Welcome to African Hustle! Your bi-weekly dose of inspiration and smart insights into African entrepreneurship — featuring real stories about tech, culture, startups, founders, and innovations shaping the future of the continent.

Over 70% of Africa’s medicines are imported. Half of the African countries have no pharmaceutical production.

And just eight countries account for 85% of the continent’s 690 pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities.

Most of the African pharma facilities operate at just 30% to 60% capacity, compared to over 70% in more advanced economies.

Yet a study found that tablets, capsules and creams produced in Africa (Ethiopia and Nigeria) could be 15% cheaper than the same products imported from India.

Last week, I argued that founders should learn to become great storytellers.

This week, I want to talk about a strange problem that has quietly crept into that advice.

Good writing is starting to look suspicious.

The English language has not suddenly changed; it is still here, mostly intact, carrying the same force it always did. But something is happening to punctuation, clarity, rhythm, structure, and style.

A few modern additions have entered the lexicon. We now casually live among words and expressions like “LOL,” “baddie,” and “bootilicious.”

What is under threat is not English itself. It is the confidence in using freely.

A growing number of social media influencers and online commentators, people with just enough authority to sound convincing, but not enough linguistic depth, have started defining for the rest of us what AI writing looks like.

Their verdict is delivered with confidence. And it is wrong.

The list of forbidden moves now includes:

Many of the features people now treat as evidence of AI slop were once signs of writers who read, practised, revised, and cared. They were signs of craft, not artificiality.

English is not my first language. But like many Africans educated under colonial academic traditions, I was raised to revere it. I was taught that it was a beautiful language — a serious language, capable of carrying philosophy, politics, grief, commerce, wit, and complexity.

I read Shelley, Byron, Milton, and Wordsworth, and learnt that a sentence could stretch and breathe. And also that punctuation was architecture, which allowed complexity without chaos.

An em dash could let you pause, interrupt, or land a point with force.
A semicolon could bind related thoughts without breaking rhythm.

Now imagine the confusion of founders and aspiring writers trying to build a voice online.
For years, they were told to improve their writing. Now they are being told to make it messier to prove that no machine has touched it.

Leave it rough. Make it look less polished. Remove the rhythm. Break the structure.

This is a genuinely dangerous moment, especially for founders.

The point of founder storytelling is to connect. Founders do more than just sell products; they instil belief. They sell a vision of the future. And none of that works without language.

In many of our markets, trust is still built person to person. Your audience wants to know who you are, why you started, what problem you are solving, why your work matters, and whether you understand the people you claim to serve. They want that information communicated with conviction, clarity and humanity.

So if founders become afraid of sounding too polished, we are in trouble.

We will create a generation of entrepreneurs who are too careful in public. People with real ideas, stories, and conviction, but who deliberately flatten their language because they fear being accused of sounding artificial.

Connection comes from writing with soul. It does not come from following a viral checklist of forbidden phrases.

Human writing is defined by whether there is a living mind behind it, not by whether it uses an em dash.

As you craft your content, you should consider the following:

These are some of the things that make writing feel human.

A machine can imitate patterns, reproduce structure and even mimic fluency. But the soul still comes from the writer’s lived experience.

The greatest danger of AI-assisted writing is that anyone can now generate confident opinions about topics they don't know, places they've never been, and problems they've never felt. Don't do that. Instead, tell us what annoyed you enough to start your business. What your customer's pain point actually was. What you saw that others missed. What nearly made you quit? Specificity is one of the strongest proofs of humanity.

Too much founder content sounds like a pitch deck. It is all buzzwords, polish, and no pulse. Strip all that out while keeping the intelligence.

AI can help with ideation, structure, summarising, editing, and speed. It is a useful tool, but do not outsource your thinking to it. Use AI to support your writing, without replacing your judgment, taste, or story.

This remains one of the fastest ways to catch dead phrasing. If it sounds like everyone else, rewrite it. If it sounds like a corporate ghost wrote it, rewrite it. If it sounds clean but says nothing, rewrite it.

Why does this matter to the person reading it right now? What should they feel, think, or do when they finish? That question rescues writing from performance and returns it to purpose.

Too many of us are already fighting to be heard in noisy markets, underfunded ecosystems, and global conversations that often underrate our insight. The last thing we need is to become timid about language, too.

Use the em dash if it helps.
Use the semicolon if it earns its place.
Use a transition if it improves flow.
Use a powerful word if it is the right word.
Just don't hide behind language.

And don't let internet myths bully you out of good writing.

AU-YVC is a continental development program that recruits and works with youth volunteers to work in all 55 countries across the African Union.

This fully funded 12-month programme places young African professionals across AU Member States — offering real experience, real responsibility, and real impact in advancing #Agenda2063 (#TheAfricaWeWant).

Apply here!

Naspers started in 1915 as a small publisher of Afrikaans newspapers. It would go on to become one of Africa’s biggest corporate success stories. In 2001, the company placed a $32 million bet on a relatively unknown Chinese tech firm called Tencent. That move became one of the greatest investment wins in corporate history. In March 2018, Naspers sold part of its Tencent stake, raising roughly $10 billion to back new ventures. At that point, its initial $32 million investment was worth more than $175 billion.

Approximately 97% of consumers search for local services online before buying. Invest in a strong, visible online presence.

Masai Ujiri is one of Africa’s most influential figures in global sport. Raised in Nigeria, he rose from scout to championship-winning executive, becoming the architect of the Toronto Raptors’ 2019 NBA title and one of the most respected builders in basketball.

Beyond the boardroom, his deeper legacy is Giants of Africa, the foundation he launched in 2003 to use basketball to empower young people across the continent.

In 2026, he added another chapter by joining the ownership group of Toronto Tempo, extending his impact into women’s basketball, too.

Chara chimwe hachitswanyi inda (Shona: Zimbabwe)

Literal Translation: One finger cannot crush a louse.

Meaning: Unity is strength; work is better done collectively.

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