Last year I took some very big financial, personal, emotional and reputational risks, in two countries. I completely overextended myself. It hurt like hell. There were times when I thought I’d never get through it all. There were many times when I thought I was going to lose everything. And I mean everything. I got to the end of last year, and I was broken from overextending myself. I won’t go into the tactical stuff and what I did to get through it just yet, mainly ‘cos it’s still too close.

What I think is important in the context of Seth’s blog post, is that the overextending from last year has led to so many great things that are happening now, and it’s just the beginning.

I didn’t see or predict it last year, I just knew they had to be done. If I had have known then what I’ve seen now, I would definitely have spent less time worrying.

Too often we back away from apparent pain, in fear of the risks involved, not looking at the benefits that may come afterwards. If anything, the last 18 months has taught me that well timed, well executed overextension is actually what creates the lifechanging progress we all crave.

PASSION = BRAIN FUEL.
DUMB BRAIN FULL OF GAS ALWAYS BEAT SMART BRAIN WITH EMPTY TANK.
SMART BRAIN WITH FULL TANK BEAT EVERYONE.

Dear African technologist, hacker, developer, geek, product guy, dreamer, thinker, tinkerer, manager, CEO, multi-national-organisation-in-Africa,

We’re at the beginning of a shift in technology usage, where mobile adoption and usage is quickly going to become more prevalent and ubiquitous than the PC. Bandwidth is getting faster and cheaper for both PC and mobile, despite the monopolies that have held everyone back for years. Infrastructure is now massively cheap and easy to scale. There are toolkits, API’s, platforms, frameworks, services and stacks for almost every technology need you may have. It’s easier now to create something, and innovate, than it ever has been. Not moving forward means you’re being left behind.

The traditional approaches we’ve been using for years are dying. People are looking for authenticity, value, engagement, real’ness for want of a better word.

Dream. Find something that provides value. Help people to get some of that value. Make it great. Remove the crappy stuff.

Stop banging the same drums. Stop thinking you’ve got it all figured out. Approach problems differently. Give your people space to think and tinker. Innovate.

Get massively hyped about your product or service. Tell everyone you know. Let go of any conservativeness you may have, because if you can’t get excited about what you do, then no-one else will. If you’re working for a crap company, leave it. There are better things to do with your precious time.

We can learn a lot from places like Silicon Valley, New York, Berlin, Israel, London, Austin, Chile, Singapore, Ireland and India. We can learn even more from the people who live in those places, how they work, what they do with their time, and ultimately the success they create. We can also learn from the people we live among, by asking them about the problems they face.

There is no shortage of investors or money, only shortages of good people, scalable and executable opportunities. Be the person who can execute and scale, and do it with a product that people will use, and the money won’t be a problem. But don’t use a perceived lack of investors, internal or external, as an excuse.

There are no accidents, only trying, failure, and then ultimately succeeding. As a technologist, today, your greatest asset is the time and technical gifts you have. Use them wisely.

There are many problems people face in emerging markets, and they all need elegant solutions. Find the value. Supply the demand for that value, by doing something that makes you get up in the morning with a spring in your step and a whistle in your tune.

In short, there are no excuses or reasons not to do something awesome, other than the ones we limit ourselves with. Africa has the potential to be one of the largest mobile markets on the planet.

What are you doing about it?

1. Love what you do.
2. Be interesting, not perfect.
3. Focus on simplicity.
4. Be the ‘go-to’ people.
5. Make yourself at home.

The idea is that in every decision, interaction, argument, direction, we take, the above values are our guide. We think the above take all of the little things we want to live by, and wraps them up into something which is easy to understand and talk about.

The proof it works for us, was that this week we had an experience which tested the above values, and we felt good about the outcome. We talked about how our values applied in this situation, what our conduct should look like to make us feel congruent with them, and then we acted. What’s funny is that my own default response was somewhat cynical (this happens after being in the trenches for so long – you get jaded and less and less patient), and much more sarcastic. But it was the team which brought us back to our values and what was the right thing to do.

No discussions, no debate, no arguments. Just alignment. And then happiness knowing we’d tried, and done the right thing.

We’re going to put the values on the wall, and we’re going to use them for all the important decisions. Feels good.

How about you? What’s your guide?

Sometimes the temptation to be perfect is overwhelming.

We work towards perfection because we’re told that it’s worth aspiring and achieving. The problem for you and me is that perfection for some is rubbish for others, especially when your product reaches beyond the early adopter pool of people.

