South Africa’s Top 5 Most Exciting Startups 2022 Provide A Glimpse Of Hope For A Stuttering Economy

On Thursday 1st December, five startups were named South Africa’s Most Exciting Startups for 2022. In the words of Louis Janse van Rensburg, CEO, Heavy Chef Foundation, "based on the quality of startups on display last night there is good reason to be legitimately excited for the future."

Every year, entrepreneur education organisation Heavy Chef, together with Xero, PayFast and xneelo, celebrates South Africa’s ‘most exciting’ startups. From 1000s of entries, eight prominent judges select a shortlist of 12 startups. The five winners were announced at an evening event on the 1st December, at the Workshop17 Watershed venue in the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. Today, Heavy Chef released the winners.

This year’s judges included inspiring entrepreneurs such as Robyn Smith, Founder of Faithful To Nature, Khanya Mncwabe, Founder of Matawi Mead and Rob Paddock, Founder of Valenture Institute and previously the Co-Founder of Getsmarter. There are also luminaries from stellar ecosystem support organisations, namely Carla Thiele, Head of Marketing at Xero SA; Colleen Harrison, Head of Marketing at PayFast and Mark Peddle, Marketing Strategist at hosting giant xneelo. Zinhle Novazi and Lukhanyo Neer, Directors at the Heavy Chef Foundation round out the 2022 panel.

The Top 5, in alphabetical order:

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Curbon

E-commerce offsetting made simple. Curbon is an e-commerce plugin that effortlessly offsets their carbon footprint with each sale.

Floatpays

Unlock the power of financial wellness at work through on-demand earned wage access, paycheck linked savings, financial education and practical tools.

Franc

Smart investing for everyone through a simple and easy-to-use app that'll have you investing like a pro in minutes.

Parket

The world's first turnkey digital access parking management system to provide cashless and ticketless public parking.

Zoie Health

Zoie is an all-in-one women’s digital health-care app.

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Fred Roed, CEO of Heavy Chef mentioned the unique diversity of entries. “The beauty of these awards is that we don’t look at financials or market share. We look at potential. This means that we often see giant startups such as Pineapple and Naked compete against companies such as Disktie and Zoie, which are still scrappy garage bands in comparison.”

Some of the shortlisted companies were unlucky to miss out on being awarded ‘Top 5’ status. The rest of the list included some of South Africa’s most heartwarming innovations. The Top12 list is:

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Disktjie

Soccer boots specially designed to play on gravel soccer pitches

Finclusion

Finclusion is building Africa’s neobank and accelerating financial inclusion in Africa by offering alternative, innovative banking products to all Africans.

Green Scooter

The first in South Africa to commercially produce a federally-compliant highway-capable electric vehicle, the Zbee RS & Zbee Cargo.

Naked Insurance

The new way to insure your stuff through instant, honest insurance at game-changing prices.

Pineapple

100% pure insurance. 0% other stuff.

Sonke

Sonke takes shopping from the shelf-service to self-service, from linear to circular consumption with automatic refill machines.

Stitch

Stitch is a payments startups that helps businesses easily develop more user-friendly, innovative and inclusive digital finance products, at lower costs and without fraud.

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The panel of eight spent the weekend of 18-20 November poring over the nominations. Startups that were earmarked by the judges for notable work included a diverse range of categories.

Zinhle Novazi, Director of Heavy Chef’s non-profit research company, the Heavy Chef Foundation, was enthusiastic about the shortlist. Novazi, however, cautioned that there was a distinct drop in ‘township economy’ entries compared to 2021. One of last year’s notable winners was the startup Walk Fresh, an innovative sneaker cleaning service that has scaled into Foschini Group stores and malls around South Africa.

“There has, however, been an increase in ‘circular economy’ startups,” said Novazi.

Many entries were impressive, but disqualified by the award criteria of what denotes a ‘startup’. “In these awards, a startup is qualified by the fact that it has been running for seven years or less.” An example of an impressive entry that received many nominations was Lumkani, the township fire alert service. It was removed from the list of potentials as it has been trading for more than seven years.

