achieving three or four things every single day.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_05: So I think prioritizing.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_05: I'm a visual person, so prioritizing and visualizing the things that you need to do every single day is one.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_05: Uh take time to take rests, you understand, and then create barriers around the things that you particularly do.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_05: Are the three things that I feel like will take out burnout?
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when you were talking right now, you mentioned something about comparison.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like when you go on Instagram, see this guy just got one million views and stuff.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_03: How can creatives stay away from the comparison trap?
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's killing people.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's so stressful for so many creatives to look at other people and feel what they are doing is not good enough.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_05: I don't think the trap we are ever going to, especially as and and I don't, I don't, I don't think it's going to be very easy to stay away from it, especially if you're creating content on that particular platform.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_05: The algorithm is set for comparison.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_05: That's how the algorithm is.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_03: But comparison kills creativity.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, but that's creativity breeds comparison.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_05: So the comp the the platforms, unfortunately, the platforms on which we are operating now is built on algorithm.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah we don't control the algorithm.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_05: You get what I'm saying?
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_05: So a lot of people, I would just say for creatives, I I'd say one thing for them to be able to do is find mentors.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_05: And when I say mentors, um, not in the traditional sense of mentors, it's like ah, there's this someone they're high up, and I want to be your mentor and stuff like that.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_05: You can actually do mentorship just by following the person.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_05: So if Richie, you are my mentor, I may not necessarily have a relationship with you, but probably you have a personal branding philosophy online that I follow.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_05: I've may never have met you before.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_05: But how you move, the spaces in which you move, I go like, ah, Richie, how does he network?
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_05: If I come and ask you how you network, you may not be able to tell me.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_05: But I see you.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_05: I may not even be aware.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, you may not be aware of how you even network.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_05: But I go like, ah, Richie, if there's a major event, this guy shows up.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_05: Even if when he shows up, what does he do at the event?
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_05: He goes to talk to one, two, three, four, five people, talks to them.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_05: This is how he dresses.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_05: This is that is mentorship from afar.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_05: And once you particularly do that, you realize that you learn a lot of things from people who have already done it.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_05: The comparison comes from a point where Charlie, I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm seeing all these things which are online and stuff like that.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_05: And some people will actually tell you just take your time and it's a process.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_05: What you are seeing is probably finished product.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_05: Someone who has worked 10 years or 15 years, has a$2 million budget.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_05: And when he sits down, he can record a podcast in five minutes, and then he gets two million dollars.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_05: And that has taken him so many so long to actually do what you are doing.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_03: They're saying it's so true.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_03: I think most of us don't focus enough on the process.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_03: I keep talking about the fact that we live in a highlights world right now because social media will only post the results.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_03: So they'll only see the final podcast and be like, oh, I'll do something.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_03: They don't study the process.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_03: And it's so true that you just need to be observant.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_03: Because let me give you an example.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_03: If you met me right now and you asked me, How do I network?
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_03: I have no idea.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_03: I I probably go somewhere because, oh, Joby called me.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, Charlie, did me a favor last time.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'll forgo for him.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not going thinking networking.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just going because of the relationship.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_03: And then it leads to networking.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_03: But you watching may notice, okay, but when Richie went here, went here, went here, it helped him like this.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_03: Helped him.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_03: You're watching me right now, and you probably like what I'm wearing.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_03: And you are thinking, how did Richie choose what he's wearing?
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody chose it for me.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_03: So even if you met me and you ask me those kind of uh I won't even know what to do.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_05: It won't be you understand.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_05: And and and that's how the traditional sense of networking is.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, I feel like I like how you dress.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_05: Like, can you teach me how to dress?
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, you mean nah?
