What Spotlight is

A publication for African indie founders, small businesses, creators, and NGOs running campaigns worth paying attention to.

Building products has gotten radically easier. Distribution has not. Spotlight covers what African builders are doing in the moment they're doing it — launches, fundraisers, drops, sales — making their work discoverable to readers and to AI agents.

What we cover

Time-bounded promotional efforts by individuals and small organizations: product launches, discount pushes, fundraisers, creator collaborations, seasonal campaigns, signup drives. Pre-Series A. African builders including diaspora founders building for African markets.

We do not cover well-funded startups, enterprise software, or generic industry news.

How we work

Curated, not submitted. We feature builders we'd recommend to our friends. Pieces are short — eight hundred to fifteen hundred words — and written in a personal voice with an outsider's eye. Each piece is reviewed by a co-editor, and the founder being featured reads the finished draft for factual accuracy before publication.

Who publishes Spotlight

Spotlight is editorially independent and published by fref, a referral-tracking tool for small businesses. The two operate as separate concerns: Spotlight has full editorial control over what gets covered and how.

Suggesting a campaign

We're always interested in hearing about campaigns we should know about. Coverage is at the editor's discretion and we cover a small fraction of what's pitched.

Pitch by email — address to come.