Nicisms

Marco Gallotta, an extremely gifted technologist and developer posted the following statement on his Facebook page:

Marco Gallotta
One major difference I’ve noticed between the Silicon Valley and Cape Town startup mentality is that here the techies are learning how to do business, whereas in Cape Town the business folk think they know about tech. In some cases they do, but it’s rare. The result is startups here often have two technical co-founders, whereas in Cape Town there’s almost always a business co-founder (sometimes both are!). People I speak to here often ask what these business co-founders do. I’m hard-pressed to come up with a good answer.

I felt that he had an interesting perspective and one that warranted a discussion from the perspective a business co-founder, me.

Here’s my response

I am one of these “business folk” who “think they know about tech” and that actually is a great summary. Although I am fairly technical in my knowledge (I built my first website when I was 12). But your observation of business people is not entirely complete.

I do agree that in Cape Town (SA as a whole) there is a lack of drive from techies to become more business orientated and push their products from merely a cool side thing in to a fully fledged business. In some cases, even in the valley, technically gifted individuals lack the business acumen to make their product, app, idea, technology or innovation a profitable success.

Bare in mind that a technology business isn’t just about the technology. Even tech businesses involve generating revenue, managing staff, managing sales people, managing call-center people, support staff, brokering deals, negotiating contracts and much more stuff that isn’t technology orientated.

Often once the technology is built in its first iteration the next step is business, sales and marketing. Techies know they’re good at tech but also need to recognise what they are not good at and find a partner to balance out their shortcomings.

If the technology evangelist in the business is stuck doing the “business” stuff then the product can suffer. This is where a business co-founder comes in to play and is extremely valuable. Often my job entails making sure that the technical team is happy and comfortable enough and have what they need in order to build the absolute best product they can.

In the end though I think that co-founder relationships need to be analysed on their merits and in context. There is no sweeping rule to abide by, there is no one shoe fits all solution.

Cape Town needs to find its groove, we need to emerge out of a lot of teething pains and get a sense of what works for us in our context.

When you talk about an operating system, talk about the operating system.

An interesting trend is rising and it’s one that confuses me as much in my involvement as that of others.

iPhone vs Android debates are fucking massive. Forget hunger, religion, politics, economics or anything else that might matter to most. iPhone or Android, where do you stand and how far will you go to defend your fanboy-ism?

Let me state outright that I have never used an iPhone for an extended period of time but I do own an iPod touch (my second one) and have for years.

I am not an iPhone hater. I think I am a fanboy hater. I am a hater of blind and ignorant obsession displayed by iPhone users. Kind of like Manchester United supporters actually.

Anyways, I digress.

Increasingly I am hearing the debate around how pretty the iPhone and how shitty Android is. That’s a bit of a misnomer. If you are going to tell me that the iPhone itself, the hardware, the actual phone is pretty then you have to further state what phone, precisely, you are comparing it to. Chances are you don’t know what Android device you are looking at. You aren’t educated in all things Android (nor am I).

The point I’m making is this: I use a Samsung Nexus S running Android. If iPhone users are going to compare my phone to theirs in an aesthetic sense then they should be comparing their iPhone to my Samsung Nexus S. Not to “Android”.

Comparing your phone to my operating system is like comparing iOS (the iPhone’s operating system) to Samsung, Motorola or SonyEricsson. Wrong. Yes there are versions of Android running on each and each can be customised but let’s just be clear about what we’re talking about.

Furthermore, I think that I need to get off this fucken high-horse. I baited this morning with a tweet about some new iPhone features but the truth is I like the iPhone 4S. I think the updates are great and I think that the game is on.

I don’t think there are clear battle lines drawn from the consumer perspective. If you want an iPhone, get one. If you like Android get that too. If you hate what you’ve got then you should switch. There are no allegiances here, it’s technology and it should enhance and simplify your experience of certain things. If the device isn’t up to your standard then toss it.

Last note. How hot is the new Motorola RAZR?

*This post was originally posted on the Motribe Blog.

TWiST (This Week in Startups) is a live internet show that allows startups from around the world to pitch to Jason Calacanis. If you don’t know who Jason is (@jason) then you can check out his wikipedia page. In short, he’s an investor, blogger and entrepreneur in the US.

Straight from the This Week In website:

ThisWeekIn, Inc. is a web television network covering a wide variety of topics from tech to entertainment. Produced out of our Santa Monica studio, our web shows feature guest experts, founders, movie stars, comedians, technologists and CEO’s — all keeping you up to speed on what’s happening this week with a fast and funny style. Informative and entertaining, ThisWeekIn is the place for whatever your interests may be.

So basically the evening started with 10 startups who pitched to a crowd in attendance at the Bandwidth Barn. Each startup spoke for 3 minutes. This was my first point of pain. I spoke for three minutes, exactly, to the second yet some of the others were allowed to speak for way more. The environment of the event is a competition and in competitive arenas the rules need to be adhered to.

