Inspiration Indaba is Coming
One of the things that I hear all the time from young entrepreneurs, from people trying to start their own business or even people who just like to complain, is that there are no local success stories.The truth is that there are many success stories of South African entrepreneurs and business people who have excelled but these stories aren't being told frequently enough.In the USA they have something called the FailConf where they get a bunch of business people, founders and entrepreneurs together to talk about and learn from one another's failures. In South Africa we don't necessarily need a FailConf so much as we need an event to inspire us to push beyond our corporate aspirations and start something new that can grow into something amazing.The Citadel Inspiration Indaba seems to be this type of event. The very first event is taking place in JHB soon and is going to feature some impressive entrepreneurs who have achieved great levels of success.Herman Mashaba started the now iconic Black Like Me, from the boot of his car. Although he did not complete his university education, Herman ensured that, step-by-step, he “created the reality that [he] had envisaged for [himself]”, becoming one of the most recognised South African entrepreneurs.
Rob Stokes started Africa’s largest independent marketing agency, Quirk, in his bedroom whilst still a student. The serial entrepreneur is a firm believer that “hard work is the only way to go”, and it is this discipline, coupled with creativity, which has resulted in his agency being one of the most awarded on the continent.
There is a great line up of other speakers that I'd be happy to sit down with over a dinner and pick their brains. Head over to their site to have a look at who else you can hear from. September 2nd is too far away so it's worth visiting the website to find out more about the times, tickets and general information.
AfricanUp.com goes live
Today marks the launch of a platform that Paul Cartmel and I have been working on for a while now. His team at New Media Labs have been fantastic in getting us to a point where we can launch a beta version of the platform.AfricanUp.com is a place where we hope startups, investors, tech hubs and accelerators around Africa will be able to connect with one another.Here's the press release for more info:Cape Town, South Africa – South African entrepreneurs Paul Cartmel and Nic Haralambous have teamed up to launch AfricanUp (africanup.com). The platform is touted as a space for startups, technology hubs and accelerators to connect with one another, for investors to find startups, and for the technology eco-system at large to tell the world its story.True to AfricanUp’s purpose, the platform is the result of a connection between the power of New Media Lab’s Lenticular technology (lenticular.io), and Haralambous’ business-development.“There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when launching a platform like AfricanUp. Our goal isn’t to build a revolutionary technology business. Our goal is to connect startups, founders, investors and accelerators from around the world,” says Haralambous.Explaining his vision for AfricanUp, Cartmel shares, “When Nic approached me with the idea, I instantly felt that the Lenticular platform New Media Labs has been refining would be perfect for the job. We decided to partner up and launch a minimum viable product to put Nic’s brainchild to the test. Powered by the reputational scoring and social features of Lenticular, AfricanUp has an incredible potential to be much more than a listing of startups, angel investors and hubs in Africa.On AfricanUp, both start-ups and investors have the opportunity to tell their own stories, recommend their peers, and ultimately grow their profiles and reputations. There are currently four main categories through which these conversations are facilitated: Startups, Accelerators, Investors and Tech Hubs.”The founding team looked at a few key countries when building the platform, considering factors such as existing technology ecosystems, their problems and opportunities.Through the research process, Haralambous and Cartmel both gained a strong belief in the talent, opportunity and investment possibility to be found in Africa. “However,” realised Haralambous, “One of the major requests that I get from investors and accelerators around the world when discussing technology in Africa is for ‘the great startups’. This made me realise that there is a search problem in the technology startup space (ironically) and I wanted to create a platform to help startups and investors spend less time searching for each other, and more time building great things together.”Cue AfricanUp: helping startups, investors, accelerators and tech hubs connect with one another across borders.“In a sense, this is a proudly African way of strengthening businesses – by strengthening the connections in the entire eco-system,” remark the founders.
Use your own product or die
I wish I had the guts back then to to admit that this is probably the simplest success test for your company: Do you use your own product?
Don’t hide behind the bravado of being an entrepreneur, fess up and admit that you don’t use your own product or face destruction.
