Ideate » Interviews

1 Min. With A Superhero: James And Neil, Co-Founders of My Destination

Fred Roed — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:13:53 +0000

James Street and Neil Waller are the Co-Founders of My Destination. I had the opportunity to chat to the two founders about their company, social media and the economic downturn.

Established in 2006, My Destination is a start-up business that’s grown on a shoe string budget, out of the university dorms of their two Co-Founders, to a business that is now trusted by over 10 million travellers a year and has franchised in 120 destinations and is still growing.

We’re always interested in start-ups! Tell us in two lines what My Destination is.

My Destination is a global travel resource powered by a diverse community of local experts on the ground, providing unrivaled local knowledge and unique local deals. We make travel experiences more enriched, more enjoyable and quite simply, better.

Social media has become a vital part in growing your business. You have successfully used social networking to grow the business – can you share some secrets?

So far we have utilized social platforms to better ingratiate ourselves into the travel community, build meaningful relationships with key online travel influencers and used social channels as a key promotional tool for all our unique content. Twitter and Facebook have been especially great for us as each franchise destination has their own accounts from which they can provide local knowledge or answer real time queries about their destination, thus providing customer service that truly is ‘locally informed, globally inspired’!

The introduction of a new blog has given the site some social traction, as well as being the perfect tool to attribute a more informal voice to our brand – one our customers can really relate to on a more personal level. We have also been using LinkedIn to help promote our unique franchise model and offering – helping us to capture some great leads for potential new partners.

We plan to be innovative in the coming year and plans for on-site social as well as off-site will be just as important to our growth as anything else

What other online businesses do you admire?

We greatly admire how Groupon have expanded so quickly across the world, they really were an overnight success. They were the fastest company in history to reach 1 billion dollars in revenue and you can see why – they make it very easy to spend money with them. The model is absolutely genius and we are implementing our own voucher system called My Destination Exclusives which is our take on the deals model. The differentiating factor being that our deals are limited in number, are one a week to our subscribers and are of a high quality sourced by our local experts who have great relationships with businesses in our destinations.

How did you become entrepreneurs?

We started My Destination just before the economic downturn and so leaving our University degree a year before we graduated was the best decision we made contrary to a lot of belief at the time. Had we started amongst it we may have never have managed to get people investing in a relatively new concept which was online franchises.

I think being an entrepreneur is in your blood and it is one of those things where you either have it or you don’t. A friend asked me I want to leave my job and start my own business but I don’t know what to do. In my mind that is not the entrepreneurial spirit. We could of started any number of businesses when we left University, we first decided to become an entrepreneur before deciding on the business. I think too many people sit in a job they do not enjoy trying to find the next Groupon or Facebook idea which is never going to happen, both of those businesses were spawned out of trying other things before and then evolving. Going into the travel guide space you would think it would be saturated by big brands such as Lonely Planet we have brought a fresh approach to it and with the unique twist of having people on the ground in all of our destinations who are able to provide content that is comprehensive and fresh. Whatever you decide as long as you have that differentiating factor then you have something.

What markets are you looking at in order to expand?

We are pretty well spread across the globe now certainly by the end of this year the majority of major tourism destinations around the world will be operated by teams on the ground. The U.S. has been a tough market for us to crack and so this year we will be focusing our efforts on continued expansion in the country.

Thanks a lot James and Neil for taking the time to share your story and insights with us.

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.

1 Min. With A Superhero: Cheryl Nesbitt, Founder Of Africa’s Biggest Cooking School

Fred Roed — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 05:45:50 +0000

For those of you who don’t know who Cheryl Nesbitt is, this interview should make illuminating reading. I have fond memories of sitting in Cheryl’s Cape Town living room back in the first days of Capsicum Cooking School, brainstorming her marketing strategy. Even back then it was apparent that Cheryl’s drive, determination and attention to detail would result in a successful venture.

That was 7 years ago. Since then, Cheryl has won all kinds of awards for entrepreneurial endeavours. Capsicum has grown rapidly into Africa’s foremost culinary education facility, with branches in every major centre in South Africa.

Cheryl, firstly, tell us a bit about your business background.
I’m something of a serial entrepreneur with quite a few businesses behind me. After graduating from Witwatersrand Hotel School as a qualified hotel manager I ran a catering company called Country Catering and later a guest house in Rosebank. I later sold these businesses so that I could travel and promised myself that by 35 I would once again be self-employed.

Tell us why did you decide to open a chef school?
After extensive research I identified a gap in the market for a Culinary and Hospitality Management School which was affordable, internationally recognisable, and which would provide graduating students with the skills to move straight into the fast-paced industry. This research, coupled with my passion for education and the culinary arts, lead to the opening of Capsicum Culinary Studio in 2004.

