#16: Iroko TV - How the Nollywood video platform is overcoming challenges to deliver African entertainment around the world

Afrobility: Africa Tech & Business

Overview: Today, we’re going to talk about IROKO TV, the Nollywood video platform, we'll give some background on the Nigerian cinema industry, talk about IROKO's founding, early history, different businesses over time and our views on its future outlook. This episode was recorded on Nov 15, 2020.

Companies discussed: IROKO TV, Rok studios, iROKING, Netflix & Spark Capital

Business concepts discussed: Entertainment Technology, Backward integration, media distribution, Streaming Video on Demand (SVOD) & African streaming video

Conversation highlights:

• (03:10) - Why we’re talking about Iroko TV
  
• (03:40) - Market context for Iroko founding: Nollywood, media consumption, etc
  
• (17:02) - Jason Njoku and Iroko TV: founding and early history
  
• (27:05) - Iroko TV and fundraising
  
• (29:03) - Spark Capital - investments and exits
  
• (30:05) - ROK Studios - founding, growth and exit / closure
  
• (34:20) - iROKING - music label
  
• (40:00) - Iroko TV 2015 pivot to mobile and focus on product
  
• (45:25) - Iroko TV 2020 layoffs and pivot to NA / Europe
  
• (52:20) - Iroko TV and competitive landscape
  
• (59:20) - Bankole’s overall thoughts and outlook
  
• (1:04:15) - Olumide’s overall thoughts and outlook
  
• (1:10:00) - Recommendations, small wins and open questions
  

Olumide’s recommendations, small wins & open questions:

• Recommendation: "Earnings calls" by Borsa Finance --> It's earning season! Great app to listen to earnings calls
  
• Recommendation: Maximum achievement (by Brian Tracy)
  
• Small win: Standing during all meetings experiment (going well so far)
  
• Other content: Jason's TED talk: Failing All the way to success
  
• Other content: Jason's talk: Be Experimental & Find New ways to create things (1m to 10m)
  
• Open question: What lessons did you learn from Jason's approach to running IrokoTV?
  

Bankole’s recommendations, small wins & open questions:

• Recommendation: Shape up - A book about a differentiated approach for product teams to ship high quality products often.
  
• Recommendation: Trust The Process - Resignation from Sam Hinkie, former GM for the Philadelphia 76ers
  
• Small win: Lots of walking first thing in the morning
  
• Open question: Is there hope for an African content business? Or are African consumers going to be subsumed by the global behemoths e.g., Netflix or Spotify?
  

We’d love to hear from you. If you have feedback, topics you’d like to hear, or just want to say hello, please email [e-mail]

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