You do not need funding to start, but to grow.

every year we mock June as youth month and focus on the challenges that youth are facing in South Africa lot of many problems faced by society from access to education unemployment and poverty as well as HIV others continue to struggle to realize their dreams in joining the world of business due to funding now in an attempt to alleviate this problem Malvoisie timber wire is opening his heart to young people in South Africa and he had a successful spell in entrepreneurship and recently saw the majority share in his management consultancy business motive motivate he caught the eye of us partners in a multi million rent deal which made him one of the most successful businessmen now he joins us in the studio and of course he is on a new journey of growth and giving back and in the process changing the narrative of entrepreneurship in South Africa was finally welcomed a very current word thank you yeah well yeah well mostly when we talk about voice people would know you as a successful businessman but then how did you start your business and how did you get it right yeah you know the getting a dried part was hard the beginning was a bit of chance and a bit of will so I spotted an opportunity in the market and I went after that opportunity and the opportunity was quite simply that I was speaking at a lot of conferences and I was using a lot of academic work and research that was done by American researchers and then I started building my own research function here in South Africa strong research business and some of the people with whom I was working in the u.s. said to us if you using our research and you're paying us license fees let's get into a long term partnership and relationship which we did and what I think they didn't anticipate was the rate at which the business would grow so you know they're in there are a hundred and eight year old business they're in 62 other countries and for six years conservatively I out competed all the other countries they were in and then eventually they said we should have a conversation and see if we can buy your business at first I said no I've got to tell you the first time they came up said no because I wasn't interested in selling I also felt that the time was wrong but they persisted in and now what is now close on three years ago when they approached me again I said well let's have a look at having the transaction and it took about two and a half years to negotiate deal and then finally closely you know what I'm getting in essence is that you have to be in business you have to do well and when you have started small if then when somebody is watching what you're doing and then when they see potential then they will do business with you yeah I mean I think the main thing for entrepreneurs to realize if somebody is always watching this is what many entrepreneurs don't realize if you make if you make if you make important steps at a small level you never know who's watching and I said to someone an entrepreneur who came to our firm just today to ask for funding I said never never discount the encounter you can have with one person that can fundamentally change your life and that's in effect what's happened in my life is I've had several encounters with separate people that at different levels change my life to a different stay so it's if you are an entrepreneur you need to ask yourself a simple question which is am I in it for lifestyle or am I in it for legacy because you can't do both so if you want in it for lifestyle then you live a lifestyle business you'll drive a nice car you live in an okay apartment you'll send your kids to an okay middle income type of school but when you die your business will die if you're a legacy entrepreneur then that's a different kind of thinking it's more long-term but it also means you take a lot of pressure up front but it's very hard to propel your business to greater heights especially when you are a guy from guys here and you're struggling here and it's not only the Asian finding but is your business living from hand to mouth $100 when you're not off in the evening you need to put food on the table 100 how are you gonna pay school fees pay rent where you stay and so forth and now let's bring business closer to home and to the grassroots level is it only the issue of funding if you have a great business idea so funding is important I just want to make this point funding is important funding is is important but it's not necessary you can start a business without funding here's what people don't understand a business is nothing more than an application of skill for the commercial enterprise if I can I did my school was speaking if I can speak and get paid I'm in business if I can do a garden and get paid I'm in business I don't need money to do your garden I just need the skill of gardening right so I think the mistake many entrepreneurs and I see a lot of entrepreneurs especially a low key and you make this mistake which is they think you need the money to start you don't need money to start you need money to grow you don't need money to start so if you're going out and saying I want to start a business give me funding you're going about it the wrong way because the that won't fund you to start the business it's too much risk there's there's too many things you haven't done too many mistakes you haven't made but if I gave you two million you have to make the mistakes using my money that's what about the mistakes what mistakes are we doing in South Africa is it a question of hustling wanting to survive so there are two fundamental mistakes the first one is the mindset we spoke about it so get your mindset right you are the legacy or lifestyle can't be both pick one the second mistake is I think the rate at which we prepare people for this thing called entrepreneurship you know so today to get a metric you need a 33 percent pass rate in maths at math literacy in that is by the by the way the equivalent what was in my day in your day about standard seven forty percent metric standard grade so basically the person can't put together an algebraic equation which means they'll never be able to put together an income statement so what I'm saying is when you are an entrepreneur you lose the benefit of saying so and so we'll do that and so and so we'll do that you do that when you're in a big business we're an entrepreneur you're the marketer your HR your accounting your finance