5 Ways Your Website Can Support Your Community
Every small business, no matter whether it's a corner shop or a website selling gourmet meal kits, got where it is without the support of its community.
No business was built by one person alone. Every small business, no matter whether it's a corner shop or a website selling gourmet meal kits, got where it is without the support of its community. According to the Heavy Chef e-commerce entrepreneur education report, created in partnership with xneelo, 72% of entrepreneurs believe their peers – fellow members of the small business community – have had the biggest positive impact on their business.
In this article, our friends at xneelo outline how you can use your business or e-commerce website to serve your community, and do your part to pay it forward.
Use your website to educate
62% of business owners interviewed for the entrepreneur education report consider their knowledge of running a business to be poor to average. Depending on the type of business you run and sector you operate in, you can draw on your own expertise to share valuable tips and advice for your community. Use your website to share educational resources, such as guides or tutorials, that can help local businesses and individuals improve their skills or knowledge.
If you run a marketing business, for example, you can share a series of tutorial videos on how to market a business, or offer tips for the best digital marketing tools to help small business owners overcome certain challenges.
Share your own journey
Starting a business and learning the ins and outs can be tough. Sharing your own challenges could be the inspiration someone needs to finally turn their side hustle into a fully-fledged business. Use your website's About page to share your story, or post a video where you talk about it in your own words. As a business owner you want to be transparent. Not only does this lend authenticity to your business, but it will also earn you the respect of your peers who are on the same journey.
Share success stories
Use your blog or news pages to highlight local businesses, charities, or individuals making a positive impact in your community. Xneelo is a web hosting company, but they use their Customer Stories blog to shine a light on the amazing small businesses that host their websites with them. A web page is a small piece of online real estate, but the brand awareness and marketing benefits can make a real difference.
Become part of a new community
Keep an eye open for community events you can join or consider creating your own. Your website is the perfect channel for creating awareness around community events, discussions and challenges. Make it easy for your visitors to communicate with each other and with you by adding forums and chat rooms to your website, as well as easy links out to your social media groups.
There are also numerous existing communities you can join. Did you know that anyone who uses WordPress is considered part of the WordPress community? Valuable knowledge sharing and networking opportunities happen at monthly Meetups that take place in most major cities, including South Africa.
Recommend other businesses
Word of mouth is just as effective online as it is offline. You can use your website to recommend another business in a variety of ways.
If your website offers culinary products, recipes or ingredients, for example, why not recommend local wines or condiments? Or if your website needs photography, choose a local attraction for the shoot or use local products in the styling. Another popular idea is to include a list of your preferred or recommended suppliers on your website to credit the businesses that helped you get where you are.
No matter which community you're a part of, whether it's your local community, the industry you operate in, or the small business community as a whole, you can leverage your website to help support and strengthen others.
This advice was compiled by our friends at hosting provider xneelo.
Future Entrepreneurs: How Is The Way That Entrepreneurs Learn Changing?
The learning needs of small business owners align in a very satisfying way with the virtues promised by Web3 technologies.
The first two versions of the web took us from being largely passive consumers of content to being active publishers of data.
Web3 gives us access to distributed solutions that allow us to own and control our data.
This mirrors and taps into the long-held attitudes and behaviours of entrepreneurs.
Future entrepreneurs will design and direct their own development destinies.
Our surveyed entrepreneurs rate “ease of access” highest among their learning data needs.
The internet continues to shape every sphere of human interaction. Each technological leap forward triggers a seismic shift in society and culture – including for entrepreneurship and entrepreneur education.
A Short History Of The Internet
Web1 was all about content. More information than we could possibly have dreamed of was suddenly at our fingertips, and society was largely happy to sit back and consume it. Our relationship with the internet was a static and simple one. We could choose from and interact with a handful of authoritative publishers.
Next up, Web2 turned every user into a potential publisher. Go forth and create, said the newly launched platforms and social networks. But Web2 didn’t quite live up to its billing as the democratisation of the flow of content. This narrative had plot holes, most notably the issue of centralised control of the data that we the consumers had created.
Cue Web3, with its focus on solving the centralisation problem. Technologies like the blockchain, crypto and tokens offer a distributed solution that allows us to create, own and control our data.
Watch Ross Drakes’ recipe, Blockchain and Brands, here.
Welcome To Entrepreneur Education 3.0
The internet’s glow-up is reflected in that of entrepreneur education.
Not too long ago, entrepreneurs in the making had few options to educate themselves. You could head to the bookstore and pick up some how-to literature, enrol in an MBA, or just start a business and learn from your inevitable mistakes. The creators and keepers of entrepreneurial knowledge were predominantly institutions of learning, with significant barriers to entry.
As content-sharing platforms and social networks came online, each of us could, for the first time, share our ideas, methods, experiences and mistakes. The barriers to creating and distributing knowledge about entrepreneurship were removed. The resulting content tsunami offered plenty of opportunities to upskill, but the volume was nearly impossible to navigate effectively. You’d have to follow a clickbait title and hope for the best.
This is Entrepreneur Education 3.0. Today, entrepreneurs have shifted their expectations away from traditional institutions to a new kind of educational environment in which they can design and direct their own development destiny. Heavy Chef research reveals that future entrepreneurs want:
To have a single, cohesive view of their learning data.
To engage with that data when and where suits them.
To design their own learning journey and rewards along the way.
Watch Simon Dingle’s recipe, Creating NFTS, here.
Top 5 Learning Data Needs
When asked how entrepreneur education content can improve to fit their busy lifestyles better, small business owners highlight needs that align with the virtues promised by Web3 technologies.
For example, 44% say their top requirement is to access their content and other educational data such as records of qualifications as easily and simply as possible. This indicates a shift away from engaging with each institution of learning individually in order to access the things they learned and validation thereof.
Learn. Do. Share.
So, what actions can we take from these insights?
Entrepreneurs: How are you upskilling yourself to understand Web3 technologies?
Educators: What incentives are in place for you to adopt a Web3 mindset when engaging with entrepreneurs?
Brands: How can you help entrepreneurs play with and test Web3 within their businesses?
This research forms part of the Heavy Chef Report on Future Entrepreneurs. You can download the full report here.
Research: What Are SMMEs Looking For In A Hosting Solution?
Our partner xneelo offers insights into what South African SMEs are looking for when it comes to their web hosting.
The following research is brought to you by xneelo.
Heavy Chef is proud to partner with South Africa’s trusted web-hosting solution.
The e-commerce market in South Africa has grown rapidly since 2020, largely due to pressurised retailers fast-forwarding online growth to counter Covid-19 restrictions. Despite challenging post-pandemic economic times, especially in the tech industry, e-commerce consumer growth is expected to continue. We’re all familiar with the big players, who continue to invest heavily in this space. Industry stalwart (and long-time Heavy Chef friend) Arthur Goldstuck predicts that local online retail will grow by 25% this year.
The costs of existing in this crowded market can be high, especially when it comes to the tech requirements of running an e-commerce store. What do SMMEs need to know about web hosting in order to stay competitive?
Insight 1: Simplicity Is Key
Trends indicate that new start-ups increasingly require accessible hosting solutions to help them with their basic business needs. Larger e-commerce platforms and major cloud providers are often too complex and expensive for small businesses to leverage. This will drive the demand for a one-stop-shop website that allows you to advertise your products and process payments – providing an opportunity for small businesses to compete in the ultra-competitive e-commerce market.
Insight 2: Ignore Mobile At Your Peril
Mobile compatibility is key here as consumers expect the same experience on their phones as they do from websites.