The judges each provided a list of their ten favoured startups. The final twelve was aggregated from these lists, which included special mentions for the following startups:

&BAM, Adbot, Ambani, Beeline, Buzzer, ChaufHER, CoachED, Deliver Ka Speed SA, Dnko, Explore Data Science, Foondamate, Future Females, HearX, JEFF, Job Crystal, Khula, Latitude, My Social Life, Nopbx, OfferZen, Ozow, Pargo, Puno Greenery, Rent my Ride, Rentoza, Simply Granola, Sortd, Strove, Sustainabuild, Troy Gold and Truid.

Heavy Chef’s CEO Fred Roed was enthusiastic about the range of startups in the Top 12. In previous years, the startup shortlists were often slanted heavily towards Cape-based fintech startups such as Mama Money, JUMO and Yoco. We’re seeing a much broader range of startups in different sectors. The encouraging aspect about this initiative is always to see the dedication of young entrepreneurs towards making the world a better place.”

The SA’s Top 5 Most Exciting Startups event takes place annually in the first week of December. Public Speaking World Champion Verity Price took the MC role once again to announce the winners of 2022’s Top 5 finalists.

Roed has this to say about the event, “It’s always a lot of fun and a spectacular way to celebrate the great work coming out of the sector.”

“Most importantly, the startups represented in this competition provide us with a glimpse of how we can resolve many of the endemic challenges we face in South Africa. There is not just hope. There is a legitimate reason to be optimistic.”

More information can be found at: www.top5startups.com

SA’s Most Exciting Startups Judge Mark Peddle On 2022’s Level Of Competition

By the time you read this, the winners of South Africa's Top 5 Most Exciting Startups Awards will have been announced. Web Hosting provider xneelo is a proud supporter of the awards, and a long-time friend of small business champion Heavy Chef.

This year, xneelo Brand Strategist Mark Peddle served on the judging panel of the awards, and had the hefty job of choosing the top startup winners alongside the rest of the judges.

He shares some insight into the thought processes around judging these businesses and his impressions of the startup space in South Africa.

What are the judging criteria?

Startups are judged on their innovation, scalability and unique IP. To qualify, businesses must have been operating for less than seven years, be registered as businesses in South Africa, and have at least one South African founder. Over and above these qualifying criteria, we're looking for exciting startups. Disruptors. Those that impact the world in a positive way.

What excited you about this year’s entries?

Entrepreneurs are embracing technology to help solve old problems and open up new industries. Lots of work is being done by these businesses in the Fintech sector, for example, driven by technology and developing new products to reduce the friction for transferring funds across African borders. And in the education sector, the diversity of educational resources indicates how technology is being embraced as a means to spread information. Entrepreneurs are finding opportunities to not only fill a need, but also do it in a financially sustainable way – essential for long term sustainability.

What trends did you notice about growing industries?

I was impressed by the completely new and novel ideas and solutions.

Wellness was also a noticeable theme this year – from the usual beauty, exercise and food themes, to now also addressing mental wellness and access to specialist gender based health care.

What is your advice for new startups and entrepreneurs?

There are some truly innovative and unique ideas that are just getting off the ground but the journey is long. Businesses that only started in 2016-2018 have now only reached wider national exposure. They are testament that an idea, with hard work, can reach lofty levels given the time and support to develop and evolve.

Xneelo extends its congratulations to all the nominees and winners.

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.

• 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?

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?

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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!

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Research: Entrepreneurs And Masculinity

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?

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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!

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Research: Entrepreneurs And 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?

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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!

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Research: The Habits Of Entrepreneurs And How They Impact Our 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?

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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!

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Research: The Ego And The Entrepreneur

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?

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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!

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Research: Highlights From The Latest Heavy Chef Entrepreneur Education Report

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.

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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!

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Research: What Kind Of Communicators Are Entrepreneurs?

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?

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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!

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Research: The Attention Span Of Entrepreneurs

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.

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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!

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Research: The Conditions For Scaling A Business

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?

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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!

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PayFast Webinar: Cracking The Code Of E-Commerce - Easy Steps To A Winning E-Commerce Strategy

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.

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Research: How Can We Serve Entrepreneurs Better?

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?

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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!

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Looking For Funding? Here Are Some Top Tips

As an entrepreneur about to step out into the world of business ownership, or even an existing business wanting to grow, securing funding is a challenge everyone has to face.