There are so many cliches around this thinking, some of which are below:
Release early, release often
Minimum Viable Product
Lean Startup Thinking
Ship it!
etc etc

What they all say is that getting out the door with something working is favorable to pretty much everything else.
Just get your shit out there for people to use.

It’s something I have to remind myself of every day, because the temptation is to labour over every pixel, every word, every line of code, so that it’s perfect. But perfect doesn’t pay the bills.

To me, that is execution.

* I guess one caveat to this is not to build up so much technical debt, or otherwise, that you can’t recover.

So when you look at what you’re doing in your life, do you want it enough, to go the distance, to complete the race, to finish it, or are you just a hobbyist?

If you can’t answer yes to the question above, then what do you get out of bed in the morning for? What fires you up? What makes you do what’s necessary?

The world is full of people on the same treadmill, following the same herd. Which direction are you moving in?

Food for thought.

As an aspiring social entrepreneur and increasingly part time geek, I’ve had my theories on why technical / programmer / geek / web type people stick to certain kinds of focus areas when trying to make a living for themselves, and yesterday an intuition I’ve had for some time now was reinforced.

Things I realised:

1. Most industries have been working just fine without the internet for much longer than I’d given them credit for, so start operating on different levels
2. Competition is everywhere, learn how to deal with it and be better than it
3. The only limits to what I thought was possible were in my own head
4. Business is like an onion, you have to unravel it

So the take home is that after figuring out one or two things, I’m starting to move faster and not feel like I’m walking through molasses = progress.

_ For Your Voting Pleasure: Ten Startup-Related Panels from the SxSW Panel Picker – ReadWriteStart

When you think about South by Southwest Interactive, your memory may serve up warm recollections of open bars, awesome booth swag, and the occasional keynote worth remembering. But amid the festival atmosphere, thousands of would-be entrepreneurs, web developers, and VCs mill around looking for (or pitching) the Next Big Thing.

It comes as no surprise, then, that the SxSW Panel Picker is replete with startup-related panels. Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration (and votes and comments), here are ten could-be-awesome proposed SxSW panels all about the space we love best. Look closely, and you just might see some themes, such as bootstrapping, revenue models, and life outside the Valley.

Seeya there!

Starting and Selling Startups – Lessons From the Coalface

This session looks at finding that ‘right idea’ and following it through the phases of building a company, building the product and selling it on. It covers people, technology, finance, working with investors, scaling-up, general do’s and don’ts, what to look out for in an acquisition partner and more…
Questions Answered:
1. Why values and working with integrity is so important
2. Why talk is cheap and execution is everything
3. Why hiring right is so important and what you should do to motivate, grow and develop your team
4. Why you can’t succeed on your own
5. Why a frugal approach to technology, premises and other operational elements makes sense
6. How you distinguish between attitude , aptitude and talent; which you need and how you go about acquiring staff with the right mix of each
7. When equity is important, and when it’s not
8. How to tell serious investors from ‘chancers’ and how (in general) one should work with investors
9. The pros and cons of an acquisition – when to take it and when to run for the hills
10. How not to get sucked into the black-hole of scaling-up

Lessons From the Long Trenches: Bootstrapping 301

Bootstrapping can be a painful, problem-ridden process, laden with hundreds of potential mistakes the eager entrepreneur can make. From strategy, to finding funding and managing resources, this session shares hard-earned insights into what some of those obstacles are, what tools startups need and why it’s definitely worth it.
Questions Answered:
1. Why is bootstrapping one of the best ways to start a company?
2. Why are integrity and values so important?
3. How do I leverage what capital I have, even if it’s not much?
4. What kind of people should I hire?
5. What skills do I need in order to bootstrap successfully?
6. Why I should “Always Be Closing”?
7. Why starting up is just a state of mind, and not a state of being.
8. How do I leverage debt and credit smartly?
9. Why do I need to be good at networking?
10. Why do I need systems and processes?

If you do, thanks millions.
If you’re gonna be there, please ping me / comment so we can make a plan to hook up then.
And, checkout the other interactive panels too!

Check it out and let me know what you think

Since SxSw 2006, I’ve maintained that the value of events is generally the conversation outside of the panels / talks, that are the most interesting…. so if you get good, new content, it’s a bonus. This weekend I had the pleasure of being in the bush and around campfires, listening to some smart people talking about interesting things, as well as getting to explore *stuff* outside of formal talks.