How has Capsicum evolved over the years?
I started out teaching four students from my home seven years ago and now have six campuses across the country – Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Centurion, Boksburg and Port Elizabeth. Capsicum employs 74 people and has had more than 1 000 students pass through its doors since opening in 2004.

With many chef and hotel management schools to choose from it was important to identify our unique selling points such as affordability, a national foot-print, international accreditation and unique courses such as Patisserie and Chocolate Arts – the only course of its kind in South Africa. From 2012, iPad 2’s will form an integral part of the student’s learning experience with lesson notes placed online, access to DVDs and Electronic Portfolio’s of Evidence (POE) updated as they work.

Any new business will have challenges when starting out – what’s the best advice that you can give for tackling issues?
I have learnt that there are always challenges when starting and running your own business. The best advice I can give is to address problems head on, to tackle them as quickly as possible and to be truthful about the situation.

What are your top tips for business owners wanting to take their company to the next level?
There are a number of things that I believe are key to starting a successful business and to keep it running effectively. Here are my ‘Top 5′ tips that I consider invaluable in starting and running a business.

Tip #1. Research: Before starting a company make sure that you have done adequate research on your competitors! Get to know your target market and identify your unique selling points.

Tip #2. Be strategic: Focus on strategic planning, know what you want to achieve and work towards your goal. Take the time to create flow charts of the business plan and work alongside your staff to put effective systems and processes in place for each department.

Tip #3. Finance: Focus your attention on ensuring that there is enough cash coming in to the business to pay monthly expenses such as salaries and rent. Don’t wait until you are desperate to raise funds for working capital or expansion – rather do this before you need to.

Tip #4. Staff: Hire the best possible person for the job, even if they are more knowledgeable than you in certain areas – you will not necessarily have all the skills needed to run your business

Tip #5. Network: Many people make the mistake of underestimating the importance of networking – take time to meet with people in your industry and get involved in organisations that can provide you with helpful tips and advice on running your business.

Cheryl, thank you so much. All of us at Ideate are big fans of yours. We hope your success will continue well into the future.

1 Min. With A Superhero: Styli Charalambous, CEO of Daily Maverick

Fred Roed — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 07:07:42 +0000

We’re fortunate to have Styli from Daily Maverick in the Ideate house this morning. Styli Charalambous is the CEO of the most daring online publication in South Africa at the moment, with an extraordinary rise to prominence since it launched just over a year ago. Fresh from winning a host of Bookmarks awards recently, Styli and his crew have bold plans for the future.

Styli, we’re big fans of Daily Maverick around here. It seems you guys are super-busy innovating, collecting awards and working the event circuit. How’s life on the leftfield?
Pretty awesome. With a marketing budget of twenty T-shirts, we’ve managed to grow our readership to 140,000 unique visitors per month. By focusing on quality reporting and analysis, and being one of the 100% original content publishers out there. But digital publishing remains a challenging space, where High LSM people consume 90% plus of their news in digital format, yet it commands less than 5% of ad spend. Revenues continue to grow each month, but we’ve had to educate the market about our unique approach to advertising.

Nice work. I’m sure having really smart, witty and dashingly handsome contributors doesn’t hurt your growth. Daily Maverick seems to have a knack of saying things that people are thinking but no one is brave enough to say – do you get loads of hate mail as a result?
Surprisingly less than one would imagine. Whilst we may be the voice of what people are thinking, each article or opinion is backed up by research, experience or well argued points of view. While not all our readers agree with it, they’re smart enough to accept a different point of view. Most of them at least, with a couple outliers that just plain bonkers.

The iPad edition looks particularly interesting, especially considering you guys were the first in SA to launch one – when’s the official due date, and what can we expect?
The iPad edition was launched on the 08 October, with a low-key announcement to our readers. We’ll be officially launching the title early next year, but initial response to the publication has been phenomenal. We’re currently producing a daily equivalent of Newsweek or Time Magazine on a daily basis, which is an amazing feat. And also changing the way newspapers look, we’ve taken a much more visual and magazine style approach to daily news.

You guys innovated with the stable block of advertising on the right hand side of the screen – it’s great for readers, it’s great for brands, but does it hinder DM’s revenue potential at all – ?
It was challenging at first to educate a market that isn’t used to embracing different ways of doing things. But advertisers were quick to to see results and are coming back for repeat campaigns. We serve a very niche, high LSM readership so we’re able to charge premium rates, and hope lure premium brands onto the web, that have shied away from online due to crowded and irritating banner ads.

It appears that the online publishing space is going through a bit of a shakeup right now, with the 24.com guys reducing costs, and other publishing houses making similar noises.
That’s probably because the online publishing business model is broken and unsustainable. Selling clicks and impressions only works if you zero cost of content, for example when traditional newspapers paid their journalists for the print edition and then simply gave the content to online divisions, where any revenue was seen as a bonus. But with traditional print now sliding from profitability, online needs to find model that supports a stand-alone business model and the clicks/impression model just doesn’t work.

