How HustleSasa is creating solutions to empower African creatives

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when the creative sector was almost brought to its knees, techies from Kenya and Ghana teamed up to create a platform where artists could continue offering their services uninterrupted by the lockdowns. Three years later, HustleSasa has grown to become one of the leading platforms linking creators and fans.

To learn more about the platform, we spoke to HustleSasa head of community Stephanie Gogo who took us through the company’s unique approach to promoting the African creative industry. In the interview below, she reveals why diversification is the name of the game.

MUSIC IN AFRICA: When was HustleSasa founded and what was the inspiration behind its formation?

STEPHANIE GOGO: The idea of HustleSasa came in early 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic halted the global economy and most people were confined to their homes, with businesses downsizing or shutting down altogether. Small businesses in particular were deeply affected, as without their daily foot traffic they had no prospects. Similarly, artists, particularly musicians who earn the majority of their income from live gigs, were facing devastating times ahead.

We always found that situation ironic at best because if anything, more people were turning to art and entertainment for an escape when the pandemic hit. Can you imagine a world without art, music, fashion and food? Well, neither can we and that’s why we created HustleSasa. We needed a way to digitise the creator economy for the future and mitigate the negative changes that plague the industry when there are massive economic shifts.

How exactly does it work?

The product is an app through which you can start, run and grow your business all from your smartphone. It creates a personalised online storefront for you. You get one website to sell anything, one link to sell anywhere and one platform to run your business from end to end.

Who developed it and how challenging is it to launch and maintain a platform like this in terms of costs?

The app was developed by our co-founder and chief technology officer Michael Denuh. He’s a Ghanaian computer engineer and serial techmaker with 10 years of experience in designing application architectures. The biggest financial challenge for us when launching the HustleSasa app was finding good developers that are willing to accept our remuneration and benefits packages.

Nowadays, good frontend and mobile developers are in high demand and often poached by more established companies abroad. So given that we’re a very young startup, it was clear that we wouldn’t be able to compete with the salary offers from multinational businesses. It therefore became important to not only focus on skills but also give weight to one’s passion for the arts and creative industry.

What differentiates HustleSasa from other platforms? How many users are on the platform currently and how many more are you targeting?

There are so many apps out there that offer similar solutions to creatives. The issue is that the solutions that exist are all super fragmented, subscriptions are at varied price points and data available to the creatives is also scattered. They need one place that can house all these different elements, one platform where they can get a bird’s eye view of their brand and manage it from end to end.

What makes us unique in the market is the fact that we’re affordable, charging only a 5% service fee whereas the industry standard is commissions of 8 to 30%. The only other cost is a flat fee of Ksh100 [about $0.77] that is deducted any time cash is transferred from the user’s in-app wallet to their M-PESA [mobile money app] or bank account.

We also let creators sell different product types in one place, rather than having to use one platform for merchandise, another one for event tickets, and so on. Lastly, with us, users own all their data, giving them the ability to connect with paying customers directly and strengthen those relationships. We’re currently at 15 000 users and targeting 100 000 over the next 10 years.

How is the business so far?

We’re doing fantastic right now. In our first year of business, in 2022 alone, we attracted over 10 000 users and generated over 40 000 transactions worth more than $1.2m.

What is the role of Sauti Sol at HustleSasa, and as one of Africa’s top creators what does the group bring to the business?

The band is our creative co-founder. We approached it because it’s Kenya’s biggest creative export, living proof that creatives can make money from their passions. As creative co-founders, Sauti Sol helps us better understand the workings of the creative industry through their first-hand experience. The group is instrumental in building out the app’s core features to suit the modern creative. It also lends a lot of credibility to the business as we continue to build our brand trust in the market.

Do you only operate in Kenya and what are your expansion plans?

We are fully operational in Kenya and are now running a pilot in Ghana. We also partnered on our first event in Nigeria with M.I Abaga called the Incredible Music Festival. It was held in the city of Jos on 1 and 2 January.

With low payouts by other creative service platforms, how can the African tech and creative sectors work to change this?

There needs to be a shift in how creatives and consumers in Africa view art. In the US, you have artists like Travis Scott diving into more than just music – he’s got his own merch line, a record label and also throws his own events. I believe we’re finally getting there too: creatives are beginning to see their value spread out across many areas. By diversifying their revenue streams, they stand a chance to make more money. Consumers on the continent are also finally ready for this shift, thanks to increased mobile penetration and the launch of unique creator platforms like TikTok and Spotify.

People love art and they love to be entertained, so things can only go up from here. The job of platforms like ours is to make the process as smooth as possible for both stakeholders: the creatives and their audiences. We need to design solutions that empower and put ownership in the hands of creatives rather than exploit them. The creative sector also needs more structure in place to safeguard the interests of creators, and this is best done through policy.

Are there new features that you’re looking to incorporate into the platform?

We’re currently working on the bookings feature for listing services, and the variations feature for people in the fashion and retail industry. We’re also pretty excited to launch value-added services like an in-app savings and loans feature, which will make credit scoring possible for our creatives. Lastly, we’re working on a subscription-based marketplace feature, which will act as a centralised public listing of users on our app, linking back to their storefronts.