Because different funding options will offer different opportunities, you’ll need to decide on what is the right fit for your business. Here’s a look at seven funding options.

Bank Loans

Depending on how much capital you’ll need, the best place to start is with your bank. Most banks offer finance through business loans. These can be secured (requiring collateral) or unsecured (no collateral required.)

Essentially, the bank is extending you a line of credit, which you’ll have to repay over a period of time with interest.

Tip: It’s easier to be approved for a business loan if your company is already operational. Having an existing purchase order is even better.

Government Grants

Unlike a bank loan, you don’t need to repay a government grant. But this doesn’t mean you’re getting money for free – you’ll need to follow a very strict and lengthy process that may only result in partial financial funding.

When applying for a grant, it’s important to find and contact the best department for your business. They don’t work together, so they won’t refer applications to one another.

Tip: You can find more information about the types of government grants available here.

Bootstrapping

If you don’t have any outside investors, you may need to use your personal finances – i.e. savings – to fund your business in the beginning. This is known as bootstrapping and a number of big businesses like GoPro, SurveyMonkey and Spanx got started this way.

Crowdfunding

Don’t ignore the option of crowdfunding, where small amounts of money from a large number of people can help fund a new business. Take Sugarbird Gin as an example – Steel Cut Spirits, a four-person company, came up with the idea to make a premium gin at an affordable price and successfully raised more than R1 million through crowdfunding.

Tip: There are a number of local crowdfunding platforms, such as BackaBuddy and Thundafund that can help you raise funds in exchange for rewards or equity in your business.

Venture Capital

A venture capitalist is an equity investor, whose main focus is to make money. They usually look at businesses that are built for growth and will provide good returns on their initial investment. Typically, they want to sell their shares in around five years for 10 times what they initially paid.

Tip: You can find a list of venture capital firms here.

Angel Investors

This type of investor isn’t financially motivated and is often a friend, family or mentor who gives a one-time investment to help get a business up and running. Angel investors usually get involved during the early stages of startups and their investment is in exchange for ownership equity.

Tip: Have a look at the Angel Investment Network, which makes it easier to connect with potential angel investors or entrepreneurs.

Business Loans

Existing businesses that require additional cash flow have the option of approaching business loan providers such as Retail Capital. Certain loans don’t require collateral, but do require that your business meet certain criteria such as a minimum trading period and turnover.

Tip: Always read the terms and conditions and funding requirements first to ensure your business is applicable before applying.

Before You Approach Funding Providers…

Take the time to do your research properly before approaching a potential investor or lender and ensure you can adapt your business strategy to meet their demands or expectations. They should also have a clear view of what you intend to use the funds for.

We asked one of our valued clients in the financial arena for their expertise on what to do before approaching funding providers.

“Be clear on what you want to do,” advises Lou van Niekerk, director of TripleBar business direction. “You might have a lot of big ideas but when applying for funding or soliciting investment it is important to have a clear, concise and focused proposal or presentation. This approach enables the institution or investors to quickly ascertain the risk and reward of what you are asking money for.”

As important as it is to be clear on your objectives, Lou says it’s equally important to stick to them. “It is easy to start veering off on tangents when you get going in business but it is essential to know what your objectives are, to plan on how you will achieve those objectives and to stick to your planning.”

Getting professional assistance in the early days is key. “Ensure that you speak to an accountant to assist in translating your objectives into a cash flow projection. It will not be possible to determine exactly how much money you need if detailed thought has not gone into defining the project scope, its timelines and its deliverables, concludes Lou.

Whether you’re planning to launch an e-commerce business or you’re already up and running, xneelo is there to support you with a number of affordable hosting packages to suit every need.

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On Our Learning Platform: Faf Du Plessis On Optimising Wellness And Performance

• Competitive sport requires the same level of commitment and grit as growing a business.

• There is, unsurprisingly, a lot we can learn from the habits and routines of athletes.

• Faf du Plessis shares his secret for longevity on and off the field.

• Access his full recipe, and more from other Heavy Chefs, by signing up to our learning platform HERE.

Playing sport professionally can be incredibly fulfilling and lucrative, a fact supported by the number of global superstars that belong to the sporting world. Being an entrepreneur, as a sportsperson, is quite unique though. For many sports stars, they are the business and the product - how they look after themselves, physically and mentally, has a direct impact on how they grow their brand and make their money.

