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Today’s guest, Melilizwe Gqobo (he/him) - Founding Director of Hubspace (Khayelitsha) and Venture Scout, has successfully created space for founders and entrepreneurs to thrive by strengthening and reinforcing their capacity or ability to seek opportunities.
With the hindsight of co-founding Hubspace, a pioneering startup ecosystem or incubator space to bring communal offices and resources to entrepreneurs and founders within the township economy, meaningfully contributing over 5% to South Africa’s GDP, Melilizwe shares key lessons and insights on what it takes to make a successful venture while highlighting examples from Bolt and Uber’s entry to the South African/African market.
What's Covered On This Episode:
0:00 - The Entrepreneurship and Founder Ecosystems
0:00 - The Entrepreneurship and Founder Ecosystems
1:23 - Founder Lessons and Challenges
4:40 - Reasons why I became an Entrepreneur
6:02 - The Opportunity Set – NGOs
8:07 - Making a successful venture
10:51 - Does First Mover Advantage Exist?
12:50 - The Role of Enterprise Development
14:51 - The Township Economy
25:39 - The Importance of Patient Capital, Support, Routine and Mindset for Preservation
32:57 - Allyship: Creating space and an intentional community
38:29 - Innovation and AI
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Creators & Guests
Host
Bandile Mndebele
Bandile Mndebele is a passionate advocate for intersectional inclusion, committed to creating equitable and inclusive environments. Their journey began at Stellenbosch University, where they pioneered a gender-neutral initiative, making it the first top South African university to recognize the gender-neutral marker, Mx. Following their academic pursuits, Bandile has held influential roles in various organisations, including serving on the Global Council for DEI and as a PRIDE Network Chair at a major S&P 500 company, where they co-founded Ubuntu South Africa. They have been instrumental in driving initiatives that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, particularly for marginalised groups such as LGBTQ+ individuals and neurodivergent people. They have also been recognized for their leadership and impact, receiving awards such as the Top 100 Outstanding LGBT+ Future Leader and Top 100 Outstanding Executive Role Model. Through their podcast, newsletter, and speaking engagements, Bandile shares insights and inspires others to create a more just and equitable world. Their work highlights the importance of intersectional inclusion.
What is The Add IDEAS Podcast?
Certain things in life are hard but belonging should not be.
Through inspiring stories, expert insights, and actionable tips, we help unlock meaningful ideas for a stronger sense of belonging in every aspect of your life.
From war to groove, there is a conversation worth having and lessons learnt about how we show up authentically as ourselves. Sometimes, we only want to afford a good groove towards a thriving community both individually and collectively.
Join me, Bandile Mndebele, as we explore the world of IDEAS: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Sustainability.
Our lived experiences matter and so should our ideas.
Thank you for following and listening to the show.
Welcome to The Add IDEAS Podcast.
Today I am joined by Entrepreneur, Founder, Melilizwe Gqobo.
How are you doing?
Doing well, man.
Thanks for having me on the podcast.
Super excited about the conversation.
Yeah, and thank you for your time and thank you for joining us.
I think we earlier talked about, I think, the VC space.
We've had different pockets of success for women and also for people
who are trying to emerge and go into the space?
For instance, I grew up in the township.
And as we all know, in the township, everybody's selling something,
but it doesn't necessarily mean that they went out of their way of like,
I'm identifying a problem.
I'm going to go out there and test and validate my hypotheses.
I'm going to build a compelling solution, a product out of it,
and then I'm going to take it to the market there and incorporate it.
So I think entrepreneurs are mainly people that have the ability to say,
look, right now, I have this amount of resources available to me,
and I'm trying to get to this point, and I want to be enterprising
in getting into the market.
So the person that you see in the food stores that are selling, I don't know,
vegetables and fruits and everything, those are entrepreneurs.
Those are the lifeblood of the economy, in my opinion.
And the founder is more like they go through this very curated process
to get to a point where they incorporate a venture,
which then they can take it to the market and then hopefully raise capital
and grow it and hopefully at some point, either they IPO or they exit,
or they go through some form of M&A, mergers and acquisitions and such.
What are the common challenges that you've experienced in your relationship
with other Founders?
I mean, there's probably a whole lot of documentation behind this
where there's always these surveys that go around.
And I know that also with the different entrepreneurial programs
and affiliated programs that we've worked with,
and obviously, the number one will always be access to funding.
Next to that is also the timing.
So when do you actually bring your product or service into the market?
Thirdly to that, really building the correct team to actually execute
what the vision or the product is for the actual venture itself.
And then, of course, there's the access to markets.
