Speaking to people in the last few weeks I noticed that many of my thoughts begin with, “And another thing I learned this year is…”. So here is a list of 20 things that I learned in 2011 as a startup founder and now the CEO of Motribe.

1. Hire slowly, fire quickly.
2. Trust your gut about: People, deals, businesses and contracts.
3. One deal can break your company.
4. One deal can make your company.
5. Don’t scale your staff with one big client. They will leave you (staff and client), eventually.
6. Cashflow, cashflow, cashflow. Startups worry about revenues, entrepreneurs know the value of cashflow.
7. Be transparent with your team, they know when something is going on.
8. If you have to, work on a public holiday, your biggest deals could happen after hours. Great business minds don’t keep office hours.
9. Don’t listen to people who like to talk, listen to people who like to listen and have achieved.
10. You know best more often than not. Trust your instincts.
11. Avoid people-politics and games where possible.
12. Be honest, open and transparent. If you aren’t happy, tell someone.
13. Fire bad clients.
14. Be picky about who you work with.
15. Don’t do business just for the money.
16. Do whatever it takes.
17. No one knows your business like you do, fight for it.
18. Make the best decision you can at the time with the facts at your disposal.
19. Say “Fuck it”, and take the risks necessary for great success.
20. Have a co-founder or business partner who you can rely on. When shit gets heavy you need someone to back you up.

It’s hard to pick the most important lessons from the list above but for me I think that number 6, 16 and 20 are right up there.

What lessons did you learn about your business in 2011?

Basically we’re seen as untrustworthy by the rest of the world and are punished for that. The perception is definitely greater than the crime here. Africans appear to be untrustworthy but are by no means the biggest offenders when it comes to internet crimes as Erik showed in his post.

Erik suggests two solutions:

Too true, and there are only two ways that this might change:

First, we in Africa come up with our own payment and business solutions that work here first, and then interact with other global systems.

Second, the global corporates wake up and realize that there is quite a bit of spending power and money to be made in Africa, just like the mobile operators found out in the 90′s.

I’d like to pitch a third and more challenge-orientated solution; screw them. Forget those who punish us for being African. There are many, many business models that don’t have to include Paypal or the multitude of global corporates that punish us for where we live. Mobile is booming and Africa is at the cusp of this movement. We are setting the trends and defining the direction of where truly mobile products are going and should be going. We are the ones in control.

Yet the problem exists that we, as Africans have a persecution complex and insist on needing validation from certain places, companies and organisations to justify our success and movement forward. This is absurd.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there are viable reasons which make us need validation from Paypal and require us not to be banned by Google and blah blah. But there are many, many flourishing startups in South Africa and Africa that are not running off the back of these giants. I can name 5 off the top of my head.

We need to start setting the trends, bucking the trends and developing the roads instead of deciding that the roads aren’t tared with gold for us as Africans. We need to stop settling for mediocrity and start striving for cutting edge excellence that we define, as Africans on our continent.

The very outdated notion that there is not enough money in Africa to create a viable business model or revenue stream is long dead. There is money on this continent, there are users on this land that we occupy and there is massive, massive potential and hunger for new products and creation of wealth.

What we need to do now is stop leaning on the developed world, toss them to the curb and take control of our continent, businesses and business models. It might be a hard road to travel but in the long term it will be the most profitable in my opinion.

Is it more effective to have meeting en masse or to set up carefully planned and calculated companies, agencies and people to meet with?

As I see it, Here are the pros and cons of having more meetings:

Pros

More meetings mean more chance of work (really?).
Meeting more people can lead to more connections.
More people = More products.
More meetings = more hype around your product.

Cons

Meetings are time-consuming.
Statistically I feel like more meetings with less research and planning means less success.
More meetings lead to less follow-up time and client relationship management.
Time away from the office means time away from other responsibilities.

And the pros and cons of have more relevant meetings:

Pros

More research means a greater understanding of the company you are meeting with.
Taking time to plan means providing a better pitch.
Time is not wasted on fruitless meetings.
You are able to manage and maintain relationships with key clients.
Clients feel unique and taken care of.

Cons

If meetings don’t work out you are left with few options.
Client contracts end. Then the process starts all over again if you’ve put all your eggs in a few baskets.

This is not a particularly detailed list of pros and cons but the overall messages come through clearly I think.

I am still struggling with the decision of committing my time to being out of the office at 5 or 6 meetings that might not prove to be valuable at all, or planning one meeting per day with an exceptionally well researched client who you think holds specific value with regards to specific projects you have planned or they have planned.

It’s probably a combination of both types of meetings in the end, but I hate that. I hate that I still have commit a chunk of my time to meetings that might not prove to be valuable, especially when I am leaving the office to do so. But it’s part of the way things work I suppose.

