Be patient to start small while thinking big - Vusi Thembekwayo

all right I am warning you after this interview you're going to have a new crush I can promise you that much Maddog just the looks but the mind as well Ruthy Chamber Choir I'm sure you've heard of him 32-year of self-made millionaire is on a new journey of changing the narrative of entrepreneurship in South Africa he says his aim is to establish and develop high-growth black entrepreneurs in the rule and Township markets of South Africa this he will do by finding and nurturing intrapreneurs through funding incubation and development developing them into enterprises some of that passion was seen during the sa dragons den program Lucy is here he's in studio with us so nice to see you again well good so good to see you again Leon okay so let's let's talk there's too much to talk about in such a short amount of time right so Cheers always so that you feel bad cuz I'm on the other side of 30 now so yeah listen if you've done this much my city - how did you do this I'm dying to speak to you and you hit the forties and fifties well how do you do this yeah I'm five years behind my own timeline right here so I should have been here much sooner but I I think I was lucky I was lucky out of the starting block so I knew what I wanted to do with my life very early on and there was no doubt in my mind about what my life looked like it's all I had to do was just do it and the challenge was that just doing part it took a while to get out of the starting blocks so after the difficult country to do business especially if you're not the kind of entrepreneur that were used to in this country yeah and obviously I did to find the gaps and that's that's kind of water we as entrepreneurs as South Africans need to do is find that gap but how do you find that gap I mean there's there's so many things happening around us yeah so I mean for the study of geology which is effectively what entrepreneurs do it's interesting you know entrepreneurship is not something you can teach people either have it or they don't which is just the ability to come in and see opportunities where they don't exist but so the question on how do you find the gap it's typically around three things it's you've got to find something people are willing to pay for that they need now and they have the money to pay for it the minute you take those three boxes you're in business so it doesn't matter what it is you could be selling water you could be selling ice cream you could be doing anything the minute you understand those three things you effectively have found a gap in the market and you can start servicing that market yeah and that's the that's what that's the thing that you do know not I mean you're part of us Dragons Den program identifying successful entrepreneurs and investing in those businesses so you know how do you you know when somebody is a successful entrepreneur obviously they're characters they try yeah and looking for in ppl yeah so that for me on them for three things first thing I look for somebody who's failed before I've never backed my money or put my money in somebody who hasn't tried something and hasn't failed because if you haven't failed the theory of failure you know entrepreneurship is interesting it's a lot like it's a lot like swimming so if I gave you a textbook on how to swim and you read it for three years and then I took you and chucked you in the ocean you'd think because swimming isn't a theory thing it's a practice thing you have to do it to know how to do it so the first thing I'd say is somebody who's failed I love people who failed because they've proven have tried something and that they know what's on the other side of not succeeding which is this failure thing the second is somebody who believes in themselves even when there's ridiculous odds to suggest it's not going to work I always say entrepreneurs are crazy you have to be crazy to be an entrepreneur yeah you got to believe you're going to make money month in which often you're not you better believe you can compete with big companies which often you can't you got to believe you can reach all your customers which often you want and you have to believe you can do so cheaply and cost-effectively and make a profit which in the early days you probably won't do if you don't believe those four things you're not going to succeed as an entrepreneur so you've actually got to be certifiable absolutely crazy and then the third thing is just people who are passionate like you got in love what you do because I remember the early days the only thing that fed me was my passion no money at the end of the month in fact there's too much months at the end of the money so um you just got to be passionate you got to love what you do yeah I love that too much month at the end of a maturation I said before and it's not a most place to be it really isn't but I want to talk a little bit about Colin Mel because you know this is this is I mean there it's in black and white excuse the pun but out of the 16 businesses on this Dragon's Den program only the father's funded only for winter black yes and one was to a female yes yes what is going wrong I mean when you look at the population that is not represents a little calculation but obviously it's not about color at that time it's about entrepreneurship and that way of thinking what is wrong with with the black college community let me just oppose that by then saying remember of the five of us who are investing for were black so just to be clear you've got you've got 80 percent investors who are black but the investment complexion doesn't reflect the people investing or the dynamics of the country and money does not know color there's a hundred percent which is the thing right so we in this country we've taken a and this is a very unpopular for having this view by the way but entrepreneurship is not a race thing you're either going to do it or you're not let me put it to you this way nobody has ever shown me favor in business because I was black I was in business because I was in business the fact that I was black then became an added advantage so if you want to be in business because you're black odds are you're not going to survive it because at the end of the month the david order doesn't ask you are you black or white so my divot in your content not omitting it at the end of the month of become your customer doesn't go are you black or white so am I paying you today or at the end of 30 days they're gonna pay you about a payment terms so you know you ask the question around why was that the investment complexion it's typically because we have a very big problem in this country around developing real black entrepreneurs but I mean real entrepreneurs not the guy who registers a company gets a text clearance certificate opens bank account then goes and starts applying then goes and starts filling in database registration forms to wait for somebody to say supply me that's what entrepreneurship that's being a business man those are not the same things no no so we don't have that what we also don't have and the other thing we've done is we've taken in the main very talented black people and I've done two things to them gave them very high-paying jobs in corporate so the more incentives to start a business because I can go get an education and get a good job in corporate and live comfortably or and this is the worst thing we did is we then said well here's B in transactions so you can take 26% of a company you played no role in building and tomorrow you can buy a Range Rover just like that so the minute you distort the reverb risk system which is what entrepreneurship is I take a risk in future I'm going to get a reward the minute you distorted people they don't flock to this thing called entrepreneurship ya spend a lot of time in Kenya and I've often said I will fund the king an entrepreneur said I forget yesterday because the Kenyans boy are in this thing for the long haul but when they build a business they're building this business not for today for tomorrow they building it for their children three generations from now that's what