Insight 3: SMMEs Prefer A Done-For-You Approach
The popularity of WordPress as an enabler for e-commerce websites is also growing rapidly, as is managed hosting. This is largely driven by the organisational need to maintain a website without relying on additional investment into IT infrastructure, services and personnel.
The global managed services market is expected to exceed $300bn by 2027, with managed hosting being one of the most popular of these services. By comparison, the managed hosting market was worth $60bn in 2018, which shows the remarkable growth being seen in this area. For SMMEs especially, this type of hosting provides a certain amount of peace of mind around maintenance, uptime, ease of use and, most importantly: security, which continues to be a major focus.
Research: How Can Start-Ups Help Fight Youth Unemployment?
There’s a synchronicity between the need to end youth unemployment, and the opportunities SMMEs in South Africa can provide.
With the right ingredients, start-ups of the future can become the preferred place of learning for unemployed youth.
The vast majority of SMMEs in South Africa are single-person businesses. These entrepreneurs have an appetite to employ youth but face significant risks in doing so.
Web3 technologies can help to nullify these risks.
Globally, across cultures, youth are proactively taking the lead to fight unemployment.
Youth with entrepreneur ambitions are looking for jobs in entrepreneurial spaces that give them the opportunity to experiment while earning a living. With the right structures in place, start-ups can provide these spaces.
“Dr J” is passionate about guiding young innovators towards a prosperous future. Tuck into Dr J’s recipe for coaching entrepreneurs here.
Let’s talk about entrepreneurs and youth.
I’m a big fan of synchronicity or, simply put, meaningful coincidences.
One of the 10 insights revealed in the Heavy Chef Report on Future Entrepreneurs is titled The Youth.
“With a combination of the right ingredients,” it begins, “start-ups of the future can become the preferred place of learning for many unemployed youth – but it all starts with one person.”
The piece connects five crucial points:
That the vast majority of SMMEs in the country are in fact single-person businesses.
That these entrepreneurs have an appetite to employ youth but face significant risks in doing so.
That new Web3 technologies will help nullify many of those risks.
That when empowered and incentivised to employ, start-ups and micro-sized businesses will play a crucial role in fighting youth unemployment.
That start-ups are filled with raw and intense hands-on learning opportunities that are vital for upskilling future entrepreneurs.
Intriguing, yes?
Back to the synchronicity.
Since releasing the report, the themes within The Youth insight have been jumping out at me at many seemingly unrelated moments.
It started two weeks ago when I was pointed to a fascinating podcast that asked if future generations are yearning for a religious revival.
Soon after, a report on the future of entrepreneurship in Qatar dropped in my inbox.
That very same day, our good friends at Youth Capital shared with us fascinating insights into the role of social connections in solving youth unemployment.
Then yesterday, my passion project – a coming-of-age screenplay that explores coming to terms with your past, present and future self – received a funding offer and a feature in Rapport Newspaper.
Coincidences? I choose to think not.
Here are some of the statistical and thematic data related to this theme that you can find in our Future Entrepreneurs Report.
Insight 1
Globally, across cultures, youth are proactively taking the lead to fight unemployment.
Insight 2
Despite the risks associated with employing your first member of staff as a start-up, there is nevertheless an appetite and intent to do so.
Insight 3
Start-ups and micro-businesses do not have staff on their mind. It’s all about the drive for new business. But with an intent to employ in future, this skill gap will be critical to fill if we want to ensure small businesses become spaces for learning and growth for their employees.
Insight 4
Web3 technologies such as blockchain, decentralised networks and smart contracts show promise in helping small businesses onboard new people with reduced costs and risks.
Insight 5
Youth with entrepreneur ambitions are yearning to slot into environments that give them space to experiment and grow while earning a living – a gap exciting start-ups can fill given the right structures are in place.
Start-ups and micro-sized businesses are a fertile ground for employing and investing in the growth of young future entrepreneurs. The sentiment is there both from the business side as well as from the youth. However, there are many steps to take to remove barriers, costs and risks to do so. Web3 technologies look to address these gaps.
Learn. Do. Share.
So, what are the actions we can take from these insights?
For entrepreneurs: Have you started thinking about what learning environment you can create when you inevitably start building out your team?
For educators: How can you help technology companies align their work in Web3 with the needs of micro-sized businesses?
For brands: To what degree can you connect start-ups in your ecosystem with your internal learning, development and internship programmes?
This article was originally shared with our community in our Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe below to get it in your inbox, fresh every Friday!
Research: Why Should Entrepreneurs Focus On Serving Their Customers?
This week, we’re tapping into a service mindset.
American philosopher and political theorist James Burnham once posed this still relevant question: what if the answer to society’s ills is not capitalism vs socialism, but an entrepreneurial vs a managerial class?
Entrepreneurs lead by innovating and serving; managers lead via rules, regulations and believing in the public’s service to themselves.
Time and again, customer service proves to be the secret to a start-up’s success.
Nearly two thirds of customers surveyed by Zendesk indicated that they will defect from a business after a single bad experience.
As a scaling business, you need to balance the hiring of managers with prioritising customer service.
The co-founder of Dermastore is an advocate for putting customer service at the heart of any business – a winning strategy by all measures. Learn from Greg’s recipe for serving your customers here.
Let’s talk about entrepreneurs and customer service.
One of the most profound books I’ve ever read was James Burnham’s The Managerial Revolution. I’m in good company: George Orwell himself described it as “intellectually courageous”.
Published in 1941, this prophetic book has a very simple premise. It argues that the battle for the soul of a nation – or even global order – is not capitalism vs socialism or rich vs poor. Rather it is the entrepreneurial class vs the managerial class. Burnham deems the latter (which he terms “The Rule Of Administrators”) to be an existential risk to democracy itself.
The reasons are pretty straightforward. The entrepreneurial class leads by means of innovation. The managerial class leads by means of rules and regulations. Their motivation is not to be in service to others but rather that others should remain in service to the status quo.
Despite being more than 80 years old, the book’s premise is at the centre of the bullseye of many of today’s burning issues.
Politics, big business, parastatals, public institutions – almost all of them are overwhelmingly run by administrators with a frighteningly large absence of entrepreneurial leaders.
To share a single data point, the ratio of administrators to students at some of the world’s top universities currently sits at an unsustainable 1:1.
If you’ve ever dealt with national leaders, political parties or government institutions, you’ve probably been struck by how much emphasis is put on protocols of address like “Your Excellency”, “The Honourable so-and-so” and “Your Worship”. (In fact, South Africa has a 56-page etiquette book to help you out if you’re interested.)
The message is clear. To this particular managerial class, “public service” is not about serving the public; it’s about the public being in service to them.
In stark comparison, entrepreneurial leaders are obsessed with serving others, in particular their customers.
Why obsessed? Simple. The penalties for a lack of service are quick and severe, whereas the rewards are overwhelmingly positive.
Let’s look at five research studies including our own that highlight the return on service for entrepreneurs.
Insight #1
The 4th Edition Heavy Chef Entrepreneur Education Report highlighted the importance of partnerships for entrepreneurs. A finding from the report’s thematic analysis showed that entrepreneurs evaluate and pick potential partnerships based on how it helps them serve their customers better.
Insight #2
An in-depth analysis of the language app Duolingo revealed that of all the tactics used to grow the app, a focus on current customers saw a 350% increase in user activity.
