About

There are many sites covering the day-to-day of Africa's technology revolution, but these times need commentary that focuses on the forest, not the trees: asking what underlies each piece, how it affects the next, and how [if!] they fit in with the rest of the puzzle.

The Subtext is my attempt to provide this perspective. Expect essays examining the mobile internet's impact, the causes of adoption, and mental models showing how [not what] to think about markets across the continent. Join the conversation about history, competitive strategy, and the causality of success and failure in African technology.

The Subtext is written and published by me, Osarumen Osamuyi. I am currently an independent consultant on the above, in addition to my work as Head of Venture Growth at DFS Lab.

The Subtext is designed in Figma, built with HTML, CSS, & Twig for Craft 3, and hosted on Fortrabbit. Image compression is done using Imager. Stats are tracked using Google Analytics. Infrastructure is provided by GCP/Google Cloud. Email & contact management are done using Sendgrid. Posts are written in Notion, on a MacBook Pro with a keyboard that only works when it's in the mood to (but thanks for the TouchBar, Apple!).