Full Transcript for 102. A Digital Nation - Afropolitan & Eche Emole

leaving it on the court, that that is not the career path for you, if you're radically honest with yourself. (06:12): It was around this time, that Eche met fellow Nigerian, Olugbenga Agboola, the co-founder of Flutterwave, Africa's leading payment technology company. Eche Emole (06:22): And we went hiking, and on the hike he's talking with an investor, and they're just talking about startups and businesses. But the way they were talking about it, it wasn't like braggadocious, it was just matter of fact. And I was just like, whoa, I got to be a fly in the wall for this whole four hour hiking journey. And by the time I came down, I was like, look, I want to play in this arena. Whatever arena, what these guys are talking about, that's where I want to be. It felt so alive. Felicia Hatcher (06:49): So the career for me that made me feel most alive wasn't actually working for someone else, it was working for myself. And I never forget, when my husband and I started Black Tech Week, it was the first time where, when people make that cliché that you've worked for 10-hour days, and it only felt like two, that was it for me. And so for many of us, it's gaining the clarity. Because a chaotic mind will make either poor choices, or no choices at all, about what they should be doing, and getting to what your actual zone of genius is. The thing that absolutely sets your soul on fire, that excites you, that you do better than anyone else. (07:27): And when you really step boldly into your zone of genius, from a career standpoint, that's when things really start to take off for you, because you're serving people and serving yourself, and your family, and your community at the highest level. And so while still studying law, Eche began curating parties. Lots of parties. They centered around Afrobeats, a Nigerian music genre that involves the combination of West African musical styles, and American funk, jazz and soul influences. He started to build a reputation for creating these really amazing experiences for Afrobeat lovers in the bay. So when a new nightlife venue opened, the owner gave Eche a call. He offered his new space for Eche to continue these parties on a weekly basis. Eche Emole (08:14): I remember just being in my group chat like, "Hey guys, we have this opportunity." Up until then, we had never had Afrobeats. Now you go to parties, everyone's playing Afrobeats. But when I first went to the States, bro, people who were born in Africa did not want to claim they were from Africa. It was just one of those weird identity loop issues. But then as time progressed, whether it was with the music or with the culture or the movies, you see people be proud of that. Felicia Hatcher (08:39): With the parties happening more frequently, Eche decided it was time to really start figuring out his branding. First he needed a name. Eche Emole (08:48): And so the idea was, well, we're set up in such a cosmopolitan area, which is Bay Area, Silicon Valley, but if you put Afro on the politan, then you have Afropolitan, right? And I think, for me, it was like, what would that represent? Which was, it represented the best of us. Like you're forward thinking, you're progressive, you're your tech forward too. You just want the best at all times. It's an excellence that you're aspiring to. Felicia Hatcher (09:15): By 2019, Eche had graduated law school, and turned his attention to Afropolitan full time. Their parties were gaining popularity all around the Bay Area, and he had secured some brand sponsors. African music and culture were also growing in popularity around the States, and the world. The year before, the Black Panther film released, ushering in a new wave of cultural pan-Africanism, then the Guayanan government announced the year of the return, a sort of birthright journey inviting descendants of Africa to the country to mark 400 years since the start of the transatlantic slave trade. (09:54): Thousands and thousands of people from around the world were expected to travel to Ghana for it. To Eche, this is what Afropolitan was all about. It was an opportunity, and he grasped it. He quickly got to work, organizing highly curated travel groups, excursions, and events to connect people during the year of the return. In the end, he brought together 10,000 people. It was a signal that something bigger was possible. Eche Emole (10:21): About a million plus people came to Ghana that year, and then I think it generated about two billion dollars worth of economic activity that year. It was a huge watershed moment, because the diaspora [inaudible 00:10:31] came home. Because in that year of return, I saw what was possible for our Wakanda actually exist, where abundance, people who had more than enough, felt like sharing. And people came from all across the world. And I was like, look, I want to live in that. I want to build with people like that. I want to be with people