So, basically you believe that South African online publications are still not doing things right? What would you like to see in the future?
The premium titles, both magazine and newspaper, must have a tablet strategy. As tablets become more prevalent, expectations are 200,000 per annum in South Africa. Tablet owners will want consume their media on the convenient and beautiful tablet platform. This is obviously at the high end of the spectrum with the cost of bandwidth and the tablet significant barriers to entry, so I fully expect the tabloid and mass market publications to continue for a very long time in Africa, until those barriers are reduced. The issue for traditional premium publishers is that iPad editions will not be able to command the same ad rates that print does, and any aggressive play at tablets will simply cannibalize their print revenues, so they’re somewhat of timing quandary. They know they have to, but when do they go all-in?

You guys are on a high right now, with a bevy of Bookmarks won last week, and everyone singing your praises. What online publications, local or otherwise, do YOU admire?
Firstly, we’re chuffed with the recognition but no-one at the DM comes to work thinking of awards. It’s credit to our editor, Branko Brkic and the team, that they believe in this admirable vision to improve South African journalism, in a way that big media houses wouldn’t consider. In my personal capacity, I admire the efforts of anyone who produces original stuff, because I know just how hard it is to run a business that has to actually pay people for producing quality, original content. ZA News is DM favourite, and just so damn funny. But other than that, its quite difficult to pick out local online publications that stand out because the environment is so challenging for them to prosper. Internationally, the iPad versions of New York times and Vanity Fair are benchmarks in great quality journalism and visual experiences.

Thanks Styli for you time. Keep up the good work.

Ideate readers, if you want to see Styli talk on online publishing and advertising is evolving, there are still a few seats to the Heavy Chef event in Johannesburg on Wednesday. Click here to book your seat.

[Tip for Ideate readers: hop on over to the Daily Maverick and subscribe to 'The First Thing' daily newsletter, packed with good stuff to read at the crack of dawn - it's the smartest move you'll make today]

1 Min. With A Superhero: Martin Feinstein on Cape Town Entrepreneur Week

Fred Roed — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:30:47 +0000

Today we’re very privileged to be chatting to Martin Feinstein, a passionate advocate for entrepreneurship in South Africa. Martin is a Director at the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) and we thought it’d only be right to enquire about the upcoming Cape Town Entrepreneurship Week and what good things we can expect.

Martin – Tell us a little about the background of CTEW and why it’s important to South Africans to take notice of GEW?

Once upon a time it was Small Business Week. Then the City woke up to this being a bit small-minded and out-dated.

They decided to change it to Telkom Cape Town Entrepreneurship Week, and here we are – a prestigious, strategic and very engaging forum of thinkers and doers, all focused on promoting entrepreneurship, attracting entrepreneurs to come live in and do business in the City. The mother-city has embarked on a long-term strategy known as Cape Town Activa with the specific aim of creating an entrepreneurial ‘eco-system’ through which organisations, groups and individuals gain access to practical support, tools, a wide knowledge base, collaboration with each other as well as existing structures.

CTEW forms part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, an initiative which began as Enterprise Week in Britain during 2004. Soon enough, many countries from across the globe began running initiatives in their own countries. By 2008 Enterprise UK and the Kauffman Foundation, the world’s largest entrepreneurship foundation, founded the first Global Entrepreneurship Week. Since its inception, GEW has spread to 115 countries with 24 000 organisations planning more than 37 000 activities.

We at Ideate are very excited about all the fuss around Global Entrepreneur Week. What’s your involvement in CTEW?

I work with a very smart colleague, Gordon Metz from Urban Brew, our partner in this event. I’m very hands on with Gordon. OK, that doesn’t sound right, but you know what I mean.

We spend our time thinking, designing and managing the team: the programmes, the content, the communication, the stakeholders, the expo and the partnerships.

I try to make sure that everything is fresh, challenging, interesting and relevant to what the City aims to do with entrepreneurship.

What do you think the state of entrepreneurship is like in SA compared to other emerging economies like Brazil and Mexico?

It’s far from where it needs to be. Entrepreneurs create jobs, innovation, wealth, social cohesion and of course, through inspiration, other entrepreneurs. Yet very little is done to support them. Only R41m was spent in the last year on entrepreneurial micro-finance by government. That’s double the previous year. Relative to the need, it is not even a drop in the ocean – it’s a molecule. We need a billion rand of micro-finance available to people. Government is spending too much time on industrial policy and the macro-economy. As Clem Sunter said, Government can “stare itself blind” trying to create 5 million new jobs – or it can create 1-m new businesses so that each of them can create 5 jobs. We also need a radical shift in how we teach kids at school. They need to be prepared for a world where jobs are even scarcer than they are now. There are few incentives for entrepreneurs, it’s all about “getting tenders” and not building sustainable businesses based on spotting and meeting real market needs.