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_05: I don't even know how to dress.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know who got me the the the things.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but if you're observant, yes, then you can pick up certain things and realize oh, when Richie wore the black and white, he looked a little better than when he wore the green.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_03: So when I'm doing my thing, maybe let me wear this.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, yes.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_05: A lot of mentorship does come from observation.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I some of my mentors who have no idea who I am, yes, uh Barry Gordon Jr.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_03: He created Motown Records.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so Motown Records is what made Michael Jackson, you know, um Quincy Jones and everything were in Motown Records.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_03: I I watched him exactly and how he built his record label when I was doing links.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_05: Then you you you use that.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not sure you've have you had a conversation with him before.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, he does not even know I exist.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_03: Timberland, yeah, Timberland has been a greatest mentor.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like Timberland taught me how to produce music without him ever knowing I exist.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he still doesn't know I exist.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_03: If you do, nice to meet you, bro.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_03: But like I I studied Timberland, I like the way he approaches production, I would watch his behind the scenes.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_03: I knew the fact that Timberland had an engineer that any sound he comes up with, that engineer can create it into an instrument.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I also made sure I got me an engineer who can create.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_03: Do you get me?
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_03: But most people don't want to be observant.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_03: I think we live in a culture where we want to be spoon-fed instead of doing the work for ourselves, you know.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_03: Be observant, guys.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like you'll be amazed the kind of things you will learn just by watching other people, other people, other people, and the truth too is all of us are just figuring things out.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, we are all winging it.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yes, we are all winging it.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_05: The the the best people that are taking on the chances, it's like it's just called audacity.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's the ones who have the audacity, you understand?
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_05: Uh oh, there's a famous thing called uh Obama.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_05: Obama was on a podcast, and I think it's gone viral, and he was like, even at his level, he realized that like 90 95% of the people he thought were smart.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_05: When he comes to have a conversation with them, he realizes they are very, very normal people.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_05: Like you understand?
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_05: So I think um, especially as Africans now, um we've always been in that loop of being sheltered and um we not being confident and then being Ghanaian on top of that.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_05: It's a different thing, it's a different thing altogether.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_05: You're always second guessing yourself, how will your peers look at you and stuff like that?
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_05: But if you realize most of the people who are going far, as you mentioned, are winging it, but they have the audacity, they are ready to show up online, even if it makes and let me tell you, let me give you advice, it will it will be cringe until it becomes popular, it has to be cringe, you understand?
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_05: It will be cringe.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_05: You look at the video and go like what's what's this?
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, till it becomes particularly.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know, my first videos for somebody who's done production for so long.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_03: If I go and watch my first few personal videos online, they were very blurry.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_03: What was wrong with me?
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm sure at that time we thought you were on top of the deal all day.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_03: But when I shot again two months later, I was like, What was wrong with the first content I did?
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_03: Was I sleepy?
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_03: You know, but you just have to do it, you just have to try.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_03: So sometimes to don't give us so much credit.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_03: We aren't all that, we're just regular people who are doing our best.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_04: Perfection is a scam, it's a scam.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_04: It's a perfectionist is a me.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_03: I always aim for excellence.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I always aim that today I'm doing the best possible myself, yeah.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_03: Because three months from now, that version of myself will be inferior.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_03: So I I can never be perfect, yeah.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_03: And all these people, like how you're saying people are so intelligent and stuff.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody is watching me thinking, wow, Richie's so intelligent.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not intelligent.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's like the best producer in guys, the best producer in Ghana.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_03: I've just done this for so long.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe you ask me a question, yeah, and I'm giving you an answer from an experience based on 15 years ago.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_03: Based on experience, so the fact that you are six months in and you don't know that doesn't mean I'm more intelligent than you.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_03: Do you get me?
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_03: So just keep going, keep going.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_03: There'll be a day I'll be watching.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_03: Ooh, interesting.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's like one thing I admire about you is that I've actually learned a lot from you.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_03: I've not come to sit there and have a conversation for you to teach me, but I've learned a lot from you that this guy started building his brand just a few years ago.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_03: But look how he did this, look how he did that.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel a lot of people miss that.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_03: So that's why you have somebody who's a king in one area and they die out because they couldn't learn from the up and coming ones.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like you you've built a strong brand through traditional media for a long time, and now social media is new, yeah, and you feel you are you know a big, a big big man.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_03: So, what can Black Volta teach you?