So I’m really happy I had the privilege to go, and more importantly came away with renewed energy for South Africa, respect and new friends.

Check out the twitter stream for live commentary.

What follows are brief thoughts that I took home or that stood out for me, in no particular order:

1. “The best thing that South Africa exports, are South Africans themselves” Shapshak 2009
2. Taking the risk to start something seems to be the largest hurdle people talked about.  Note that this is a psychological one, not a physical one.
3. Vinny Lingham said some interesting things around funding and seed capital – mainly that there is money around, but little opportunity for early stage investors to cash out with local VC’s.  Vc’s in SA are also run by accountants, with an obvious connotation.
4. Thus it seems that cultural baggage and an early stage funding vacuum, are primarily responsible for the relatively small startup / entrepreneurial culture in SA.  Poor bandwidth doesn’t help either.
5. There seems to be a genuine willingness and motivation to develop and build for the lower end of the local market.  Problems around this are understanding real problems that need to be solved (rather than perceived problems which may not be problems at all), and figuring out how to make digital transactions possible.
6. The idea of a co-working space in SA (JHB and CT) was well received.  This is something I’m taking up seriously both to bootstrap within, and jump start the local community.
7. There are some seriously smart people in SA. I would love to see them doing stuff on the global stage.  I would also love to see them revolutionising the next evolution of the African web.
8. People seemed to agree that niched communities are the way the web will evolve and organise itself, with Google as the entry funnel.  Nice to get affirmation of something I’ve been thinking in my head for a while now.
9. A good example of the above is http://obami.com/, which looks pretty interesting, check it out.  Best to Barbs!
10. Another web app / saas startup doing well is http://www.payspace.co.za/
11. https://www.ravelry.com/ is another example of a super niched community doing well. Thanks @Pam
12. Vinny is doing better with Yola than I thought (in numbers)   Good for him too, and great work dude
13. Geeks in SA know how to party. Don’t challenge them to braai’ing and/or drinking.
14. Geeks in SA seem to like Macs and iPhones.  There were one or two netbooks, and one or two Thinkpads and HP machines… Even the corporate people had Macs.
15. Pretty much everyone at the event expressed an interest in going to SxSW next year.  Tally ho!
16. Heather, Eve, and Justin were the glue that held it all together.  Kudos to them. And thanks!
17. A big thanks to our hosts too, great venues.  Red Ivory backpackers, and the Elephant Sanctuary.

Other posts so far (will keep updating):

• Elan
• Vincent
• Max
• Toby

Photos (will keep updating):

• I are Scott
• Gregor
• My photos on flickr

Some startup tools (after the fact, but useful):

1. Startup tools wiki
2. 25 tools for startups (in comments of the above, but saves you the effort)

I’ve come away much, much, much more interested in SA than I thought I would; more proud of my family, friends and people in general; more homesick of the land that I grew up in; and more convinced that it has a great responsibility to offer something unique to the world.

So what follows are my thoughts, primarily so that I can get them down in my own head in some sort of reasonable, thoughtful fashion; and of course so that others may benefit in some way.

Cape Town:
Amazing place, fills you with energy and a sort of peaceful quiet. Didn’t get to experience a proper CT winter, so mine were rose tinted goggles, but hey I’m allowed to fantasize. Very different vibe to Jhb though.

Johannesburg:
I can’t believe the growth that has gone on in Jozi. When I left, Jozi was pretty much up to the concrete highway and a little more in places. Now, it extends far beyond that, with construction everywhere. Office space is everywhere you look (which means there are lots of salespeople looking to fill space = deals to be had), and is relatively much cheaper than in Londres. Sandton seems to be the hub now, with central Jozi relegated to a no-go zone for most people. When the Gautrain is done, think it will have a huge impact on the central Gauteng area (Pretoria, Midrand, Jhb).

The bush:
I fell in love with the bush all over again, can’t wait to go back.  The smell of the veldt, the sounds of it, can’t really describe how it affected me, other than to say the sense of peace and quiet I felt was not something I’ve felt in London / Europe or much anywhere for that matter.  Why are we destroying our natural world?

Living there:
Everyone drives everywhere they go – definitely no walking culture for people with cars (at least in Jozi – maybe CT more so) – primarily because there isn’t a formal public transport system, and also because of the distances involved. In one day travelling to 3 meetings I did about 150km without thinking.