For people like Faf du Plessis, wellness and performance are very closely linked.

Francois "Faf" du Plessis is one of South Africa’s most-loved cricketers and a former captain of the South African national cricket team. He’s easily one of the best fielders in the game and has received many accolades for his contribution to the sport, including the title of South African Cricketer of the Year in 2019.

A right-handed middle-order batsman and part-time leg-spin bowler, he has played domestic cricket for Northerns and the Titans, as well as international matches for Lancashire County Cricket Club, Chennai Super Kings and Rising Pune Supergiant. Classy, composed and a fine crafter of innings', Faf has emerged as one of South Africa's most consistent batsmen in the post-Jacques Kallis era.

As a sportsman, Faf cares about all facets of wellness. After years of trial and error, he understands very clearly that his performance on and off the field is easily affected by how he eats, sleeps and trains. And so he’s made it his mission to constantly learn how to do all three better.

“Wellness is a lot more than just one thing. As a sportsperson, it's the physical side of it, how well I train. It's also the nutrition side of it and how well I eat, and the sleep side of it - how well I sleep. All of those different elements have compartments that I work on at different stages. It's something that's evolving all the time, and I'm learning about it wherever I go. As a professional sportsman, I want to keep getting better”.

Faf has been bats about cricket all his life. And since he’s been playing it since he was little, his performance on the field has always been a matter of great interest to him.

“My earliest memory would be one of me playing with one of those yellow cricket bats as a really young boy, with my dad in the background. The second competitive memory would be me in primary school as a ten-year-old practising with the first team guys in the nets, wanting to be better than them at that age. So I think even then I was ready for what the cricket journey was going to be like because I wanted to face the fastest bowler, who was three years older than me”.

As much as it is physical, we can’t underestimate the level of mental strength and discipline it takes to adopt and maintain the necessary habits for a career in sports. There’s an inherent competitiveness in athletes that breeds the unhealthy pressure to be great all the time. Combine that with pressure from teammates, fans and sponsors and you have a recipe for heightened stress.

For Faf, a key part of handling this stress is being present and mindful. By blocking out all the noise and focusing on what’s important, both when he is on and off the field, he is able to maintain his focus.

“The mind is such a superpower when it comes to elite sportsmen, for dealing with negative voices, doubts, fears and stuff like that. I want to do that better. And this process that I've worked on myself is just a way to put something into my mind so that when the ball is released, I can just focus on my instincts completely taking over the shot. Because that's when you're at your best - when you're not thinking. And because of the repetition of your whole life of playing cricket, your body has all the answers to what to do so it's almost like just getting out of your own way and letting it happen.”

Check out the South African sporting legend’s winning strategy for consistent excellence on and off the field in his recipe on Wellness And Performance here.

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About The Heavy Chef Learning Platform

The Heavy Chef learning platform features the world's best technologists, leaders and creatives who share their ‘Recipes’ in easy-to-digest learning bites designed to fit the lifestyle of the entrepreneur. From starting to scaling and selling your business - and everything in-between - these Heavy Chefs share their recipes on all the aspects of being an entrepreneur.

A R250 per month 'All-You-Can-Eat' Pass grants you access to a bunch of cool resources for one monthly cost:

• 30-day free trial.

• Access to all entrepreneur learning recipes.

• Access to all events and livestreams.

• First-come, first-serve on physical event seats.

• Access to a host of best-of-breed entrepreneur partner benefits.

Sounds like your bowl of soup? Try it free for 30 days, cancel anytime.

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New E-commerce Marketing Guidebook By Heavy Chef And xneelo Offers Practical Insights For Entrepreneurs

Through our nonprofit the Heavy Chef Foundation, we have partnered with web hosting specialists xneelo to publish the Heavy Chef E-Commerce Marketing Guide. The publication is a succinct outline of the e-commerce process, offering advice and tips from Heavy Chefs and other experts to assist you on your e-commerce journey.