Insight #3
The 2022 Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report revealed that 64% of business leaders said a focus on customer service had a positive impact on their business. Meanwhile, 60% of customers indicated that they will defect from a business after a single bad experience.
Insight #4
The 2022 South Africa Township CX Report showed that customers trust local brands who are most responsive to serve their needs, and that 90% would welcome a Spaza Loyalty Programme if it were to be introduced.
Insight #5
The 2020 African Youth Survey showed youth’s readiness to serve with 77% of South African youth believing they can effect positive change if they lead from the front. This stat inspired a radical idea to solve South Africa’s poverty threat.
I feel I need to make a quick nuanced point re entrepreneurs vs managers.
The Managerial Revolution specifically cautions against the rule of a majority managerial class in the face of an absence of entrepreneurial leaders.
But entrepreneurs need managers, obviously.
Finding and employing the right one(s) is invaluable to scale the business beyond yourself. The challenge is to hire those people while keeping the organisation focused on being of service to others.
Learn. Do. Share.
So, what actions can we take from these insights?
For entrepreneurs: Take a good look at the way you’re operating. What could you do in the next two weeks to move customer service closer to the heart of your business?
For educators: How can you demonstrate the importance of customer service to tomorrow’s entrepreneurs?
For brands: What tools can you make available to help entrepreneurs better look after their existing customers?
This article was originally shared with our community in our Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe below to get it in your inbox, fresh every Friday!
Research: Do Entrepreneurs Know How To Budget?
If you struggle with budgeting, it turns out you’re not alone. This week, Louis Janse van Rensburg unpacks how entrepreneurs feel about their skills in this area, and what they’re doing to improve.
A budget is more than a tool. It’s a reflection of the health of your business.
Your budget should tell the story of your business and where it’s going – not a fictional or aspirational story, but one grounded in reality with a dash of hope.
78% of entrepreneurs do not feel confident in their budgeting skills.
Many entrepreneurs (41%) only began to learn about budgeting after starting their business.
Cash flow and finance controls are their first priorities when catching up on this knowledge.
Not too long ago we partnered up with Xero and Simple Books founder Philip van Zyl to publish The Heavy Chef Guide To Financial Management For Startups. Check out Philip’s recipe on budgeting and saving, and buy the book here.
Let’s talk about entrepreneurs and budgeting.
Earlier this week, Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana delivered the 2023 Budget.
I was working, listening with only one ear, feeling a decided lack of interest towards the entire ceremony. To the point, a feeling of futility.
Then I was reminded that I’d felt that feeling before.
I was straight out of varsity, one year into turning my side hustle, ThumbsUP, into a full-time gig.
ThumbsUP was a photography platform for sports fans. It had a simple model. We’d go to sporting events around the country, take photos of fans and upload them to Thumbsup.co.za, where people would flock to download them. This was pre-social media. Don’t judge.
I was spending my days doing platform design, working with photographers, speaking to venues, uploading content, chasing advertisers and tracking our not-so-rosy bank balance.
I had a budget, which I had very enthusiastically set up at the start. But looking at it in the midst of hustling and surviving felt futile.
That feeling again.
Let’s be honest. The budget was way off. Most of the line items were irrelevant. Expenses underestimated. Income overestimated. What was the point in revisiting it?
Today, of course, I know all too well that the budget wasn’t the problem. That sense of futility was just an emotional response to the real truth: the business was out of my control. Too many moving parts. Unfocused delivery. Broken promises. The wrong partners. Indecisive leadership (yep, I’ll take that one squarely on the chin).
Does this sound familiar?
The accuracy and effectiveness of your budget is a reflection of the health of your business and, fundamentally, a reflection of the trust people have in you as a leader.
A principle I’ve since learned from our business partner Mike Perk is that a budget should tell a story of your business and where it is going. Not a fictional or purely aspirational story but one that is grounded in reality with a dash of hope* and ambition to push your boundaries.
(*In fact, Mike just co-published a book on the topic of hope. Check it out.)
Budgeting is a notoriously tricky learning curve for small business owners but luckily there are many smart tools that are making it a lot easier – a trend we can expect to see more of in future.
Let’s look at five insights from our research about how entrepreneurs rate their skills in this area.
Insight 1: Not Entirely Confident
78% of entrepreneurs rate their budgeting skills as very poor to average.
Insight 2: A Late Start
Many (41%) entrepreneurs learned about budgeting only after starting their business.
Insight 3: Hindsight
More than half (71%) of entrepreneurs say that it would have been valuable/very valuable to learn about budgeting much earlier in their life.
Insight 4: Top priorities
Cash flow management (60%) remains the top finance skill priority for entrepreneurs but budgeting and finance controls (57%) are also top of mind.
Insight 5: Future analysis
48% of entrepreneurs say financial analysis will be a valuable financial skillset looking towards the future, expecting a closer relationship between this and their cash flow and budgeting skills.
Evidently, entrepreneurs do not have a lot of confidence in their budgeting skills. They realise it is something they should have learned earlier but are now catching up on as a priority. In the future, entrepreneurs want to be in a position to critically analyse and use the data and insights that make up their budgets.
Learn. Do. Share.
So, what are the actions we can take from these insights?
For entrepreneurs: Do you have a finance-oriented entrepreneur or advisor in your circle of peers to interact with regularly?
For educators: How are you empowering entrepreneurs to critically analyse and use a budget?
For brands: What tools or services can you offer to entrepreneurs that will help them balance their time constraints to review their budgets?
This article was originally shared with our community in our Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe below to get it in your inbox, fresh every Friday!
Research: How Well Do Entrepreneurs Know Themselves?
How does self-awareness benefit entrepreneurs? And how do we cultivate it?
It’s crucial that entrepreneurs cultivate self-awareness.
You are your business. Knowing only one half of that equation isn’t a guarantee of success.
Entrepreneurs report higher self-awareness than non-entrepreneurs.
The higher an entrepreneur’s self-awareness, the more likely they are to enjoy work satisfaction and lead a better team.
Self-awareness can be cultivated through various reflection exercises, from personality assessments and journaling, to group workshops.
“My grandmother taught me to self-regulate, which instilled an inherent sense of right and wrong within myself,” says Lwando in her Recipe on Business & Ethics, making the point that self-aware entrepreneurs create self-aware businesses.
Let’s talk about entrepreneurs and self-awareness.
A school guidance counsellor once suggested that I study urban planning. It really didn’t strike a chord with me. What did I know about civil engineering? I dismissed the advice.
Fast-forward a handful of years and it actually made total sense – urban planning is a field that exactly fits my skill set and way of thinking. Every personality survey, workshop or Enneagram I do tells me I’m a big-picture thinker who likes to connect the dots and that I have a high level of empathy for the value of each cog in the machine.
Looking back, it also occurs to me that as a kid I used to dream about getting into golf-course design. I’d spend my days drawing course layouts … when I wasn’t mapping out Lego designs, creating strategies for sports teams, structuring screenplays or drawing up creative business plans.
This kind of self-knowledge isn’t just a nice-to-have. The more I paid attention to my natural rhythms and thoughts (the good and the bad), the more I got to know myself, and the more I got to know myself, the better I performed . From coasting my way through high school to receiving top honours in a Masters programme, self-awareness helped me to get better at achieving the goals I set for myself.
It’s a process that shouldn’t ever really stop – especially for entrepreneurs.
In fact, I am a firm believer that the best chance an entrepreneur can give their start-up is to build it in their own (self-aware) image. Whatever your personality type or temperament, build a business and culture that is most true to you.