your operations your strategy your IT your all of it so you need to then get very good at almost everything is a problem now because we want to be ambidextrous when we're doing business but here's the problem the kind of education system in South Africa I mean I come from the bunch of Education era and then I had to really really educate myself even though I was in a system where as graduating from high school to varsity but then I didn't know anything about bitter hours until I was imaged to know more about it clears and tell me about the synchronization of business academically yes academically academically speaking there how is it when it will in sync with the operating environment for young people to be part of the mainstream economy let me just say this very quickly your point is valid and correct but so that frequent again need to learn that there was a difference between being educated and certificated those are not the same things I can go to school and get a certificate and I see it all the time people come into our firm and apply for a job they have an a certificate their Chartered Accountant but you know what they do they've good at debits and credits that's it don't talk to them about strategy or marketing they can't do it my grandfather started as puzzle shop the very first time I heard about the term eBay da was my grandfather explaining it to me twelve years old like what is this a badass thing and why does an old man who doesn't have a standard to know what eBay da means so then went and learnt earnings before interest tax depreciation amortization so the question is how does an old man who has educated probably in the 30s and 40s definitely went to a pre apart aid schooling system that was not preparing the black man for economic enterprise learn a term that is a corporate finance term it's because even though he wasn't certificated he went and got himself educated the point I'm making when you become an entrepreneur the responsibility to learn how business works becomes your responsibility you cannot blame it on the environment you're in and the education your gear but listen somebody will disagree you and me like we come from Township and ruler of course yeah you can't compare the education there with those who are angry at your downtown CBJ a hundred percent agree but again I make the point there is the education you received given to you by the system in the school to which you go then there is the education you seek there is the things you do if you put it you differently when you're given that free bundle of data by MTM are you on Twitter or are you on YouTube watching a video from Mark Zuckerberg about how to master scaling a business both will cost you 200 megabits both are going to do very different things for your life now the question is there is all I'm saying is I I move beyond pity there is a point beyond which you can't ask for pity anymore there's a point beyond which you have to take responsibility for your life and saying embed among you for an island I am going to do it for my well at it record rate of that it's tough oddly in the world of this I agree look mate now let's acknowledge you have opened your hearts to South African and you have made it big and you want to help people tell us about this my growth fun yeah so after the sailor you know you i suppose you get to an existential crisis which is you know made a little bit of money what do I do with it so I took 10 min and ran the portion of the money I've made which is stimulant round of my own money and I've invested in this venture capital fund called my Growth Fund and in essence what we're doing is recruiting entrepreneurs this is important who are post start-up prematurity so your business is running you're typically doing about a million random month people here a million a million round a year people here a million ago it's a lot of money it's 80 thousand a month you know like it's puzzle shop makes 80 thousand randomized so if you're doing 80 thousand random months or more and you're looking for growth capital then whether people that you come to because I just want to make this point it's important point to make the effort required for me to take an entrepreneur from doing 1 million to doing 10 million employing five people 250 people is the same effort required to take an entrepreneur from during 10,000 to 1 million from flowing one person to five people my entire aim is growth and scale so I'm focusing my energies on entrepreneurs that are looking for opportunities for growth in scale okay so so far what kind of businesses have been applying tell us about the nature of the speciality what is so this is the most fascinating thing for me is they come from all sorts of spaces we had a young a young entrepreneur young black entrepreneur 122 million ran business in construction young lady in fashion 2.3 million another young lady her business does hair and we're weaving about 5 million another young lady who came in and does training 38 million so they are all over the spectrum which is for me what is exciting and welcome ABARES I get all these people are saying you know finally someone understands that just because I'm running an upper an office doesn't mean I've got it sorted out I actually need help to grow because it's important to realize you get to a point of growth and then your business can do so we learned out of time the contact people might crack at them they're out are they getting sacked so I would so three things go to my website which is my growth fund tour co to za my growth fund the zeros are a go to my personal website tender wire calm all one word or just call the office or one one three one two seven five five one got a really cool scent of people willing to help and we're talking to entrepreneurs anybody would like to join the program jump in well thank you very much for making time to stick to ice and thank you very much for sacrificing I know it took forever to get me here and I appreciate your patience in waiting for me I'm a very patient man all right I remember September I always venture capitalist and global business pika economic futurist and entrepreneur so to apply for funding log on to my growth fund on a ww-why growth fund dot coa

Channel: Vusi Thembekwayo

Views: 265,239

Rating: 4.9347062 out of 5

Keywords: mentorship, funding, venture capital, vusi thembekwayo

Id: dMSRBrLLlFY

Length: 10min 56sec (656 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2017