How MissTechy became the queen of short but informative tech content

Tobi Ayeni started, MissTechy, a tech blog where she helped readers deconstruct tech jargon in 2015.

She had just landed the Tecno Mobile account at the digital marketing agency she worked at. Her job was to pay influencers and media to promote the newly released Tecno phones as the brand pivoted from making cheap, loud, and fragile phones to affordable devices that could compete with Apple and Samsung products.

As an undergraduate studying Banking and Finance, Tobi loved tech. She was the one that her friends contacted when they had problems with their computers or their cameras were not working. So handling the Tecno account was right up her alley and it was an exciting job.

The job and working on the MissTechy blog exposed Tobi Ayeni to the world of content creation. She realised that there was a world out there, a kind of island people in the middle of nowhere, cashing out from making content.

She had also been doing her job, looking for tech bloggers for a campaign and couldn’t find any women, so she became one.

MissTechy’s shift from blogging to creating video content

Now, with over 143K followers on Instagram, MissTechy has since sold the blog for an undisclosed amount, grown a following on YouTube and landed a feature on CNN’s African Voices, the show that is supposed to celebrate Africans doing great things.

When she started with the MissTechy blog, she was scrapping about 50,000 Naira monthly, which was a fortune for a new blog.

Her content was more straightforward and chatty, different from what was available in the Nigerian tech blogosphere. Her first pay as MissTechy came three months into starting the blog when a phone brand paid her 15,000 Naira for a sponsored post and sent her their product to review.

Read also: How the ‘ugly’ KaganTech became Nigeria’s ‘Biggest’ tech content creator

“If you read a tech blog you’re just going to maybe close the browser because you’re not interested,” she told Technext. By breaking down and snubbing the jargon of the ecosystem, she was raking in over 200 comments per post. She had memes and GIFs. It felt like a gossip blog.

The industry didn’t receive it well.

“Some people thought I was not serious because of the style of content, but it made sense because, at that time, my blog had the most engagement amongst all the tech blogs.”

MissTechy

There was a barrage of unfavourable threads about her, a woman who had come to educate the world about tech on Nairaland. “One of the reasons MissTechy has been so successful is because she has been able to, in her mind, bypass the male technology agenda,” Nigerian Bulletin said of her in 2015.

When someone who worked at TechCabal posted their barb about her on Twitter, she wore the rejection as a badge of honour.

“It affected me negatively, I’m not going to lie. Because for these guys to say these things? You know. They also knew their onions about tech,” she said. “In my head, I start questioning what I know. Like, OK, maybe I don’t really know this stuff. But if these people are talking about a trend you created, that means you’re doing something right.”

These days she doesn’t spend time thinking about what the industry thinks of how smart she is.

“If anyone comes to meet me now to tell me to be this and the person is an authority in whatever place, I don’t care,” she said.

When she realised she could make more money doing video content she transitioned to YouTube. From 50,000 Naira per month, she upgraded to 150,000 Naira per month, making content.

She has become a kind of how-tos queen of tech content. She has also moved away from the long-form videos of the YouTube era, favouring the short-form content of TikTok and Instagram reels.

“I feel that content has evolved because of how social media has also evolved”

MissTechy

Her videos, heavy on visual effects, have found favour among a huge swathe of Nigerians looking for quick skills and tips on tech.

“Not to sound cocky, but, with the type of videos I make, nobody can just wake up one day and say, ‘Oh I want to make them.’ It takes a lot of technical experience to be able to make my type of video,” she said.

MissTechy’s next act

She knows well how women are treated in the tech industry. So she knows better than most why having a mentor and a person to impact the skills is important. That’s why her next act will be sharing these skills with other women looking to start making videos.

“This is the first time I’m saying it like publicly, but I want to do classes on editing. I’ve come to realize when it comes to VFS editors there are so many men in the space. Like, I can count the number of women in the space and this is even globally. It’s not a Nigerian thing,” she said.