who have an abundant mindset, and how we can even bring our other people out of poverty as well. Felicia Hatcher (10:54): Feeling motivated and inspired, Eche continued his plan to expand Afropolitan. That was, until... Speaker 3 (11:01): Now to growing concerns about the deadly coronavirus officially hitting the US. Here's what we know. Speaker 4 (11:06): Tonight, with the US now leading the world in the highest number of people testing positive for Coronavirus. Speaker 5 (11:12): The breaking news, stay at home. That is the order tonight, as the Coronavirus pandemic spreads. Eche Emole (11:19): COVID decimates the entire in real life events industry. And so the question then was, what does a pivot look like for us? And so we pivoted into media. We did that through a social audio app called Clubhouse. Felicia Hatcher (11:31): Eche used a platform provided by Clubhouse to speak with his community on a range of topics. From business and career chats, to dating experiences, and even larger scale conversations like State of the Affairs. During the

pandemic, many online users turned a clubhouse as a way to expand their social media influence, and Eche quickly became one of those users. Eche Emole (11:53): I, and my co-founder, Chika, we've built communities on there of about 200,000 plus people, collectively. And so we basically got to see what it looked like for the diaspora to basically go land, and then also come online, when land wasn't necessarily possible for us to gather. Felicia Hatcher (12:11): While building his social media presence, Eche was also doing some personal reflection. He knew he didn't enjoy time in law school, and had no real motivation to become a lawyer after graduating. So once COVID hit, Eche hoped the quiet and stillness could provide him the space to consider what really mattered to him. Eche Emole (12:30): 2020 happens, and then the incident happened with George Floyd, where he basically got killed. And I just remember just thinking, damn, in the middle of a pandemic, first ever pandemic in my generation's time, racism still doesn't take a pause. There's a whole pandemic where people are dying, and racism is still saying, "I've still got time for y'all." Like I don't get that. (12:51): And then over in Africa, you had the End SARS protest that happened in Nigeria, which is also a police brutality protest, where for the first two weeks, the young people were the ones leading this challenge. And then the government, at some point basically ended sending the army out there, and shooting and killing people, and this was some of the best and brightest of our generation. Black people in general, we're just stuck in a loop. And as someone who, I feel like I'm a time traveler, I go to the US, I see how we're treated as second class citizens, or just subjects. I come over to Africa, even if we have better citizenship, the corruption and the ineffectiveness of our nation states is just terrible. And so I'm like, yo, where can Black people truly be free? Felicia Hatcher (13:33): Where can Black people actually be free? And that's a question that we ask our founders with Black Ambition. How can they be free? And first, they need to be free in their mind. And so we ask them this question, who are you, uninterrupted? If nothing stood in the way of you achieving your success, what would your life look like? What would your business look like? What would your community look like? What would the world look like, as a result of the work that you're doing today, and the work that you will do tomorrow? And then going out and building that. (14:03): So where can Black people be free? In their mind first, and then through entrepreneurship. Like many folks during the pandemic, Eche found himself reflecting deeply on what he wanted to spend his life doing. Eche Emole (14:17): In 2021, I was flat, almost a whole year. And I could tell, when I did a self-diagnosis, because that's when I went into full therapy, I was like, oh you don't know what your purpose is. And you thought you had found your purpose, prior to COVID, but then COVID really showed you there's a lot of... Because it's very easy to confuse professional development with personal development. And I think I've come to understand that those two things can be mutually exclusive. You can't grow professionally until you fix some shit personally, and vice versa. And I think for me, it was, oh, I need to know what my purpose is. Felicia Hatcher (14:50): And so Eche spent more time considering what his purpose could be. He knew the popularity that he and Chika built on clubhouse was influential, and something Afropolitan could benefit from what's the world opened up again, and they could continue bringing people together in person. Eche was still marinating on all those thoughts when a few months later, while he and Chika were traveling in Dakar, Senegal. He came across an article. Eche Emole (15:16): Balaji Srinivasan, he's the former CT of