How do I go from, I don't know, taking a product that's based,
that's developed in South Africa and take it to Germany or I'm in the States,
I want to bring something into Africa and Nigeria.
With that comes the established networks within that market itself.
Not coming in also from this, I know better,
but I'm really taking the ability to say, I want to learn about the market.
If I may maybe use a particular case study where I felt like it really went well
is the case with BOLT, the e-hailing company,
because they're competing with Uber.
And Uber was just like this monstrous startup that was largely backed by
all the big names in Silicon Valley and in and around the world.
And here comes this small startup coming out of Europe, out of a small,
not the biggest town or the most well-known towns
in terms of the startup culture itself.
It had some traction as a town itself, Tallinn.
And they essentially said, we're not going to fight Uber in America,
but we're going to make sure that we fight them in a different market,
which they don't know much.
Because when Uber came into the African market,
they essentially thought that things would work
as the same way that they worked in America.
So people would be paying with credit cards, such and such.
And lo and behold, when they got into the market,
they soon realized that there's a whole lot of people that are unbent, right?
So what is called the unbanked economy.
And what BOLT did differently is that they understood,
they took the time to understand the market and said,
we're going to come into that space and actually offer a service
that allows people to pay cash because they had taken the initiative
to understand how things work within the market.
That's how they beat Uber within the African market.
So that's like a beautiful example around how do you understand,
how do you, when you're looking into expanding into a new market,
really take the time to understand, walk the streets,
interact with the people, not necessarily only stay at a high level
where you're building relationships either with corporates or governments,
but just like understand how things operate from a day to day basis.
Hence within also your pitch deck, there's always that one slide,
especially early days where it says,
where you supposed to communicate, "Why now."
Why is it that you feel like your solution is at a perfect inflection point
for you to be able to bring into the market and then go into that,
like really bringing a team.
How would you say, for example, your entrepreneurial roots as well,
the key lessons that you now share with other leaders
and other founders in this space?
If I have to really take it back to where my entrepreneurial journey
really began and how it sort of like evolved.
And the reason why I became an entrepreneur was primarily
because I wanted to be financially independent from my mother,
you know, who basically raised my brother and I upon her own.
One of my first entrepreneurial ventures, I guess, was I sold candy
that was not legal at the school, just like sort of like off the books kind of situation.
So back in the days, there used to be this notorious candy called the push pop.
So it was like a candy where you could put your finger into it.
And it was banned in schools because it was so destructive in the lessons
because kids would just like eat this push pop.
And it was banned at the tuck shop.
So I'd buy them outside of the school because kids wanted them.
It was a craze back in the late 90s and I would sell them.
So it was like my first entrepreneurial experience.
I was like, oh, you could buy something.
So I saw an opportunity to like, oh, kids would want to eat this anyways.
And the lesson there was like having the ability to identify,
you know, an opportunity because kids would still buy them, right?
I kept on being an entrepreneur and being enterprising.
So I started different businesses.
Some of them worked, some of them didn't.
I think the founding element really came much more later in my age.
I think I must have been around 20, 28 when myself and a friend of mine
founded a company, which was sort of like a consulting agency
where we consulted with NGOs and corporates.
We saw the opportunity that a lot of NGOs in the market were ran by elderly women
who basically don't have the education to be able to put together a proposal,
approach corporates for them to be able to have access to grant funding for their projects.
And then we went out and validated that.
So we would visit all these NGOs in our communities and literally would tell it up and say,
out of the 30 that we visited, 20 of them are ran by women that are about 60 years old
who have literally grade one or grade two.
So we understood, okay, now we've got a very clear problem that we identify.
And then we built a service around that where we said,
we would then build sort of like proposals and concepts and sort of like projects for them
and then take those and pitch them to corporates
so that they'd be able to have access to grant funding.
And then the lesson there is again, just like make sure whenever you have an assumption,
just go out there, validate it.
And nowadays it's so easy to go out there and validate whatever idea that you have in mind.
And I always promote that also with any Founder.
And I never promote standing with friends and family because friends and family,
they will always say, hey, it's a good idea because there's mutual love there.
They want to support you as much as they can,
but really go out there and talk to strangers and try to validate if this is a problem.
So that's like another big lesson.
Just like really get out of your comfort, leave your laptop.
It's nice to put together a deck and beautiful slides and research
and feel like you've been productive.
But up until we actually meet with the people that you're hoping to like really
either use your product or sell your product to,
like the market will hit you very hard.
So that's another life lesson that I've learned.
From a point of like my entrepreneurial journey as to what have I learned?
One, just if you have the ability to identify an opportunity, go for it.
Second to that, if you really want to be serious about it and finding a company,
Once you've identified that opportunity, could you go out there and validate it and talk to the people?