Shops in general aren’t open late, so there’s no such thing as nipping to the Spar or the booze shop at 8:30 for some quick chow and a couple drinks for the mates braai.

Costs
It’s really weird – some things are super, super cheap using the pound; but others are so expensive you can’t justify the expense even paying with pounds. Bread, milk, and other staples fall into the cheap category for obvious reasons, along with meat and veggies. Something like salmon is expensive, digital stuff is relatively more expensive, and photographic equipment 2x to 3x the price on Amazon in the UK.

Pound for Rand however, I think you’re still going to be able to buy more for your money in the UK – supply and demand economics would probably bear me out on this, although one day I’m going to do a sample shopping list in London and Jozi and see what happens. If you go to a bar or restaurant however, you’re going to get more for your money in SA, and generally you’re going to eat better food, which is kinda counterintuitive. That said, I didn’t go to the Gordon Ramsay spot at the new One & Only hotel in CT, so can’t comment on Gordon Bleu food

Internal flights are much more affordable than they used to be, but if you compare distance and costs with European carriers, I think that similiar EU options are going to be much cheaper = same supply and demand argument here. That said, factoring in flights for internal travel for business seems to be affordable.

The property rental market is cheaper than in the UK (people interested in property would already know this) so for the rent you would pay in the UK, you can get a relatively better and bigger place in SA.

One of the things I really, really didn’t enjoy, was the constant begging. At every street corner you’re confronted with that sinking feeling that you can’t keep doling out cash every time someone asks for it – probably 10 to 20 times a day – even though you want to, which made me feel uncomfortable. I started out givng R5 to “parking professionals” every time I parked the car I was using, and got a swift kick in the rear, to say that I was raising the prices for everyone else locally. Still, R10 to R20 a day is a lot to give away when you do it every day out of guilt.

Bank charges are prohibitive – it seems the SA banks have a nice little big business going there – everyone is aware of it, and “how to reduce bank charges” is a topic that came up a lot.

Bandwidth:
I paid R250 (£20 odd) for 500MB of hotspot bandwidth valid for a year, to use at participating hotspots. Not sure what you pay for something similiar in London, not used that for years now.

We went with WebAfrica ADSL based on a recommendation from a friend, and have to say the service was great, but the bandwidth not that great – approx R250 for 320k/s capped at 1GB is gold rush stuff, so can only hope that is going to drop with the new cable coming in.  In comparison, I pay £21 per month, for 25GB of bandwidth at 8MB/s (which is about 800k/s in real life). Sucks huh?  Good lesson in supply and demand though

The people
I’ll never forget the man that offered to pay for my parking when I said that I had to go and draw cash from a foreign account (first day, so no cash). His rationale was that the charges alone would be more than the cost of the parking. I didn’t take him up on it, and did swallow when I paid. Nice man though

There seems to be a general feeling of hope and optimism in the air, mainly around the different sporting events happening in the next two years (IPL, Lions Tour, Confederations Cup, World Cup – missing any?), as well as the recent democratic elections which went pretty smoothly. I found the people I interacted with friendly, helpful, smiling, and willing to go the extra mile.

I got sick and tired of Highveld Stereo after about a week of listening to it, so started tuning into 702, 5FM, RSG and Radio 2000 – and found that between them I was able to stay informed and not hear the same jokes, same jibes and same songs every day. Sad to see Jeremy Mansfield and his crew still doing the same stuff 7 years later, but I guess if it aint broke, don’t fix it….  Ummm, no.

The politics:
I’m no politician, and prefer to focus on results whatever the politics, but my overwhelming impression is that the country is expecting service delivery from the ANC, and JZ (Mr Zuma to the uninitiated) is tasked with overseeing that delivery. He’s got some great people in to help him so things are looking good, but we’ll see. I was gobsmacked by how much emphasis there is on government, and how much red tape (I could be wrong here but that was what I saw and heard) there is for private enterprise to jump through. I’m not gonna say much more here – until I educate myself more.

The Web scene:
I spent a lot of time meeting with people, getting a feel for what’s going on and how big the market is, and it seems to me that there is a pretty small layer of folks who are vocal (read: tweeting) and who are talking (again, read: tweeting and blogging) about stuff (maybe 50 to 100), and then another layer of folks who aren’t into the vocal social web (so I can’t comment on them). People seem to be working for themselves, in small agencies, or in much larger institutions (think banks, insurance companies etc) with relatively few in what I would call mid-size businesses, or startups. Apparently there is more (service / client) work around than there are good people to do it, which is refreshing – means there is a demand and I imagine there are a lot of folks trying to fill that demand.

