Why we built Fortify Cast in Accra, and who it is for

By The Fortify Cast Team · 2026-01-14 · 6 min read

Fortify Cast started with a frustration that a lot of African podcasters know well. Every hosting platform assumed we had a US bank account, an iPhone, and a listener base that paid in dollars. Every "creator monetization" article assumed a Patreon URL our audience couldn't check out on. Every live-audio app either shut down, pivoted, or quietly stopped taking new creators from our region.

So in early 2025 a small group of us — engineers, a pastor, a comedian, and two long-time podcast listeners — sat down in Accra and mapped out what an honest, useful audio platform for creators like us would look like. This post is the answer we landed on, and why the app looks the way it does today.

The three problems we set out to solve

1. Hosting that does not assume you already have an audience

Most podcast hosts are pure plumbing. They give you an RSS feed and wish you good luck. That is fine if you already have a following on Spotify or Apple, but it is brutal for new creators. On Fortify Cast, every published show automatically appears in an in-app discovery surface — categories, "For You", live now, top charts — where real listeners are already browsing. You are not shouting into an empty room.

2. Live audio that does not disappear when you close the tab

Twitter Spaces killed a lot of momentum in African live audio. Clubhouse pulled back. What was left was patched together with Zoom links and WhatsApp voice notes. We built Fortify Cast's live rooms on WebRTC (via LiveKit) with a native Android background service so audio keeps playing when the screen locks — the way listeners actually use their phones on trotro rides and in the market. Rooms record automatically and you can turn any live session into a permanent episode with one tap.

3. Money that reaches the creator

Coins on Fortify Cast are denominated in Ghana cedis. One coin equals one pesewa. Listeners top up with mobile money or card and send gifts to hosts during live sessions or on episodes. Creators withdraw straight to MoMo or a Ghanaian bank account. There is no PayPal middle-man, no currency conversion surprise, no waiting for a foreign wire that never clears.

Who Fortify Cast is for

We built this for four kinds of creators, and the app's shape reflects that:

• Independent podcasters who want hosting, an audience, and monetization in one place instead of five.
• Pastors and church teams who want to broadcast Sunday service or a midweek prayer as a live audio room, then keep the recording as an episode for people who missed it.
• Teachers and coaches running live Q&A sessions with students who cannot afford a Zoom Pro seat.
• Comedians, commentators and community voices who want a low-friction way to go live, take call-ins, and get tipped for it.

If none of those descriptions fit you but you have something to say, that is fine too. The tools are the same for everyone.

What we chose not to build

Fortify Cast is not a general RSS aggregator. We do not import external RSS feeds and republish them as if they were ours. Every show on the platform is published by a real person who logged in and posted it. This makes the catalog smaller than a Spotify-scale directory, but it means every show has an owner, a face, and a way to reply to listeners.

We also chose not to do "content coins" or NFT-flavored monetization. The economy is boring on purpose — cedis in, cedis out, one currency, one wallet.

Where we are going

The near-term roadmap is unglamorous and honest: better search, more languages in the UI (Twi and Ga are next), improved audio quality on low-bandwidth connections, and richer analytics for creators who want to understand who is actually listening. Longer term, we want Fortify Cast to be the default place a new African podcaster starts, the way YouTube is the default for a new video creator.

Thank you for reading. If you are a creator and this resonates, start a show. If you are a listener, browse what's live right now. Either way, we're glad you're here.