Nicisms

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).

As an entrepreneur and business owner it’s imperative for me to grow my business. To grow my business I need staff and in South Africa that generally implies that staff drive to work and park somewhere.

I’m going to cut right through the warm and lovely smelling bread that is Cape Town municipal governance. Everyone loves them, they do a great job and have maintained a high standard. I must, however, protest.

I have worked out that when Motribe reaches ten staff members, our new offices on Bree Street in Cape Town CBD will force me to pay a parking cost of more than R10 000 for my staff. Yes. You read that correctly, more than R10 000 for my staff to park at their place of work and earn a living.

Let me explain that cost:

It costs R4.50 per 30 minutes to park on the street in CT CBD. That’s R9 per hour. At an average of 8 hours per day that equates to R72 per day per employee.
5 days a week for 4 weeks = 20 days per month that I will have to pay for parking.

20 days x R72 = R1440 per month per employee.
10 employees x R1440 = R14 400.

R14 440 is more on parking than I will pay for rent. That is a joke.

The alternative involves me sourcing parking spaces for my employees. These range from R850 to R1000 per space per month. So at a best case scenario I’m paying R8500 per month for ten employees to park in a parking lot a few blocks away from my office.

Let me sum up my feelings: I am being punished by the Cape Town government for growing my business. I am upset by this and I am not the only person who runs a business in Cape Town who feels this way.

I have a proposed solution that makes sense in my head, help me break it and come up with a better one.

I propose that businesses with fewer than, let’s say, ten employees are given a parking-break of 75%. Give me and my employees 75% off our street parking near our office.

That would be a saving of R10 800 per month for a business of ten people. Instead of paying R14 400 I would be paying R3600.

As the size of my business increases you can start to charge me more and lean on my business as I generate more revenue. When the business grows to 20 employees then give me 50% off, 25 employees and 25% off and above 30 employees make me pay full price and force me to move out to a building with parking. But don’t punish me when I’m just starting out. It hurts.

For the city of Cape Town this is a good idea because Motribe will be bringing a steady and stable flow of paying parking customers to the streets. Even if we are paying %25 of the cost we are there every day and those parking spots are filled and generating more income.

Over and above this little perk for the city they should consider that small businesses are good for business. The restaurants in and around my office will now have ten more customers, as a company we are creating employment, paying our rates on time and helping the city to do better in general.

Parking costs are making it very difficult for me to want to grow my business and stay in the hub of activity commonly known as a city’s CBD.

I hope someone is listening.

Traveling is an important part of an entrepreneurs growth. I learned that over the past 3 weeks that I spent abroad.

As my readers will know I am South African. This means I have grown up, developed and exist within a very specific context, a uniquely South African one. This has proven to be an amazing advantage and has opened my eyes in so many ways.

I have traveled my whole life, I’ve been to many different countries around the world and lived in many different places. I like traveling. But this trip was different. This trip changed me and defined a lot of what I will be doing moving forward.

Some quick-shot lessons I learned:

1. South African entrepreneurs understand the value of a dollar.
2. We work really hard and really smart.
3. South African startups are solving real problems.
4. The copycats will make a quick buck, the innovators will make it big.
5. The rest of the world does not know better.
6. Getting in to major tech blogs will NOT make your startup a success.
7. Networking is more important than listening to a speaker.
8. Charity work is imperative to your business and your life.

Let’s get in to some depth.

It was a very interesting and difficult trip that Vincent Maher and I went on. We are the founders of Motribe.com. Our startup is doing OK in the markets that we are playing in. We have nice revenue and growth and are feeling good about what we’re doing. So going overseas was an interesting decision that we made. We went over mainly to attend the SXSW conference and network. In the process we met with New York VCs, we met with Agencies in London, New York and Austin and we met some big tech names.

Starting at the beginning: London

London is a difficult place to get any work done. People only emerge in to the real world at about 9:30am. Shops stay closed, people don’t do meetings early and no one is interested. It’s a very cocky place. I didn’t enjoy my experiences there at all. We met with a couple of agencies who blatantly had no interest in hearing what we had to say or learning about our experiences in the emerging markets.

This was the first taste of disinterest that we experienced. Some people just have no interest in hearing about other options, alternative theories and different (albeit successful) experiences. And that’s the end of it. We experienced more of this in New York.

With that said, we did also have a few good meetings with some interested and smart agencies. However these were agencies with strong South African roots and connections so it wasn’t surprising.

I was also blown off from a few meetings, people just didn’t get back to me or weren’t interested in making the effort. So be it. Vincent and I did attend an Opencoffee event which worked out OK. Nothing Earth-shattering but OK. I also did a bad thing and missed an event that I was confirmed to attend. However I did so for another meeting. So it’s kind of OK.

I left London after 2 days of work hoping not to return any time soon.