(Side note: I think this is some what of a larger issue in the local tech industry right now, things are all jovial, fun and not all that serious. People expect not to be taken to task for fucking up, startups expect to succeed ’cause they are branding themselves as startups. That’s not the way it works. This is a fundamental problem in my eyes. Startups are serious business for those involved, it’s my livelyhood and you’re messing with if you mess around. The TWiST event is a competition with a declared winner, stick to the rules.)

The selected startups, in order, were:
Mobiflock
Motribe
Waytag
Snapbill
lessfuss
Cognician

To Jason’s credit he pushed to get through all 6 of us and normally the show only has 3 startups.

At this point I should also commend Tyrone who organised the event. However, he mentions in his introduction with Jason that South Africa is “behind” and we’re trying hard to make it work. I was a bit offended by that statement and think that there are a million ways to represent us as a country, that wasn’t one of them.

To cut a long story short: each startup pitches to Jason and Tyler for 60 seconds (Again not very hard and fast) and then Jason and Tyler give each startup a score out of ten for Business and Presentation. I was given a relatively hard time about my presentation and Jason had some good comments. I was told to be more personal, include a personal anecdote or story of some kind to engage with the audience. That’s a really good point and one I will be including in my future presentations. A piece of personal advice to startup founders – if you are pitching your company over and over again, try to mix it up, keep it fresh and have 3 or 4 different presentations that you use otherwise you become bored with the content no matter how excited you are about your company.

In spite of my presentation not going as well as I had wanted, Jason and Tyler immediately understood what we do here at Motribe and the value of our services. My presentation was given a solid 7 from Jason and Tyler and the business we have built a good 8 out of 10 (Calacanis rates Facebook and Apple at a 10 out of 10).

All in all I was happy with the outcome and performance of Motribe.

I do need to make mention of the star of the show: Mobiflock. Vanessa did a brilliant job of pitching her amazing company and went on to win the event. Congrats!

The video of the entire show is below. If you’re looking to skip ahead to the Motribe pitch go to minute 24.

Why would I be building out a solution for the emerging markets if I were in group-buying? Simple. Because nobody else is.

Everybody is looking at high-end, high-margin and relatively low volume.

Groupon itself is avoiding the emerging market mobile play because the don’t have a clue about the mobile web, feature phones or emerging markets and how they use smartphones (if they do at all).

Apparently Groupon just released an Android App in Germany. Why would they not be pushing Android apps in to the emerging markets too? Android is selling like hotcakes in Africa and the rest of the developing world.

If I were sitting in India and I ran Snapdeals.com I would create a mobile web version, then a java version, then an Android version of the Snapdeal experience.

The other major thing that needs to change (that no one is doing) is catering for the mass-market with mid-level deals instead of Spa treatments and the likes. What about deals from places like Shoprite, Walmart, Massmart companies, Pick ‘n Pay and those companies?

Maybe there is a problem with the margins, volumes and numbers on smaller and cheaper deals but for my money, if you make that work, you’re golden.

I recently took a business trip to Nairobi, Kenya. I should have known better, I should have thought it through, I should have bought a local sim card and I should have remembered the stories of horror from when I worked at Vodacom.

Alas, I did not. I was stupid and I kept my roaming on. My network settings switched me from Vodacom, a Vodafone network, to Safaricom, a Vodafone network. Makes sense. My data bundle didn’t switch with my location. I should have known that. They [Vodacom] charge massive, massive fees to data roam anywhere in the world. My mistake for even having it on. That’s not what I’m angry about. I screwed that up and forgot to put it off.

What I am angry about is the situation I found myself in AFTER the fact, because during the crime of browsing NO ONE called me, sms’d me or emailed me to say: “Hey Nic, you idiot, did you know that your bill is double, triple, quadruple, five times, six times, seven times, eight times, nine times and finally ten times what it has been on average for the past TEN years”. I have been a customer of theirs for almost ten years at the top end of their package offers and have paid all of my bills on time and loyally so for that entire period.

Vodacom didn’t have the systems built in to give me a courtesy call to say that they have noticed unusually high activity. I received an SMS upon my return to Cape Town (2 days after my trip) that I had spent more than double my account. Then a phonecall the next day to say that it was ten times my normal account. TEN TIMES with no alerts.

I feel screwed and not in the good way. I feel like Vodacom purposefully waited NOT to tell me while I was over there so that they could finish taking me and my account for all it was worth, then upon my return, they alerted me out of the goodness of their hearts that I had just been screwed.

It’s unacceptable to me that they let my account get that far out of hand (even though I acknowledge it was my mistake) without alerting a very long term, loyal and trusted customer of theirs to his error.

I am very interested to know from anyone who does know, what the new CPA says about this sort of situation.

I’m livid. I’m paying, figuratively and literally, for my insane lack of attention to my cellphone carrier screwing me on data costs while roaming. I am also paying for my blatant stupidity in this entire situation. It was my mistake to leave it on but honestly, what horrible customer loyalty service from a business that’s been taking my money for ten years.

I feel dirty (and not the good kind of dirty).