Strong foundation, hard work essential before living the dream
by Alan Knott-Craig Jr,
2014-09-08 05:46:36.0
I ENDED up studying accounting because my dad gave me a lot of choices… As I was finishing matric, he said, “It’s up to you: if you go study, I’ll pay. If you want to do your own thing, you’re on your own. If you study to be a CA (SA), I’ll pay. Study anything else, and you’re on your own. And if you pass, I’ll pay… take a few years extra, and you’re on your own…” So I had absolutely zero free will until the age of 25.
And I’m incredibly grateful for it, because coming from the business world, he could understand the value of a CA (SA) qualification. One of my daughters is an artist; I can see it already. But I’m going to push her to do CA (SA) because whatever your passion is, in this case her art, you’re always going to end up chasing it. The CA (SA) develops the business part of the brain, and will give her an edge. Even if she has to take a seven-year sabbatical from art, she’ll be able to catch up quickly, and be even more successful.
I never wanted to be a traditional CA (SA). To me auditing is not the most inspirational of work — I started my first business straight out of articles, after getting to Johannesburg and realising it wasn’t going to be easy to get a job. There’s a lot of admin that isn’t fun when you’re setting up a business — registering a company, getting a trademark, doing legal agreements, cash-flow management and accounting. All of that was taught to us along the way, while we were at varsity, or while we were doing articles. You get so comfortable with statutory stuff, company secretarial stuff, regulatory accounting… it’s something non-CAs don’t pay much attention to when they get their own small businesses off the ground. And then one day they forget to pay VAT, and SARS comes and takes out their business. A CA (SA) is not going to drop the ball in those areas.
Where CAs can sometimes be weak is overconfidence in financial matters.
My first business was Cellfind. A well-known Joburg entrepreneur who knew one of my cousins told me that he had bought a regional franchise from a cellphone tracking company in the UK; how would I like to create the South African business? I got a stake in exchange for my sweat. Luckily, my wife is a CA (SA) as well, so she was able to pay the bills for a few years while I got it off the ground.
From the ages 25 to 30, I had Cellfind and then I did iBurst, we were living the dream. We had no kids, so it was just about enjoying our lives in Johannesburg. Then I had my first child, which started making me think differently. Since I was 32, when I started World of Avatar, it’s been about making a difference. I realised you can’t look around at South Africa today and think the system’s fair. I want my kids to be able to live here in 50 years, how can I make the country a better place, but at the same time, make money? Because you can’t help anybody if you can’t help yourself, so making money still matters. All the companies I’ve started since then have had something positive to contribute to society.
What holds back a lot of would-be entrepreneurs is access to broadband. Say if someone in Soshanguve wants to sell goods online, or even sell second-hand goods on eBay, or apply for a job, it’s just too expensive to surf the Web. I’m talking about all access, both coverage and cost. It’s either not there, or it’s too expensive. That holds back a lot of people. Project Isizwe is all about letting people find fast internet in Soshanguve, rather than forcing them to travel to Bryanston to get online. Soshanguve is where the need is, and where the opportunities are.
The new private-public drive to transform education
Isizwe is by far the biggest project I’ve been involved so far: rolling out free Wi-Fi. It’s taking off like a rocket. We figured out a way to make free Wi-Fi networks really cheap so that the municipality can fund a basic quota of 250MB a day, in the same way they fund a basic amount of water and electricity for all residents. The municipality of Tshwane funded the first phase, capacity for 25,000 users that went live in November 2013, and we now have capacity for almost a million people — we’ll have capacity for three million by the end of 2015. We’re lighting up the system using a clever way to use existing infrastructure. We’ve just won a tender to roll it out to a few towns in Western Cape as well.
In business, you need three plans: a low road, a middle road and a high road. Right now, I’m building my low road — rolling out free Wi-Fi networks. It’s not making any profit, but it’s paying the salaries and allowing me to build a system. When we get that foundation, then we can start building our middle road. Maybe we can help the municipalities sell extra bandwidth, who knows? For now we’re building the network, which keeps growing and opening up new opportunities for a middle road.
Then there’s a high road, a massive opportunity that we haven’t even thought of yet, but that will inevitably pop up. That’s just how it works. Technology is developing so fast that we don’t even know what we’ll find five months down the line, never mind five years. That’s where I have to ignore a lot of the things I learnt as a CA (SA) — like planning for every eventuality. You have to take every day as it comes and be ready to adapt when things change. Dealing with change and adversity is, I think, what makes one entrepreneur out of ten successful.
• Alan Knott-Craig Jr, son of South African mobile network mogul Alan Knott-Craig, is an entrepreneur in the mobile connectivity field, where he has co-founded, purchased or funded more than 17 businesses.