The buzz of the Big Apple

New York is the complete opposite of London. It is buzzing. People are up as early as you want to meet with them. We had back to back to back meetings for 5 days in a row. We met with agencies, individuals, VCs and anyone else who we could meet with.

There is a palpable electricity in New York. It feels to me like the excitement that once hummed around Silicon Valley is now drifting and gravitating towards New York. There are startups starting up, Investors hustling and agencies spending in New York. It’s all happening.

I have never dealt with a more aggressive group of businesspeople than those I met with in NY. Moving to Austin and the SXSW conference I still ended up meeting NY businesspeople, founders and marketing folk.

We did run in to more resistance though. Madison Avenue agencies aren’t interested in the mobile web and definitely aren’t interested in the emerging markets. It’s not really their fault either, they are doing their clients bidding. I’m learning very quickly that the mark of a great agency is the ability to balance what the client requests and the best possible decision for your client as the agency in the know.

I could definitely see myself doing more business in New York and working that city hard. It’s a place that I love and can relate to. It’s Johannesburg in 50 years.

South by South West: Interactive music film

I have had my rants and recoveries about SXSW. Read them for my thoughts on the conference.

Next year I might attend SXSW. I wont be buying a ticket to attend the interactive conference. I will go to network, to catch up with people I met this year and to socialise with the people I want to connect with. I found very little value in the actual conference.

Someone summed up the entire experience for me: SXSW is Spring Break for geeks. Definitely. It’s a reason for the responsible, the successful and the desperate-to-be to party their asses off with zero expectations. If you are a geek rockstar then you want to be at SXSW because you are treated like royalty.

I did not enjoy the ass-kissing. I don’t participate in ass-kissing and never have. I hate seeing people who have become successful worshipped. I don’t worship people like this. I don’t queue to get in to the cool-kids party. I’d rather have a dinner with some cool-kids.

Founders together

If you think you have founded your business with someone you trust, understand and will never fight with, do yourself and your business a favour – go on a three week work trip with them.

I can promise you this: You will fight at some point.

The fight you have will definitely be rough, will definitely be agro but it will definitely sort out many issues you might have. There are definitely issues that every startup will go through and the founders will argue and fight. It’s imperative that you fight them out and deal with them. If you don’t then you have passive-agressive behaviour that will not benefit the company.

The final thought

Being a South African entrepreneur is difficult. In fact, being an entrepreneur anywhere in the world is difficult. Having investment or not, it’s still tough to be an entrepreneur.

However what I have learned after seeing the other side is that in South Africa we know how to build profitable businesses and we have the bottom line in mind all the time. That bottom line isn’t red either.

I am not a financially experiences or smart person when it comes to analysing markets but to me it feels like there is a bubble in the US. It might not be a financial bubble but it is a bubble that is going to hinder their market growth. It’s a bubble that is going to put them at a disadvantage very soon (if it hasn’t already done so). So what I can say from this is that we are on the right path. We are plugging real holes, solving real problems and creating real businesses based on revenue and product.

We are better in many ways than many of the people I met, spoke to and did business with. What we need to do is realise our value and potential.

The 2011 SXSW interactive conference is over. The iPads and geek backpacks have quickly been replaced with tattoos (woohoo!) and guitar cases. The change in vibe is palpable, things feel a bit more crazy and slightly unhinged which is great.

Here is my final review of the SXSW 2011 interactive conference:

If you want to meet the best people, talk the most business or have the most fun – STAY ON THE SHUTTLES. Let me explain: SXSW has become so big that people stay all over Austin. To help these people get in to town SXSW has organised a series of shuttle busses to run between the hotels and the conference.

I met some of the most amazing people on these shuttles at all hours of the night and day. My advice if you want to pitch to as many people as possible is become a shuttle driver for the 2012 SXSW.

Things turned around for me and the event but unfortunately that had little to do with the panels or speakers, save for Blake Mycoskie, the founder of Toms.com (but I’ll get to that more in a bit).

I have made many good connections, met many potential business partners and many more possible friends. All of this is due to the very well attended Panel I participated in thanks to Justin Arenstein. This panel was the best thing to happen to my conference. Word spread about Motribe, people began contacting me and I have set up many meetings with many businesses from around the world. Brilliant.

The only problem with this is that I missed almost 2 full days of the actual conference due to newly booked work arrangements. But hey, that’s the price one must pay I suppose.

But now on to the final day of the conference. I first attended a talk on rebranding Islam. That was dogshit because the speakers thought the audience were idiots and even, at one point, said “Muslims are people too” at the end of some long-winded and irrelevant story about some other rubbish.

But fortunately my conference and my day were saved by Blake from Toms.com. The man is an amazing speaker. He didn’t use any slides, he didn’t pull out any gimmicks or tricks but he still managed to blow everyone away with his amazing story.

