Ideate

How Fundamo became the world’s no.1 mobile financial services provider

by Fred Roed on 21/08/09 at 9:18 am
4 comments

On Wednesday night, I attended the final session of the entrepreneurial mentorship initiative, the MyMentor program, with which I was supremely fortunate to be involved (along with some super cool entrepreneurs from top SA companies). The Cape Venture Partners team introduced a very special guest, Hannes van Rensburg, the CEO of South Africa’s very own Fundamo, the largest specialist mobile financial services provider in the world.

Hannes was asked to share some of the secrets of his journey. His presentation was lively and peppered with cool insights into being a ‘mad entrepreneur’, as he calls it.

There were 5 themes that Hannes highlighted:

Theme #1. Have a Mad Idea
Fundamo (the name comes from ‘fundamentally  mobile’) was the embodiment of a mad idea – at least back in the mid 90’s it was. Hannes wanted to use mobile phones as a secure payment device. An interesting perspective was that Hannes advised not to share your ideas in the social media fashion, i.e. the web 2.0 “get them out there, collaborate, talk, grow your idea” way. Talk is cheap, basically, and be careful who you talk to. Once you’ve got a great idea, nurture it like a baby and work on the real value proposition that your idea provides.

Theme #2. Funding is not about raising money
Let’s face it, funding is necessary when you want to become a global leader like Fundamo.  However, funding is not just about the money, according to Van Rensburg. It’s more about a relationship, and the money is merely a ticket to that relationship. Choose your funders wisely (not necessarily the other way round) since it is critical to your success that your partners are appropriate for your company. The funding relationship becomes like a marriage with all the ups and down of a typical pairing. Fundamo has tried to defend its independence (but that may change)

Theme #3. Build a business not a product
Hannes spoke about the first big sale that Fundamo made – a “vloekskoot” as he called it – and the team were elated. They believed they could sit back and watch the money roll in. It almost killed the company, he said, and realised that they needed to ensure that they keep marketing, keep growing the business – not tweaking products.

Theme #4. Get the right people for your business
As Fundamo grew, it required different types of people. There were only four people involved when the company began, but the management team is completely different from that original team. Fundamo has been highly focused on sourcing top people with the right type of experience to fulfill the growing needs of the company.

Theme #5. Focus on clients
You can only be successful if you focus vehemently on your clients. If a client is unhappy, drop everything. Don’t stop until your client is happy again. This has suited Fundamo well in the past, and Hannes cited the example of a client representative who they assisted early on, who then became a major decision maker in another company on the other side of the globe. And when your client succeeds, celebrate with them!

The overarching lesson that Hannes shared with us was “Have a dream” – in Fundamo’s case, the dream is to “Make electronic money accessible to everyone”.

Follow Hannes on Twitter at www.twitter.com/rensburg

Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. Fred is the CEO of web marketing company World Wide Creative and the co-founder of online learning portal Heavy Chef. Fred loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. Follow Fred on Twitter here. View more articles by Fred Roed.

Tags: Business/Finance, mobile phones, Online social networking, social media, South Africa, Twitter, Web 2.0

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