As Africa’s creator economy edges toward a projected $5.1 billion by 2030, many creators still struggle to monetise their work efficiently due to fragmented tools and infrastructure. Conectr, a new social commerce platform, aims to close this gap by providing a unified solution that reflects how African creators actually operate, combining mentorship, content sharing, and community management in a single space.
Founder Samuel Lasisi, formerly Product Design Lead for Student Recruitment at the University of Nottingham, identified the structural inefficiencies while building edtech initiatives that helped hundreds of Africans acquire tech skills. He observed that audiences increasingly value trust, mentorship, and lived experience over generic courses. “People are drawn to creators they trust, respect, and see as living examples of what they want to achieve,” Lasisi said, noting that many creators lacked the tools to sustain meaningful engagement with growing audiences.
Conectr is designed to bridge this gap by consolidating multiple functions—digital product sales, course delivery, bookings, and group events—into a single mobile-optimised platform. It supports one-on-one mentorship, small group learning, and ongoing community engagement, reducing friction for both creators and learners. The platform’s intuitive design ensures creators can manage their operations seamlessly, while a free-to-use model charges transaction fees only on completed sales.
By centralising audience interactions and resources, Conectr allows creators to retain control over their work while improving continuity and accessibility. The platform also addresses a critical bottleneck in Africa’s digital economy: creators spend up to 15 hours a week on manual administrative tasks and often lose up to 40 percent of potential revenue due to fragmented tools. Conectr’s all-in-one approach seeks to eliminate these inefficiencies, empowering creators to focus on content, mentorship, and skill-building.
For Lasisi, success is not measured solely by sign-ups or revenue. “We want creators to feel less scattered, less dependent on algorithms, and more in control of how they share knowledge and build relationships,” he said. As Africa’s creative and edtech sectors continue to grow, Conectr positions itself as a vital platform for sustainable digital work, offering creators the systems and support needed to thrive beyond hype-driven models.