Although unemployment is at an all-time high in South Africa, with the pandemic accounting for even more job losses, we’re also seeing more people building beautiful products and services, starting businesses and creating jobs. According to a Deloitte Digital report from 2021, more than 70% of South Africans are shopping online at least once a month, meaning that business is still happening and transactions are taking place, albeit online. Additionally, a host of businesses have cropped up to respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by the pandemic, with innovations in contactless tech, video conferencing, remote working tools and more emerging.

It’s been a trying time but the small business and startup sectors are buzzing with activity. Now, more than ever, it’s evident that entrepreneurs are the one sure way to inject life back into the economy and they need all the support they can get.

The Heavy Chef and xneelo partnership is founded on the shared belief that entrepreneurs can change the world.

Both organisations believe in ground-up change and that provided the right environment and support, entrepreneurs are capable of empowering our economy and ensuring a more sustainable future for all. To this end, they’ve partnered to produce accessible, easy to use resources filled with useful insights for budding entrepreneurs.

Keeping in mind that entrepreneurs are a busy bunch who prefer to learn in short sessions, the Heavy Chef E-Commerce Marketing Guide is succinct and filled with nuggets of insider knowledge on the basics of e-commerce marketing. It digs into the bare-bones basics that entrepreneurs need to know about running a successful business online, from picking the ultimate domain name to establishing a brand presence and growing sales. From SEO and online advertising to customer acquisition tactics and content marketing, it’s jam-packed with e-commerce insights and comments from some of the biggest digital experts in South Africa, including Khaya Dlanga, Jason Bagely, Aisha Pandor, Mongezi Matati, Andrew Smith and more.

“E-commerce is about creating convenient and engaging online experiences for consumers. At xneelo, we’re passionate about enabling South African entrepreneurs with the tools and the knowledge they need to create and grow their businesses,” says Athena Turner, xneelo’s brand manager.

“We’re particularly excited about the collaboration with xneelo because it’s one more way for us to offer value to the entrepreneur community,” adds Heavy Chef Foundation CEO Louis Janse van Rensburg. “A key mandate of the Foundation is to address the challenge of equitable and inclusive entrepreneur education. This book is filled to the brim with insights from industry experts on how to start and grow an online business, and will be made easily accessible to anyone who needs it.”

In keeping with the Heavy Chef Foundation and xneelo’s mission to empower all entrepreneurs with the tools needed to create and build their businesses, the guide will form part of the learning resources for the Foundation’s learning programmes, which are aimed at small cohorts in various communities around the country and will be aligned around specific learning requirements, for example, ‘setting up an online store’ or ‘building an app’. The first of these learning programmes has already kicked off in Khayelitsha, where an exciting group of artisanal business owners get together regularly to empower and inspire each other’s visions.

By purchasing a copy of the guide, the reader will also get free membership to the Heavy Chef Learning Platform for one full year, with unlimited access to 1000s of entrepreneur micro-courses, known as ‘recipes’, and free access to monthly entrepreneur events and a host of other partner benefits.

Get the Heavy Chef E-Commerce Marketing guide here.

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Research: Are Books Still Relevant To Entrepreneurs?

This morning, let’s talk about entrepreneurs and books.

What are some of your all-time favourite pieces of internet content - videos, social media posts, podcasts, memes? Any that stand out?

Chances are there’s something in recent memory that you can point to, maybe. Which might just be a top of mind thing, due to entertainment value, than a ‘favourite’ in the truest sense of the word.

Let’s raise the stakes. Any from more than 3 years ago that you can think of? No?

Now, think about the name of some of your favourite books. I bet a few definitely came to mind. Some which you read decades ago when you were still at school, no doubt. In fact, you probably don’t only have favourites but you can point to a few that profoundly impacted your life.

For me, these include:

Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators, as a kid.

Animal Farm, as a teenager.

Wild At Heart, finishing school.

Rich Dad Poor Dad, at varsity.

The E-Myth, my first foray into entrepreneurship.

Built To Last, while building a serious business.

The Shack, losing my brother.

The Artist’s Way, as a creative mind.

Fever (Koors), first becoming a dad.

The Middle Passage, last year when I turned 40.

…to name a few.

Almost no other content medium has that effect. My theory is that this is because of time. The time writers take to unpack their ideas and stories multiplied by the time the reader needs to take to engage with them. Perhaps it is also because books are relatively easy to revisit, whether they sit on a shelf, on your e-reader library or are handed on, making their content stick.