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know who I am?
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a journalist.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_05: I love how you put it.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um uh if I keep saying I have a bias towards media.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_05: The word traditional media, new media, I I I feel media evolves.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_05: Right, you get me?
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_05: So back in the day, I um for the Christians out there, media for me was uh the noise arc.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_05: When Noah sent the dove to go and see whether how did those doves use to go and get the message?
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, go get the message and then they felt their feet to see whether it was wet.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's media.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_05: Then let's say, long story short, then we do the front on from.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_05: Back in the day, they beat the drums and then and then we went to writing letters.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_05: We used to write letters and now TV and billboard, and now we have phones.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_05: God knows what's in manner.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_05: I say I'm moving to shapes and stuff like that.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_05: So media will essentially evolve.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_05: But what you need to be able to do is I keep telling people, just for us, I think what has also helped us is we stay on the bleeding edge of technology.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_05: Like you need to stay on it.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_05: So now that AI is popping off, you may not be interested in AI.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_05: By someone on your team, you should be able to empower someone on your team to understand the new trends that are happening so that you don't feel like you are left out.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_05: Hospitality industry, there are people who own some of the biggest clubs in Ghana.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_05: They are over the ages of 40 years, 40, 45, 50 years.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_05: They may have the people who used to club and party with them back then.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_05: But now their mates have given birth and have moved on to other things, may not be able to party like an 18-year-old anymore.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_05: You may have that building and tells things like that.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_05: Now, what is popping?
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_05: Gen Z.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_05: Young people are partying, looking for a place to pop off.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_05: But as you mentioned, if you feel like you cannot learn from these young people and what appeals to them, you're always going to be stuck in that loop.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_05: Like, and then there's no business going around in that thing.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_05: But how about bringing in someone who's much younger to give you a much newer perspective about what you are doing?
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_05: And then you can run this thing in everything.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_05: You're a traditional media firm, you've been making money and you've been doing this.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_05: But the world is moving.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_05: You may not be the person who goes to learn about AI, but find someone with your team and then get a dedicated AI software kind of engine and go, like, okay, whilst we are doing this, let's prepare for the future that is actually coming.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_05: Let's learn from younger people or people who are particularly killing it in the game right now.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_03: You know, one thing most people know about me is I keep employing young people.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_03: And the reason is I've come to see that the best product, the best results come from a combination of young people with unlimited ideas and the the let's not say old and an experience, experience and structured strategy type of people.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_03: Because when you combine experience with that innovation, it's amazing.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's amazing.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_03: You know, a lot of people marveled at the Kiddie Kwame Yujin outburst of music, and what happened?
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_03: What happened was um when I met Kiddie and Kwame Yujin, I was producing for them at first, but then I realized, okay, Kwame can produce music.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_03: Kiddie can play the keyboard, he can write on his own, teach him how to produce music.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_03: And now all I would do is I would let them produce and write, come up with their radical ideas.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_03: When they finish, they bring it to me, and I just use my experience to make it you know more refined.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_03: And it created a sound that people loved because the older people can love it because they feel that experience touching it.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_05: And then then the newer ones can feel like it's a new trend altogether for them.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_03: But when you always want to stay on only one side, yes, look, all my experts out there take this advice.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_03: The young people don't have an option because maybe they don't have the the opportunity of finding an experienced person to work with.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_03: But you, the experienced person, find a young person and empower them.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, take a chance on take a chance on them with their innovation.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, plus there's no success without secession.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_03: So if you are trying to raise yourself to the top and you're not thinking about how you are going to empower the next person, then stop.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, stop and buy treasury bills every single time.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_03: What advice do you have for creators out there who are now starting and looking up to you to become like you?
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I think uh it's always a huge question for me.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_05: Um what what what I would say is um I say I say build a tribe.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um shout out to Chocolate uh Queko Bediako.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_05: He's one of um uh one of the most respected creatives that I have around.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_05: And uh he used to always give me that that that advice that create a tribe.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, there's a lot of quote unquote mediocrity, right?