It’s certainly a tough situation. So, what do you think is needed to get us to where we should be?

Firstly a Small Business Czar with a budget of R20 billion to drive an entrepreneurial revolution needs to be appointed.

We need more business-minded people in government. In most advanced economies there is two-way traffic between government and the private sector. So you get a healthy influx of business smarts into government and a strong sense of public service and social justice coming into business. Here it’s a one way street – people move from government into business with hardly anyone going the other way. Which means most of the agencies responsible for small business development; innovation and funding of entrepreneurs are process-bound and run by officials who have no business experience. We also need about 10,000% more incubators than we have today. This is the way to encourage and nurture businesses and innovation. Brazil has more than 3,000 incubators. South Africa has less than 100.

One more thing – we need people to start businesses that rely on customers, not on tenders. The former is a business, the latter is contract work.

Finally, what’s your definition of an entrepreneur?

Aha – the $64,000 dollar question. An entrepreneur is someone who sees an opportunity, orchestrates the resources needed to sell something to someone in connection with that opportunity and continues improving the operation. Growing it through constantly thinking, questioning, challenging and being curious about every aspect of the market and the business. Importantly, they never blame anyone outside of themselves if things don’t work out; they simply do it all over again.

Thanks Martin, we wish you all the best for the week. Ideate will be out in force following the action. Ideate readers, keep a close eye on this blog over the next 24 hours; we will be giving away 5 delegate packages to the CTEW event running during Global Entrepreneurship Week.

1 Min. With A Superhero: Thomas Kolster on ‘Goodvertising’

Fred Roed — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:23:50 +0000

Today we’re talking to Thomas Kolster, who recently popped into South Africa from Copenhagen, Denmark. Thomas is a Danish advertising consultant and author of the upcoming book ‘The Bible of Goodvertising’. He talks about how to move from commitments to powerful, engaging communication that changes the world for the better.

Thomas explain the concept of ‘Goodvertising’?

It’s just a very funky and hip term, the new cool kid in school. I first came across the term goodvertising in a report published by Contagious magazine called Goodvertising, but I don’t know where it really comes from. There isn’t any official hard-line definition around, but I use the term goodvertising to cover the plethora of advertising and marketing initiatives that have an unselfish aim; from AIDS campaigns to a brand’s support for the arts. It’s an umbrella term covering everything from cause marketing, public awareness campaigns to corporate social responsibility. It’s still not a commonly used term, but I do think it has strength as an overarching term and I like how goodvertising almost works as an antonym, questioning the purpose of advertising. I think that’s what this whole development in communication is about: realising that advertising can be responsible, can be unselfish, can make a difference for people and planet – and yet still make a profit.

How did you come round to doing this?

I think it’s always been part of who I am to have a social slant; I grew up with a dad involved in politics and a mother who is a schoolteacher. We would always have these long discussions around the dinner table, I reckon where other kids and their parents talked about the latest episode of Beverly Hills, we discussed the environment, politics and Denmark’s unfair treatment of the indigenous people in Greenland – a dark, unexpressed chapter of Danish history. It might also be the fortunate circumstances I was born under in a social democratic country like Denmark with a GNI the size of South Africa, but with only 5 million inhabitants.

As a Dane I believe I have a responsibility towards the less fortunate, it’s the whole idea behind the welfare state: everybody should have equal opportunities.

From being at a number of Danish agencies and one of the ad giants DDB, I founded my own agency Inkognitocph.com – where I tried to experiment with new advertising models, that were less pushy and more about value, more about creating content that people wanted to engage with, wanted to be part of. And hey, suddenly the next step for me was so natural; why not aim for advertising that really makes a difference in people lives in a good way? It just makes so much sense to me. If brands want to reach out to people, why don’t they show them that they care about them? In that sense, I think I have found a second calling in advertising for good, because the premise or license to operate begins with shared interest. The brand begins a dialogue about what I happen to care about. You can almost hear the dialogue, when the brand says, “I think there are too few options for young artists,” and you respond, “That’s exactly how I feel!” It’s like two young lovers sitting on a bench, that realise they are both huge Pearl Jam fans and see it as a matter of fate or a sign of a higher, mutual understanding. It really is quite simple: People have changed and advertising should too.

We hear you’re writing a book – when can we expect it to be released?

Yes, I’m writing a book about responsible communication and how we as an industry have a pivotal role to play in making the world a better place. The publisher Thames & Hudson will publish it in mid 2012.

There is quite a lot of talk these days about ‘social entrepreneurship’ – what is your definition of an entrepreneur?