Many entrepreneurs find tremendous value in books, to get inspired or to use as a blueprint to navigate whatever they are encountering in their businesses. Indeed, books often become the catalyst of many decisions that entrepreneurs stew on.

Here are five data points about what we know about entrepreneurs and their book reading habits:

Insight 1. Reading books contributes significantly to entrepreneurs’ personal development.

Insight 2. Entrepreneurs actively think about the next book they want to read.

Insight 3. They view books as essential to closing specific knowledge gaps.

Insight 4. There are still many entrepreneurs that struggle to access books on a regular basis.

Insight 5. Very few entrepreneurs try to write about their own journeys.

The last insight is an opportunity like no other. How can we capture lessons from more entrepreneurs and package them into an effortless, useful read?

In recent months we have been leaning heavily into refining our own model for producing more books more consistently and, most importantly, scaling our ability to get them into the hands of those who need them most.

Already, we’ve been collaborating and experimenting on a few releases and we’re close. Very close. I expect as the rest of this year roles out, we will have many more exciting announcements to make in this regard.

Books offer that thud-factor for entrepreneurs. You know that sound a few hundred pages make when dropped on a table? A tangible resource that promises value, an accessible source of knowledge, shorthands for solving problems, inspiration to get up and get stuff done, to reflect on, use, discuss, share….

They certainly shape my life for the better. And you? If you can gift one book to an entrepreneur, which would it be?

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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!

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Event Report: The Legendary Tale Of One Of South Africa's Biggest E-Commerce Successes

(L-R) Andrew Smith, Nthabiseng Makgatho (Xero), Shane Dryden and Fred Roed (Heavy Chef)

Last night at Workshop17 Watershed in Cape Town, we had the privilege of having two of the most notable figures in South African business history on the Heavy Chef stage, founders of Yuppiechef Andrew Smith and Shane Dryden. Over 90 of our community members joined us for the live event on a wintry night in the mother city, and even more via the live stream, keen to learn and ready to pick the brains behind one of Africa’s e-commerce giants.

Shane and Andrew need little introduction. In 2006, as two bright-eyed web developers, they decided to start an e-commerce shop from their mother’s lounge in Kenilworth, Cape Town. 15 years later, that business, an online shop of premium kitchen and homeware products, has shaken the industry in a record-breaking sale worth R500 million to one of South Africa’s biggest retailer groups. The two remarkable entrepreneurs have won several ‘best e-commerce platform in SA’ awards, multiple accolades across the continent and, most importantly, the hearts and minds of South Africa.

So, how did they do it?

The founders famously describe Yuppiechef as ‘a customer service business that happens to sell kitchen tools’. From handwritten notes to free delivery - no matter where you are - to selling products you can’t find anywhere, Yuppiechef has kept the customer experience at the heart of its model, a lesson that many e-commerce businesses today can adapt.

And learn we did. As per tradition, Heavy Chef CEO Fred Roed kicked off the evening with a shout out to our super supportive partners for making the event possible. For this particular evening, Backsberg provided our speakers with an extra treat - a bottle of 10-year old Sydney Back brandy that had Shane declaring, “I don't really drink brandy but this is really smooth and easy drinking.”

“Backsberg is one of our longstanding partners and has provided us with this amazing brandy, which is going to loosen up the conversation tonight as we pry into the innermost secrets of the two co-founders,” quipped Fred.

Loving hearing the @yuppiechef story at #heavychef. Incredible to see how well the website has aged. This is from 2006! Well done on an incredible journey Andrew, Shane and team. @sqroot @heavychef @fredroed ht https://t.co/C7xhdeD2Mr pic.twitter.com/ZfvLKTfFDP

— John Bradshaw (@Jabradshaw) March 29, 2022

Not that they needed it. From the easy banter on stage, it was very clear that the relationship between Fred, Shane and Andrew goes way back. As it turns out, the garage in the Yuppiechef story was across the road from Fred’s mum’s house in Kenilworth, inspiring a friendship that is very obviously invaluable to all three of them. This made for an easy-going exchange that was not only endearing but personal, funny and super insightful.