Coinbase, he drops this article called, "How to Start a New Country." And in the article he proposes this idea of a network state, which is a country that starts out first as an online community, but materializes in the physical, after reaching critical mass. It was out there, right? I'm like, I wonder how that would work? What are steps that we would take to get there, to even make this even possible? (15:42): But there was a particular quote in the article that really stuck with me, personally, where he says, "Because the brand new is unthinkable, we fight over the old." And I think he encapsulated how I've been feeling for the last year, especially from the pandemic, which was, we were all forced to sit with our choices, globally. And I was so forced to sit with my choices. I was living in San Francisco, I remember just waking up, I'm like, did I even like living in San Francisco? Do I even like being here? Felicia Hatcher (16:10): So Tony Robinson famous said, the quality of your questions determine the quality of your life. And if you want a bigger, richer, more expansive life, then you have to ask yourself bigger and more expansive questions. And so Eche spent the rest of the year contemplating on these questions, big questions. Where can Black people be free? What is my life's purpose? He was so consumed by those questions that they literally kept him up at night, until December 23rd, 2021, when he jumped out the bed in the wee hours of the morning with an idea. Eche Emole (16:44): And I was like, well, we have started new companies on the internet. We have started new currencies on the internet. Is it possible to start a new country on the internet? And so the internet has allowed us to transcend a lot of the roadblocks that existed in the physical realm. And so for us now, it's saying, okay, how do we leverage that, to then build this first ever internet country? And she's like, "Wait what?" Felicia Hatcher (17:07): Like Pharrell says often, I look at, and care about, what doesn't exist, and I work towards creating that. For

Eche, sharing his idea with his partner, Chika, was a critical moment. He had already deviated away from his family's expectation of him becoming a lawyer, and had been wondering what he should become instead. For him, just sharing this idea aloud was a critical step. Eche Emole (17:31): And then, honestly, I think what happened was after I said it to her, I paced the room that long, because I value her opinion so much, that if she had shut that down, it would've crushed me. Because I would know that if I can't convince this one person, how am I supposed to go convince other people about it? Felicia Hatcher (17:49): But Chika didn't take much convincing, she loved it. So at the crack of dawn, on vacation, they started researching some guys who've attempted something as big as building a country in the past, America's founding fathers. Eche Emole (18:03): She did research about the Federalist papers, from the American founding fathers. Where Alexander Hamilton, basically back in those days, they needed to convince the American public as to why America needed to be a thing. So they would publish these Federalist papers, basically like articles, whether it was weekly or monthly. And in Federalist One, there was a particular quote where he says, "It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government, from reflection and choice, or whether they're forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force." (18:49): And so for us, that became our calling card, which was, wait, no modern day African nation state was created or formed by reflection and choice. It's always been through accident and force. And what would it look like if we can get the best of us to really sit down, choose and reflect, build community around that. Because before the state, comes the nation. And the nation is the community first, that has a shared identity and shared consciousness. Felicia Hatcher (19:16): Eche and Chika felt inspired and motivated, as they began imagining an African nation that was built with intention and purpose. But what's a new nation without citizens? Eche Emole (19:27): The idea isn't to say that you are atomically part of this country because you have black skin. It's to say, you're part of this country if you have shared values and purpose. And those shared values and purpose are later in our manifesto, later in a constitution that's going to be created, so that you're opt in it saying, "Hey, I identify with what you guys believe. I identify with what you guys are about. And I would love to be a part of this." And being a part of this isn't just to say, "Hey, I'm just a spectator. You're expected to contribute and be a builder." Felicia Hatcher (19:58): With Chika on board, Eche was ready to explore what it would take to bring this country to life. Now, to build an internet country, one can imagine that you would need to know quite a bit about the internet and