Someone with the ability to pose the question: Why not? In that sense, we need entrepreneurs to change and challenge the status quo and lead the way to a more responsible and sustainable future, we didn’t even know existed.

Thanks Thomas for your time! Ideate Readers, do yourselves a favour and follow @dogoodvertising and @thomaskolster on Twitter or see more about him at thomaskolster.com.

NOTE: the full interview with Thomas can be read on Heavy Chef (click here).

1 Min. With A Superhero: Gareth Cliff

Fred Roed — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 06:25:02 +0000

After last week’s review of his book “On Everything” we managed to corner 5fm morning show host Gareth Cliff in between his jam-packed schedule of deejaying, tweeting, idol-judging and general hooliganism for a quick interview.

Gareth, at Ideate we’ve seen firsthand your ability to generate attention. For example, when we published your ‘letter to government’ this website received a significant spike in traffic. How does it feel to have this ability?

It’s something I can’t do much about, so like having less startling good looks than say, Brad Pitt, I’ve learned to cope with it. To be frank, it’s sometimes useful and gratifying, if I can make a difference; but otherwise very annoying – especially when people assume I’m attention-seeking.

Yup, the Brad Pitt thing kills me daily. Would you consider yourself as an ‘entrepreneur’?

Well I work for myself and I think we’re doing some innovative things – especially in social media. You can call me what you like though.

Getting a book published must make your mom proud! What books do YOU read – and who are your favourite South African authors?

I don’t read much fiction, but I read rather a lot of biographical, historical and scientific stuff. That’s what I’m interested in.

Why do you think SA music has not been able to crack it yet on a large scale, despite the talent here?

We don’t have a big enough market of people who can afford music. That’s it, plain and simple. Only about a million South Africans ever buy their music.

Of that million, most are fanatical about only one genre, many download illegally and a still further differentiation occurs between those who like local music and those who don’t . You know… someone who buys kwaito won’t also buy Kurt Darren.

The market is tough, and the snare drum needs some toning down in most local production.

Ha, agreed… although, it would be nice to see more Seethers and Tree 63’s, or even some of the kwaito stuff breaking into the international stage Bob Marley-style. Gareth, thanks for your time and well done on the book. Ideate readers, you can buy the book here and follow Gareth on Twitter here.

1 Min. With A Superhero: Direct Marketing Expert Warren Moss

Fred Roed — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 07:42:24 +0000

I managed to catch up with Warren Moss, the founder of South African direct marketing firm Dermographica. Having set up numerous database-driven campaigns through my own agency, I knew that direct marketing has come in for a bit of flack over the years. Despite the fact that it is a highly effective means of communication, many marketers shun it in favour of sexier channels like social media and traditional advertising.

Warren, tell us a bit about your background and how the company come about?

I’m 29 years old and started Demographica when I was 24. I used to run a company called Digital Planet, which at the time was one of the most successful online retailers in the country. That was where I cut my teeth in the digital space and fell in love with the digital marketing side of the business. I left Digital Planet to start Demographica because I really wanted to be my own boss and it had always been a dream of mine to start a business. At the time, the idea for Demographica was very weak, but I think I convinced myself that it was life changing because the yearning and thrill of starting my own business was even bigger than the idea itself. Thankfully it all worked out in the end and Demographica evolved into what it is today.

Some people say that direct marketing is like supporting the Bulls. They know that it’s the smart thing to do, but no one likes to admit it. How do you overcome the unsexy nature of this category?

Direct marketing practitioners are changing the market perception of direct marketing. You are 100%, when we started the business people were totally uninterested in direct marketing and allocated very small budgets to it. Then some game changing things happened. The Assegai Awards became a big event on the marketing calendar and the recession hit. These two events, in my opinion, have changed the game for direct marketers in South Africa. In the Assegai Awards, marketing managers and clients now had the opportunity to win awards and gain recognition for their direct marketing work. Personal recognition is a big driver of innovation and risk and I think the fact that the “below the line” direct marketing campaigns now had an arena of recognition was a big thing in changing the landscape. The next major event was the recession. Marketing managers were now under increased pressure to stretch their budgets further and the directives for ROI were heavier than ever before. Naturally, direct marketing stood out here because of the measurability of the discipline. DM can be measured down to the Rand vs. Response and this is something that makes sense in a recession. When I go into meetings today, I very seldom get a poor feeling towards direct marketing, actually I find that marketers have lost their appetites for a few of the “sexier” above the line mediums.

What practical advice do you have for entrepreneurs wanting to start and grow their own database?

Quality over quantity. It is very easy to go out and build a big fat database. The problem is that it comes with many problems that people don’t realize at the time of gathering. If your list is “dirty” – and even if it’s not – subscribers can complain and those complaints have serious implications to the database owners. Internet Service Providers – ISP’s – can cut you off, the Consumer Protection Act talks about serious ramifications for this type of communication and the database can get worthless very quickly.