The entrepreneur’s journey is already hard enough. Every day you’re faced with variables outside your control. The one thing that you can control – the thing that will help your cause the most – is knowing who you are.
You are the business. Best the two align.
But hey, don’t take my word for it. Below are insights from research papers that explore the relationship between entrepreneur performance and self-awareness:
Insight 1: Entrepreneurs Have Above-Average Self-Awareness Versus Non-Entrepreneurs
A study in the Journal of Applied Psychology measured and compared entrepreneurs’ self-awareness versus that of non-entrepreneurs, and found a higher level among the former. They posited that this was most likely due to the demands of a business on the entrepreneurs.
Insight 2: High Self-Awareness Correlates Positively With Work Satisfaction
The Journal of Business Venturing found that entrepreneurs who reported higher levels of self-awareness also reported higher levels of satisfaction with their businesses.
Insight 3: Self-Awareness Makes For Better Teams
After surveying 181 members of entrepreneurial teams, one study found that teams with higher levels of self-awareness were more effective at communication, coordination and problem-solving than those with lower levels.
Insight 4: Entrepreneurs Improve Their Self-Awareness Through Self- & Co-Reflection
Engaging in regular self-reflection, such as journaling or self-assessments, helps entrepreneurs to improve their self-awareness, according to a study in the Journal of Business Venturing. It also showed that working with a coach or participating in training programmes with your peers can be effective in improving self-awareness.
It seems the intense demand of starting and building a business creates an environment that encourages entrepreneurs to invest in knowing themselves. This has a positive impact on their work satisfaction, performance and adaptability, leading to a better chance of success.
A good entrepreneur will seek out time for self-reflection and peer support as a way to continue improving their self-awareness.
Learn. Do. Share.
So, what are the actions we can take from these insights?
For entrepreneurs: When last did you engage in a self-reflection exercise? Can you set time aside this week to do a research-backed personality assessment, or some journaling?
For educators: How can you expose entrepreneurs to more opportunities to map their personality traits and strengths?
For brands: What steps are you taking to get to know entrepreneurs better before engaging with them?
This article was originally shared with our community in our Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe below to get it in your inbox, fresh every Friday!
Research: How Do Entrepreneurs Think About Partnerships?
In this week's research, we unpack the partnerships that entrepreneurs are – and should be – investing in.
A partnership can make (or break) your business.
“Partner” doesn’t just refer to your co-founders – it can be an investor, a service provider, a mentor or an employee, for example.
It’s tempting to pick the best in the game as your partners, but you’d be better off choosing someone you have good chemistry with.
Partnering up is about more than shared resources and outputs. Can you identify a partnership that offers the potential for personal growth, too?
A successful partnership relies on you both bringing your best. You may want to brush up on the art of listening.
Nick, the CEO of Veldskoen Shoes, has become kind of famous for partnering with the right people to grow the Veldskoen brand. Check out his recipe on pitching to partners.
Let’s talk about entrepreneurs and partnering.
Whether it is partnering to co-found a start-up, collaborating on a brand partnership or forming a strategic alliance, choosing a partner can make or break a business.
How to identify, engage with and grow a partnership are all burning questions for entrepreneurs.
There is a golden rule to follow, of course: choose partners with whom you have a natural chemistry, even if they don’t perhaps have the best technical expertise. The chemistry within a group of collaborators is a better predictor of long-term success than level of expertise alone.
Entrepreneurs are surrounded by a diverse range of partner relationships: suppliers, clients, communities, institutions – even life partners. Each relationship requires a particular skill set to cultivate something that is mutually beneficial.
Knowing this, entrepreneurs are proactively investing in their ability to identify and build healthy relationships. Let’s look at a few themes we’ve picked up in our research analysing all our recipes that mention partnerships:
Insight 1
The five collaboration priorities for entrepreneurs are partnerships that enable them to access capital (investors), build a business (co-founders), serve their customers better (external organisations), tap into personal growth (mentors) and cultivate culture (employees).
Insight 2
Personal growth – the potential to learn from a partner – is a major consideration for entrepreneurs looking to identify new relationships. Partnerships are about much more than service agreements and outputs.
Insight 3
Entrepreneurs are learning how to become better listeners and how to extract value from feedback, whether positive or negative.
Insight 4
Self-awareness is a quality entrepreneurs look for when deciding whether someone is a suitable co-founder or not. They value co-founder relationships in which everyone knows their personal shortcomings.
Our data tells us that entrepreneurs are clear about the type of partnerships they want to prioritise, and they’re very conscious about how they are selecting their partners. The potential for personal growth is a major consideration, as is self-awareness and the ability to listen – all in the name of cultivating healthy partner engagements.
Learn. Do. Share.
So, what are some of the actions we can take from these insights?
For entrepreneurs: As much as you might like to, you know you can’t do everything yourself. But before you approach a potential partner, try writing down your relationship-building strengths and weaknesses and see if there’s anything you can improve on.
For educators: Entrepreneurs want to cultivate their interpersonal skills. How can you support entrepreneurs to develop their ability to be better partners themselves?
For service providers: Entrepreneurs struggle to find partners who are right for the stage their business is at. How can you help them improve their ability to identify and assess a potential partnership?
This article was originally shared with our community in our Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe below to get it in your inbox, fresh every Friday!
5 Reasons To Choose WordPress For Your E-commerce Site
Do you plan to take your retail business online? The platform you use to manage your e-commerce store will play an important role in its success.
Do you plan to take your retail business online?
The platform you use to manage your e-commerce store will play an important role in its success.
For those keeping it small for now, WordPress is a flexible and powerful Content Management System (CMS) for your website and online store that you can easily navigate on your own.
In this post, Heavy Chef’s friends at xneelo take a look at five reasons to choose WordPress for building your e-commerce store.
1. You can set up your store quickly
One of the most important steps in running an online store is choosing a reliable, robust e-commerce solution. WooCommerce is a popular plugin that can be set up on your WordPress site quickly and easily and essentially turns your website into an online store.
If you’d like a solution that’s even less hands-on, opt for a Managed WordPress solution that includes pre-existing templates and demo content you can simply make your own. There is also an e-commerce theme that runs off WooCommerce and the Yoco payment gateway, allowing you to open your virtual shop doors quickly.
One of the added benefits of Managed WordPress is that all your hosting, security and update needs are taken care of for you, with additional support available when you need it.
2. It’s extremely reliable
WordPress is actively maintained and supported. Considering that it has such a wide and active user base, it’s always easy to find someone to provide support and answer your questions within the WordPress community.
Of course, you may not even find yourself needing assistance since the platform is known for being easy to use, with no coding experience required.
While Managed WordPress is also maintained and supported, it has the added benefit of coming with 24/7 support as well as free tutorials and a dedicated Help Centre.
3. It’s super easy to use
Both WordPress and Managed WordPress websites use the Gutenberg editor, also known as the Block Editor, which features blocks that allow you to customise your website according to your needs. Simply insert, drag, delete and rearrange the blocks to where you would like them to appear.
You can also add any number of widgets to customise your web pages to your needs and preview your work, so you can see what it looks like before you hit publish.
With the recent WordPress 6 update, the WordPress dashboard and Block Editor are even more user-friendly, with new features such as block locking and shortcuts allowing you to do more, faster, and more accurately.
4. It’s an extremely flexible platform
WordPress makes it easy to customise and manage every aspect of your site to make your e-commerce store unique, engaging, and user friendly..