technology. And having little experience with new technology, Eche wasn't sure where he needed to begin. Eche Emole (20:18): I remember there was a tweet that I came across on Twitter, where the guy tweets, "What are the smartest people working on during the weekends?" And I was just like, damn, all the smart people I know, these software engineers, or whoever, are talking about this Web3 thing. Felicia Hatcher (20:34): So about this Web3 thing. You've probably heard of it, but you may have no idea what it actually means. And it's an important aspect to Afropolitan, and this digital nation. So let's break it down and start from the very beginning. (20:47): Web 1.0 refers to phase one of the internet, where people can simply view most static sites online. Think, the earliest online blogs and sites, that were read only. Web 2.0 refers to the internet as we know it today. It's a place for two-way exchange. Email, social media or the comment section on a news article. (21:10): Now, Web3 is a term some technologists have given to the idea of the next phase of the internet. It is still evolving and being defined, but the basic principles include this idea of decentralization, meaning that ownership of content and data are moved away from the big tech giants, or any centralized authority, and into the hands of users like you and me. (21:36): And Web3 easily integrates with the blockchain, and cryptocurrencies, which evangelists say remove many of the barriers around making and moving money that exists in traditional financial systems. There are tons of resources out there where you can learn more, but basically, the internet is experiencing an innovation of sorts. All this was new for Eche, and Chika too, but they knew Afropolitan needed to exist in this new Web3 world. Eche Emole (22:05): We red pilled our way into Web3. We learned about crypto, NFTs, DAOs, we spent a lot of weekends just literally researching, listening to podcasts, really just informing ourselves. Felicia Hatcher (22:17): Eche learned how these tools can provide more opportunities for advancement for our people, and enable Afropolitan to solve some of the problems that exist in physical sovereign nations today. Eche Emole (22:28): So I'll give you examples. So right now, in traditional finance, you want to go for a mortgage, you want to go for a credit card, you want to go for a bank. You maybe have to go into a physical bank or do it online. You stand a chance of racism showing up at your door. And the reason is, your name might be Charlotte and they're like, "Okay, cool. Sign like a really nice, white name. You're approved."The minute you show up at the back, and you're Black we're going to need to have a conversation here. (22:56): And so the question then was, how do you then make it in such a way that racism isn't even an issue, it's just a wallet

address. So you can say, "Hey, if I sign with my wallet here, my wallet is just a string of numbers. All you now need to know is, does this all have the sufficient amount? Does it have the reputational history? Does it have the right credit score? And if it has all these metrics, you're approved, you're good to go." (23:19): So now you start to see how we leverage the internet to bypass some of these systematic racism issues, at scale. Felicia Hatcher (23:25): You might recall the question that Eche spent months in 2021 pondering, where can Black people be truly free? Well, he felt confident that he was closer to finding out. Eche Emole (23:38): The idea is the internet is our equalizer. It's the only where, as Black people free, we're free. We're only free, truly free, on the internet. And we get to see the power of our culture at scale. And I think for us, we should only double down on that. Because I don't want to live in a world where I have to rely on the benevolence of anyone to say, "Hey, are you racist or you not?" Felicia Hatcher (24:01): And it's not just about building out an internet country. For Eche, he thinks it's crucial for more Black people to become familiar with these new technologies, period. Eche Emole (24:12): There's a whole other world here. And in that world, as we started to immerse ourselves into it, and as we started to go to these conferences as well, they're not that many Black people there. And this is a whole new paradigm shift that's happening again while we're here, and we missed the internet boom. We missed the.com bubble. Most of us just read about Facebook when we signed up for it. (24:30): But the whole process of actually building those protocols from the start, where people invested in the Facebook, we were not at that table. We were not even in those conversations. And so for us, or for me now, it was more of like, how do we get that first moves advantage, where the new technology isn't something we shy away from, but we embrace, because we know that this can actually lead to so much advantages for us. Felicia Hatcher (24:53): And so after mastering