Last week (26 March 2009) saw the launch of the Vida e Caffé Twitter Account (follow them). I immediately followed them, then realised they were giving away free coffee to the first 60 direct messages. So I sent off a message and managed to get myself some coffee to collect soon at my nearest Vida, which happens to be Rosebank, Johannesburg.

The very next day I decided to have a morning meeting at Vida e Caffé in Rosebank with my coffee and my mac. I paid for my coffee. I don’t even care if I ever get my free coffee, it’s the idea that matters, the offer that counts and the ownership I feel towards the brand that makes me loyal to the Vida brand.

Hell, to be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure if I think there coffee is the best of the best, but I really don’t care.

Let me tell you why I don’t care.

I don’t care if Vida has the best coffee because I like the service I receive when I order my coffee. I get smiles, jokes and laughs.

I don’t care if Vida has the best coffee because I like the way they operate their business.

I like the placement of their shops. I like the vibe of the brand, the funkiness and the way they embrace the culture of South Africa in spite of the brand being more Portuguese.

I like that their menu is simple and their food is good, however expensive it might be.

Vida e Caffé has positioned itself as one of those brands that people would rather pay an extra R5-R10 for per coffee just to say it’s a Vida coffee. Simple. People feel like they are getting more when they are paying more.

The Vida e Caffé brand owns me and let me be clear here, I feel an acute ownership of the brand when I choose to have meetings there, drink the coffee or eat the food.

Big companies and why I dislike them

I have freelanced for some large newspapers, worked at large broadcasters, travelled to some big companies around the world and worked for a major publisher and to be honest, they aren’t for me, not at my age and not for the things that I want to achieve.

Large companies are like large and impersonal schooling environments. Each employee, just like each student, is a number amongst a million others. I hate this because I make a point of standing out and it is hard to pro actively stand out on a large corporate that has rules, rulers, regulations, hierarchies and bureaucracies.

Standing out is not the issue, the issue is how pro actively you do it. Large corporates, in my experience, don’t like people to stand out. They like people to put their heads down, make little noise and do their job that is in line with the company’s vision. The problem is, many of the people keeping the company afloat don’t know or understand the overarching company vision.

This is problematic for me because I am not the type of person who is dedicated to “Do as I say not as I do.” I like to do as I comprehend. So if I am able to comprehend why you want me to do something I will do it until it is the best damn thing in the world. I will work weekends, nights and holidays to ensure that the task at hand is complete. I’ll do this because I can see where my little job fits in to the company and the vision that I am apart of.

It often happens that in a large corporate that people don’t feel a part of a team or vision, they feel as if they are being forced to be part of a goal that they will probably never see come to fruition. They are only there because the company is paying them to be there and they need the salary. This, in my opinion is never a good idea and is always an avoidable outcome.

Small, established companies and why I love them

Small companies that are well established are the closest that you will get to owning your own company and running around with that much freedom. The individual is becoming a threat to the corporate and that is a great feeling.

The likes of Google and Facebook possibly taking on Microsoft in the future is a great example of this. Two people starting small companies, becoming big companies and taking on large corporates. That is inspiring and that is a main reason to get involved in a small company and feel like you can change the world, instead of wanting to take over the world.

Small companies have the ability to grow a person and mould you in to the type of skilled specialist that you want to be. You have the ability to take on serious responsibility and proper tasks. You also have access to your superiors. There are no glass doors or big offices and PA’s to get past and make bookings with. You simply walk in to your boss’s office (don’t forget to knock). This sort of access to experience and knowledge is priceless when coupled with leadership and control of your own projects.

Over and above the positives there are some positive downsides to working in a small company. You have to work. If you don’t there is no one else to blame. You can’t simply sit at your computer, in your cubicle shifting papers or saving documents that don’t exist. If you don’t reach your targets or achieve the goals set for you there is no one else to blame.

There is also massive potential to grow the company as you grow. You can start on your own, running “your own division” that consists of you and your e-mail and take that division to soaring heights. If you are up to the job of course. If you aren’t up to the task (and this is the downside) everyone in the company will know it, and the powers that be will get rid of you. It’s that simple. Succeed and flourish, fail and leave. There is often no room for a middle ground when it comes to employees at a small company. Every employee is an annual salary that if not profitable needs to be used somewhere else.

The end result

It’s fairly simple to write down, but probably more difficult in practice: Start niche, small, nurturing and move on to the big fish when you can catch the small ones. Going straight in to a large corporate can make or break you early on in your career. It might just end your will to thrive and your ambitious and innovative hopes. You may end up crushed if you enter the corporate world of big business and don’t cut it. So why not change the world with a small company that you fit in to and when you have the skills, desire and experience move to a large company that can break your bank by paying you the salary you think you deserve.

