The Creatives Note At One: How It Started, Why It Is Important To Me, And Lessons Learnt So Far
On October 1, The Creatives Note clocked one. In this letter, I wrote about what The Creatives Note is, how it came about, why it is important to me, and 5 lessons I have learnt working on it
Hi friend, I hope you are doing okay. I know it’s been long since you heard from me. The last piece I published was over 16 months ago (498 days to be precise). Time truly does fly.
I didn’t mean to be away for that long but you know, life has just been lifing lately. I write once in a while but I have just not been publishing. It may interest you that at the end of 2022, I wrote a draft for my end-of-the-year review for 2022 but didn’t get around to properly edit and publish it. I still plan to do that though (I know 2023 is almost over) but I plan to do it for the records.
Beyond that, a lot has happened and changed in the last 16 months. In the words of the African giant, Burna Boy, in his song Time Flies ft. Sauti Sol, “Time flies like a thief in the night, we all got a story to write, so darling jump in the ride, before the train is gone.”
Before I get into why I am writing this, I would like to ask you like I always do at the beginning of every letter I write; How are you doing? (Like really, How are you doing? Talk to me. Reply to this and be sure I will respond.)
Now to the reason I am writing this. As I mentioned, a lot has changed since I last wrote to you and one of that is that I launched a new project. And it’s been one year since I did. So I decided to document the journey that led to the launch and what I have learnt in the last one year working on it.
The first day of this month (October 1, 2023) made it one year since I pushed the publish button for what was the first story that was published on The Creatives Note. If you have been following or been in contact with me, you would have heard me mention ‘The Creatives Note’ several times. In case you are wondering what it is, this should give you some insight into what it is.
Towards the end of September, I decided I was going to publish something about the journey so far but for some reason, I didn’t finish working on the draft on time so I couldn’t publish earlier. I know I need to document this as I intend to document the journey of building The Creatives Note because documenting one’s journey and experiences has proven to be very helpful in tracking one’s growth.
Documenting one’s journey and experiences also helps one reflect and reminisce on things one may have ordinarily forgotten. Sometimes, I read the things I have published and oftentimes, I start to relive the moments I wrote about, most of which I would never remember if I didn’t document them. But that's by the way.
While the first story for The Creatives Note went live on October 1, 2022, it didn't start there. In my letter Floating Through Space, I mentioned that I was working on two projects focused on telling the stories of Africans. At the time, I was still trying to figure out a lot of things. I wrote;
While I have figured out the goals, objectives, and some foundational frameworks of the projects before now, I was having issues with the naming of one of the projects but today, I finally got the name settled. This gladdens my heart because as a creative, getting the name right for a project is very vital to me as it can make or mar the project. Also, it has delayed the work on developing the visual identity, setting up social media handles, and setting up other communication channels for the project. Now that this is settled, I can move on to working on other tasks that have been hinged on this.
At the time of writing and publishing this in June 2022, it was a project of interest and not something I was actively pursuing. Before I go into how and what changed everything, let me give you a bit of context.
What is The Creatives Note?
The Creatives Note is a digital media publication curating, documenting, and telling the stories of creativity [Art, Design, and Film] in Africa.
At The Creatives Note, we report news, stories, announcements, important conversations, and events happening in the African creative industry. We also share insights and opinions on topics relating to creativity, share the works of creatives, and curate resources and opportunities - exhibitions, art fairs, festivals, fellowships, grants, and residency programs - across different creative fields for African creatives.
Finally, we have conversations with African creatives about their creative journey and creative teams about their work to inspire and teach creatives.
How The Creatives Note Came About
I have always had a knack for creative and media-related hobbies from a young age. At some point in my life, I wanted to be a radio presenter and broadcaster. At another point, I was interested in becoming an actor. For some reason, I was drawn to a career in media.
Eventually, I fell in love with photography and videography. But somehow, I ended up pursuing my interest in design.