Like Mike Tyson said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the faceâ
along those lines.
And the market has the ability to punch a lot of founders in their face.
What then after that takes a good successful venture?
Because you find even that one slider, "Why now" may not be as competitive as the other "Why nows."
What would you say are the standout factors that make ventures successful?
I think it boils down to execution, but it has to be if I really crystallise it to one thing,
it's execution.
So before Facebook, there were several other social network platforms.
What made Facebook what Facebook is today is just the maniacal execution that Mark Zuckerberg
had with his team and just like really focused on saying,
our differentiator, we're going to get into the market and we're just going to really take over
because we had MySpace, we had Friendster and many other different platforms that were there
before. But the difference with Facebook is that these guys really were quite strategic
and very maniacal.
It's just like execution, just understanding our go-to-market strategy.
We're going to first focus on universities.
Then it just grew organically because I understood also they had this network effect.
So just like execution, understanding.
And then again, the execution comes with that point that I mentioned,
having a team that you know can work.
And so the next step for you to be able to have access to resources and funding,
and that's why they got funding so quickly thereafter when they had a couple of...
You know, they were there 500,000 around when they already had Harvard,
I think maybe Stanford, I think.
And then that's when they had the traction, they had the data, and then they got their first
check signed.
And then from there, they were unstoppable.
If there's one thing that differentiates or gets you to the next level,
it's just like this ability to focus and this ability to prioritize and this ability to
execute on your plans because that will be the differentiator.
Because we could have the same idea, you and I, and people can say,
okay, we're giving you 100 days to execute on this idea, and then we'll come back in 100 days
and measure how far you've gone.
If I'm slacking and you are on a daily databases, so we're very clear, like today, this is what I'm doing.
This is how I'm measuring it, and this is where I want to be.
And you just like really execute on that, we'll see it in 100 days, the difference.
And then in 100 days, you either get the check for 50K or 100K, and I don't.
And then I need to take another 100 days to make sure that I do that.
So it's always just like execution.
I think also that learning from that whole Facebook and social network space,
sometimes also being first to market is not necessarily the greatest.
As we said, there were other social network platforms before that,
but then the third one came and just basically surpassed everybody.
Obviously came Twitter and other platforms, but Facebook was just, everybody still knows
that Facebook is still the biggest social network platform in the world.
And in my journey with the whole first to market, we were the first incubator, accelerator program
to be located in the townships when we founded HubSpace in 2012 in Cape Town.
And it was great because a lot of people prior to that, when we started pitching the whole idea
and the business and say that in Cape Town, you could literally in 2011, 2010,
after the 2010 FIFA World Cup, because all eyes were in Africa, and specifically Africa in that sense,
there was an influx of like entrepreneurial and startups and hubs and incubators that are popping up.
But you could literally close your eyes and throw a stone and you'd hit one within the central
business district of Cape Town. But then within the wider, you know,
as far as just like South Africa, Cape Town and its own, you would find there weren't any incubators,
hubs at the time. With my then business partner, we just set out on that mission to say,
we're going to build the first incubator, an entrepreneurial space in the second biggest township
in South Africa, which is Khayelitsha. And a lot of people said, you know, it wouldn't work.
You're stretching yourselves a little bit. Then, you know, you get a lot of pushback
from the ecosystem. But we went out there, raised the capital, set it up, built it,
supported close to 50 Founders, churned out about between 10 to 15 startups.
And some of those startups are still growing and doing very well until today.
But then we had to shut down because we had scaled so quickly. We scaled in Khayelitsha,
we scaled in Stellenbosch, in Kayamandi, we scaled in Philippi because we just like
need to prove that we can actually do this. And lo and behold, the rest of the market was moving
a bit slower. As you know, in South Africa, that we have this concept called, you know,
enterprise development race. Essentially, the big companies need to support the smaller companies.
And that was basically our business model that we did enterprise development, you know,
findings to support the founders of the county for the townships. Corporate South Africa was a bit
too slow to catch on that you can actually put and invest money into entrepreneurs that are coming
from the townships. Long to short, 2015, we closed down. And I kid you not, a year later,
one of the oldest and biggest and well funded incubators that was based in Woodstock,
opened up their first branch in Khayelitsha. But of course, they had the support from the city
of Cape Town. They had the support from, you know, several, you know, corporates from South Africa,
because they'd been around way longer. So it was easy for them to take a bit of money from their
budget and do the same because now we had validated for them that this is something I can work in the
township. So it's also not always great to be first into market. But what we wanted to showcase
is that this, these kind of models can exist in these kind of spaces. So in that sense, we achieved
what we set out to achieve. Whether somebody else comes in and actually does it, you know,
at a different scale and at different resources. That's great, you know, we live and we learn.