5 years ago I was working inside a very large corporation on a product that operated like a startup but from within corporate walls. The product was a location based mobile social network. We had grown the user base to a couple of million users and things were fine.
But after a while growth stagnated and I noticed that I wasn’t using it as regularly as I wanted our users to. Statistically I would have been classified as a Monthly Active User but only just. We kept building and marketing the product while trying to solve the stickiness problem by adding features and complicated solutions to simple problems. The truth that no one wanted to point out was that most of the core product team didn’t use the product at all, let alone every day.
In the end I left and started up my own mobile social networking company, Motribe.
The business was simple; a platform that allows anyone using any mobile device to create their own social network. I had a great technical cofounder and we raised funding, hired staff, gathered users and found clients.
But early on there was something deeply wrong with what we were doing and I just couldn’t put my finger on it. We had growth but nothing explosive. We had usage but sustained usage wasn’t where it should be. We had revenue but nothing earth-shattering. We had customers but not the ones we wanted.
We successfully sold Motribe in 2012 and I started an ecommerce fashion company called NicSocks.com.
My experiences with NicSocks.com have taught me something that I wish I had noticed and admitted when I was at Motribe. You see, I wear the socks that I produce at NicSocks.com every day. Literally every single day. I consume my product more than any of my customers and believe in my brand with ferocious dedication. I drink my own Koolaid.
In hindsight, Motribe created a solution that was looking for a problem. I don’t recall a single Motribe staff member (myself included) who was using the Motribe platform to run a mobile social network for fun and for themselves. We didn’t use our own product. We didn’t obsess over it and we didn’t love it. We loved the idea of it.
There were some major business issues that we should have rectified, technical fixes that we could have implemented and ways to start fixing things but I didn’t have it in me to admit out loud that we had a very real problem. We weren’t building a product for ourselves. We were building a product for someone who we thought wanted what we had to offer.
I wish I had the guts back then to to admit that this is probably the simplest success test for your company: Do you use your own product?
If it’s a car, do you drive it? If it’s a watch, do you use it to tell the time? If it’s an app, do you open the app daily, weekly, monthly and use it as you hope it should be used?
If you don’t use your own product the way you want your users to, you’ve got problems.
If you can recognise this as an issue at your own company then you are at the start of a long and hard journey that will either end with you shutting down your business or fixing the endemic problems that your product has.
The test is usage and the solutions are big, hairy and difficult. You owe it to yourself, your team, your investors and your users to be as honest about your company and product as you possibly can be. If you sugar coat the truth you’ll have rotting problems that fester and destroy you from the inside out. If you are honest and upfront then you leave yourself with a small window of opportunity to redo, rectify or reevaluate the viability of your business.
Pay to watch advertising - can it work?
I've seen a lot of different advertising platforms, companies and businesses come and go. I've interacted with many having worked at various media houses in SA as well as at a major mobile network. Everyone is trying to solve a problem in advertising. Advertising makes the world go round whether we like to admit it or not.It's quite well known that people are becoming blind to advertising. This is a problem for anyone with a brand trying reach an audience.SeeSayDo.mobi is a company trying to combat ad-blindness by incentivising consumers to visit their mobile site and watch advertising. In exchange for a consumers attention, SeeSayDo will pay out airtime, cash or data.The service talks about DSTV as their major partner right now amongst "others". I think there's legs for something like this to really work if the advertising being showcased is sufficiently engaging to keep the consumers coming back. Ultimately we'd all like to think that people will do anything for money but the truth is, it has to be time well spent and money well earned.The service is definitely trying to keep you on your mobile phone. The desktop website explicitly tells you that the best viewing is done on a mobile device.Registration was simple enough and I had no problem kicking off into the advertising categories. The first advert I listened to was a Mini (the car) advert and was an audio ad. The quality of the audio was listenable but not fantastic. I imagine they're doing this to keep data costs down, which I appreciate.I am curies about the value in spending data to listen to ads in comparison to the amount of money I would be paid out to listen to those ads.This isn't a new concept when you look at the global market but all in all it's a well executed platform that seems to do what it promises: Pay you to watch adverts.Your attention is a valuable commodity, don't forget that. SeeSayDo.mobi knows this and has created a smart model to gain your attention. Bare in mind: If you're not paying, you're the product.View their TV ad above. And no, you wont get paid for watching it.*This is a sponsored post
Talk to your customers and actually listen
I had a very interesting exchange with a NicSocks.com customer recently.While reviewing failed subscription orders I noticed that two orders back to back were from New York and both customers had canceled their orders at the final checkout hurdle. This struck me as odd so I decided to contact each of them.One of the customers responded to me almost immediately. He explained that the shipping price was firstly not stated on the product page and secondly was unexpectedly high in comparison to the monthly cost of the subscription.I immediately apologised and explained that shipping to countries other than South Africa was a costly thing to do.Fortunately I don't work alone at NicSocks and Jen noticed that the site was set up incorrectly for this particular order and was charging this particular type of customer for shipping when it shouldn't be.If I hadn't have taken the time to email a customer who had chosen to cancel an order we would never had discovered this mistake. We have since rectified the error and I have contacted the customer to thank him for helping us discover this little bug.In short - contact your customers, listen to what they have to say and respond.