Side note: I made my first ever design with a computer program software called CorelDraw in 2013. If I remember well, it was a replication of the Pepsi logo. Phew, it's been ten years. I have been meaning to write about that but again, I have not gotten around to it.
After I created my first design in 2013, I continued to pursue my interest in things that had to do with the creative industry—art, design, and film.
Over the years, one thing I always loved (and still love) to do is read about people practicing as creative professionals. Whether it is their personal stories or conversations about their work, I would read or listen to them.
Then sometime in 2020, I began frequenting Lovers Magazine, a platform that shares stories of creative professionals, to read stories of designers. But there was an issue. Most of the people they interviewed were Americans and Europeans. While I enjoyed reading their stories and learnt from their stories, most of their experiences didn't feel very relatable for me as an African living in Africa. Their realities were very much different.
So in 2021, I set out to talk to students creatives on African campuses to share their stories. This gave birth to StudentsWhoCreate (SWC). I worked on this for the second half of 2021 and most of 2022.
It is a great project but when I started, I knew it was sort of limited because, as the name implies, it is focused on ‘Student Creatives’. I knew I wanted to do more but I had to start somewhere, so I started with SWC.
While working on SWC, I kept contemplating working on something for the larger creative community beyond just students. That is, something that focuses on people pursuing a career in the creative industry. I knew I wanted to do it but I was not sure I was ready to do it because, with my experience with SWC, I knew it was going to be a lot of work.
Despite how I felt about the level of work it would take, I reached out to a few people on Twitter in March 2022 to gauge interest. And interestingly, I got positive responses. At the time, it was just a project because it didn’t even have a name yet.
One of the people I reached out to was Victor Fatanmi. He agreed to meet with me but I told him I would reach out when the time was right. Even after getting positive responses, I still wasn't committed to pursuing it actively. But I started working on nailing the name for it because as a brand designer, I was keen on getting a good name. I started brainstorming on a name. I even prayed about it. Eventually, I settled on The Creatives Note (TCN). The idea of the name came from the plan to make the platform like a note to document the stories of African creatives. I checked social media and fortunately, the handle was available so I created social media pages.
After that, I started playing around with designing a logo even though I was not sure when I was going to start actual work on it. Everything until this point was at my convenience. But the story changed one night in August.
That night in August
In August 2022, I was having difficulties sleeping at night. For some reason, I wouldn't be able to sleep until around 4 or 5 in the morning. Usually, I would just surf through the internet and mostly spend the time going through Twitter. But on a particular night, the question of why I wasn't telling the stories of African creatives like I always wanted to, came to my mind. All of a sudden, I started to feel like I was wasting away not doing it. I felt a very big void in my heart and my heart was heavy and it felt like the only way I could change that was to get TCN out there in the world. That night, I made a tweet that the first interview would go out on October 1st. This gave me six weeks to get people to talk and get the interview ready.
The Journey to the Launch Day (October 1)
After that night, I reached out to Victor to follow up on the conversation we had earlier and we set a date to meet. I was not in Lagos at the time but I was planning to visit Lagos in September, so it was a perfect time. I could kill two birds with one stone.
I also started reaching out to more people and interestingly, I got positive responses. People (creatives) were eager to share their stories. This experience validated my hypothesis that this was something that needed to be done.
I spent the whole of September taking virtual calls and having interviews with people. I was able to meet with Victor and it was a pretty chilled experience. After I had gotten a good number of interviews, I started working on preparing them for publishing. I would manually transcribe the recorded interview and edit it. It was a lot of work but it was what I signed up for.
And The Creatives Note Went Live
Finally, on October 1, the first interview went live. To be honest, it felt really good to set a goal and achieve it. It felt fulfilling. I said I was going to do it and I did it. I also felt a big relief from the burden I felt that night in August.
After publishing, I went back severally to read the interview. I must have read it a thousand times that day, haha.
The Work Continues
After the first interview went live, it dawned on me that the real work was just about to begin because I had plans to publish a new interview every week.