And I will always be grateful for that opportunity because at some point, you know, who knows,
maybe it would still be the case today that we don't build incubators and accelerators.
If somebody hadn't said, no, that is wrong, and we're going to prove that it's the case.
And then now we've got incubators, accelerators and entrepreneurial programs.
In Soweto, Mamelodi, literally when we closed down and I relocated to Switzerland to study,
I'd still get emails from people who would hear about HubSpace, either from interviews that we
did online or just through some publications that we had been covered on, which was great because
it became this domino effect where it's like, now it's possible. Now we can dream. Now we can build
such spaces in the townships. And it doesn't have to be only at the Waterfront. Well,
And just touching on the township economy, I know like it's quite big. How do we overcome the
challenge of, or the challenges that a lot of, for example, Founders that are in the township
economy face? That's a really good question, man. I said this also to like a friend of mine who,
you know, after we closed down HubSpace, he did sort of like a short series on interviewing like,
you know, founders. It's so crazy because I was watching that video a couple of days ago,
it's like an eight-year-old video. Yeah, it just started up. I don't know what I was doing,
but I found it. And I remember saying to him, like, if I had to reimagine a HubSpace 2.0,
because our primary focus with HubSpace essentially was to support social businesses
or social entrepreneurs and really bring in innovation, a new way of addressing our social
problems and building businesses, which is great. But if I remember saying to him, like,
if I had to imagine the 2.0, it would be really to support the businesses and entrepreneurs
that have operated within that market and have stood the test of time and basically make sure
that we build a space that supports and elevates their businesses. Just like we were saying in the
beginning, the entrepreneurs that are running either your fruit and vegetable stores, barbershops,
running, you know, internet cafes, running, you know, all these different businesses that have
stood the test of time in the townships, whether it be also bars and restaurants and the moms that
are running their small kitchen where they essentially selling food to the taxi driver
economy. It's one of the most lucrative businesses in South Africa. It literally transports 50 million
people on a weekly basis, literally the backbone of the economy. So to your question as to how
does one support entrepreneurs within those markets, I think one is just like access to
resources, which is what we were doing at HubSpace. It makes such a difference. And you can say that
I have an address for my business. And if you're booking a meeting or a potential, you know,
collaboration, the partner can say, you can come to my office, I will reserve a boardroom space for
us to have a conversation and a presentation. It just empowers you. If you show up differently
as an entrepreneur, when you say that my address is at X and X, then you can like, you know,
because most of the entrepreneurs in the township, they don't have that formal structure of doing
business. So one should not underestimate the ability to have access to just like proper
infrastructure to do your business. Like that is so important, you know, because then you don't have
to go out of your township to do your business. You can just get out of your house, walk. It's
so empowering and so liberating. And I think two, it would have to be a combination of
mentorship and coaching. If you have found the one asset that you have is yourself, your mental,
your ability to just like operate, you know, efficiently as a person. So mental, you know,
basically open up doors to you, speak about you in rooms that you're probably not in,
but a coach will say, okay, you have this goal, let's work through it and think through it as to
how you want to execute it and hold each other accountable. So those who play such a pivotal
role in the early stages of a founder, and it helps you build just like confidence and it helps
you build just like discipline to really execute from a coaching side of things, but also from a
mentorship side of things. It helps you to understand that we are in the business of just
like working with people and if people can talk about you in such rooms and introduce you to such
people, it builds that confidence of, hey, you know, I'm trusted that I can actually do what I'm,
you know, what I'm promised to do. So that'll be the second element. The third would be finding,
you know, like one thing I've learned and I've loved, but now being based in Germany,
is that you have what is called sort of like venture builders, a way of saying,
we'll find people, we'll give them, you know, sort of like enough capital for them to like try out
ideas and if it works out, it works out well. But what I like about it is that you get like excitement
to keep you going, you know, as soon as you don't have the worry of like, how am I going to make the
next rent? How am I going to, you know, maintain myself financially? Then you can really narrow
down and focus on that. And that makes such a difference. Whatever entrepreneurial programs
that are coming into the townships, I would promote that. It should be funding for those founders to
say, look, we'll pay you, you know, I don't know, six grand on a monthly basis for the next six
months or 12 months. You've got a great idea. Here are the resources to go, right? Build a team around
it. You know, that's how I would allocate funding in the early stages. And then of course, when
somebody gets appointed by they've really built a compelling venture case. And then of course,
now you want to help them incorporate, you want to help them scale that, scale from being in a
pre-idea or the pre-seed for them to get into the seed phase. So I'd say funding definitely would
have to play a key role in the, especially in the early, early, early pre-idea. We validated saying,
one of the conversations I've been having with some of the people who have also started like their
own wrenches, the protection tree, for example, that some structural issues that are imminent in
our economy are most, most affecting people in the township economy more. We'll be able to
access the neighborhood or to access a certain market or a region. How costly is, would you say,
the structural setup in supporting the founders in this sense? And who is tasked in addressing
that structural environment in a way? It's fundamental. It's fundamental. It's very important
when we were building HubSpace, like when I remember one of the things that we did,
all we had to do essentially was to go to Khayelitsha and meet with the developer,
Nicole. And I always describe it as sort of like this Godfather-like scene, essentially,
where you go into this boardroom, obviously it's all male people, sadly enough. And you essentially
go there and let these people know that, hey, I'm looking to build this in the community.