Learn How to Apologise
I like to be right but I am wrong a lot of the time and for much of my career I struggled to apologise when an apology was needed.Not wanting to apologise is about pride and ego. Both of these things can get in the way of a good relationship (in business or in personal life). Apologising for a mistake, bad service, bad performance or for generally doing wrong is a pretty standard response. It amazes me how many businesses don't allow for this response to take place.For a long time I would blame clients, blame the individual who I was dealing with, blame staff members or anyone I could point a finger at if there was an issue. It's easy to blame.It is significantly more difficult to acknowledge a problem, apologise for it and rectify it.In truth the only thing that makes an apology so difficult is pride. Once I was able to get over the fact that mistakes happen and that most people and clients allow for mistakes to happen, I began to apologise when things went wrong.The most incredible thing happened after that... problems actually got solved, arguments end quickly and issues are resolved swiftly. I even found that fewer problems arose when I was willing to own them.An apology is free, and so is great customer service so you should use both when they are required.People respect the honesty it takes to acknowledge and own a mistake.It must be noted that sometimes an apology isn't enough to save a relationship. Sometimes it just serves as a final statement of ownership of the mistake and the final step towards a parting of ways.
The Sony Xperia Z Ultra "Phablet" & Smart Watch 2
I have been using an iPhone for almost 2 years now and I've had it up to here (imagine my shaking my right hand wildly above my bald head). I feel locked in, I feel like I don't have the ability to customize the operating system, I feel... I just feel like it's time for a change.It was with this in mind that I decided to start seeking out phones I could test. Sony were the first bunch to be kind enough to send me a device to test.I received the Sony Xperia Z Ultra (XZU from here on out) along with the Sony Smart Watch 2.
First impressions last
This phone is absolutely massive. Unexpectedly and absolutely massive. Going from the iPhone 4S to this is an incredibly shift.I'm not entirely convinced that I like it but with that said browsing on the XZU is fantastic. The only real issue I have is how much of an idiot I appear to be when I hold up this boat to my face to answer a call.
