Oladapo Adewunmi, the founder of Apollo Endeavor Limited, is a creative entrepreneur, YouTube and Facebook content optimization specialist, and one of the leading pioneers promoting Africa’s content industry opportunities. He speaks on his journey as an entrepreneur and how the content industry can create jobs for millions of young Nigerians.

1. What inspired you to venture into the entertainment content industry?
   My journey into the entertainment industry has been an interesting one. I started with zero naira and lots of passion and love for what I do. I used to be a music producer, creating music beats and selling them online to artists to make a living. In 2008, my team and I decided to start a company called plaerz entertainment. At the initial stage of the business, I was solely into music production, and then I evolved into handling the administration of the business and client relations. I became more like the business development executive of our business, and the lessons I learned during those early days have helped shape my business ethics and skills.

From an early age, I have always loved to be a part of anything entertainment. When I was much younger, I worked in the technical department of our church, managing the musical instrument and handling any technical responsibilities in the church. In addition to that, I was part of the team that organized drama, choreography while also setting up equipment before church service. When I got admission to study industrial relations and personnel management from Lagos State University, I followed through in my love for entertainment. I still produced beats for artists, organized shows, and managed any major entertainment event that came my way. I believe my early exposure to entertainment in the church inspired me to continue the entertainment path.
When I graduated from the university, I evolved and started organizing online competitions for rappers, TAME DA BEAT. This was in 2014. I had a flair for promoting artists and talents within the entertainment industry. Even though I didn’t have money, I reached out to some of the people in the entertainment industry, like one of the co-founders of 360nobs Oye Akideinde, and leveraged their platform to promote the competition. I also worked with radio personality late Tosyn Bucknor and Osagie Osarenkhoe, who supported the competition by giving the opportunity to organize the physical shows for these rappers in the then One Mic Naija show. With my relationships with OAP’s in City FM, I was able to get a segment on one of the existing rap shows ,so as to further promote the rap competitors and have their music on air.
Even though I didn’t make any money from the competition, I grew my name in the Nigerian entertainment industry. In 2015, an international company Menta Music from Israel, seeing my work, reached out to me on LinkedIn, stating they are a YouTube premium partner and wanted agents in Nigeria. That was how I started using YouTube to promote talents and help talents make money from their content
When I discovered the Mark Angel comedy channel, I reached out to them and began working with them. We worked together for years on optimizing and monetizing their YouTube channel and optimizing their Facebook content. We’ve also worked on other offline projects like the Mark Angel comedy campus tour and several other creator’s events.

2. How has the Nigerian content industry evolved since you ventured into it?
   When I ventured into the content industry, there were very few people creating content for online platforms. The main reason is that many didn’t know that they could make money from their content online. I was amongst the first in Nigeria to start working with content creators to monetize their YouTube channels, and that’s because of partnerships we had. In the beginning, we used to reach YouTube content creators to educate them on the potential to generate revenue from what they are posting online. Through our initial efforts and partnership with early content creators, more people realized that they could make money online by simply creating content. As a result of the growing opportunity in the online content industry, other people like the Nollywood producers now realize that instead of having their movies on CDs, they can cut the film into smaller sizes and upload them on YouTube and make money from it. That way, more people can watch it, including Nigerians in the diaspora. Today more people are now open to these opportunities. We now have more content creators producing content like short films, drama, inspirational and cooking videos and uploading their content on YouTube. The content industry has indeed evolved as more people are now more aware of the numerous opportunities within the industry. Also, the internet is now more accessible than it used to be, which means people can directly upload content of higher quality. Those watching it can now consume more content.
3. What is your prediction of the African content industry in the next five years, and what is your opinion needs to be done to make the industry more accessible to young Nigerians?
   The content industry is worth billions of dollars and can compete with the oil industry. With collaboration, and the necessary infrastructures being put in place, more Nigerians can benefit from this industry. Take the music industry, for example; there was a time when piracy was a significant issue and artist couldn’t benefit largely from their music. With collaborative efforts from music artists, music managements and music business entrepreneurs who introduced digital distribution, live performances and other opportunities, they could fight pirates by creating a system to reduce the impact on the industry. There are a lot of things that the content industry needs to do for the industry to grow. I believe that the content industry can overtake the oil industry, especially as it creates opportunities for more people to create wealth by creating content. As the industry grows, with more content producers collaborating, the sector will positively impact Nigeria’s and Africa’s economies. I believe education, collaboration, and access to the right tools and equipment will create more access for young Nigerians to benefit from the industry. This is what our company is all about.
4. As the CEO of Apollo Endeavor, how is your company contributing to Africa’s content sector?
   Apollo Endeavor is one of Facebook’s registered select group of third-party partners with Facebook globally, making them one of the limited partners in Africa. Facebook is working with a selected group of third parties to help creators and talent grow their presence on the Facebook platform. Partners provide support in content development, page optimization, audience development, and page monetization.
   As a result, being a Facebook partner, we have onboarded content creators to monetize their contents on the Facebook platform. This is in addition to our work with lots of content creators helping them optimize their contents. We are one of the pioneers in helping content creators monetize their art, and this is a passion for me, as I love to see young people making money from what they genuinely love.
5. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted a lot of sectors. What impact has it had on the entertainment content industry, and what do you recommend as the way forward?
   The pandemic helped the content sector because it affected physical events, shows, and stuff and increased the content created and consumed. We had almost everyone sitting at home either watching TV or scrolling through content online, and the watch time for online content increased, which positively impacted the content industry.
6. What advice do you have for anyone interested in investing in the Nigerian entertainment content industry?
   My advice is, they should get into it now; there’s no better time than now. The sector is highly profitable. I’ve seen people who take content creation as their profession just as bankers wake up in the morning, get dressed, and go to the bank. These people wake up, think about the script and go to the set to shoot videos for the day. There is room for everyone, from actors, comedians, producers, editors, musicians, dancers, etc. People make a lot of money from the sector as well. People who also want to invest in that industry wouldn’t be making a mistake because we haven’t tapped 1% of that industry. Like I mentioned earlier, the content industry is worth billions of dollars, so it would be outstanding for young Nigerians to tap into this opportunity to showcase their talents while also making a living.