WordPress plugins can help you extend the functionality and features of your e-commerce website. From social media and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) features to analytics and even chatbot functionality, the WordPress Plugin Directory is packed with add-ons that can help you take your online store to the next level.
5. You can use it for more than just e-commerce
Using WordPress as your e-commerce platform enables you to do more than simply sell products online. You can use it to create virtually any type of website, for any industry, budget, or size.
For example, you can use WordPress to set up a blog to help update, inform, and educate your customers about industry news and topics. You can also share helpful resources such as FAQs, tutorials, and How-To guides:
What’s more, WordPress makes it easy to offer your e-commerce site in multiple languages. Pair this with the platform’s accessibility features, and you have a website and online store that’s more useful and relevant for audiences across the globe.
By using WordPress for your e-commerce platform, you’ll have all the features, tools, and functionality needed for your site in one place. You can create a robust online offering of products and services, as well as provide your customers with meaningful information.
This advice was compiled by our friends at xneelo.
More guidance and training videos can be found at Heavy Chef’s entrepreneur learning platform.
Research: How Do Township Entrepreneurs View Local Brands?
Louis Janse van Rensburg explores township entrepreneurs’ passion for local products.
Let’s talk about township entrepreneurs loving local.
One of the many beautiful things I’m reminded of often about South African entrepreneurs is just how diverse the community is. The closer you look, the more pockets of subcultures are found - each with its own set of idiosyncrasies.
What is even more fascinating is how entrepreneurs then move between subcultures, slotting in and out of new groups, but always leaving behind traces from others. A medley of distinct identities within a larger collective.
Take one of the most important communities in South Africa, township entrepreneurs.
The surface-level similarities between different townships across the country are pretty obvious - mostly informal traders, low employment rates, socio-economic hardship, lack of access to resources and so on.
Yet at the same time, no township is the same.
You just have to spend a bit of time in a handful of them to notice differences (some vastly so!) in vernacular, values, references, habits, group dynamics, symbolism, and fashion sense - to name a few. All demand a unique approach to engaging with them when it comes to offering entrepreneur development support.
The point is, they are the same but different. Different but the same.
In visiting different township entrepreneur communities across the country, one thing we noticed that was very much shared between all the communities and was visibly increasing over time, was entrepreneurs' love for local people and local things.
It’s an area that we covered in-depth in our 4th edition Heavy Chef Entrepreneur Education Report: local is a source of inspiration for entrepreneurs.
Then earlier this week, the talented teams at Rogerwilco, MarketingMix and Survey54 released the 2022 South African Township Customer Experience (CX) Report which further cemented this fact.
Here are four key insights from this year’s Township CX report and another from our own that show how township consumers and entrepreneurs lean into local:
Insight 1: Overwhelmingly, township communities prefer to buy local - in particular, local fashion brands if they are available.
Insight 2: Local fashion brands are a source of inspiration and pride to township communities, with an increasing awareness of those brands.
Insight 3: There is a distinct appetite to convert their loyalty to local businesses into other rewards like discounts.
Insight 4: Local connections - family, friends and social networks - strongly influence buying decisions.
Insight 5: For township entrepreneurs, although they still rely heavily on themselves, the people closest to them are their strongest source of influence on them as entrepreneurs.
It’s local across the board. Township communities connect with local brands, businesses and people - not because of a sense of loyalty but because local is a point of connection, meaning and beauty that is deeper than we ever thought.
So, what actions can we take from the data?
For entrepreneurs, you are surrounded by powerful local stories (including your own) that are full of lessons in business and life. Why not pick and curate a few, and find creative ways to share them with other entrepreneurs inside and outside your community?
For educators, township entrepreneurs are looking for education models that fit into their lifestyle, not the other way around. Are there structured ways you can deliver local content while they are hustling to make a living?
For service providers, you have powerful platforms and large supply chains. How can you bring local micro-businesses into your world, shine a light on their stories and use them as conduits for your products or services in their communities?
This article was originally shared with our community as Louis Janse van Rensburg’s Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox fresh!
Research: Entrepreneurs And Masculinity
How important is self-development for young men in business? Louis Janse van Rensburg unpacks the data on this question and the values young men entrepreneurs hold close.
Let’s talk about entrepreneurs and masculinity.
What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘masculinity’?
I bet there’s a pretty varied set of responses.
And rightfully so. The world is hard at work trying to come to terms with what it means to be a man and the role of men within a 21st century context.
As legendary jazz musician Abdullah Ibrahim put it: “All uncertainty, and then ultimately all answers, is found when ancient truths interact with modern new relevance.”
I think this is an accurate description of the state of masculinity.
These are also words that strike home with me personally when I think back to my development as a young entrepreneur, and the influence of previous generations of male entrepreneurs, fused with my interactions with new, young entrepreneurs.
There was good and bad found in both.
When thinking about the masculine spirit, and paying close attention to it, one quickly starts to break the mould of most of the stereotypical perspectives we might have.
Case in point, take the findings from an 11-year-long study into adolescent men in townships that revealed the complexities they navigate with their environment, their fathers, culture, society, themselves - to negotiate the construction of their masculinities.
The diversity of young male entrepreneurs is plentiful and beautiful, and invites us to be curious about it.
With that in mind, let’s look at Heavy Chef’s entrepreneur development data that gives us a peak into some of the values held dear within this group (male, youth, 18-34 years old):
Insight 1: Young entrepreneur men value self-development, ranking learning informally by himself as one of the highest contributors to personal growth.
Insight 2: They feel a deep connection interacting with their local communities.
Insight 3: They like to read, in particular practical how-to books and articles.
Insight 4: Entrepreneur youth use YouTube as their primary source of learning online, especially videos with long-form conversations.
Insight 5: Young male entrepreneurs are optimistic that conditions to start and grow a business will improve over time.
Yet another fascinating sub-culture of entrepreneurs - one that takes the responsibility to self-improve very seriously, prefers practical know-how and wants to connect positively with their communities.
So, what actions can we take from this morning’s insights?
For entrepreneurs, there are more similarities than differences between men and women entrepreneurs but our differences are also strengths. How can we create more opportunities to open ourselves up to learn from and share our individual experiences with each other?
For educators, masculinity is a unique and beautifully diverse quality. How can you cultivate curiosity within your programmes to explore and integrate the best parts of it with entrepreneurs, whether men or women?
For service providers, young men need positive male role models. Who, within your organisations, has the experiences of providing nuanced guidance to younger entrepreneurs?
This article was originally shared with our community as Louis Janse van Rensburg’s Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox fresh!
Research: Entrepreneurs And Training Hubs
In this week's research, we unpack how entrepreneurs benefit from training hubs.
This morning, let’s talk about entrepreneurs and training hubs.
It’s well known that the solution to traffic jams isn’t to build bigger highways but rather to increase the number of options available to motorists to reach a destination. I think the same is true of tackling the challenge of educating entrepreneurs.
The more viable options entrepreneurs have to access learning opportunities, the more agency they have over their own personal development.
At Heavy Chef, we like to champion self-directed, bite-sized and peer-to-peer learning. A pedagogy validated through the recipes and research we have at hand. It is a very impactive model, yet, as we often remind ourselves, this is hardly a silver bullet. It is a bullet.
The mission to educate entrepreneurs, to get them to start things and create an environment for their businesses to grow, requires a Heavy Chef offering but it also needs business networks, formal education institutions, social media, mainstream media, accelerator programmes, incubators and more - all directed towards the same goal.