Can I get your blessings, basically? And then you basically say, hey, these are the benefits,
this is how it works. And I remember going in there with my husband, this is quite a
Peter. And Peter's a white guy, a white South African, a black guy. And I said I remember
before we walked in, he was like, maybe I'm going to shut the F up. I'm not going to say anything.
This is your time to shine. And I'm a young guy, as you know, in our culture,
as a young man and you speak to the elderly, there's a certain posture that you hold.
So I had to be very strategic in not being too submissive but at the same time,
also having a little bit of authority, like, hey, this is not about you here in the room,
but it's about the community at large. I understand that you guys are the gatekeepers,
you're the development forum, cause I'm here to get your support and blessings,
but let's not forget that we're not doing it because for all of us here,
this table to benefit from redoing it for the entrepreneurs that are out there.
And I think also, I know that also in the communities that I grew up in,
I've never heard from about this whole protection fee situation. And years ago,
we tried to build like internal development forum back in the days with my mom and like other,
you know, prominent business people that work now it backfires because now there's these structures
that I, that these informal structures that are in place and people are asking people for protection
money. And if there was such a structure, that structure would govern that and make sure that
doesn't happen in the community. So I think you're definitely raising like a very key point as to,
if we don't have formal structures that are set up, then we'll have informal structures that will
set themselves up and basically, you know, either corrupt that whole economy itself,
which is what's happening with this whole thing. And it's a sad case. And that I don't think
there's a sort of like one solution for it all to solve it. I think it's like a whole systemic
approach that needs to be taken. I think the government needs to come into play.
The community leaders need to come into play. Civil society needs to come into play and sit down
and say, how do we address this whole topic? Because nobody wants to be extorted for a certain
amount of money. And you know, you're just running like a small, you know, business where you're
barely just like making it, you know. We're going to know that the entrepreneurs in that community
are stifled due to just like informal structures that are in place. The government should see that
we're going to be losing money because people are going to be afraid to open up businesses because
who wants to be threatened and extorted, put their lives at stake. And then that means that
there's less businesses that have been grown and that's giving us less money going into the GDP,
you know, bucket. And so it needs to be addressed systemically and really, really made a priority.
You know, we are in an era of crisis now. I mean, everything is just emerging into a melting pot of
different difficulties, you know, in monetary, economic, climate change. And also we are probably
going into living in a founder crisis. You know, a lot of founders struggle to have all excess
funding to be able to expand, to be able to do the things they need to do. How do we tackle
these challenges as other founders or as people within the ecosystem? It's a combination of one,
as founders, we also have the responsibilities to make sure our fellow founders are supported.
So if I know that I'm building something in a particular industry and I've managed to go out
there, build a product, raise the capital, you know, scale and grow. And then I know that you
are building a different solution, but it would be the same industry. I feel like it's only fair
that I also open up those doors for you, whether to that funding opportunity, the corporate
partnerships that I have. So I think this mentality of saying, well, I'm just like really building it
for myself, I don't want to take care of my business only. That needs to go away because
as soon as you wear the badge of like being a founder, by de facto, you're part of a team and
you're part of an ecosystem, then you want to build an ecosystem. And the only way to build
that ecosystem is enabling other like-minded people to have access to what you have access to.
