Tomiwa Aladekomo: Building Big Cabal and the Media Business Behind It
It would be unfathomable for me to host a podcast on communications & storytelling in African tech without speaking to Tomiwa Aladekomo, CEO of Big Cabal Media [the parent company of media brands such as TechCabal and Zikoko]. Over almost 8 years, he has scaled the biggest technology and culture platform[s] for the continent. His publishing house’s flagship platform, TechCabal, is arguably one of the most read and shared resources for the African tech ecosystem. Few people speak about the media, in public and behind closed doors, with the kind of commercial clarity and transparency that Tomiwa has.
He and I speak regularly as we are long-time collaborators who have spent many hours over the years dissecting the media from our different [although interestingly, almost wholly aligned] perspectives, so speaking on camera for The Wimbart Way felt like a familial and slightly shiny aggregation of our many hours of discourse over the years. Rewatching our session, I’m glad to say we were as open on camera as we would be in a private conversation.
A big part of our discussion focused on the often problematic relationships between companies/brands and journalists; the friction, the public outcries, the late-night WhatsApp DMs, and more. To be very clear, Tomiwa isn’t an editor or a tech writer; whilst he has to have an intimate understanding of newsroom processes, how to craft a story, what journalistic integrity looks like and so forth, he is a publisher and business owner – responsible for the multiple engines that generate revenue for BCM and during our chat, we discussed in some detail the mechanics of the media – to open what is often an opaque concept to many.
His is not an easy job; each time there’s a challenging story that covers tech sector foul play, it’s his DMs that flare up with fiery messages, even though he hasn’t written a word of copy. He is ultimately responsible for a significant slice of the overarching African tech narrative. This is likely why he and his team evoke such emotive, and often visceral, reactions – they are providing analysis on builders who build in public, mostly in hostile markets with few blueprints to follow, and that isn’t easy.
We touched upon but didn’t deep dive into idealised journalism or abstract storytelling values; our discussion was centred around the mechanics of building a media business that can endure, particularly in African markets where the margins are thin, the expectations are pretty high, and the general understanding of the financials around running a media business is low. One line in particular that resonated with me [and I have subsequently used in conversation] that I think captures Tomiwa’s role is being relentlessly commercial. Tomiwa and his team have built out a number of verticals under the BCM umbrella – some have worked, some haven’t, and Tomiwa is generous in his review of the successes and failures.
Over the past couple of years, as a news outlet, TechCabal has publicly lifted the lid on some bad actors and foul play in the ecosystem. A recurring critique is that they are doing a disservice to a nascent sector that needs all the help it can get and doesn’t need a spotlight on negative stories. The rebuttal is that they are covering all aspects of the news in the ecosystem – and this can include some pretty salacious, albeit true, stories. The editorial team has also invested time and energy into ecosystem and sector deep dives – moving the platform way beyond a press release/funding announcement machine, into a more journalistically curated news and analysis platform.
In episode one of The Wimbart Way, Iyin “E” Aboyeji gave a stinging critique of Tech Cabal and the tech press more broadly, although *spoiler alert* he went on to disclose that he is also an investor in Tech Cabal – a peculiar dichotomy we laughed about at the time and one that I’m sure Tomiwa is acutely aware of. Due to filming sequencing, it’s a shame that I wasn’t able to ask Tomiwa what his reaction was – maybe he will follow up another time. We can probably all have a stab at how he might reply…
Tomiwa took time out to record our edition of The Wimbart Way, the week of Moonshot – a seminal event for African tech that sees 6,000+ people congregate in Lagos – so I cannot thank him enough for carving time out for our conversation. I continue to maintain that no one speaks more forcefully for the future of the media than he does.
Watch below to hear our conversation! Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