His accomplishments with tom.com are amazing. He has given away more than 1million shoes to children in need and has managed to build an incredibly profitable and functional charitable business. His message is that we can all be charitable and that we can all make money. Incase you don’t know what toms.com is, here’s the elevator pitch: For every pair of shoes that you buy from toms.com they will give a pair away to a child in need. One for one. That is there motto. I was almost in tears listening to his amazing story and then in the next moment bursting with laughter.

I left that talk feeling rejuvenated and ready to build my business. I also left with a new approach to many ideas I had in my head. If only all the other speakers had Blake’s brilliant delivery.

The next massive improvement to the SXSW experience was, of course, the Foo Fighters. I stood in queue for 3 hours even though I had the right passes and paid through my you-know-what to attend the conference but it was worth it in the end.

The Foos took the stage 15 minutes after I had entered the venue and started to drink my first Vodka. They did not leave the stage for over 2 hours. The played their hearts out, I rocked mine and I left feeling hazed by their brilliant live performance. What a way to end the interactive conference. If the only thing I paid for was to see them live at the SXSW interactive closing party then it was money well spent.

So I left contented but more seeking the contentment than finding it.

I still stand by my previous post. I was seeking genius on the trip and fortunately I did not find it. What that has helped me realise (and I think I am not getting to the nitty-gritty point) is that a good idea is a good idea irrespective of the location of said idea. Being in the US or UK or anywhere else doesn’t make you better or worse as a leader, a company or a team. There are very good reasons that companies do well in the US and/or Europe but that is another post altogether.

What I am saying is that deep down at the bottom of Africa we sit and we admire those across the shore. We need to stop. For every Mark Zuckerberg who Zucks with your privacy there are literally millions of people who are failing or trying to make ends meat in the US. In South Africa we have class, quality and the will to succeed.

Now, on to the music for me.

I have mixed feeling about my first day at my very first SXSW event.

If you have no idea why I keep typing the same four letters that seem to have no relevance let me explain quickly: I am in Austin, Texas at a Music, Film and Interactive (Geek) conference called South By South West (SXSW). It’s my first time in Austin and I’ve just come from New York from a work trip. Things are crazy busy right now but that’s beside the point.

I am having a confusing experience at SXSW. I’m seeing some heroes of the web (Tim O’Reilly) and hearing some of the “hottest” startups in the world talk amongst themselves, or commonly known as panels at a conference.

I’ve had mixed feelings and at the moment my mental state is as follows: I need to listen and realise what NOT to do from these speakers.

The bubble that the world speaks of, it exists. It is real and it encases almost every startup entrepreneur I have met, speaker I’ve heard and evangelist who is trying to evangelize.

There is a fundemental disregard for tech that exists outside of the US (even outside of Silicon Valley), there is a fundemental disregard for tech that previously existed.

Let me give an example of the disregard that I’m talking about:

Yesterday I waited patiently for what I hoped would be the talk of the day: Group Chat, Who Will Rise?
This should have been an explosive and dynamic panel considering the four “hottest” startup CEOs of the four “hottest” group chat apps were all in attendance. Beluga, Yobongo, Convore and GroupMe were present but sadly their brains apparently were not.

At one point the Beluga lady stated that Beluga allows you to receive a vibrating notification when someone messages you, “This has never been possible before” was her claim. WHAT? Are you telling me that you are so ignorant that you think that you invented the push notification on a cellular phone? Idiot. Beluga was recently bought out by Facebook. There’s a service that’s thankfully going to be put to rest. It’s sad because I actually like what they are doing.

The GroupMe guy was maybe the best of a bad bunch because his app at least isn’t an app and can be used with existing tech, SMS.

What’s worse is the entire panel kept pitching the audience as to how different their four services are and that they aren’t competitors. I wanted to ask them: “Who is winning? Which of you has more users? Who has more revenue/profit?” but I didn’t because at the end of their sad panel I realised what I can learn from them all: What not to do.

I also managed to hear the very boring and obvious talk by the Chief Game Designer at Zynga. This sounded like a talk with amazing potential. Alas, another non-starter. The guy (I can’t even remember his name) proceeded to tell the audience that Zynga uses Facebooks social graph to connect their users. REALLY? DO YOU? I’m gobsmacked by Captain Obvious up front but wait it out. He then says that Zynga builds pretty games. Again, really? Thanks. Idiot.

Now I’m actually more frustrated because I know that none of these people are idiots, or can’t be or shouldn’t be because they are being covered by the biggest media in the world as the smartest people in the world. But then I have to ponder: Maybe the media are in on it too? Maybe they are as half-witted as the people they write about? I don’t know. But I’m seeking genius today and hunting innovation. Bring it on.