we're not getting right here and I keep saying this to people like you know there's no in the world with the Jewish communities buy in wholesale poor nowhere on planet Earth will you ever find a poor Jewish community doesn't happen and it's not because Jewish people come from another planet or they celestial beings it's because they simply have understood over generations the institution of building a business so the father starts making cookies he leaves the cookies business to his son and the son makes cookies and then he opens a grocery business now they make cookies and then a grocery business and then the other son comes in you open the hardware store so three four generations down you've got four five generations of money that's been circulated in the system and they've taught each other business okay so let's bring that into the South African system because we don't have four five generations of business and money is recirculating their families we haven't got that we've got principles of affirmative action we've got lekha not the black economic empowerment and what you're speaking is almost saying those aren't working no that's what I'm saying so I think you need to understand zoom in is a very complex machinery it's a very complex mechanism it has elements of enterprise development shop shop supply development absolutely necessary affirmative action and the development of employment equity black talent and organizations move them higher up the wrong expose them to operational levels so they know how to run businesses absolutely necessary what I am not in agreement with is taking wholesale shares is giving it to people cuz they politically connected yeah we've done that for twenty coming years hasn't worked for not working my mother worked in the company I'll tell you a funny story she worked in a company that did a B transaction for four billion my mother was in that company for 30 years you can get a cent to the four billion so so what you've not done is you've got black people who've worked in the business yeah cool built the business who don't get any access to the future growth of that business just because they don't care either like the right card of a political organization and then when the company goes through a difficult time it turns on and says to the black stuff no wait wait we're not making profits please don't ask us higher wages let's not go but why we're not participating in the profit growth of this business so I'm a stylet you make profits and future when you're not letting me be a part of the dream so we there's a big conversation to be had on both sides around how we build real entrepreneurship so that's again my view is that of gazeta crux now we're a we're the turning point we're going to do one of two things we're gonna keep doing what we're doing say the populist things that sound good and earn people votes in twenty years time yours and my children will meet in the workplace and we would not have changed this country at all or we're going to start doing the real things and letting entrepreneurs real entrepreneurs get access to finance in access to real opportunities so we can actually build this country that's what we need to do so we're talking today about developing black industrialists how many black people owned factories that employ more than 100 people and I'm not talking about bolted factory from the white man that employed 100 people I'm talking about started it from the ground that's part of my business 15 years and everybody thought I was crazy and I've just sold it to an American investor group and I've got my own money and as a result I'm saying let me invest another entrepreneurs so I'm not saying this for theory I've done it it's done in know-how and I didn't also pity I don't say the people give me the business cuz I was black or give it a bit no I said give me the business because I'm the best at what I do yeah you come against mr. tender while you better have your wits about you cuz I'm gonna take you out in any space yeah and the kind of belief I think is necessary we had this belief in the 80s and black people around barber shops like we had it in our own townships economy so is a lot you've lost at somewhere on the line yeah cuz you just solve this thing about pity now and all of a sudden were all looking for pity I don't want pity don't give me business for pity give it to me because I'm the best at what I do I promise you you come against me you will not win that's amazing and if you come against me and win but I'm willing to concede you know what you were better at this let me try something else yeah that's what we need to do to really build this country you that's you you you're one in a million you really are I mean you've got the crushing burning inside of you you've got a mind-blower look at me like that people that are like you and there are some people that are a little bit you know they own that sponsorship and it worked tirelessly every single day they approached for more funding they don't get it they want to extent they don't get it understand um their woman sitting beating and they are so talented nobody recognizes that talent nobody taps into it and allows them to empower their family understand we are leaving somewhere on the line someone's not helping because the let me just this I feel very passionate about this I think the biggest lie we ever sold there was a resort to black people specifically and I can only speak for blacks because I'm black the beauty father was ever sold to black people was the thing about small business I hate the term hate it absolutely hate it you know my mother belongs to stuff uh she's been in it for 30 years the stock fell 30 years ago and she joined the stock so there was a bank that was formed called Absa around the same time a stocks that is a group of people who come together put money together in a depository and later take the money and loan it to each other well that's exactly what a bank does what do you think my mother's stocks all value is today very little how big is that sir listed on the stock exchange yeah so the first thing we have to do to get the conditioning right is to teach black people that actually stopped thinking small you can start small but don't think small you know there's no difference between the mama who runs a Spanish shop and shop right both are the same you have a business in a physical building a branding at the front and stuff that our customers coming by every single morning so it's about us realizing we help to do the small things to start doing the big things and state institutions by the way and this is important state funding institutions have to stop looking for the easy way out you know in this country it's easier to get money to open a franchise than it is to start a real business why because franchisees don't lose money it's a franchise this gives you the formulas they go and open their serve that at that price but what's entrepreneurship not you telling me what bird I'm a cell and at what price and by the way you control my till and at the end of the month I give you 20% of my money where's the entrepreneurship in this how am I really creating intergenerational wealth if I'm just giving more money to give a net awake and let's be honest about it give people money to start their own things and if they fail then let's be honest about the fact that we failed and keep doing it the other ganas did it after they took part from the British that you did it in Israel we need to do the same thing which is just do the hard work absolutely I love you or something I'm tied for you yeah okay just quickly we gonna we going to take a break here on the program and afterwards we'll tell you how Lucy is giving away 40 insults inviting applicants for 40 businesses but I'll tell you about that dinner initial 12 is to thank you for your time thank you very same thang you [Music]

Channel: SABC News

Views: 1,167,726

Rating: 4.909091 out of 5

Keywords: SABC News, actuality, world news, local news, Vusi Thembekwayo, Dragons' Den South Africa, entrepreneur

Id: gNfCeDjE9xI

Length: 13min 31sec (811 seconds)

Published: Mon May 15 2017