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_05: There's a lot of mediocrity in the particular system in which we work with.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_05: Creative economy, um the whole noise about it started like 2021, 2022.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_05: But if you are someone who, as you mentioned, you strive for excellence, take it upon yourself that you are leading a very huge group of people on the continent.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_05: If you want to be known for creativity on the particular content, find a tribe.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_05: A group of like-minded people who also strive for excellence.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, so if you realize working with some of our clients is so easy, you understand?
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_05: Shout out to Kojo Sobo for ME Africa.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_05: Kojo Sobo does not move, you he he is he's told me he does not move, he won't move to any country without black voters, he cannot do it.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_05: So he's found a tribe of people who work or or do things at a particular level.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you understand?
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_05: And then when you bring that tribe together, it's just magic, you understand?
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_05: Even beyond the fact that you're making money together, it's more fulfilling, it's more rewarding.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_05: You get much more networks, not everything, and and uh another thing I also ask is uh let's not and and this is for young people uh don't stay in the trap of looking for money, you understand?
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think you you mentioned it instead of looking for money, look for value.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_05: Money is value.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_05: Money is exchange, yes, yeah.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_05: You understand what I'm saying?
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_05: So um in as much as uh things are expensive and you want to be able to um afford the things that you particularly want, don't pass off on opportunities, right?
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um a lot of the work that we did as Black Volta um was for free.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_05: Me, I would I'll especially when it comes to things like let me give you an example at a point in time our analytics read that most of our followers were male.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_05: Okay interesting at some point so what we realized was okay, a lot of the people that follow us at some point were were males because of the content that we're posting.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_05: If you don't have anything around women, you understand, and women, you know how they are women who are young women right now who tend to feed on content which is around gossip, gossip, trending, wedding, what's hot, what's hot, uh celebrity, BBN you understand what I'm talking about?
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, if that content doesn't fall within our particular network, how do we appeal to them?
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_05: So I think what we decided to do was so for every single um woman entrepreneur creative who was trying to do something within fashion, beauty, those things that we move to them personally.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, you know what?
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_05: We don't we don't take any money from you, we'll shoot the content, we'll amplify, we'll do a thing.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_05: You understand what's meant?
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_05: So it was more of a strategy for us to help our particular business.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_05: So you as opposed to sitting down and going like I'm waiting for Christy Brown.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_05: If Christy Brown, Christy Brown wants me to do it, if Christy Brown isn't paying me, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not doing it.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_05: So to just say that, see what you want out of your particular brand and where you want to take it.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_05: And don't always, it's not only about money, yeah, it's sometimes about value and positioning.
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_05: Sometimes those things will take you places you will never, never, never understand.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_05: Someone will give you an opportunity to just be in a room of people and it will shock you what that will particularly happen to you.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_05: And take a chance on yourself, right?
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_05: If there are events, if you're in the creative space, networking is super important.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_05: Networking meaning sometimes investing in yourself.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um, Eccorbance, one of our the the very good creatives in the industry, will tell you for the first two, three years, every Lagos fashion week that he'll fly there himself.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_05: He'll go and do the editorial, post it on his page.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_05: Just by virtue of being there, yeah.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_05: He meets glitz, he meets vogue, he meets and those people, how where will you go and find them all in one particular space?
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_05: So he broke out and now he's now the chief editor for Guzangs, right?
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_05: So uh what I'll say is for young creatives, always find opportunities to be in those particular rooms.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_05: Look for those events, those networking opportunities where you will have a solid number of people at the at one particular space and then be able to network within those particularities.
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_05: So those are the things I'll I'll ask them.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_05: But as I keep mentioning, please uh form systems around the business that you're doing.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_05: If you're monetizing, treat your business, treat your creativity like a business.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_05: It's very, very important.
