2dots Media - A Shot at Business

Of all the things I have always been sure of in my life, running a business was a certainty. And I have always developed my skills with this in mind. That some day I would be able to own and run some establishment.

While in middle school, I sold sweets and oranges. This continued in high school. This form of business was really straight forward, you buy and sell whatever is in high demand. Sometimes you create the demand. I added an extra line of stock by selling peanuts too. Cash business is king. Nothing can ever beat that.

The first formal attempt at business started while in third year at college when I proposed to a group of promising students that we start a software development house named Group Systems Development Projects, GSDP. It never happened. Everybody wanted to work for big business with big benefits. Then I started a part time consultancy specialising in web development, it never took off! Some folks just want things for free, no matter what it takes. Some are just plainly dishonest and can never be trusted as a result. Then in 2002 a number of opportunities presented themselves and I established Meriting Training Consultants, which was to focus mainly on IT literacy training. None of the opportunities materialised. Many of the projects I got involved in cost me a lot of money but was never able to recoup my costs.

A pattern was beginning to emerge!

Beginning in 2005, a number of small projects presented themselves and I began servicing these. Circumstances also necessitated that I diverse into hardware sales. In late 2005, I was requested to participate in a business startup as a service provider sub-contracted to OneLuv Agency. I was to provide all the infrastructure and software related services. The startup was known to me as Bay City and Divha Car Rentals. Bay City was supposedly a logistics company while Divha a car rental company. As a sub-contractor, the details of these companies remained sketchy to me. What a scam! The problem was that I was introduced by a friend who swore he vouched for the legitimacy of the operation. This little scheme really cost me, personally and business wise. This is the reason why I own the domains www.baycity.co.za and www.divha.co.za. Thandi Modise was the head crony in this scheme.

All these were done under the trade name of Meriting Training Consultants.

In the last quarter of 2007, after failing to secure a satisfactory job, I decided it was time for me to go it alone no matter what. I was just tired of working and was not prepared to take the bullshit one faces in a corporate environment anymore. 2dots Media was born. It was not really a new idea nor business focus, it was refocusing on what Meriting used to do and going on an aggressive drive for the business. And so Meriting was renamed 2dots Media and hit the ground running, at least initially.

2dots focused on e-commerce solutions, mainly: strategy, marketing, web analytics and applications. Within the year or so of its existence, the company did work mostly around strategy, marketing and analytics. There are just way too many companies offering application development as a service. As before, there was a need to provide hardware infrastructure on some of our projects and this became part of our unofficial service offerings. And so did hosting facilities become a requirement. All in all, the company offered a well balanced set of expertise that ensured there was value in what we did. And I strongly believe we provided a lot of value to our clients.

Personally, I enjoyed strategy and the value of analytics in relation to strategy. This focuses on sales from online efforts and how well marketing is performing in relation to other areas of business. For this is the area I had created a niche for us as there are not enough expertise in the field.

There is a problem that I could never really appreciate nor make sense of. Many managers prefer to work with big business no matter what. When a small business creates a business case for a particular focus, these managers prefer going to big business to carry out the proposal. And this has nothing to do with the capability of the small business.

Let's for a moment talk about procurement. All businesses in South Afrika claim compliance and commitment to empowerment. A standard billing contract stipulates payment shall be made within 30 days of invoice. It also makes provision for late payments which generally pushes the payment term to 60 days. Beyond 60 days the process of debt collection starts. For a small business 30 days can be a long time considering the upfront expenses the business incurs in providing a service. The problem comes when the business is not paid within the stipulated 30 days. When the average debt age sits at around 45 days. What big business don't understand is that being late on payments by a day messes up our cash flow adequacy. If it so happens that more than one client is late on payment, the consequence on a small company is fatal.

Attitude, it stinks black brothers. Something must be terribly wrong with black managers in this country. Are we, black people, so low that we shall do our best to discourage entrepreneurship from our own? The logic used by many of the black managers I come across is beyond comprehension. These people prefer doing business with white people, period. It does not matter how sound or weak your proposal is, all they seem to see in you is your skin colour. And the shame that befalls you when a white company falters on a project simply because it could not be done by a darkie is beyond reprieve. This I believe to be a lost cause.

Perseverance. Ba ha Matela le bona ke batho! Perhaps I lack patience, actually I do. I just become mad to see being passed on opportunities based on silly reasons. I have watched a number of companies falter simply because they refused to do business with a black entrepreneur and wasting valuable resources in the process. After several similar repeated incidents, I just felt this was unacceptable. Why should I be overlooked simply because of my colour, size of company or people associated with my company? I loose business because there are not enough black people on board. Am I not black enough? I loose business because I am black. What else can I be if not me? I loose business simply because I am a small company. I must start somewhere don't I? And I also loose business because there are no female directors in my company! Are we being sexist now?

I just became speechless, numb, angry and broke.

I am good at what I do, and I will not apologise for it. Why the heck should I also kiss people to do business? Why should I have to be buddy buddy with people in order to get business? South Afrika is a promising country with a lot of challenges, the biggest being unemployment. Entrepreneurship is seriously compromised because of procurement and peoples mindsets. I used to take issue with people leaving the country to relocate elsewhere, that was highly unpatriotic to me. I love and am proud of this country. But my experiences with business have made me see things differently. You can not continue to be patriotic when things just don't work for you. I actually considered leaving myself recently.

So when politicians pay lip service, people must always be mindful of the realities faced by the people of this country. The risks involved in running a business don't seem so attractive anymore due to the things people experience. Running your own business is the best most single thing one can ever do. But the hussle and back stabing makes it not worth the trouble.

Consider this for a moment: People who take a shot at starting and running a company are not so worried about getting a job nor staying in a job. A job is the least of their worries. And these people will never, ever, count themselves in the numbers of the unemployed; no matter what.