Rather aim for less people, but more of the right people. Make sure people know what they are opting into and make sure that it is explicit. You will always get a better response rate if you have the right people on your database than if you have a big database of the wrong people.

Direct marketing has had a bad rap over the years, with organisations like the DMA coming in for a bit of flack. People hate being spammed, yet results show that building a database and communicating with them regularly in a targeted and relevant way can be really profitable. How do you overcome the negative perception that many people have about receiving marketing material via email and traditional mail or via cold calling?

I think the DMA has come under a lot of flack unfairly. Of course they have made mistakes but they really do a massive amount of brilliant work to promote the direct marketing industry. I seriously don’t think the direct marketing industry would be as thriving as it is today if it weren’t for the DMA.

Yes people hate being spammed and being cold called, etc. but the truth is that the majority of the population would not have access to a whole host of products if it weren’t for direct marketing. The five million people in SA who make the noise about spam, cold calls, etc are the people that don’t really respond to traditional direct marketing. Those people seek the products out for themselves because they have the means and education to do so. The other 50 million people in SA rely totally on direct marketing because they are not able to seek out the products they would need because of their very limited access to media.

Now of course some companies abuse this – that is a different discussion – but I believe that DM has its place both in a traditional world and a digital world. At the end of the day, if you don’t want to receive emails or SMS’ – just unsubscribe!

What’s your definition of an entrepreneur? We ask this of a lot of our interviewees…

Someone who can see thing differently, see an opportunity irrespective of the barriers involved and have the balls to try make them happen and then have the resilience to continue when it seems like it isn’t working.

How do you see direct marketing changing in the near future, with particular reference to the opportunities digital and social media afford us?

I think the key here will be sophisticated technology which targets adverts in a way that doesn’t disrupt you. People always say that SMS’ impose on them and its a personal space blah blah. I agree most of the time, but what if you were walking in a shopping centre between 12 & 1pm and you got an SMS offering you a 25% discount from the food court? What if you were driving in your car and your petrol gauge was near empty and then you got an SMS offering you five litres free petrol at the garage around the corner? What if you were in a club and you got an SMS offering you a ‘buy 1 get 1 free’ for beer at the bar outside?

For me, the future is contextual targeting in a way that doesn’t impose.

Thanks Warren, really great stuff. All the best with your company! Please check in again to Ideate HQ for an update in the future.

1 Min. With A Superhero: ORM Expert Tim Shier

Fred Roed — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 06:30:24 +0000

We caught up with Tim Shier, the Managing Director of BrandsEye, one of a handful of South African companies lighting up the tech segment. Brandseye assists companies to monitor and manage their online reputation by tracking and measuring key words and phrases relating to their brand. Brandseye is being used by small, medium and big companies across South Africa (as well as digital marketing agencies like my own) and is starting to make inroads internationally.

Tim, what’s your background? Have you always been an entrepreneur, or is it something that you’ve grown into?

At varsity I did a BSc in Computer Science with a second major in Psychology (both interested me so I found a way to make them work). Soon after arriving at University of Cape Town (UCT), I realised that the academics were getting in the way of my education so I started getting involved in a bunch of other societies and development agencies to get some practical experience.

In my second year I tried my hand at my first business (a hybrid between what is now MXit and Twitter) but due to the absolute lack of experience in raising funding and the tech landscape we backed off when MXit launched and ate our lunch. Unfortunate but true. While finishing off my degree I started at Quirk Agency as an intern and slowly moved into the Marketing Manager role. This role soon evolved into a marketing and innovation type role where we launched a number of businesses such as Idea Bounty, Quirk Education and of course BrandsEye.

Over time these all got a little big for the structure and we decided to dissolve the department and for each of us to take on one of the businesses. I took BrandsEye and for the first year I was the marketing manager for the business unit. In March 2010, I became managing director and the rest is being defined day by day with some very solid month on month growth.

How did the idea for BrandEye come about?

Back in the day, about 6 years ago, Rob Stokes and Craig Raw thought it would be a great value add for us to track what consumers were saying about our clients. This was way ahead of the market need and in those early days it was largely a manual search engine game. Soon afterwards we found that we could automate the data collection process and Craig got to work to write a system which could do this. BrandsEye was this system and it’s certainly evolved a lot since that initial version.

Online Reputation Management (ORM) is a relatively new term, but has gained incredible ubiquity over the past three years. Does your job still mostly entail educating people, or have the scales tipped?

It’s really interesting actually, in SA there is still a tremendous amount of education that is due. Both in terms of the importance of Online Reputation Management but also in terms of the need for measurement in all areas of the business. Culturally the marketing environment seems to be heavily based on gut feel and not enough on analytical and predictive data. Internationally we see a very different paradigm. The market is obsessed with measurement and really understand how ORM fits into their business – which results in some fascinating client discussions.