One of the types of support that entrepreneurs especially mention to us that they would value access to are specialist hubs like incubators, accelerators and skills trainers:
53% of entrepreneurs say they do not have access to any kind of skills training in their community.
Only 5% say there are enough specialist training hubs that they can access.
58% say there are no specialist hubs around them but that they are desperately needed.
Yet, when asked what their perceptions are of the effectiveness of independent specialist entrepreneur programmes, 55% say they are poor to average.
The take-out for me is that the demand for specialist hubs of training and support is very much there but there are challenges of access to them and a below-average perception of their effectiveness - which can be due to them not having engaged with hubs before.
With this context in mind, when I heard that the talented folks at Viridian and the UK-South Africa Tech Hub, co-founders of Launch League, were launching the results of the 2022 Hubs Survey, my attention was immediately had.
This kind of data is invaluable to further improving the quality and effectiveness of specialist hubs in South Africa. Here are five insights from the study that stood out to me:
Insight 1. Hubs have multiple ways they measure their impact, especially by assessing the number of people they trained, the increase in personal or business income of participants and the number of jobs created during the programme.
Insight 2. Mentorship and coaching is the activity most offered by hubs in South Africa.
Insight 3. Most hubs mentioned that mentorship and coaching are what make their programmes most valuable.
Insight 4. Limited knowledge of how to access their markets is marked as the most prominent reason why businesses weren’t able to earn an income after a programme.
Insights 5. Post programme mentorship is the most sought after type of support that programme alumni are requesting, more so than funding.
The report is full of fascinating insights, including shining a light on hubs’ approach to The Gig Economy - but it is the ability of hubs to offer focused mentoring and coaching to their members that seems to really stand out. Especially when it comes to advice and guidance on mapping a market and positioning one's business in that market.
So, what actions can we take from these findings?
For entrepreneurs, one of the benefits of hubs is that they provide structured learning environments that hold you accountable to others within that environment. Even if you do not have access to a hub close to you, are there lessons you can learn from them to create small but structured learning spaces for other entrepreneurs within or around your business?
For educators, the demand from entrepreneurs for training support far outways the number of entrepreneurs you can serve within your institution. What are ways that your programme (or parts thereof) can be taken to them, instead of them coming to you?
For service providers, your staff are highly skilled in their area of expertise. Are there structured ways for them to slot into existing training hubs - especially those in disconnected communities - to offer specialised mentorship to entrepreneurs?
This article was originally shared with our community as Louis Janse van Rensburg’s Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox fresh!
Research: The Habits Of Entrepreneurs And How They Impact Our Success
In this week's research, we unpack entrepreneurs and habits for success.
This morning, let’s talk about entrepreneurs and habits for success.
Don’t back the horse, back the jockey. This is an often said remark by investors and it is true, of course.
I’ve just met too many remarkable people to know that you can give them almost any project (within their realm of interest) and it’s a solid bet that they will make a success of it.
A few years ago, Heavy Chef connected with a young student entrepreneur, Tamir Shklaz. He started a second-hand textbook exchange platform, Quillo. Over and above his idea though, it was Tamir’s intellect, skill, discipline and drive that immediately impressed us.
In fact, he impressed us so much that we invited him on stage to share his journey as a student entrepreneur. But we also started raising funds with the intent to invest in Quillo.
Our perspective at the time was that we wanted to invest in Tamir, to be honest. Internally, we even spoke about how if Quillo failed (hint: it didn’t), Tamir would still build something else that would become a massive success.
Unfortunately, our investment company was still pretty new at the time. We’d already invested in Heavy Chef and wanted to focus the remaining funds on more “stable” opportunities like property.
Silly us.
Today, Tamir co-founded and runs the world's first coding class designed to empower kids to master math: Strive. Its mission is to replace STEM education. No biggy.
Entrepreneurs like Tamir can be found from all backgrounds, in all types of communities. And many of them have something crucial in common in that they have specific habits that underpin much of what they do.
Today, I’d like to share data with you from our research repository that looks at entrepreneurs with established businesses (older than 5 years) and compares the habits of those that are still “micro” in size versus those who’ve grown their businesses to “medium” size:
Insight 1. Entrepreneurs with medium-sized businesses have regular access to many other entrepreneurs to share experiences and learn from each other.
Insight 2. Those with medium-sized businesses make a point to meet with other entrepreneurs more frequently than those with micro businesses.
Insight 3. Reading books often is a prominent habit of entrepreneurs with medium-sized businesses.
Insight 4. There is a significant difference between those entrepreneurs with medium-sized businesses and those with a micro-sized businesses in terms of access to a mentor.
Insights 5. Similarly, there is a difference between the two sets of entrepreneurs in terms of those who have attended specialist entrepreneur learning programmes before.
There are many factors that impact an entrepreneur’s ability to grow a business, many are outside of the entrepreneur’s control. But an area that entrepreneurs can control is their habits. Some of the good habits that correlate with growing businesses include connecting with more entrepreneurs more regularly, reading books, identifying a mentor and looking for and attending structured learning engagements.
So, what can we take from these findings?
For entrepreneurs, healthy habit formation is a precondition to success. Can you identify one habit that you can commit to seriously for a few months?
For educators, there is a science to forming habits that stick. How can you go about threading the data and knowledge you have on hand through your curriculum?
For service providers, entrepreneurs know they need to form healthy habits but need help kickstarting them. Are there ways that your services or tools can incentivise them to push through that first period before a habit is fully formed?
This article was originally shared with our community as Louis Janse van Rensburg’s Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox fresh!
Research: The Ego And The Entrepreneur
In this week's research, we unpack the relationship between an entrepreneur's ego and their ability to innovate.
Let’s talk about entrepreneurs and our egos.
Asked where his/her inspiration comes from, an artist once said: “There’s this man in the sky that just pours buckets of ideas into my head.”
“I never composed a note. I merely listen to God,” said Mozart on the same topic.
Some creators refer to God as part of their religious beliefs, others as a shorthand for consciousness or nature - whichever way you are inclined, both the experiences above are objectively true, of course.
We have no idea where our ideas come from.
The problem is that when ideas strike and we act on them, and the fruits start to show, perhaps we even become famous for them, it becomes incredibly alluring to give ourselves credit for it all. To make ourselves God.
A proposition our primitive egos can’t resist.
Needless to say, the paradox is that success doesn’t only depend on the stream of ideas that come online in our minds. It still requires time, effort, work ethic, luck, resources and so on. But a healthy relationship with our egos can maintain a healthy balance between it all. In fact, this is linked to our ability as entrepreneurs to make a success of the things we build.
It is this relationship that a group of researchers in Germany wanted to explore, this link between the development of our ego and the orientation of entrepreneurs to innovate.
In their research, they identified six stages of ego development.
On the lower end, the Self Protective ego orients itself primarily to the person’s own needs and interests. The Conformist ego starts to recognise social rules and behaves accordingly to those rules. The Self Aware ego becomes aware of exceptions to the “rules” and results in an internal conflict of emotions. The Conscientious ego starts creating self-evaluated standards. The Individualist ego embraces relativism with a focus on personal self-improvement. And then lastly, the Autonomous ego self-identifies away from the ego, towards an integrated and complex identity.
Fascinating isn’t it!? You can read more about the stages here.
The researchers tested groups of women entrepreneurs on where they fall in the stages of ego development and then evaluated their attitudes towards innovating and trying out new ways of doing things themselves, as well as encouraging others to do the same.
