Startups
Going solo – leave the rat race
I came across this great clip on the secret sauce of successfully leaving the corporate rat-race and setting your start-up in flight. Too true! Props to studiobotes.com
The benefits of trying your hand at something entrepreneurial
I attended a lecture by Laurie Dippenaar on Leadership recently. He relayed a few of the highlights he’d enjoyed on the journey of setting up Rand Merchant Bank, and ultimately, FirstRand. He talked about the fears and challenges that are common corridor talk for entrepreneurs – worrying about having money to keep the lights on,…
How to make a million bucks in South Africa
Having worked for the last three years alongside some of the smartest and wealthiest people in the country through my time on the RMB Class Of programme, I’ve come to realise that it’s rather easy to become wealthy. It takes just two simple ingredients – patience and discipline. There’s no need to think up the…
What is your competitive advantage to business
Often heard as a topic of conversation near the water cooler is that of “competitive advantage.” Companies up in lights are lauded for their “differentiated offering” and run of the mill business fade into history for not developing one themselves. My time at a very successful investment bank has underlined the realisation that competitive advantages are…
Who is your business backing as its intellectual venture capital?
The buzz words around the entrepreneurial space are “venture capital” and “private equity”. It’s every startup’s dream to have an investor put funding towards their new idea, or recently launched venture. The money provided sees ideas take flight, the original inventors or entrepreneurs successful, and the PE or VC business making a killing. I’ve been…
2009 – Year of the Pretender | The web specialist
Everyone these days is a web specialist, SEO fundi, PPC authorised individual and Blog advisor. And so was I. Having taken the reign from David who was handling www.silverapple.co.za I took over his clients and continued to do web development work, SEO and PPC campaign management. Website development is slightly harder than people expect. Visually,…
2009 – Year of the Pretender | The office admin
Late last year I entered Penguin Tutoring in the SAP Go-for-Growth competition. We were finalists, and qualified to receive a 90% subsidy on a year’s consultancy and best business practice methodology training, to position the company for optimal growth. This, together with seeing the potential upside the company could reach, made me take on a…
South Africa does not have a skills shortage – It doesnt know how to manage those skills!
Having spent the year working on and in my and Dave’s startups, Penguin Tutoring, Silver Apple and Webmarketing – and now leaving them to take on a brilliant position in SA’s leading Bank, I have a few insights to share with fellow South African startups. We hear that there is a shortage of skills in…