So I think that's one, like the founders themselves also have the responsibility to support other
founders. Just on the other side of the table, where there's capital, because it's two sides,
right? It's the people that have the money and it's the people that have the benches and ideas and
you're trying to meet each other up great. So the other side of the table also needs to come on board
in the sense of saying, we want to make it as, for lack of a better word, I'd say easy as possible,
but it shouldn't be easy, but just like accessible for you to have access to capital. It requires also
the VC space to be quite innovative. One of the things that helped Hubspace back in the days,
it was this whole concept of like patient capital. We're not going to have the typical around that,
VC funded seven to 10 year exit or M&A or IPO kind of process, but it'll be a little bit
longer than that. So we're looking at 30 to 40 years, like really patient capital, because we're
trying to build businesses that will essentially form industries. So I think also from the other
side of the table, there needs to be much more agile and much more innovative financial instruments
that are put into place to support founders. It's a dance between the two. You're a little
touched on mindset, right? So being a key important thing of self-preservation in the space,
what motivates you and what preserves you in the space? The three reasons why I'm a founder. So the
first one is just, so I have two kids. I would be a hypocrite if I didn't pursue my own dreams and
tell them that they can pursue their own dreams. Cause my dream is to build businesses and support
founders. So if I don't pursue that dream, I would, I don't want to reach my end of life and be like,
ah, I could have, should have, would have, and then come back and tell, you know, my kids that,
oh, you can pursue your dream, but like, Hey dad, can you show us what dream did you pursue?
It's that personal element. It's really so linked to my kids and just like instilling that belief.
Secondly, it's definitely for economical reasons. So I think from a mindset perspective,
I learned this from one of the guy, one of the early employees from Facebook who then exited,
it does the wrong thing. Came from Sri Lanka, moved to Canada, you know, worked at the McDonald's
and produced us an education. And now he's a multi-billionaire and one of the most influential,
you know, VCs in Silicon Valley. And the mindset that he instilled in me, as soon as you have the
ability to have capital, you can get into the right table. And within those right tables and
conversations, you can drive an agenda. One of my agendas is to bring in more people of color,
you know, within the tech entrepreneurial space. So from a mindset perspective, that for me,
that is top of mind to make sure that I'm making sure that I'm enabling this.
The third one would be anything between the freedom to explore opportunities. Cause I'm like,
from a mental perspective, I'm such a person that I don't think the linear, I think very, you know,
I think more circular. I like to connect dots that are not necessarily, you know, connecting one
another. But over all that whole point is having clear daily routines and practices. One of the
things that keeps my mindset really sharp and focused is just like having a routine that really
helps me from a mindset perspective. So I know I wake up and these are the things that are in place.
And I wanted to learn a while ago, within a routine, you can still have the ability to be
creative. Cause having a morning practice, like a simple thing as a morning practice that you do on
a day to day basis, it just helps you form, it's like an anchoring thing. One of my morning
routine is like preparing lunch and breakfast with the family. Like I know that's the thing,
I like to wake up in the morning, go for 30 minute grind, come back, do like a 10, 15 minute
meditation. And then I do the breakfast and then, you know, I started my day, then the chaos,
and then start the after like making sure the kids are going to school on time, emails and meetings
and everything else. But as long as I have that anchoring thing that I do on a day to day basis,
whether it be going for a walk or going for a hike, it's just like really so good for my,
for preserving my mindset. You know, you bring up an important feature, which is quite time management.
How do we manage our time better? And how do we find the right people to partner with to bring,
for example, our founder dreams, our entrepreneurial dreams to life? I think time management will
always be, at least for me, it'll always be a dance of like really having structures, but also having
a little bit of flexibility around it. So as much as I plan my day, the day before, and I know,
this is how things look like for me, but I still live like a little bit of room for like a little
bit of spontaneity. And then how do you find partners that sort of like compliment that,
the partner that I have now is my wife, right? So on a weekly basis, on the evening, we sit down,
literally say, okay, cool. This is how you, because our schedules, as much as she works at nine to
five, what is how, right? It can be different from day to day, just picking out the kids and everything.
So having that alignment with her and taking the time every Sunday evening to just plan out.
Some Sundays we don't, we're just like, hey, we're just too tired, but we just try to plan the week
as much, you know, as efficient as possible. For instance, on Tuesdays, we have what we call admin
nights. Managing your time is so, so key. And it's something that at least I wasn't taught,
I had to learn in my later stages. So I can see that learning, like what helped you. I think what
helped me, my wife, cause she comes from like, you know, Germany and Germans are just known to be very
frugal with their time and planning. I went through like three years of like this really profound education
system in Switzerland that really taught me how to restructure my habits and my beliefs that I've
built up for so many years. One of the beliefs that I had was like time comes and goes, you just
gotta be fluid around it. No, no, that is not the case. You know, it can be the case up until a certain
age in your life where you're just like, hey, I'm a little bit callous. And every day we have morning
practice, we have our classes, we have lunch, we have our classes, and then we'd have afternoon
practice or essentially just like an afternoon checkout. So like it doesn't help that it was in
Switzerland, but it was just like also predating the time, right? And time management. I'd say
I've become way more disciplined in my timing in the past 10 to 15 years, just like really making
sure that I'm optimizing. And now that I have kids, it's even become even way more important that I
make sure that, hey, I'm doing justice to the time that I have, the time that I really will be.