Here are the top-level findings of how each stage impacts entrepreneurs' openness to innovate:
1. Entrepreneurs who fell into the ‘Self Protective’ ego stage showed a healthy willingness to innovate and slightly less yet still positive propensity towards encouraging others to do the same.
2. Those within the Conformist category showed a degree of conflict in their self-evaluation of themselves and their attitudes toward others.
3. The Self Aware stage of ego development indicated a balanced analysis of their willingness to try novel solutions and encourage others to think and behave in a similar way.
4. Similar for those entrepreneurs that fell within the Conscientious stage of ego development.
5. Those within the Individualist stage displayed more conviction to innovate and promote innovation with others.
6. Entrepreneurs who were tested to have an Autonomous ego showed a high degree of conviction in their willingness to adapt, try new things and advocate for the same with others.
The majority of respondents in the study fell in the Self Aware and Conscientious stages of ego development, indicating an above-average relationship between entrepreneurs and their egos. By extension, the results indicated a positive correlation between entrepreneurs and their belief in the importance of innovation.
So, what can we take from these findings?
Well, for entrepreneurs, clearly mastery over your ego improves your ability to adapt and innovate. What self-examination habits have you adopted to better understand yourself?
For educators, in order for entrepreneurs to develop a mature relationship with their egos, they need to have a critical perspective on it. To what degree can you provide entrepreneurs with knowledge about the conditions to develop an integrated ego?
For service providers, entrepreneurs want to be the hero of their story but still retain a sense of humility about what got them to this point. How can you empower entrepreneurs with tools that encourage introspection and balance on their journey?
This article was originally shared with our community as Louis Janse van Rensburg’s Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox fresh!
Research: Highlights From The Latest Heavy Chef Entrepreneur Education Report
We unpack the latest insights on entrepreneur education in South Africa.
It’s here, the new and expanded Heavy Chef Entrepreneur Education Report - now released every four months and available as a digital and downloadable read. A big thank you to Xero and our partners for continuing to invest in building the largest and most comprehensive data set on entrepreneur education in South Africa.
When Heavy Chef announced in 2019 that it was setting up a non-profit, Heavy Chef Foundation, to focus on connecting disconnected entrepreneurs, we identified two pillars of our programme of change: Research and Impact.
Our research vision was to develop South Africa's most in-depth data hub on entrepreneur education.
Fast forward a few years and, to date, we have surveyed 9,000 entrepreneurs, conducted over 200 in-depth interviews (with two more added every week) and analysed thousands of learning bites with a diverse set of entrepreneurs including women, township, youth and e-commerce entrepreneurs at different stages of their business and in different environments.
The benefits of our impact research methodology allow us to be responsive, describe variations, explain relationships, hear from individual experiences and outline group norms, supplemented with statistical data on hand.
In the past, we’ve shared insights from our research through our Friday Research Mailers, our Annual Report and presentations to groups around the country. However, as the depth and breadth of data we have at hand increases, the need for us to share this with our community more frequently, with more depth - all in a relatable and useful way - becomes increasingly important.
The 4th Edition of The Heavy Chef Entrepreneur Education Report features deep dives into insights identified in the data, statistics and perspectives from ‘heavy chefs’, implications for entrepreneurs, educators and service providers, as well as an inspirational case study from within our community.
Here’s a little tease of what is featured in this release of the report:
Insight 1: Entrepreneurs are increasingly finding meaning and identity in the learning and sharing that impacts them as individuals and bind entrepreneurs together as a collective.
Insight 2: The people and products closest to entrepreneurs top the list of things that motivate entrepreneurs to get up every day and build beautiful businesses.
Case study: The hope and positive energy provided by meeting your role model has a lasting impact on how entrepreneurs think about all the sacrifices they made to date.
Insight 3: Entrepreneurs are critically thinking, assessing and engaging pro-actively with their partners - current and potential.
Insight 4: Entrepreneurs are yearning for better designed, beautiful and inspiring educational content that they can connect with.
Yesterday, we previewed the new report to all our partners and I was struck by the power insights can have to galvanise powerful collaborations. After all, it is ultimately all about the impact.
The past few years of research are increasingly shaping Heavy Chef and our partners' activities on the ground - from the learning topics on our platform and new in-person learning programmes rolling out, to profitable interactions facilitated at our events and resources offered to our community and beyond.
A huge amount of gratitude goes out to the Heavy Chef team for the time, effort and ideas that went into making the new Heavy Chef Entrepreneur Education Report a reality.
For those not on our mailing list, you can subscribe to get notified of future reports as they get released by going here.
This article was originally shared with our community as Louis Janse van Rensburg’s Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox fresh!
Research: What Kind Of Communicators Are Entrepreneurs?
Unpacking the data on how employees experience communication from business leaders.
Let’s talk about entrepreneurs and communication.
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
The best short story ever written. Six words to paint a picture of untold tragedy.
Brevity is one of many sought after communication skills of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs know that to get people to believe in and follow a vision, we have to communicate clearly, concisely and consistently.
The words that come out of our mouths are an outcome of the clarity of ideas in our heads. But when faced with time constraints and needing to navigate many moving parts of a business, to do this becomes incredibly hard.
The thing is, if you don’t get it right and your communication (and the tools of communication) adds to the complexity rather than strips it away, then the consequences to your business will inevitably be dire.
So, let me not waste any more words and share five insights from The Economist about the way employees experience communication from business leaders:
Insight 1. Employees value different styles of communication.
Insight 2. Receiving unclear instructions from leaders is one of the most stressful experiences for employees.
Insight 3. Poor communication is pervasive within the workplace.
Insight 4. Contradictory communication styles and ambiguous responsibilities are the top causes of miscommunication within a business.
Insight 5. Verbal, ideally face-to-face conversations, is seen as the best antidote to counter miscommunication.
There’s a saying that strong leaders aren’t writers but editors.
I think this speaks to the responsibility of entrepreneurs to critically review and change the things said, written and shared within their businesses on a daily basis. Starting with themselves.
As the tools of communication continue to proliferate and the battle for our attention persists, I can suspect the science and art of communication is going to become one of the most critical skills entrepreneurs will need to cultivate.
On a rating of 1 to 10, how clear do you think you communicate and how do think others rate you?
This article was originally shared with our community as Louis Janse van Rensburg’s Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox fresh!
Research: The Attention Span Of Entrepreneurs
We’re focusing on attention and…um, what were we talking about again?
Let’s talk about our attention as entrepreneurs.
A friend once told me, “When juggling many balls, you need to figure out which ones are rubber and which ones are glass.”
This is the ultimate struggle of entrepreneurs, isn’t it? Figuring out what we need to pay attention to.
After all, there are so many things that are important at the same time: sales, cash flow, staff, product design. Newsletters that need to go out when I’m on the road to Dullstroom for a family long weekend.
On top of everything else, it’s in our nature to be additive. This is something I’ve written about before. It’s easy for us to add new things but extra hard for us to take away.
And as the author Johann Hari so eloquently put it: our attention isn’t lost, it is being stolen.
So, we have our own nature, our external environment and our various on-hand technologies, all intersecting with the straight-up demands of building a business. No wonder a recent research study found that our attention span is now officially shorter than that of a goldfish.
With that context in mind, a friend recently shared a research paper with me. The paper asks people about their self-awareness around their levels of attention and their ability to slow down. I want to share some of those findings with you today.
Here are five insights from The Centre of Attention Studies on the state of our attention:
Insight 1. Most of us can feel that our attention span is shortening.
Insight 2. A critical consequence is our declining ability to think deeply about things.