In the pocket
I took the plunge and entered the wild world with the XZU. The phablet (I don't think I'll ever get used to that word) barely fits into my pocket. Having the XZU in my pocket makes riding a Vespa to work extremely challenging. The earphone jack is situated on the side of the device which for me is problematic. I have my phone in my pocket all day and much of that is on a bike or walking around with earphones plugged in. If the jack is on the side of the phone, it pokes me in the leg (especially when seated). I'd rather have it at the top like the iPhone.I have had two meetings today. Both meetings I tried my hardest to keep the phone in my pocket and make use of the Sony Smart Watch that I've been given. But alas, I don't feel happy calling a watch smart if all it can do is display information when tethered to my phablet via bluetooth. Maybe it's an expectation management issue, but I wanted my watch to actually be smart. For me that means that I can leave the phone somewhere, like at home, and go for a run but still access things via the cloud. This would require a sim card and data bundle. But that's what I was hoping for. Colour me disappointed.Back to the meetings. In spite of wanting to check email, twitter and instagram I was fearful that I would be mocked if I pulled out the XZU boat. So I kept it in the pocket.People are significantly more polite to me than I would be. Both meetings, when I eventually did have the guts to pull the phab-let out my pocket, gave it a look and enquired about the size of my device, politely. Both however commented that it was the largest device they'd ever seen and weren't sure they'd know what to do with a device this big.How big I hear you ask? Let me show you a side by side of the XZU and my iPhone 4S:
Ultimately the size of this device is just unmanageable for me. I'd love to say, as Andy Gilder mentioned, that phones just aren't for making phone calls any more but I can't. I want my phone to fit in my pocket, receive phone calls and, at the same time, not make me look like I'm holding up a black box flight recorder in case of emergency.This device has the potential to please many, many enthusiasts; it's thin, light, immensely powerful and fast, has a great screen that is large and in charge and it even looks sleek and well built. For my practical day to day use this phone just wont make me one of the many enthusiasts that it will please.
Days like these
There are days when I question every decision I make. When my head thumps from the second I wake up to the second I hit the pillow to sleep.Days when every email I receive makes my heart sink because I think I've screwed up.Days when a phone call isn't a conversation but the end of something.Days when a tweet could start a war and a SMS could end one.Days when it feels like no one understands anything I'm saying.Days when even just the sound of someone's voice can send me into a rage.There are these days when my list of tasks seems insurmountable and ever-growing.Days when I feel like a breakdown is right there at the end of every word that comes out of my mouth.Days when fear is all I can see in front of every opportunity.These are the days that make things seem very real.Being an entrepreneur is not for the weak.
Data is like breathing. You don't know you need it until it's not there
Every business needs data. If you think you're different you're wrong. Whether you are selling cupcakes, socks, strategy, advertising, cars or anything in between you need to know things about your business.What do I mean by "data"? Basic information that your business generates around core product or services. Information like this: How many customers do you have? How many return every day? What's the average size of their transactions? How many people do they tell about your product?These things can help you understand your business better and ensure that you have a good grasp on the parts of your business that you can improve upon or can be satisfied with.The complicated part is know what data you need. What things do you need to know to make things better or find what's broken? Here are some questions to ask and things to think about when considering what to track and why:
What is important to you and your business
Is it your customers, the number of sales, the time of day? What exactly matters to you? What's on the decline or on the up and why?
Constantly challenge what you think is important
Things change. Sometimes what was important to your business last year isn't important (or as important) now. Constantly reassess your requirements.
Ignore vanity
This is simple on the surface but it's tough to execute. Forget about your ego and then try to assess what matters to your business. It's not about how many new users you have; it's about how many of those new users return to your service and become life long customers. The Vanity metric there is "New Users", the relevant metric is "Returning Users". Drop the ego.
Don't lose data by being unprepared
When you launch a new product it can be exciting and overwhelming. But that's no reason to forget to track things. If you wake up 6 months in and realised that you didn't record any information then you'll never be able to get it back. It's gone forever. So plan from day one to record things.
Actually listen to the data
Don't simply track things, listen to what the data is telling you and actually execute changes to improve the situation. You may have thought that product X would sell but the data suggests product Y is selling better. You need to shift and emphasise product Y so you sell more, or angle marketing back to X and figure out why it isn't selling. React. Quickly.
Build graphs and keep up to date but don't obsess
When I worked at Vodacom we received an email once a day about user growth on our products. This was good to begin with but ultimately lead to me obsessing over numbers and tiny incremental shifts that I had very little control over. Let the data guide your bigger picture not create an OCD issue in your business.
If you aren't tracking it, it's hard to get better at it
Try to do things that are quantifiable and comparable. If you can quantify and compare you then can improve. The truth is that many business people are scared to track things because deep down they know that the truth which will be revealed may kill their business or product. You need to overcome this fear. If you believe in your business, product or service then the data can only help you improve if you're willing to listed.
