When I started Oriire in 2020, I did not begin with a business plan, just concern. Stories I had grown up with were becoming harder to find, trace and verify. And the few platforms that documented them often did so carelessly, without rigour or respect for context and nuance.
I felt very strongly that I had to start somewhere. So I did. First, I bought the domain, built the website on my own, and reached out to friends and family to ask for their recollections for the archive. Then I researched online to find relevant content and reached out to creators to ask for permission to reuse and repurpose their content on Oriire.
It became clear after only a few months that this model wouldn’t work. Next, I tried putting out calls for submissions on social media and even paid for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter ads at the time. At first, I asked for free submissions. I assumed that if people cared enough, the work would come. It didn’t. Not in the way I had hoped. The few pieces we received were inconsistent in quality and difficult to shape into something meaningful. That was a quiet but important realisation for me. If Oriire was going to be taken seriously, then I had to take it seriously first. I had to be willing to pay for it and value the work before expecting anyone else to.
So I started commissioning writers. I paid editors. I paid a full social media team at one point. I paid an assistant. I paid contributors, competition winners, designers, and researchers. Every hosting fee, every domain renewal, every prize, every email service, every task came directly from my pocket.
In the process, I also taught myself how to build what Oriire needed. The branding, the website, and the structure of the archive, all of it was designed and developed by me. That work eventually shaped my path into product management and the creation of Mowa, but it began here as a necessity, in service of preserving these stories.
Along the way, I also reached out to a wider creative community, joining groups specifically to connect with people, garner interest and promote Oriire. It was through one of these spaces that I met Haleemah, who generously offered her time and voice as a co-host on the Oriire podcast. Her support, like that of many others who believed in Oriire, remains something I am deeply grateful for.
Most people never saw this part of Oriire. They saw the finished website, the articles, the visuals, the competitions, the podcast. What they did not see were the invoices paid and the decisions that made little financial sense but felt necessary.
As the years passed, I was forced to consider other ways to keep Oriire afloat. Brand deals were offered. Programmatic ads were explored. Sponsored posts and paid placements were suggested. But each of these options came with a cost that felt misaligned with Oriire’s purpose. They would interrupt the reading experience, distract from the stories and shift the focus away from the archive and towards commerce. I couldn’t justify that to myself.
I wanted Oriire to remain open, accessible, and focused. I did not want someone to click on a story about Anansi and be met with a banner for a product or a brand that had nothing to do with it. So I chose clarity over convenience, even when it meant shouldering the cost alone.
But passion does not remove reality. If Oriire is to continue (and to continue properly), it cannot rely on one person absorbing the weight of both the labour and the expense. Our writers deserve consistent and fair pay. Our researchers deserve time and support. Our editors deserve stability. And our work deserves accuracy, continuity, and academic rigour. This is why we are introducing optional memberships.
Not as a barrier or requirement. Our core content will remain accessible. But for those who believe in this work and want to sustain it, membership is a way to take part in something deeper as shared custodians of memory.
The vision extends beyond articles alone. We hope to take on larger projects in the future. Including documentary storytelling, research initiatives, community programmes, and new forms of audio-visual preservation. While works like Tales by Moonlight and Nkan nbe were not ours to revive, they remain a powerful reminder of the kind of cultural grounding that once existed in mainstream spaces.
Alongside this, we are seeking other sustainable paths for our contributors such as fellowships, sponsorships for writers, academic partnerships, grants, and collaborations with cultural and educational institutions. My hope is that as more African stories are adapted for film, television, and global platforms, they will be handled with accuracy. The names will be spoken correctly, the accents will be honoured and our histories will no longer be flattened for convenience.
Oriire exists to preserve, document, and protect. But it also exists to connect writers, researchers, enthusiasts, children of the diaspora, elders, scholars, and creators who know that mythology is the culmination of memory, philosophy, history, and identity carried through time.
Sustainability is not just about survival, it is about building a model that can outlive any one person. For a long time, I carried this alone. Now, I am opening the door for those who are willing to carry it with me.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Sesi.
