An innovation studio dedicated to supporting micro-entrepreneurs and the ecosystems around them.https://theosf.net/https://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/https://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/People who are documenting indigenous methods and crafts across the continent (researchers, makers, brands, NGOs etc)Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://theosf.net/feed/https://theosf.net/feed/Every fintech, logistics, and identity layer is now exposing an API. Two years ago you had to build the rails yourself; today you can compose them. That changes who the middleware is for — it's no longer about plumbing, it's about orchestration and trust between parties who alre…Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://theosf.net/posts/brooklyn-museum-retrospective/https://theosf.net/posts/brooklyn-museum-retrospective/Revisiting the ALÁRA collab two years on. What worked, what didn't, and what it revealed about the real barriers to export markets for African craft producers.Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTcreator economyCraft and Indigenous methods is the cheapest place to show African ingenuity to the world. That proof - more than the income associated is the real prize.https://theosf.net/feed/https://theosf.net/feed/Conversation at Norrsken / Africa Week on agent-network scaling. The recurring theme: everyone underestimates how much of an agent's value is social, not transactional. The networks that scale keep the human relationship and digitise everything around it.Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/https://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/Where are products going? I want to make a cool graphicWed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/https://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/A global series on Geographical Indicators doubling up as a research piece for IP protection and marketsWed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/https://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/~~Testing contemporary product from traditional methods~~ *in progress*Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/https://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/How to constrain this thread of inquiry? It’s just meWed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://theosf.net/feed/https://theosf.net/feed/Why open-sourcing research might be the best business-development tool we have. Counterintuitive, but the more we publish what we're learning, the more the right people self-select into the conversation. The RFI sections do more inbound than any deck. Generosity with intel is, i…Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://theosf.net/posts/mapping-wholesale-buyers/https://theosf.net/posts/mapping-wholesale-buyers/Early findings. The buyer landscape is thinner than I expected. A breakdown of the actual active buyers, what they stock, and what their volume looks like.Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTcreator economyCraft and Indigenous methods is the cheapest place to show African ingenuity to the world. That proof - more than the income associated is the real prize.https://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/https://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://theosf.net/posts/why-trade-fairs-mislead/https://theosf.net/posts/why-trade-fairs-mislead/A loose note that doesn't belong to a subthread yet. The trade-fair funnel measures the wrong thing and rewards the wrong work.Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTcreator economyCraft and Indigenous methods is the cheapest place to show African ingenuity to the world. That proof - more than the income associated is the real prize.https://theosf.net/posts/chicken-egg-midwife/https://theosf.net/posts/chicken-egg-midwife/Folklore was the best-funded attempt at a pan-African creative marketplace. Its pivot is instructive. Not a failure — a recalibration that reveals the structural problem.Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTcreator economyCraft and Indigenous methods is the cheapest place to show African ingenuity to the world. That proof - more than the income associated is the real prize.https://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/https://theosf.net/threads/export-markets/- Indigenous methods are well targeted at the most vulnerable. Women, rural, poor. - There is not much scope for growth because local consumption is pretty stable and exports are controlled by a small but mighty group of intermediaries - That said, Intra African seems like an op…Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://theosf.net/posts/kandua-retrospective/https://theosf.net/posts/kandua-retrospective/The conclusions I'm carrying forward from years of building infrastructure for informal workers — the super agent hypothesis, narrow technology adoption, and credit as the biggest unmet need.Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTagent networksemploymentWhat I learned building Africa's largest home services marketplacehttps://theosf.net/threads/kandua/https://theosf.net/threads/kandua/- 5-10% of people doing “entreprenuership” want to do it. The rest would prefer a job but can’t or don’t know how to find it. A more centralised approach could cater for this dynamic. - Small business SaaS is hard. But really cool - “Design” can make itself small for no reason. …Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://theosf.net/posts/Japan/https://theosf.net/posts/Japan/A fairly indulgent look at design histories of Japan and what we, as Africans, can learn from itWed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTcreator economyCraft and Indigenous methods is the cheapest place to show African ingenuity to the world. That proof - more than the income associated is the real prize.