All in all however, the internet market in Southern Africa (broadened intentionally) is very small, which leads me to a question I’ve been asking for a long time – if the local market is small, but there are people with skillz, why is there this persistent focus on building things for the local market? Why not build something for the global market?

As I see it, the primary constraints are amount of bandwidth, and the corresponding cost of said bandwidth – which is crippling to say the least… but that kind of pressure brings focus and ingenuity, which is what every good startupp needs more than anything else.

Which brings me neatly to my next point: Everyone is talking about the Seacom cable which is supposed to be opening up the bandwidth sluice gates come June / July. Assuming that de-regulation goes ahead, and there are no monopolies, I’m hopeful (along with everyone else) that things will change. Demand will create competition which will bring prices down, which should create more demand. Dark Fibre Africa are laying fibre optic cables in Jozi, CT and Durbs, which is great – awesome to see such progress. If this is the yellow brick road, I hope it leads to Kansas! In the meantime, everyone seems to be using 3G cards, and wireless is nowhere to be seen. Anyone spot an opportunity?

Business:
The smart money is on the massive growth of the middle market in the coming years. Some people say 3 yrs, others 5. Bottom line is there is a whole layer of people entering the middle market with disposable income to spend. The corresponding side effect of this is that there should be growth of the products and services this new market will demand, of which web based stuff will be one of them.

I’ve arrived back in London feeling that there are opportunities everywhere in SA for people with passion, focus, drive and integrity – who will provide a better product or service, or who spot the growth opportunities an emerging market economy creates. One of the key problems for this will be finding good people, as it seems that the good ones are already gainfully employed ‘cos they’re like hens teeth when you do the math (total population – working population – people in your sector – people with enough experience = a few good, ahem, men, to coin a phrase); but one of the corrolaries to this is that people at the lower end of the skills ladder or just out of the education system are going to be a lot cheaper than in most mature economies, and that those people (not yet dulled into socialist working practices) are going to be hungry for work and the opportunity to better themselves.

That said, most people I spoke to said the same thing consistently about entreprenuers and funders (angels, seed investors, VC’s), and that’s that there is a huge gap / mismatch / chasm between people looking to start ventures, and people looking to create wealth by funding ventures more risky than property or the markets. The starters say there are not enough funders, whilst the funders say there are not enough good starters…  I heard of at least 3 VC funds apparently not doing much locally – why is that?

Some people I spoke to mentioned that there is a stigma of failure in South Africa, holding people back from starting things, which I find interesting.  Coming from an entrepreneurial family, I’ve been around the smell of success and failure a lot (only realising how much of a differentiator it is now) so I’m not sure I can identify with that enough to comment.  Anyone got any perspective on this?  My humble estimation is that the internal fear of jumping off the ledge and starting is being confused with a cultural fear.  May be wrong tho….

Would love to hear your thoughts…..

Update:
This post has been added to the HomecomingRevolution site.

Ultimately, she says, entrepreneurs begin with three simple sets of resources: “Who they are” — their values, skills, and tastes; “What they know” — their education, expertise, and experience; and “Whom they know” — their friends, allies, and networks. “Using these means, the entrepreneurs begin to imagine and implement possible effects that can be created with them…Plans are made and unmade and revised and recast through action and interactions with others on a daily basis.”

Which one are you?

The presentation clearly visualizes and relates a spectrum of conceptual frameworks for talking about sustainable design–what we at <em>Fast Company</em> call “ethonomics” and what Shedroff says should be called “blue” not “green.” Whether “life cycle analysis”, “natural capitalism,” “biomimicry” or “social return on investment,” these frameworks all take place within the three spheres: Human capital, natural resources and financial capital; Society, the Environment, and the Market; or People, Money, and the Planet. Through the applications of concepts like “dematerialization” (putting less stuff in your stuff, like an ultralightweight keyboard) or product-as-service (Zipcar, a shared car rental service that eliminates the need for car ownership), human ingenuity can replace natural resources, close waste loops and make the world a better plac for the future.

Links referred to:
http://nathan.com/thoughts/compostmodern.pdf
http://nathan.com/me/index.html

If only more designers thought like this, and business too, and politicians… check it out.

If you’re in the area, swing by and see what happens

Hope it goes well guys!