The other option is move up through the ranks of the small company you start at and blow them away with your youthful exuberance. By the time you are ready to move up you will have the knowledge you need, the experience you wanted and the skills that everyone else thinks you should have. Then you can really begin to plot your take over of the world (all the while changing it for the better).

The world has become a more entrepreneurial place, it seems like the world is smaller and anyone has become a threat to everyone, anywhere in the world. For this reason I say join a small company or start your own. You might not succeed immediately but you will learn more, faster.

Google’s recent attack on paid text links has me a bit baffled. Have they not enough? Have they not more than they need? When does it stop? I guess it doensn’t.

This is the way I see it and why this whole thing concerns me. In ever governed state there are strict and stringent rules against monopolies in almost every industry. This helps push prices down thanks to competition, it helps jobs to be created, it promotes equality and fairness (amongst a host of other things that I am not educated enough to mention).

The thing here is that Google doesn’t necessarily operate within or infringe upon any states monopoly laws. The simple fact is that anyone is allowed to compete against Google but none will survive for now.

If you run an online agency that centres around selling clients paid text link ads then your business is done fore. Not because Google is operating in your space, buying your business or infringing upon your ability to do business, but because Google doesn’t like paid text link ads.

The simple and sad fact is that if I was penalised for having paid text link ads on my blogs and my Pagerank dropped from 5 to 1, I’d be pissed and I’d take the links down. That means that the company who sells these ads is in a bit of a pickle.

What’s stopping Google from doing this about everything? What’s stopping them from saying that Facebook is satan and that if you are associated to Facebook in any way you will be penalised in one way or another? Nothing is.

It all just makes me uncomfortable.

This feeling keeps me going, it keeps me driven and alive and I am insistent that no one can do what I do they way that I do it. But then you get ill (as I am) and you are forced to lie down at home with your email from work as your only tool. It is in this state of incapacitated illness that I have realised that no one is indispensable. Absolutely no one. There are many people who can do my job even though they might be unhappy at the prospect of doing my job, they still do it.

My point is this: Take time off when you want to because life is not about becoming indispensable.

Becoming indispensable is impossible and that is reality. Everyone is replaceable in any job even the president, hell, especially the president should be, can be and is replaceable. I also think that it is necessary for companies to occasionally remind their employees that they need to perform consistently well because if they don’t there is someone else who can do the same job for less pay.

The difference of the latter is simple and was explained to me in a presentation today; Asia has a competitive market while here we are still trying to be “brother” and “sisters”. I firmly agree with this thought and it applies to almost everything in life.

A few quick examples that I can think of:
Sport: Imagine if the worst rugby players were put in the same team as the best rugby players (your team) and you were asked to win a tournament. You wouldn’t want to compete at your best because you would know that it wouldn’t be fair and equal on the field.

School: If you were in a mathematics class that consisted of every level of mathematics student and you were the brightest, you would be bored. You would not be driven to beat the guy next to you because he would not be able to achieve your marks on his best day. No push.

Now to business and the current state of affairs. Imagine if management was filled with incompetant people. You, working under management (the idiots) would not be driven to compete, you would not be pushed to do better, your spark would be trampled by ignorance. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Investec, RMB, you name them (the top ones) and they all hire the best. The best managers, the best ganitors, the best secretaries, the best of everything.

It is in an environment such as the ones above where skills thrive, where ambition, competancy and responsibility are rewarded. This is where good people become great people and great people become better.

I think that cooperative success is very, very viable in some circumstances. I work in a room filled with 60 people cooperating together toward a single goal; the weekly publication. This could not be done unless everyone knew thier place and was working cooperatively together. These people are the best at what they do, no doubt, and they are working together, not apart, to succeed.

Competitive success works wonders too and is present in the entrepreneurial world as well as the world of the Gates’ and Jobs’ of the world. This competitive edge, the need to beat someone else has made these two men the best in the world at what they do.

It is very much a matter of personal context where an individual decides what role they want to take and what role they are willing to accept. I was a cutthroat entrepreneur willing to do everything myself to get ahead. Now I still have those traits but have chosen to dull them down and use others to make my current situation work the best it can for me.

Cooperative, competitive or both?

Those who know me or read this blog will know that I am an entrepreneur and media practitioner and not necessarily in that order. This means that I am broke some of the time. This gets old really really fast, if you don’t know, trust me on this one.

What I am getting at is that it’s tough to make a living online, it is. I am really curious to know if there are gabillions of online entrepreneurs in SA who are making boatloads of money or at least, are making a living? Are you out there? If you are, let me know cause I wanna know how you did it.

Who am I kidding? As if anyone who made the dosh is going to splurge their secrets to me on this blog? Are you?