Insight 3. Yet we are well aware of the habits that amplify the problem.
Insight 4. We are actively looking to find ways to slow down.
Insight 5. There is a demand to improve our ability to simplify things.
Makes for startling reading, doesn’t it?
As entrepreneurs, we are familiar with this. Even for us at Heavy Chef, where we have a healthy awareness of this challenge, we struggle on a daily basis to maintain simplicity, slow down the pace of things and figure out what the right things are to shift our attention to.
Case in point, we’re working hard to maximise our value on our entrepreneur learning platform. At the same time, we want to simplify our messaging about the purpose of our sister organisation, the Heavy Chef Foundation. In fact, both these channels recently went through a bit of an update on design and we’re proud of our efforts - but, once again, it has been supremely difficult not to get distracted by what we can add on, as opposed to what we can take away.
The truth is, this stuff never ends. We went through a similar process a year and a half ago, and a year and half before that…
Still, we persist. And so should you.
This article was originally shared with our community as Louis Janse van Rensburg’s Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox fresh!
Research: The Conditions For Scaling A Business
Scale. Scale. Scale. We share the latest research on businesses that put pedal to the metal.
let’s talk about entrepreneurs and scale.
I have mixed feelings about the relentless pursuit of scale. I’m allergic to complexity, and with an increase in size comes an increase in bureaucracy, an attempt to manage complex systems, which in turn creates more complexity. Although it is inherent to building a high growth business, my brain literally rebels against that cycle. You can see how this is a problem for me, as an entrepreneur.
But also, if I’m totally honest, I often wonder if, at a subconscious level, I am blocking myself from achieving great things? Don’t get me wrong, I push through a lot of the doubt and I do have a track record of building healthy businesses after all. But still, I wonder.
Thoughts, Dr. Jung?
The fact is, though, that if a business wants to make a meaningful impact, it has to grow. Growth is the engine of job creation, innovation, revenue, value and, yes, even social cohesion.
This is something that was recently very diligently outlined in an OECD study into firm growth. Their report looked at all kinds of business metrics for “scaling business” across five pilot countries: Finland, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Slovakia.
“Scalers” were identified as firms with 10 employees or more that grew in employment or turnover at an average annual rate of at least 10% per year over a 3-year period.
The findings underlined the necessity for entrepreneurs to ultimately lean into and pursue scale. Let’s look at five insights that stood out:
Insight 1. Among SMMEs, it’s the firms that scale that make the largest contribution to creating employment opportunities.
Insight 2. To initiate scaling takes time - the majority of scaled businesses operated for more than a decade before their size and turnover accelerated.
Insight 3. Businesses that found scale had a distinctly larger share of team members focused on product research, design, and development compared to their industry peers who didn’t scale.
Insight 4. A culture of increased productivity preceded most companies before they started finding scale.
Insight 5. The majority of businesses that scaled found stability in their operations and some are starting to scale up again.
There’s so much more we can talk about on this topic. In fact, do read the OECD report in full. It’s statistically pretty dense but its findings are profound.
It certainly got me to reflect on Heavy Chef’s journey to date and the internal discussions we’ve been having for some time now as a team. The data above feels eerily familiar.
There is a palpable feeling that we’re close to building something truly special and valuable. A coiled spring, if you will. But at the same time, the challenges preceding what I believe is an inevitable scale are stark.
How have you navigated scale in your business?
This article was originally shared with our community as Louis Janse van Rensburg’s Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox fresh!
PayFast Webinar: Cracking The Code Of E-Commerce - Easy Steps To A Winning E-Commerce Strategy
For the third instalment of the PayFast Cracking the Code of Ecommerce webinar series, the focus is on how easy starting and running an ecommerce business can be with the right resources.
For PayFast’s next Cracking the Code of E-Commerce webinar taking place in partnership with uAfrica, they are pleased to bring you one of the most knowledgeable e-commerce experts in South Africa, Warrick Kernes. If you’re in the ecommerce industry and haven’t heard of Warrick, then you’ve most likely been living under a rock.
Join PayFast on Wednesday, 20 April 2022 from 6pm to 7:30pm for this free and live virtual event, where they’ll sit down with Warrick to discuss how easy starting and running an ecommerce business can be with the right knowledge, the right products and the right partners.
Recognised as the face of ecommerce education in South Africa, Warrick is a serial entrepreneur, official Shopify educator and founder of the Insaka E-Commerce Academy. Having been around since the early days of ecommerce in South Africa, Warrick has become a trusted industry expert on how to create and roll out a profitable online business venture. In 2010 he founded the award-winning online store, Action Gear and managed to grow his business to generate an annual revenue of R20 million.
His success as an online store business owner led to him wanting to help grow the South African ecommerce industry by assisting his fellow entrepreneurs flourish online by starting, launching and growing their own online store. Warrick founded The Insaka E-Commerce Academy in 2017 and has since helped and empowered thousands of online sellers with award-winning ecommerce training. He was recognised for his important contribution by being awarded Shopify’s Top Education Partner for 2021.
PayFast promise that the Cracking the Code of Ecommerce webinar with Warrick is not to be missed - don’t forget to book your seat here, and they’ll be in touch about future webinars in the series that will give you even more insights into the fascinating world of e-commerce in South Africa.
Research: How Can We Serve Entrepreneurs Better?
We investigate the kind of support entrepreneurs actually need and how can we provide it effectively.
This morning, let’s talk about the specific needs that entrepreneurs have shared with us.
For the last few months, we’ve been hard at work designing a pilot learning programme for disconnected entrepreneurs. Luckily, we have South Africa’s largest ongoing research study on entrepreneurs’ learning habits and needs to guide the programme’s design.
Our research has revealed three significant insights.
Firstly, we know entrepreneurs need access to a deep library of content to choose from in order to direct their own learning. We have that in spades.
Secondly, entrepreneurs learn best from other entrepreneurs. Engagement needs to prioritise community-led learning by applying a participatory pedagogy between peers.
Thirdly, entrepreneur learning cannot happen in isolation. Entrepreneurs, especially those in disconnected communities, require support and resources of all types - things that help create an environment that enables better and more focused learning but also rewards learning itself.
Case in point, last week I had conversations with a handful of entrepreneurs from Khayelitsha. I asked them about the kind of support, beyond just learning, that would really make a difference in their lives.
One needed money to pay accreditation fees that will allow him to operate with credentials. A few in the health and fitness sector were specific about the type of gym equipment they need in order to serve more customers more regularly. Another was battling anxiety and would value ways of helping her stay focused on work.
These were all top of mind things shared in a matter of a few conversations. Our research dives a bit deeper into this topic - here are five insights about the kind of support entrepreneurs need:
Insight 1. Entrepreneurs have a long list of types of support they would value, money being most prominent.
Insight 2. Entrepreneurs are specific about the type of things they would buy if they had money in hand.
Insight 3. From a learning point of view, many still do not have access to e-learning but would like to.
Insight 4. Tangible equipment (industry defined) are short term purchases that can mean the most to entrepreneurs’ businesses.
Insight 5. Entrepreneurs find it relatively easy to access internet services currently, although the access to data problem is far from being resolved.
There are so many ways to be creative about how to offer support in any of the categories mentioned above. And I know the willingness and appetite of the many that are already serving entrepreneurs is at an all-time high.
This makes me very bullish for the near future.
Is there anything you can make available to help disconnected entrepreneurs?
This article was originally shared with our community as Louis Janse van Rensburg’s Friday Research Mailer. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox fresh!