Living at the Forefront of Incompetence
A few months ago I was asked to attend a TEDx Cape Town event. I did and I was lucky enough to be selected as one of the speakers for 2013.After weeks of practice and years of failed experience to speak about I managed to prepare a talk that I am quite proud of.When we were working on Motribe I started feeling like I was a incompetent with some of the tasks that I was presented with very often. I started speaking to other entrepreneurs I knew and realised that they felt the same way. So I started to dig a little deeper and noted a trend of smart people making themselves uncomfortable and diving into fields in which they were incompetent.This is what my TEDx Cape Town 2013 talk was all about. When you feel like you are at your most scared, confused and incompetent you are probably on the cusp of something great.I urge everyone to join me in a state of incompetence.
Imperial acquires ForeFront Africa
In January I started a mobile strategy and technology company with Tracy Langdon-Surkont called ForeFront Africa. We worked hard to claim some key clients and partners and were set on growing a business with a footprint in Africa.We both had some very specific goals in mind and the main one was to be as profitable as possible, as quickly as possible. The way we did this was to sign high-value, fast growing clients and to really place value on our skill set.This paid off as we piqued the interest of Imperial Holdings with whom we were doing some work. Ultimately this interest ended in Imperial acquiring a stake in our business.I'm extremely proud of what Tracy and I have managed to do in such a short period of time. We're both really excited to be working with one of the largest and most successful organisations in South Africa. Tracy and I are staying on in the business and our intention is to grow the company into the most recognisable mobile brand in Africa.Here's the official press release that was sent out this week:
IMPERIAL GOES MOBILE, BUYS FOREFRONT AFRICA
Listed entity, Imperial Holdings is entering the mobile and telecommunications industries with the recent acquisition of mobile technology firm ForeFront Africa (FFA). The company will form part of the newly launched Resolve brand and become Resolve Mobile. This will allow the companies to work together seamlessly and provide the best possible digital and mobile strategies to the group, as well as clients and partners."Imperial is excited to enter into the strategically critical mobile technology arena alongside a team with such notable skill and extensive African experience,” says Cobus Rossouw, Chief Integration Officer. “We are now well placed to partner our clients in leveraging the potential of mobile commerce in their value chains.”Tracy Langdon Surkont and Nicholas Haralambous founded ForeFront Africa in 2013 after both recently exiting separate ventures and having worked together at Vodacom SA. The company was founded after Haralambous and Surkont spotted a market requirement for skilled mobile talent willing to work in African countries with experience in those markets. "Tracy and I knew that we were onto something after founding the company when we were approached by companies throughout Africa and further afield to make use of our services," says Haralambous. “Partnering with Imperial Holdings will bring massive opportunities to our company and assist in growth which we would have battled to achieve otherwise.”Resolve Mobile’s clients include WASPs, mobile network operators as well as social networks from around the world. Surkont says that FFA has experience and a grasp of the market that few others have, "We understand that the market is complicated, each country in Africa needs unique attention and each company brings with it a different offering and unique requirements."/Ends
Mobile adverts without mobile websites
I am completed flawed by the Daily Mail (MailOnline) and not in a good way.I clicked on a link on my mobile device and unfortunately was taken to the MailOnline website. What I was greeted with was a popup generic iPhone notification which the MailOnline had pushed onto my device .The part that flawed me is the site behind the advert isn't even mobile optimised.Way to get it wrong.
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How making money ruined a good game
A couple of weeks ago I started playing a game on my phone called Bowling Friends. It's a game that allows you to play turn based ten pin bowling against your friends. Simple and effective idea. 
Initially the business model was one that worked: upgrades in the game. You can pay to receive more coins and gems which help you unlock better bowling balls and bowling alleys to play in. The better the bowling ball, the more your game improves and the better chance you have of beating your friends. Simple and effective.
I spent about $2 on coins and upgraded my bowling ball to a place where I was content.Then the app makers released an upgrade and all of a sudden there were adverts in the game. Everywhere. This is clearly not an innocent mistake. The adverts are post-game and force you to watch a 10 second video and you are then prompted with an advert screen allowing you to click the advert or close it.