Highlights

• Andrew unpacks ‘extreme business’ and retells the legend of the bug zapper: https://youtu.be/EqPdDpjXj2Y?t=1244

• Shane talking about the ‘dream’ that started it all: https://youtu.be/EqPdDpjXj2Y?t=1604

• The challenges Shane and Andrew faced at the start of their journey (and the moment they nearly gave up on Yuppiechef to focus on selling flags): https://youtu.be/EqPdDpjXj2Y?t=1818

With Special Gratitude To…

First and foremost, our event partners Xero, PayFast and Workshop17, without whom none of these inspiring sessions would be possible. Backsberg, Sir Fruit, Creed Living and Goodleaf - thank you for the super-tasty thirst-quenchers and healthy treats. To our other partners, including Retail Capital, xneelo, Whipping the Cat, Eclipse Communications, HP Stores and many more - you guys are incredibly appreciated.

To our community of entrepreneurs, you guys are amazing - thanks for not just joining our events but for being so engaged and engaging while at it.

Here’s to the next one - stay inspired.

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Heavy Partners

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On Our Learning Platform: Warrick Kernes Unpacks The Basics Of E-Commerce

• The pandemic has cemented e-commerce's reign - woe the business that refuses to create a presence for itself online.

• This has made the internet an even more competitive space - your online shop has to be built for success or you'll get lost in the noise.

• Warrick Kernes is one of the most respected e-commerce experts in South Africa.

• He reveals how you can build a profitable business online.

• Access his full recipe, and more from other Heavy Chefs, by signing up to our learning platform HERE.

E-commerce has fast become the preferred way for people to shop. A recent report by Mastercard confirms that just over 70% of South Africa’s consumers are now confidently shopping online, a sharp increase in adoption that can most certainly be attributed to the pandemic.

Now that we’ve experienced the convenience of shopping for everything from the comfort of our couch or while we’re stuck in traffic, the cat’s out of the bag and there’s no going back. Online shopping has massive advantages for both consumers and business owners. It offers more choices, more convenience and massive savings to both the person buying and the person selling. These perks mean that a business that wants to grow needs to have a presence and, ultimately, somewhere for people to purchase their product or service online.

So where does one actually start? There are tricks to any trade, after all.

“I always feel that somebody needs to start, as always, with just finding the right product to sell, whether it's something that you can see nobody else is doing or something that other people are doing and you can see that there's proof of concept. Really, the difference between a successful online store and a successful business actually is if you have a product that people are going to buy. And with online, that's no difference”.

Warrick Kernes is one of the most knowledgeable people on the subject of e-commerce in South Africa, and certainly the right person to learn these tricks from. The CEO of the Insaka eCommerce Academy is a serial entrepreneur himself and has been playing in the e-commerce space for over a decade now - giving him an innate understanding of how e-commerce works from an expert’s perspective and from a business owner’s perspective.

“We know that the internet is a crowded place. Marketing, in general, is trying to take our attention in 20 different directions at the same time. So how do we get our brand seen? How do we get customers to visit our site and trust us enough to buy? That's a challenging game, especially when the product that you're thinking about selling is probably on the biggest websites in the country already. Why would somebody support you over them?”

Warrick founded The Insaka eCommerce Academy in 2017 with the aim of sharing this knowledge and empowering South African entrepreneurs with quality e-commerce training that they can use to start their own e-commerce businesses. Through the academy, he teaches anyone looking to create a new income, start a new online business, take a profitable side hustle full time, or even grow an existing business, everything they need to know to start, build and launch an online store.

“The fact is that a website on the internet does not guarantee sales. Once you've got the product or the platform, just get it out in front of customers so that you can start getting feedback on whether people are going to buy this product or not. To manage expectations around what's going to happen when your site goes live, two questions I will ask people are, "How much traffic have you had on your site? And if you've had traffic, what is your conversion rate now? In e-commerce terms, this is crucial for people to understand because just like a retail store, if you don't have people walking in the front door, don't expect any sales. That's just a fact”.

While getting your business set up online successfully is no easy feat, it’s not so challenging when you have the guidance of experts at hand. From the technicalities of choosing and setting up your e-commerce platform to how you can convert your visitors to actual customers, Warrick has the answers in 10 insightful bites for a recipe on our education platform.

Find out what he has to say about how you can build a profitable business online in his recipe on E-Commerce Basics here.

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