I started spending a lot of time thinking about and working on it. I was spending almost all my time working on it.
Towards the end of November, I got burnt out because the workload became really much. Note that I was also working on SWC at the same time.
By December, I stopped publishing for the year. I really needed it to get myself back together. I didn’t stop thinking about them (TCN and SWC), but I chose to just document any ideas that may come to mind and work on them in the new year.
By January, I resumed publishing on both TCN and SWC but by the end of March, I had shifted focus fully to TCN and took a break from SWC.
You should note that TCN and SWC were doing almost the same thing. The difference is that SWC is focused on student creatives while TCN is focused on creative professionals. At this time, both SWC and TCN were all about conversations with creatives, that is, interviews with creatives.
By March, I just couldn’t run both simultaneously and couldn’t afford to hire anyone so I paused SWC and focused on TCN. Over the last few months, I have been building a system that will make things easier so expect SWC to be back. If you’re subscribed, expect to hear from us soon. And if you’re not subscribed, click here to subscribe now.
Back to my story about TCN. While TCN started with publishing interviews and conversations with creatives, I knew it was going to evolve beyond that. The only thing I didn’t know was when the evolution would happen.
In my first post explaining what people should expect from TCN, I wrote;
You should expect interviews with African creatives behind some of your favourite content, products, and brands, opportunities and job boards, deep dives and behind-the-scenes of some of your favourite content, products, and brands, and monthly round-ups of things happening in the African creative ecosystem.
We will cover creatives ranging from artists, cinematographers, creative leaders, designers, photographers, storytellers, and lots more across various fields, industries, and sectors.
Towards the end of January, I started toying around with the idea of starting the newsletter I referred to in the post. It would be a monthly roundup of everything happening in the African creative industry.
Unlike the tech industry which has quite a number of newsletters where you can catch up on things happening in the tech industry on the continent, it is hard to come by one for the African creative industry.
While I saw the need to start it, I didn't feel equipped to take up the task. I am still on the lookout for someone who does this or wants to do this. If you're interested in writing a newsletter for TCN that does a roundup of things happening in the African creative ecosystem, please feel free to reach out. It should be fun.
Since I couldn’t do the newsletter, I just continued with publishing interviews throughout the first quarter of the year. In Q2, things were really slow and quiet for a while because I had to be away for 3 weeks. I was away from my laptop and couldn’t work or do anything for that period (last week in April to mid-May). But when I got back in May, work resumed and I continued to publish.
In June, I started toying around with another idea. I began to consider the idea of reporting on things happening in the African creative industry. This time around, more than just a newsletter.
This idea got stronger every day. I even made a few posts about it on LinkedIn. For some reason, the conviction to pursue it grew and it gave birth to TCN 2.0. I was going to wait till October before pursuing it but I knew the conviction might have waned by then. So on July 1st, I made the announcement that TCN was evolving. I announced that we would be publishing much more than interviews like we started out with. It meant that we would start to publish news, events, opportunities, and a whole lot more. So we introduced new sections.
That announcement marked the beginning of TCN 2.0 just 9 months into the start of TCN. And since then, I have reported some interesting news and opportunities. So that’s basically a summary of the last one year.
Lessons from the last one year building The Creatives Note
In the last one year of trying to build TCN, I have gained knowledge, learnt and developed new skills, and learnt a lot of life lessons. I want to share a few of those lessons with you. Hopefully, it reminds you of what you already know but are not doing.
Lesson 1: Just do it
I know this sounds cliche but that's just it. Recently, I read somewhere that if there's anything you would like to see in this world, create it. Do something about it if you are able to.
The truth is, I wasn't exactly 100% ready when I took the plunge to work on what seems to be like a life work for me. I had one thousand and one reasons to not start but I did regardless. TCN is something I wanted to see in the world so I chose to work on it. To me, it is somewhat personal. I am all about telling the stories of African creatives.