Where is your target market?

At this stage our focus is on South Africa but increasingly we are looking internationally as the reputation of South African technology improves – something which we are passionately trying to help and now have our South African tech in clients across 89 countries.

We hear behind all the business stuff, you’re also a practicing magician – can you teach Ideate readers a trick?

Ahh Fred, you know as well as I that if I do share anything I’ll get kicked out of Hogwarts and that would be terribly awkward. I’m not going to teach an effect but for anybody who is interested have a look at this video and send your ideas on how it is done to me on @timshier.

Nice one Tim, thanks for your time. We wish you all the best, and stoked to see how well you’re doing. Keep in touch, and drop by again to give us an update.

What Makes An Entrepreneur Successful?

Staff Reporter — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 05:00:52 +0000

According to Denvor Phokaners, CEO of Enterprise Development Essentials, entrepreneurs are born with certain characteristics that are conducive to them surviving as entrepreneurs. They have the inherent ingredients to keep them determined and focused. It takes a push in the right environment and an opportunity in which to develop and learn certain skills.

“A good example is Picasso,” says Phokaners, “He demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent from a young age. Everything he needed to be the great painter he was – skill, ability and potential – already existed. It merely took the right circumstances to develop and unlock his ability.”

In the same way, true entrepreneurs are born with certain characteristics. All they need is an opportunity for these to flourish. It is important to remember that, as people are unique, they possess different and unique characteristics. Also important to know is that although people are born with entrepreneurial instincts, it does not mean they necessarily know that or will eventually follow that path. The potential is inborn rather than taught.

Denvor Phokaners continues: “My choice of the top ten characteristics of successful entrepreneurs are; creativity, confidence, being a self-starter, determination, having strong people skills, passion, having strong work ethic, vitality, they are closers and they are non-compliant.”

“These characteristics cannot be taught. They can only be further developed and enhanced.”

“In terms of creativity,” Phokaners continues, “top entrepreneurs in the world are generally not dull and boring people. Instead, they continuously look for different ways to do things and are exceptional at creating new ideas and finding new solutions to problems. In other words, they are solution driven and by means of their creativity, they create enterprises and empires. Research has shown that, more often than not, entrepreneurs claim they were inspired to start their own companies by their innate desire and determination, rather than by their education or work experience.”

The commonality between Branson, Shuttleworth and Trump

When one considers the quality of confidence, one should look at people such as Richard Branson, Mark Shuttleworth and Donald Trump. They all share confidence as a common characteristic. It is important to understand that confidence does not mean being an extrovert. Rather, it entails having the ability to believe in one’s strengths and exude a positive attitude to the point that it becomes contagious to others. If you do not believe in yourself, how can you expect others to believe in you? This is why confidence is so important – so that people will have confidence in you and, as a result, also in your product or service.

Good entrepreneurs are self-starters. They may find it difficult to work for other people, but it is exactly this quality that makes them unique, as they like to follow their own ideas. They are independent and self-reliant. This quality allows them to get things done without needing the permission or support of others to do so.

Determination is an important characteristic as this is what keeps entrepreneurs going despite challenges, disappointments and sometimes financial loss they might face along the way. As an entrepreneur, one often travels on a lonely road and one may find that rewards are elusive, despite putting 120% of your time and effort into what you do. Successful entrepreneurs, however, are determined and have a never-say-die attitude. It is this inner drive that propels a successful entrepreneur to keep going. Without it, they would be distracted and give up as soon as the first hurdle comes along.

Strong people skills are also important as people buy from people and from brands, not from companies.

“In other words,” says Phokaners, “one’s people skills promote one’s business, especially when first starting out. It is a characteristic that requires constant work to better oneself. If a person doesn’t like people, then there is no point in starting a business. It is better for that person to get a regular day-job.”

Passion is described as any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling. Entrepreneurs need to have passion for what they do if they want to be successful. They need to be driven and determined. Passion is what promotes the brand on a daily basis. Once again, people will only believe in what the entrepreneur does as much as he or she believes in it themselves.

As an entrepreneur, one often has to perform many different roles. Strong work ethic is important as it keeps one focused and remaining diligent when completing tasks. It is not uncommon for entrepreneurs to work up to 20 hours a day. It is strong work ethic, passion and diligence that keep them going. Millionaire and billionaire entrepreneurs, for example, have proven that hard work pays off. This also includes smart work.

ABC: “Always Be Closing”

Successful entrepreneurs are also deal-closers. Being good at sales is a skill one has to learn. However, entrepreneurs often learn these skills very quickly, simply because they have a natural ability to sell. This is because of their passion, creativity and strong people skills. These qualities also lend themselves to greater credibility, something that is essential when selling a product or service.

