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Letter 58 —  Narrative Economics: Compelling narratives work

Hey, <<First Name>>!

We now live in a "storied" world. All social media platforms are looking alike (see this Axios' chart). And I can't fault them. Stories and TikTok are working; innovating now might be foolhardy. But Snap still tries to be strategic in its copying of TikTok.


Something-You-Should-Know: Ben Awad launched VSCode Stories extension and sold it for $9,000 before Twitter launched Fleets. (A testament to how slow Twitter releases new features.) Ben's working on another extension which he intends to sell to Microsoft. In short: whatever idea you have, build it; ship it. Be prolific like Obembe.


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To the news, job opportunities and events.

⚰️ 2020 has been tough, but November is tougher. On November 27, Safeboda told Kenyans, "see you later" after two years of operating in their country. The pan-African bike-hailing startup said it decided to pause its Ride and Send services in Kenya due to the aftermath of COVID-19. However, it'd continue to grow in Nigeria and Uganda — where it first launched in 2015.

That same day, Tony Hsieh, aged 46, succumbed to complications of injuries he had sustained in a house fire. He was the former CEO of Zappos, an online shoe and clothing company which Amazon acquired in 2009, and co-founder of LinkExchange which was sold to Microsoft in 1998. Tony was a brilliant entrepreneur, visionary, and venture capitalist.


Two days prior, football legend Diego Maradona had also given up the ghost at age 60 after suffering from heart failure.

On November 30, today, ROAM Africa is discontinuing its local operations in Tanzania, namely BrighterMonday Tanzania, EverythingDar, and Cheki Ltd. To access the job listings on BrighterMonday, users will be redirected to ZoomTanzania. Four years ago, ROAM Africa had also discontinued local operations in Rwanda. ROAM Africa operates the leading marketplaces in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Jobberman. It recently sold its online car marketplace Cheki, in Ghana and Nigeria, to Autocheck.

🤳🏼 Apollo Fintech launches Stratus which is touted as the world's most expansive unbiased social ecosystem. Over the past six years, Apollo Fintech says it has been working on Stratus to create the largest social ecosystem on earth and offer the functionality of Twitter and Facebook. And in the next one or two years, Stratus will be adding the functionalities of Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Amazon, eBay, LinkedIn, Kickstarter, Travelocity, PayPal, Google Search Engine, GoDaddy, and banking services.

According to the statement, Stratus is different from other platforms in five ways: convenience, data privacy, transparency, no "independent" fact-checkers, and free speech is protected.

It'd be interesting to see if Stratus is the next big thing in social networking. A number of Africans have taken a stab at social network sites but only with little or no success. Notably, MTN's Ayoba.
COVID-19 has been a boon for e-commerce in Middle East and Africa

🎮 MTN Nigeria has partnered with Gameloft to launch Gameworld. The platform will give MTN users access to Gameloft mobile games through a daily, weekly, and monthly subscription. MTN Gameworld is a mobile gaming app with a web version that gives you access to premium games and online competitions. Upon subscription, you'll be able to play without limits.

"We are constantly seeking to deliver innovative products that support the aspirations of our customers, whilst delivering a superior user experience", Srinivas Rao, MTN's Chief Digital Officer, said. "This partnership allows us to provide our customers with access to a variety of exhilarating games from Gameloft and other leading publishers at an affordable rate".

📰 What we've written

1. Printivo launches Promostack, a dedicated e-commerce platform for promotional items, corporate gifts and merchandise in Nigeria and South Africa.

2. The recap of DevFest 2020, the first virtual developer festival.

3. As Nigeria's inflation spirals, TradeDepot's CEO says small retailers will matter more than ever.
🍿 Things we found interesting

1. Stories matter. And Narrative Economics is important because "human thinking has to be studied if we are going to understand economic fluctuations".

2. France is now taxing big tech companies, including Facebook and Amazon.

3. There's no such thing as a self-made billionaire. Understanding that no one can claim that they fully deserve what they earn is the first step to addressing wealth inequality.
🚪 Jobs and other opportunities

In addition to last week's list of jobs, events and other  opportunities, check these out, too:

💙 Thank you for reading
You made it to this end of the letter. Three hearty cheers for you, *|IF:FNAME|*<<First Name>>!*|ELSE:|*BD Insider!

Stay in touch with our quirkiness and the hottest tech news on Twitter.

Tell me anything by replying to this email. I'm eager to hear from you.

💌 
DI

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