this understanding of these new technologies, Eche felt it was time to start sharing his ideas of this digital nation with folks other than his partner, Chika. Eche Emole (25:04): After my co-founder was like, "Hey, she loves it." I was like, you're probably biased, so I can't really trust your judgment. I said, "No, I got to go find somebody else who is literally objective, and would tell me this is the dumbest I've ever heard." I reached out to Balaji, who was the first person who published that idea. [inaudible 00:25:25]. (25:25): He's like, "Yo, this is a good idea. This is actually a way for you to be able to withdraw colonial borders. How can I invest?" I'm like, "Invest? What do you mean, invest? This is a fundable idea?" So I remember I was like, okay, cool, now have Balaji's validation, but I need to go talk to my people, people I know. (25:41): So I

reach out to a bunch of founders in the ecosystem, and honestly I just presented it to them similar to how I presented it to y'all, on the thing. And they were like, "Yo, this is actually something." And then they were like, "Hey, I'm willing to fund this." And then you got a lot of people who even funded us were community members themselves. (25:58): And so there's a validation from community people that are like, "Hey, this is something that you could actually do." You have the support of people. And throughout the year, it's really been people hearing the vision, loving the audacity of it, loving the ambition of it, and just being like, "How can I plug into it?" Felicia Hatcher (26:13): Having other people believe in your vision makes a world of difference. With the additional support of his peers, Eche is even more committed to building out this new digital country, and this is a work that he's committed to for the long term. Eche Emole (26:26): Honestly, it's something that I know my life's work now. This is what I'll be doing 30, 40, 50 years from now, no matter in what capacity. It's like this is it. This is it for me. Because the dream and the vision, they've been in my head. I know it, I've seen it, I've lived it. It's just now to bring it into the physical, into real life. (26:46): What does that world look like when we actually all move from abundance? And I think our one commandment is from scarcity to abundance. And for us, what does it look like to live abundantly, and live from a life of abundance? And you saw that, when we watch Black Panther, or even Black Panther Two, there's an abundance, there's a richest of culture. That sort of feeling, that that is what building uninterrupted looks like for me. Felicia Hatcher (27:15): From throwing Afrobeat parties, to building an internet country. At face value, Eche's story could sound like the ultimate career switch. But in retrospect, his business has always been about building community. Whether that community was winding to Burna Boy, or transacting in crypto over Web3, Eche's success thus far has come partly from staying true to himself, while also allowing his vision to be flexible. (27:42): He allowed his passions and curiosities to introduce him to new frontiers. And from there, he became relentless in educating himself, sharing his ideas at various stages of completion, and ultimately getting out there, even as a first mover, in a mostly undefined space. (28:01): I think the most ambitious moment for Eche, and for anyone, is betting on ourselves, being extremely true to ourselves, and then finding the resources in order to bring that to life. This is your reminder that you don't need to have it all figured out to get started. So dream audaciously, allow your vision to shift as needed, and get out there and build it. (28:29): On the next episode of So Ambitious, we'll be hearing from Justin Turk and Andre Davis, the founders of Logistic, a Detroit based company revolutionizing the construction industry. Speaker 6 (28:40): Nobody was taking us seriously. Not to the extent of like, "Let me hurry up and meet with you, what are you guys raising?" Nobody was asking those questions. We were seeking out people, to see if they were interested in what we were doing, but nobody was, at that point, seeking out us. Felicia Hatcher (28:54): That's next time on So Ambitious. To learn more about Afropolitan, check out the show notes. And be sure to subscribe, like and rate to So Ambitious, wherever you're listening right now. So Ambitious is a Black Ambition production brought to you by Heineken and co-produced by MoSo House, and You Had Me at Black. (29:13): Our executive producers are Martina Abrahams Ilunga, and Ivanna Tucker. Samaya Adams is our supervising producer. This episode was produced by Jess Jupiter. Charlotte Morley is our associate producer. Our music is composed by Terrell Brook. Sapphire Stubbs is our marketing consultant. Special thanks to Moses Soyoola, at Other Tone and Samya Malik, Christine Joseph, and Jermeen Sherman at Black Ambition. (29:41): I'm your host, Felicia Hatcher.