While TCN is currently hosted on Substack, it is much more than that for me. The truth is that I almost didn't make the announcement for TCN 2.0 because I wanted to build a proper website and migrate to it before I made the move but I figured that would take a long time because I didn't have the time and resources to make that happen at the time I made the announcement.
Normally, this would have deterred or derailed me but I said fuck it, I will do with what I have at the moment. While Substack doesn’t give me the kind of customisation I want, it has been a great platform so far.
So, if there's anything you have always wanted to work on or see in the world, now is a great time to start. You don’t have to wait till you have everything figured out before you start. The truth is, you will never figure out a lot of things if you don't start. Just start with what you have. Start where you are.
Lesson 2: You learn and get better by doing
When I look back at the quality and pace at which I got work done when I started compared to now, all I see is growth. Sometimes I read some of the things I wrote about a year ago and see ways they could be improved. The truth is, I have gotten better from doing this over and over again. Now I can even do a better job in a shorter span of time compared to when I started. Something that would take me 10 hours to complete when I started will now take me half of that.
For example, a year ago, I would spend 13+ hours to get an interview ready for publishing but now I spend less than half of that and the results are even more refined. I have found better methods, tools, and processes by consistently doing the same thing.
Personally, I love the idea of writing but find it to be a lot of work. I would never have imagined I would be doing something that would require me to write and publish every week. Recently, I looked at my writer’s dashboard and saw that I have published 80+ articles ranging from interviews to news reports, and all sorts in the last one year. Now, I have gotten better at writing and will continue to get better.
You can read a hundred books about how to do something, but you will never get good or better at it if you don't practice what you have read. So get to work now.
Lesson 3: Building anything is hard.
In the last one year of trying to build TCN, I have come to develop more respect for anyone building a business or company. The truth is, building anything is hard, especially trying to build from scratch without help and support. In the last one year, I have spent a thousand-plus hours thinking and working on how to grow TCN. Sometimes, the result I get doesn’t seem to be proportional to the time invested but I have learnt to keep going and worry less about the numbers. I have learnt to be patient.
Be ready for your patience to be tested if you want to build anything. But that’s just how life works. Sometimes it can be hard but I have learnt to just get back on the horse and continue riding.
I have also learnt that it's okay to take a break and rest when things get really hard. Give yourself grace.
Lesson 4: Pick your battles
When I look at what TCN can become, I am overwhelmed by the amount of work it will take for it to be done. But if there’s anything I have learnt in the last one year, it is how to choose my battles.
Oftentimes, I am surprised at the amount of untapped opportunities in the space. I see a lot of potential ideas to be explored but I have come to understand the place of time and chance.
I believe the African creative industry is still in its nascent stage and growing, so it is okay. Eventually, people who are ready and willing to do the work will come in to fill the spaces.
Lesson 5: You will never know
I love to read stories and listen to conversations of people who have built something. Whether they succeed or fail at it, there are lessons to be learnt. And one thing I have learnt over the years is that you will never be 100% sure if what you want to work on will succeed or not.
I have seen cases where people who were so sure and confident in their ideas and ability to execute failed. In the same vein, I have seen cases where people who weren't so sure about their idea succeeded after pursuing it regardless of how they felt about it. I have also seen cases where people who were very confident in their ideas and execution succeeded.
The bottom line is, you will never really know unless you try. For me, while I am working hard and doing my possible best to see that this succeeds, I am not bothered by the fear of failing.
Okay, let me stop here for now. This is getting too long. These are some of the lessons I have in the last one year of trying to build a digital media publication from scratch.
If you got to this point, you are the real MVP. Thank you for taking out time to read this. Please feel free to drop a comment or write to me tunmise[at]substack[dot]com if you have anything to say to me.
I hope to write again soon as I intend to share more as I go through life. But until then, you can connect with me on Twitter and Instagram to keep the conversation going.
Kindly subscribe in order to be a part of my journey through life as I promise to share more.