Rise & Hustle African Airtime Rewards
Anthony Broadhurst and Josh Jones have joined forces to build Rise & Hustle - a platform that fuses mobile airtime, crypto, and grassroots marketing to empower users. Sitting down with G3, the co-founders explain how their model resonates with the entrepreneurial spirit of Nigerian streets and their plans to expand the ecosystem into real-money gambling.
What key lessons from your prior ventures have influenced the creation of Rise & Hustle?
Anthony Broadhurst: I've been in iGaming for the best part of 20 years. After a variety of different roles across the industry, I set up my own consultancy business and one of my biggest clients was based in Cape Town. Tis was when I began to ascertain an understanding of the African market's nuances and how it differs from what you're used to in Europe and elsewhere.
After a few marketing roles, I joined a company called OnePIN, a leader in digital experience for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and consumer brands, as Director of Advertising and Media. It was here that I launched Zillions, the first mobile airtime lottery in Africa, across South Africa, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria. Te launch was the first time I really understood the impact of taking a brand from conception through to weaving that brand into what the consumer wants in the iGaming sector.
If you want to launch a brand in the UK, you throw money at it. You throw millions and do as much advertising as you can to make it happen. In Africa, it's completely different. You must get into the grassroots and the nitty-gritty. Less reliance on billboards and TV and digital, much more on-the-ground activations - and I’m sure we’ll get into all that later in this interview.
Josh Jones: I'm not as old as Anthony! I joined the iGaming industry about a decade or so ago as a business analyst at Evoke Gaming. Since
90
my days at Evoke I've been at a few different iGaming companies including Catena Media, Symplify, Salsa Technology - always at the intersection of technology and business. I like to mix the two and never like to put just a purely business hat on or a purely technical hat on. I think it's important to understand both those worlds as much as possible to essentially join them together.
I've been involved in emerging markets throughout my career, and, after several roles, I wanted to do something a bit different after selling Jada Gaming, a company I co-founded, a couple of years ago. Anthony and I discussed various ideas, and we started off with the concept of a crash game. We went through ideation, different versions, it started expanding - all through the lens of: what does a consumer want? We decided that wasn’t a typical parasitic casino there to absorb all value and not give anything back.
From that process came Rise & Hustle, a free to play concept that enables players to improve their financial well-being. It’s a model that doesn't just take but gives back. It's been quite the journey over the last few months.
What inspired the concept of a tap to earn mobile street game?
Anthony: We wanted to develop a game which appeals to Africans and what they want predominantly is free airtime. Mobile airtime is the de facto currency for many African countries. Tey top up regularly and use their mobile airtime to buy groceries and pay for electricity. Everything goes through mobile airtime because the
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