With a team, it's always so important to just like also make sure that you align and check in with
like the values, right? Because if we're coming together to build something, time is important,
you know, in terms of how we're going to be moving and how we're going to value it and how it's going
to be our assets in terms of like differentiating ourselves. So it's really important from a
founding perspective to like really sit down with your co-founders and say, this is who I am,
this is what I bring, this is who you are, and this is all you bring. How does that come together
into one part to help us build what we're doing? This kind of conversation, I think one needs to
have them rather early rather than later. It's going to come back to just like how
does it impact you on a day-to-day basis? If someone, if you say, hey, we need to deliver
on this proposal on this pitch and somebody says, well, I don't deem it that important
because of A, B, and C, because they operate from a different value system and you operate on a
different value system. Some people are, you know, procrastinators and some people are just like,
let's get it out of the way and eat the frog and get moving. So it's like really aligning on
those kinds of things. And I don't think there's a clear formula around it. It's just like, it's a
dance between two people that you have to figure out. Yeah. And you touched on the representational
element of it, right? Like your success, trying your success to bring more people,
a kind of example to the table and being more intentional with that, right? And your opportunities.
How do we in our own spaces and in our own, I guess, founder heads create more equity for other
people who are from minority classes or from minority groups? I guess like how I'm going
about it from my side is just like really being intentional with finding people, either, you know,
female founders or people of color and collaborating and partnering with, especially in what I'm
building right now. So it's like a priority for me. Taking up space, you know, and the thing that
space is only meant for X people, you know? So there's just like showing up and really taking
space and showing up and feeling like you don't necessarily belong, you know, as saying this to a
friend of mine on Wednesday, I went to an event here in Munich and I could literally count with
one hand the number of like people of color that are in the event. This is an event of about,
let's say, even a thousand, one thousand five hundred people, two thousand. Obviously I didn't
see everybody, but I counted with maybe one hand the people of color that I saw, maybe two hands,
let's say, to be generous. Ten percent. Right. So that's very, very, very small. And I was
staying to you because I got a call and I was talking to you and letting me know that I'm
attending this event. But it came up in some content. As much as I'm here for work, but I'm
also here for this agenda to make sure that I show up as this young black founder in this space that
is predominantly white Germans and white male Germans at it and show up in a way that there's
no intimidation at all. But like I'm also here and, you know, this is a gauge and I had an amazing
time, you know, and I met some interesting people. There's also I'm on this journey where I've moved
from Berlin to like an hour outside of Munich. And the difference between Berlin and Munich is
that Berlin is symmetrical. So I'd say equivalent to Johannesburg, where everybody's just like
converging from all different walks of life to the symmetrical. So there's a little bit,
there's more diversity in it. In Munich, it's totally different. Everybody knows that there
is a little bit of diversity, but it's predominantly white German. Now that I've started to like,
we started to attend events and start really, you know, meeting people, you realize, oh, okay,
you know, there's maybe, maybe one or two people there. And then in that sense, it just motivated
to say, okay, no, this, this should not be the status quo. So that's like really create intention,
but also from a personal perspective, you know, living in a small town, just a sort of having kids
that are mixed race. One of the key things that my wife and I have agreed upon is that we need to be
intentional in really creating a community where they can see people that are alike them, right?
So I just set up this WhatsApp group, whatever person of color that we see or minority, we just
add them to WhatsApp group and we just create spaces where our kids could also have access to,
and not only see just like white German kids, but also to see, to hang around so that they feel
like, Hey, it's more me, rather than less of me. Yeah. That's a concept to actually have. And I
think what's so tied to that is the responsibility for founders to create community, right? So what
are the, what are the key tenants of community that you are specifically hoping that more founders
build upon? I think definitely the tech space. We definitely, you know, there's some really great
initiatives in Germany, like Black In Tech, as one of the bigger communities that's based on Germany,
like the Migrapreneur that's based in Berlin, also really focusing on migrant entrepreneurs,
they've got like programs and funding programs. So I think it's just like really creating those
spaces. There's like, you know, future female with specifically for female founders. Recently also
there's been like a good surge of like focusing on the LGBTQ+ community and just like creating
VC funds and entrepreneurial programs in that space. So I'd say metropoles like Berlin are
doing a great job around that. I think also just as the rest of the country in Germany, it's a little
bit a new sort of like way of doing it right. And I'm trying to try to get to those communities as
much as possible. So I'm definitely part of black in tech and Migrapreneur in Berlin, but now I need
to find that in this new space that I'm in. But also from my side, it's my own personal agenda in
the long run to like really build such communities specifically back home in South Africa, but also
in throughout Africa. Started with HubSpace and did that. And then I've kind of like paused it
from a point of like really building it, but like building it more from what I need personally. So
I do have friends that are coming on these different backgrounds and communities, but then
at some point I will pick it up as like a very clear agenda to like really pursue by being active
around it. So for now, it's just still mainly from me plugging into existing communities rather than
me creating communities of that nature. But at least from a personal side of things here with
the kids that I'm doing intentionally, because we live in a small town, I need to make that happen.