An interesting entrepreneurial characteristic is to be non-compliant. This entails not always happily following or agreeing with others. Successful entrepreneurs are often non-amiable individuals. They don’t take orders, they give orders. This is why they come up with out-of-the-box ideas which often propel them to success. Non-compliance does not meannever to agree, but rather to see different angles to the same problem. This creativity is what separates successful entrepreneurs from everybody else.

A good question is whether anyone can develop the qualities necessary to succeed as an entrepreneur. As mentioned earlier, one is born an entrepreneur; it is akin to being born with rhythm. Yes, anyone can learn how to dance, but those with a natural talent or natural rhythm will produce much better results than those who have to learn the skill. In the same way, there are skills you need to become a successful entrepreneur, such as financial skills, marketing, and so on. If these skills were to be taught to someone with no entrepreneurial rhythm, they will not produce the same results as the entrepreneur with a natural rhythm.

Entrepreneur Education: Read, Watch, Attend

It is important for entrepreneurs to develop their skills. The first step is to possess the right characteristics, but this is not all. One should read books, watch DVDs and attend conferences that teach about entrepreneurial skills, workshops and sometimes even formal training. These are a good method of obtaining vital knowledge and were designed to shorten one’s learning curve. What is also important in the life of an entrepreneur is to follow a mentor who can hold one accountable and offer guidance and support. This goes for networking with other entrepreneurs too. Entrepreneurs-to-be should be bold and start to develop their skills. By doing this they take the first step in their journey to becoming successful business owners.

The above article was appropriated from Denvor Phokaners writing on entrepreneurs. Find out more about Denvor at www.edevelopment.biz.

Ideate is one of South Africa's biggest business blogs, with a team of authors all of whom have had entrepreneurial experience. Ideate is read by entrepreneurs thinking BIG. Follow us on Twitter here. View more articles by Staff Reporter.

1 Min. With A Superhero: SEO Expert Rafiq Phillips

Fred Roed — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 06:30:22 +0000

Ideate managed to catch up with SEO superstar, MIH tech-wizard and WebAddict Rafiq Phillips to chat about technology, tips and techniques South African entrepreneurs can employ in their own websites.

Rafiq, thanks for chatting to us at Ideate. You’ve been featured in numerous magazines, blog forums and interviews – hell, you’ve even been on Carte Blanche. Are you still as technically immersed as you were when you first burst on the scene, or do you ‘unplug’ more these days?

I’ve been into technology for as long as I can remember, used to invest ALL my pocket money on bandwidth… or the phone bill in dial-up days… and spent most of my time learning about web technologies and connecting with like-minded individuals using whatever tool was available at the time, most likely IRC. Now my Web AddICTion pays for everything that is important in my life and thanks to automation also frees up countless hours. I unplug daily by spending quality time with my amazing wife.

You’ve had your blog Web AddiCT(s); since the beginning of internet time in SA, and it seems to have been a big part of raising your profile. In your opinion, in this cluttered environment, should one start a blog about their product?

The ‘raising my profile’ part is only a by-product of learning, sharing and expressing my opinion. It has never been my intention when blogging. On the web almost every object – product/service/person -has a story to tell and I believe everyone should tell their story. Should you start a blog? A blog is only a tool, a really good tool at that, if the target audience of your product uses the web then yes you should start a website, of which a blog is part of it, of course. Do not forget mobile.

For a non-technical entrepreneur who wants to sell their products online, what do you think should he or she do to get the process started?

There is a famous quote by Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, which really resonates with me: If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. The excuses I’ve heard many entrepreneurs use to not launch is just that: an excuse.

A lot of our readers have websites of their own, which they manage themselves. Can you share some basic search / SEO tips to march up the rankings that they can do themselves?

I did a talk at WordCamp Cape Town about the fundamentals of SEO that can be applied to any website not just blogging. [Below is the video edit of the talk.]

Thank you. The video is highly worthwhile viewing for those Ideate readers who are interested in optimising their sites. Rafiq, you’re in a highly forward-thinking and dynamic division at Naspers called MIH SWAT. Please share some cool insights that we can expect in the future for tech in Africa?

Officially we’re a research and development team, SWAT has been continuously focused on cutting-edge technologies and concepts. Areas of research range from Software Engineering to Software Architecture, Software Development Processes, SEO, SEM, SQA, Security, Scalability, Usability, Mobile, Social Systems, Web Services, and Web Semantics. You can follow our blog or @mihswat.

Unofficially I believe the next Steve Jobs will come from Africa. The work we do at MIH SWAT – utilizing all of the above technologies and a few projects I can’t mention publicly yet – will make this a reality.

Hoo boy, exciting stuff Rafiq! We at Ideate are looking forward to that forecast coming true. Thanks for your time, and please check in again when you can share some more about the work you’re doing with MIH comes to light.