Some startups are born out of a grand desire to change the world, some are born out of a desire to change people. Axia Africa is both.
An edtech company whose mission is to equip Africans with skills that make them employable, Axia Africa was born out of a desire to solve the talent problem that continues to plague the African tech ecosystem.
Olawale Samuel started out teaching people on his social media following how to design, then expanded into an edtech platform with thousands of students. But this journey wasn’t without its challenges.
On this episode of Day 1-1000, Samuel tells me the journey of taking Axia Africa from only 45 students in its early days, to organising Africa’s largest training bootcamp.
This is the story of Axia Africa as told to .
Day 1: From music tutor to tech talent
I’ve always had a passion for impacting people, not just in tech. At one point, I taught music and how to play instruments. So when I started off Axia Africa, I just wanted to teach a few people. I started off teaching product design for free.
After about five or six months, somebody decided to pay me to teach, and I realised it all made sense now. I realised that many people wanted to pursue not just product design, but also other tech fields like development and data analytics.
My co-founder (a developer) and I found each other on X (formerly Twitter). We hosted a free boot camp and also asked people if they wanted to volunteer to teach. When the bootcamp was over and we decided to make it more structured, we went back to the same set of people to be our first set of paid mentors.
Day 300: From 45 students to 4,000-student cohort
Before Axia Africa became known, we faced a period of immense struggle. Despite feeling like we were doing everything right, there were times when we barely had students, maybe 45 enrolling at a time. It was depressing. I remember having to use the money for my rent to pay salaries for my team. We weren’t funded, and it was a really trying time.
The first sign that the dog days were over was when we had our first 300-student cohort. After that, everyone just kept talking about our program on X. It became a huge tool for us. If people ask for testimonials, I just tell them to search for Axia Africa on X, and they’ll see someone talking about us. We went from 300 to 1,000, then to 2,000, and now to over 4,000 students in a single cohort.
We hold two serious records: the largest boot camp in Africa with 20,000 participants from 82 countries, and the largest number of students in a single cohort, with 4,000.
Going from having too few students to having the largest bootcamp makes the early days look like a bad dream.
Day 500: Feeling and seeing the problem that needs solving
In the process of building for Africans, I learned a fundamental truth: if you’re building for Africa, you have to be passionate about Africans. You need to see and feel their problems, and one of the biggest is money. We have to consider the economy and make our services affordable for them. The whole point of building a solution for Africa is lost if Africans can’t afford it.
Another key lesson came from the market. We realised that just teaching skills wasn’t enough; people needed to be “job-ready”. To address this, we reformed our teaching approach to include a five-month internship program after the five-month learning period. This is where students learn the intricacies of working, how to communicate with a team, and meet deadlines. Our internship program is what makes our students fit for a role.
We also became a US-accredited institution, accredited by the American Council of Training and Development (ACTD). This means our certifications are vetted and valid in the US and other countries, which helps equip our students for the global market.
Day 1000: The future pipeline of African talent
We want to build the future of African talent, people who aren’t just looking for work but want to make a real difference in the world. When you see great startups, I want them to be owned by our students.
One thing I really look forward to doing is having local tutors in different parts of Africa. Having local tutors for us doesn’t just mean teaching in the local language; it means that we’re going to get people who understand the nuances of a place to connect with their students on a personal level, which I believe makes it much easier for students to understand.
This journey has cost me my stability, my sleep, and my personal savings more times than I can count. But the price is worth it every time I get an email that says, “I just got my first offer.” That’s the change we’re building. I hope that with this approach, we can fuel the next tech wave in Africa, built by Africans, for everyone.
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