There are also adverts every so often that cover the home screen. The reason this isn't an innocent mistake from game devs trying to make some money is because if you now go into the story you'll see a new product that allows you to remove adverts for $1.99.
This is infuriating. The game developers were onto something so simple and so great but they got greedy. They shoved banner and video ads into a seamless gaming experience and have ruined their core product offering.What they could have done was play the long game, be calm and hold their ground. There's no need to rush the money. You need to grow your user base and then monetize them. Right now I feel like I've been cheated and then forced to pay to "uncheat" my experience. I'm not the only one either. I've got friends who have stopped playing the game because of the terrible user experience now being presented.There's lesson in this for all app, web and game developers; be good at one thing. In fact, be so good at one thing that people will pay you to enjoy the experience. Don't trick your users into loving your product and then force them to watch adverts and pay you to remove them. That's called racketeering.
Starting a business makes you a sales person
Whether you like it or not when you start your own business you immediately become a sales person.No one is going to promote your company for you. No one is going to sell your products harder than you will. No one should know your business better than you do.With the popularising of social media it has become even more important that everyone understand that social media like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are being used as a sales tool whether you acknowledge it or not. Customers are looking for you, finding you, reading your content and you are missing out on sales if you're not thinking like a sales person.So if you haven't realised it yet and you're sitting around waiting for the sales to pour in, ask yourself, when was the last time you peddled your own product?
South Africa is Not Sub Saharan Africa
The improvement of the world needs to be highly contextualised. In fact, everything needs context to be relevant.The above video of Hans Rosling is mind-bending. At the 15 minute mark he talks about Africa and how we cannot provide a single solution to a problem like HIV/Aids. We need to provide a contextualised solution for each and every region being dealt with.This is true of almost every interaction that I have with businesses and individuals (local or foreign) wanting to target Africa. It's phenomenal how shallow our understand is of the vastness of the continent when it comes to culture, language, societal norms, likes and dislikes.Africa is not a country just as South Africa is not a reference to a region.Educate yourself.
Be smart, be niche, be mobile
Fragmentation and fierce competition are enemies of one size fits all mobile solutions.Mobile is the not-so-new-hotness. There are many, many, many companies and people building products and apps targeting mobile first and mobile only. But there aren't many who are succeeding.The reasons for failure are often simple and obvious and easily avoidable.
Device fragmentation
Pick a device.If you choose the right device for your application, website or product and this device is relevant to your target market then you wont have to support every device under the sun upfront.Test your market with a single device or OS, just make sure you choose it wisely and own it. For example, in Africa, if you can build something for the Nokia S40 devices and it works, you'll do just fine.
Market fragmentation
Pick your market. Be it a country, city, gender, age group, creed, all off the above or none. Just pick one and go after like a you are possessed.
Country
Pick a country. You can't be everything to everyone all the time right off the bat. Conquer a single country and then consider moving on to another.
City
Maybe consider picking a city. Some cities, like Lagos, have nearly 20 million people in them. That's not a bad place to start.
Age
You cannot market a product targeting every age. That's just not realistic. A 13 year old is not looking for the same things as a 60 year old. And don't tell me that if Facebook can do it, so can you. Facebook started with a single age demographic.
Attention Deficit
Users are constantly being nagged for their attention.The product you are nagging me about needs to make me feel like I can't live without it. The applications and products that do this best for me are the ones that do a single thing amazingly well. I don't have a single app that handles photography, social, music, video and everything else all in one. That's called a mobile phone.Your app needs to do one thing and be the absolute best at that one thing to grab (and keep) my attention.
Niche, Niche, Niche
The chances are that your product, app or website is not going to compete with Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even the local equivalents of these behemoths. Something you build may one day grow into a competitor to these players but they all started in a niche; search, photography, university.Pick your niche and go after it like there's no tomorrow for your company. Don't let anything stand in your way. Own that niche, make it yours and dig a moat that prevents anyone else from owning it. Then expand that niche little by little. This is how you build a sustainable business.