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_05: There's a lot of money being thrown around.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_04: True.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_05: If you look online, uh uh uh I think yesterday I was reading a couple of reports.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_05: The money being thrown around for the creative industry is super amazing.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_05: And when you look at the criteria that they are looking for, so they'll go for, oh, you know what?
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_05: Uh this grant has been given$5 million to invest in the creative space,$2 million,$3 million,$4 million.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_05: All these things are going to Nigeria.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_05: Why?
• 1:16:31
  SPEAKER_05: Why are they going to Nigeria?
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_05: Because when you look the system, not even that.
• 1:16:35
  SPEAKER_05: When you look at the criteria, most of the criteria that they are using for funding are essentially the same.
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_05: They'll ask you a couple of questions, initial questions.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_05: One is something as simple as do you have a registered business?
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_05: Think about it.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_05: By the time you you answer question, there are 10 questions.
• 1:16:53
  SPEAKER_05: By the time we get to question two, you've closed the page because you haven't registered your business.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_05: That's a Ghanaian.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_05: You get what I'm saying?
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_05: So it's not that money is not available for you, it's just that you haven't put systems in place to attract that particular money.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_05: They'll ask you, what's your name?
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_05: What business do you do?
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_05: Have you registered your business?
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, do you make profits?
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, things like, do you have a team?
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_05: Do you have a small team?
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_05: Have you made revenue?
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_05: Or is revenue going, even if it's 20 cities or 30 cities, are you making revenue at all?
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_05: If you if you, as a creative, cannot answer even the first three questions, don't be complaining that there's no money.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_05: So there are firms, there are creatives in your other counterpart uh countries who can answer all these 10 questions.
• 1:17:39
  SPEAKER_05: They submit it before you realize they've made money.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, right.
• 1:17:42
  SPEAKER_05: And then you are here complaining, oh, the money is going to Nigeria.
• 1:17:45
  SPEAKER_05: Go to going to Nigeria.
• 1:17:46
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, let's let me sit down with you.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_05: Let's tick.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_05: Have you you have registered?
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_05: Have you registered your business?
• 1:17:51
  SPEAKER_05: Have you copyrighted anything on your business?
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_05: Have you trademarked?
• 1:17:55
  SPEAKER_03: Problems were but working with maybe influencers, and you just want to sign a contract.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, something as simple as that.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_03: You understand?
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_05: Something as simple as that.
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_05: You understand?
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, maybe you want to sign uh an influencer, and then you ask the influencer if they have like a uh have they registered their their their their business?
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_05: Do they have a bank account?
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you understand?
• 1:18:18
  SPEAKER_05: Do some of them they want to try, do you have a passport?
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_05: Something as simple as do you have a passport?
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_05: So creating systems around you to be able to attract what you want is really really important.
• 1:18:32
  SPEAKER_05: Don't be running around.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_05: There are a lot of crazy oh, Charlie, and I'm skiing in our call, Nigeria, and this guy is getting all the gigs, all the gigs, not because they are popular, it's because working with them is very, very, very easy, very, very efficient.
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_05: The world is moving fast, though.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_05: If I want to give you two million dollars right now and you tell me you don't have a registered business, I'll go to the next place.
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_03: If you have an account, you can tell me with two million dollars right now.
• 1:18:58
  SPEAKER_03: Charlie Jovi, thank you so much.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_03: You guys, I hope you've been educated because even I who've been a creative for so long feels like I learned so much from this conversation.
• 1:19:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I hope as you are watching this, you are one step closer to being a mastermind.
• 1:19:12
  SPEAKER_05: I came I came bearing gifts, so here's your black.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I need to give you a gift.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'll do man off camera, you see the picture after.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_03: Look at me in the camera.
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for watching this episode.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_03: The fact that you stayed all the way through to the end tells me that you're not only curious, but you have the discipline to see what you do all the way through to the end.
• 1:19:38
  SPEAKER_03: Now, let's build a community of thinkers who are ready to become the best version of themselves.
• 1:19:44
  SPEAKER_03: So subscribe to the channel and the mindset that you will develop and grow every day to become a true mastermind.