Dan Aceda, the founder and chief executive of SemaBox Africa, at Baraza Media Lab in Riverside, Nairobi on November 16, 2023. He is a top producer of podcasts in Kenya.
| Billy Ogada | Nation Media GroupNews
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Meet Dan Aceda, the SemaBox podcast guru raking in millions
What you need to know:
- Aceda confesses that when an acquaintance in 2016 asked to use his music studio to record a podcast, the thought of clinging to that very idea was a gamble without clarity.
- A scan right now around SemaBox studio walls reveals high-tech equipment that would set you back over Sh2 million.
In 1994 when the world was still not quite exactly sure what to do with the internet invention or its purpose, 29-year-old American Chris Clark registered the domain name Pizza.com for US$20 (Sh3,000).
Considering the times, the move was a gamble to otherwise what would have been perceived as an incredibly neat investment.
Yes a wager it was as Clark, who ran a consultancy firm, had hoped the Pizza.com domain would attract a pizza company to his consultancy business.
That never happened.
Clark would end up selling his business in 2000 but kept paying the $20 annual fees to maintain and keep the domain alive.
In April 2008, 14 years since the registration, Clark accepted a bid of $2.6 million (Sh399 million) for the domain at an auction. His regrets, not having bought more domains in the 90s.
Perhaps, this might not make sense to you, but it does to architecture and musician-turned podcast producer, Dan Aceda, a finalist of the Business Daily Top 40 Under 40 Men 2023.
For a man whose understanding of a podcast was blurry in 2016, to announce a gross revenue of US$48,000 (Sh5.5 million) as of last year, just two years into his SemaBox podcasting start-up business, hope and belief had to prevail.
“I like living on the edge, most of the things I know, I have learnt them on the go. Comfort zone is very expensive for me, I’m always striving to look out for the next big thing,” the 39-year-old vaunts at his SemaBox studio, situated at Baraza Media Lab.
Aceda confesses that when an acquaintance in 2016 asked to use his music studio to record a podcast, he was left muddled and that the thought of clinging to that very idea was a gamble without clarity.
The fog only started to clear later on when former Kiss 100 radio presenter Adelle Onyango had him as a guest on an episode of her Legally Clueless podcast.
But even with the clue of what a podcast production was all about, Aceda didn’t hurt his brains much about it, up until 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
By the time the epidemic struck, Aceda had been running a small studio where he produced commercial jingles for advertisers and soundtracks for films. With the measures taken by the government to curb the menace, his works, like most others, were affected.
“Besides the jingles and soundtracks, I had recorded a number of podcasts for my friends who regularly used my studio even though I never really understood what they were doing. When Covid-19 hit and we were no longer doing any music, my friends kept recording the podcasts. That made me curious. So I thought to myself if my friends are still working are there more people doing the same?”
To fully piece the puzzle, one day Aceda paid a visit to Baraza Media Lab, a networking and collaborating working space.
“At Baraza I found out they were facing the same challenge. There was a lot of podcasters who wanted to record but there wasn’t capacity to do that.”
Together with Christine Mungai, Baraza Media Lab curator and executive director Maurice Otieno, the three held a brainstorming conclave.
“We realized that we needed to have a solution for these podcasters because they were the only creators who seemed not to have stalled like the rest of us. For me it was a gamble, so with some little capital we put up a setup and began working. Initially it was free but then again there were too many people here because with Covid-19 people didn’t have so many places to go.”
To curb down the swelling numbers, a fee was introduced.
“We charged a thousand shillings and I must say throughout the journey we have learnt to help people create podcasts, working with over 200 creators, we have learnt how to distribute podcasts. So far we have released over 1,500 episodes, worked on over 400 different shows. I want to believe we are probably the biggest podcast producers on the continent by volume as at now.”
A scan right now around SemaBox studio walls reveals high tech equipment that would set you back over Sh2 million ranging from audio mixers, different sets of microphones, high-res cameras, among other props of such nature.
“In the beginning we had a very lean setup, we spent about Sh150,000 on two simple mics and an audio recording platform. Over time, we have invested quite a lot running into millions. As the pioneers of podcast productions in the country we are the ones who are always trying to figure out which way to go. Shows are many and not quite similar, as such they may require different sets of equipment. For example, there are shows that will just require a desk, there are some that will require a living room set up with different mics and so on and so forth. So we had to develop all these different production sets in order to serve all these clients.”
With the business entering its third year, Aceda averages the investment pumped into SemaBox to be in excess of Sh5 million.
“Right now the investment we have injected is much heavier, but in the beginning by the close of the first year we had invested something to the tune of Sh2.5 million, which was painful because we were doing it from our savings and banks don’t finance artistes. Like I said, it was a gamble,” Dan repeats.
As to whether Semabox has made the margins? “In terms of ROI (return on investment), have we made the money back? Not yet because as the company and work grow, we have had to invest some more. We are yet to make the margins but we are making a lot more revenue and I’m thinking we are right on schedule that in the next two years we will be at a very good place. However for now, I’m yet to recover the money pumped into the project,” the benga singer says.
Having only started with one, currently SemaBox has a workforce of seven permanent staff and sometimes the manpower expands to 16.
“The team that is internal is seven but on days we have different productions offsite, I will have another crew there depending on the workload,” Aceda explains.
Despite the heavy investment, Aceda says he has worked on enticing rates that make the production of the podcasts an attractive affair.
“At SemaBox we are pretty affordable. If you are doing an audio production, our packages start at Sh4,600 and we charge per episode and not for the length time. In that we also edit the production for you. For those doing video productions, our packages start at Sh8,100 per episode and again we will edit it for you and deliver the final clean product,” Aceda offers.
The dreadlocked singer says that were he to charge according to the standardised global rates, he might have already recouped back his investment.
“Initially, our price strategy motivation was just to control numbers because we had so many people here as the service was free in the beginning. Later on we set the current price based on the argument that it should enable the creator to be consistent and ensure we also get something to keep the lights on and maintain the equipment. We are actually subsidizing a lot of the costs by having collaborative deals with the creators.”
In July this year, SemaBox, launched Wazo, a new podcast distribution platform. Aceda says with Wazo, podcasters will be able to monetize their content directly without having to involve third parties, while also granting advertisers access to an audience of over 39 million listeners across the SemaBox creator network.
With the podcasts bug now seemingly spreading widely among a good chunk of the Kenyan masses, Aceda can only smile on what’s is to come.
Last year, Spotify indicated that Kenya is among countries leading with the biggest podcast listenership in Africa alongside Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana.
In its latest annual report, Wrapped 2023, of how Kenyans consumed music and podcasts, the top streamed podcasts in Kenya were all by women with So This is Love by Julia Gaitho taking pole position. The Messy In Between (TMI) by Murugi Munyi Lydia K second with It’s Related, I Promise by Sheila Kwamboka, Julia Gaitho and Sharon Machira third.
