Bad Entrepreneur

While some people may be fortunate enough to have the savvy to raise funding from banks, venture capitalists and angel investors most start-up entrepreneurs are going to have to do it the hard-way: Bootstrapping.

This involves you taking the ultimate leap of faith including raiding savings, credit cards, access bonds etc just to get your business off the ground.

It involves ducking and diving and cutting back on all of your vices in the slim hope that you will get the business off the ground. In a nutshell – it is one of the most terrifying and exhilarating experiences any entrepreneur will go through.

With that in mind Rival Pioneers is putting together an industry event entitled “The Bitch of Bootstrapping”. We will be bringing in a couple of speakers from different backgrounds to talk about their experiences in bootstrapping their businesses and some of the lessons they have learnt.

Details of the event are below:

When: 10 March 2010

Where: Old Mutual auditorium. Sandton offices

Time: 6 for 6:30pm. Presentations will run for about 1 hour and then there will be some time to network afterwards.

Cost: R125 per person (Price includes a drink before and after the presentation and 25% of the money raised will be donated to Adriaan Pienaars Rockstar Foundation provides full academic bursaries to exceptionally bright young girls from impoverished and disadvantaged communities in Cape Town.)

To RSVP for the event – please e-mail marc@rival.co.za.

A big part of the idea behind Rival Pioneers is to also provide a platform for people to network and exchange ideas so don’t run off after the presentations. Make an effort to meet new people, exchange business cards, talk about your businesses and aspirations.

Look forward to seeing lots of you there!

Banking details for payment:

Rival Industrial cc
Standard Bank, Fourways Crossing
Branch Code: 9953
Acc: 422148636

Brett Commaille over at InVenfin took great pleasure in hearing how I was rejected and ejected from micro-lender Capitec today in favour of the security guard who works in the parking lot at the Cresta shopping mall.

I’m not going to bore you with all the details but in a nutshell I was looking for a short-term loan to pay off some software development costs I wanted to push through.

Being a Capitec shareholder and having never tried out their service offering I strolled into the bank, took my seat in the line and waited to speak to a consultant – somewhere between the security guard and the guy who washed cars at Audi.

Now to put my visit in context I’ve interviewed Riaan Stassen (Capitec CEO) before and he’s regularly told me that they are aiming to target the middle-class market so I thought I must fit in to this category. It only took a few suspicious looks I was getting from the consultants to know that I wasn’t their idea of “typical” client.

After a few minutes one of the consultants came up to me to ask me what I wanted. When I explained my requirements she shook her head and told me that because I was effectively “self-employed” I would not fit their lending requirements (remember they are charging 30%+ interest).

Please could I move on so they could service people who were gainfully employed and had a pay-slip to prove it…

… and that dear reader is what you set yourself up for if you decide you are going to bootstrap an SME.

Having hit every single source of credit to feed this monstrosity we created, I think I have felt every emotion under the sun while watching this start-up get put together. Even now where things are starting to come right and the blocks are falling into place, I still love and hate every single minute of the adventure.

To be ushered out of Capitec a few days after Standard Bank approved a R1m bond for my new house is probably one of those experiences which will stay with me for a long time to come.

I wanted to write this post for two reasons. Firstly I wanted to entertain but secondly I hoped to highlight to other would-be entrepreneurs what they are potentially letting themselves in for when they make the decision to take the plunge.

Personally we made a lot of mistakes when we set the business up. These are mistakes we are still feeling 5 years down the line. A big mistake is that we made our business and personal balance sheets one and the same.

In humble conclusion – if you are planning to start a business I hope you remember the blog about the dork who got sent on his way from Capitec in favour of the security guard who leads a desirable and predictable life… at least now you know what you are letting yourself in for.