I ENDED up studying accounting because my dad gave me a lot of choices… As I was finishing matric, he said, “It’s up to you: if you go study, I’ll pay. If you want to do your own thing, you’re on your own. If you study to be a CA (SA), I’ll pay. Study anything else, and you’re on your own. And if you pass, I’ll pay… take a few years extra, and you’re on your own…” So I had absolutely zero free will until the age of 25.
And I’m incredibly grateful for it, because coming from the business world, he could understand the value of a CA (SA) qualification. One of my daughters is an artist; I can see it already. But I’m going to push her to do CA (SA) because whatever your passion is, in this case her art, you’re always going to end up chasing it. The CA (SA) develops the business part of the brain, and will give her an edge. Even if she has to take a seven-year sabbatical from art, she’ll be able to catch up quickly, and be even more successful.
I never wanted to be a traditional CA (SA). To me auditing is not the most inspirational of work — I started my first business straight out of articles, after getting to Johannesburg and realising it wasn’t going to be easy to get a job. There’s a lot of admin that isn’t fun when you’re setting up a business — registering a company, getting a trademark, doing legal agreements, cash-flow management and accounting. All of that was taught to us along the way, while we were at varsity, or while we were doing articles. You get so comfortable with statutory stuff, company secretarial stuff, regulatory accounting… it’s something non-CAs don’t pay much attention to when they get their own small businesses off the ground. And then one day they forget to pay VAT, and SARS comes and takes out their business. A CA (SA) is not going to drop the ball in those areas.
Where CAs can sometimes be weak is overconfidence in financial matters.
My first business was Cellfind. A well-known Joburg entrepreneur who knew one of my cousins told me that he had bought a regional franchise from a cellphone tracking company in the UK; how would I like to create the South African business? I got a stake in exchange for my sweat. Luckily, my wife is a CA (SA) as well, so she was able to pay the bills for a few years while I got it off the ground.
From the ages 25 to 30, I had Cellfind and then I did iBurst, we were living the dream. We had no kids, so it was just about enjoying our lives in Johannesburg. Then I had my first child, which started making me think differently. Since I was 32, when I started World of Avatar, it’s been about making a difference. I realised you can’t look around at South Africa today and think the system’s fair. I want my kids to be able to live here in 50 years, how can I make the country a better place, but at the same time, make money? Because you can’t help anybody if you can’t help yourself, so making money still matters. All the companies I’ve started since then have had something positive to contribute to society.
What holds back a lot of would-be entrepreneurs is access to broadband. Say if someone in Soshanguve wants to sell goods online, or even sell second-hand goods on eBay, or apply for a job, it’s just too expensive to surf the Web. I’m talking about all access, both coverage and cost. It’s either not there, or it’s too expensive. That holds back a lot of people. Project Isizwe is all about letting people find fast internet in Soshanguve, rather than forcing them to travel to Bryanston to get online. Soshanguve is where the need is, and where the opportunities are.
The new private-public drive to transform education
Isizwe is by far the biggest project I’ve been involved so far: rolling out free Wi-Fi. It’s taking off like a rocket. We figured out a way to make free Wi-Fi networks really cheap so that the municipality can fund a basic quota of 250MB a day, in the same way they fund a basic amount of water and electricity for all residents. The municipality of Tshwane funded the first phase, capacity for 25,000 users that went live in November 2013, and we now have capacity for almost a million people — we’ll have capacity for three million by the end of 2015. We’re lighting up the system using a clever way to use existing infrastructure. We’ve just won a tender to roll it out to a few towns in Western Cape as well.
In business, you need three plans: a low road, a middle road and a high road. Right now, I’m building my low road — rolling out free Wi-Fi networks. It’s not making any profit, but it’s paying the salaries and allowing me to build a system. When we get that foundation, then we can start building our middle road. Maybe we can help the municipalities sell extra bandwidth, who knows? For now we’re building the network, which keeps growing and opening up new opportunities for a middle road.
Then there’s a high road, a massive opportunity that we haven’t even thought of yet, but that will inevitably pop up. That’s just how it works. Technology is developing so fast that we don’t even know what we’ll find five months down the line, never mind five years. That’s where I have to ignore a lot of the things I learnt as a CA (SA) — like planning for every eventuality. You have to take every day as it comes and be ready to adapt when things change. Dealing with change and adversity is, I think, what makes one entrepreneur out of ten successful.
• Alan Knott-Craig Jr, son of South African mobile network mogul Alan Knott-Craig, is an entrepreneur in the mobile connectivity field, where he has co-founded, purchased or funded more than 17 businesses.
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