But generally from a professional perspective, I'm okay for now plugging into existing ones and just
bringing myself into those spaces and making sure that I also get into it.
So it's just like getting.
Just hang on to the last piece of the puzzle, innovation and AI. AI has disrupted quite a lot
in its way. What should be the renewed relationship between innovation and AI
in the ecosystem?
That's a very good and very loaded question. And we can spend easily the whole day.
The three hour or four hour conversations we've had in the past about different topics. But if I
do like really crystallize it into like one key point and maybe I'll expand on it, have a very
collaborative relationship with artificial intelligence as a founder. Not only as a founder,
but just like as anybody that is meaning to be resourceful, whether it be in your work,
as a full-time employee, or as somebody who's a freelancer or whatever it may be. If you
succeed more as having a collaborative relationship with artificial intelligence, because
you have your own intelligence and now you have the opportunity to do access to artificial
intelligence. And you can just put those together to solve either certain tasks, your projects,
your businesses and build solutions out of that. So I don't think it's a wave that's going to go
away anytime soon. It's here to stay. The genie is out of the bottle and we just got to utilize it
to the best of our ability. I don't necessarily have this fear driven approach to actually like,
hey, it's going to take away certain jobs. Right now, it's still so far, far away from
that being the case. As much as also that hype has been there, since 2021, with ChatGPT launching
in November up until early this year, mid this year, companies, because obviously we know the
big company that is really supporting this whole thing is Nvidia, right? Companies have spent
collectively like 750 billion US dollars just to buy this chips from Nvidia. So this one company
is like really building during a gold rush, they're supplying space, right? So it's great.
They're really winning in that sense. And then again, I say, all of that money has gone towards
building applications that allow us to, I don't know, chat with the bot. And it kind of feels
like it doesn't justify that amount with the solutions that are in place. Like, great, I can
generate an image. Well, great. Thank you. That's amazing. But yeah, like 750 billion is like,
it's a governmental transaction in other places, in other spaces. And now I've got an application
that allows me to build a slide deck and then I still have to, it doesn't justify the money
that's going in and sort of like the output that is coming out. So I'm not fearful that right now
it's going to take over any jobs. I think it will enable, I think also even software developers are
saying the same, you know, it is going to take away software development jobs. No,
it just enables them to, you know, to check their code and be more efficient and work a little bit
faster. So coming back to my point, it's just like really having this collaborative, you know,
relationship with, with innovation and artificial intelligence. And then I'd say also we haven't
necessarily seen its full capabilities yet. Like I think we're still, that's what I'm saying. Like
it's still trading out these kind of like nice, you know, applications that we can use and generate,
I don't know, videos and edit videos a little bit faster. It's so nice. I think the next round,
where we really see specific use cases for it in specific industries, whether it be in the medicine,
in the educational space, in law, in science, and that's what's going to get more exciting.
For now, we're just still building applications that allow us to generate amazing imagery. And
that's fine. That's great, but it doesn't justify the amount of spend that has gone into it. And
that's just my heartache on that. And you know, you touched on like the innovation gap in a way,
in terms of AI, what are the new solutions in relation to the space that you are now excited
about that you find innovative? Within innovation or artificial intelligence? Within the whole
category, I mean, AI or innovative techniques and they're all great. That's a very, that I'm
excited about. That's a good one. That's a really, really good one. I think I'll come from it more
from a meta level, like from an industry perspective, where I see a lot of great
potential around it. So I think in the e-commerce space, I think there's going to be quite
exciting opportunities there for really leveraging large language models because there's so much data
within the e-commerce space, thanks to the likes of your Amazon and Amazon, they're going to be
in such a great position in the next 10 to 20 years, if they really play their cards right.
I think definitely in the health space, because again, health is driven by data, you know, so
there's large data that are in hospitals, clinics. So I think there's going to be like quite a lot of
exciting opportunities within the space. I was talking to a founder, I mean, and they're basically
building a solution that allows to sterilize tubes, because most of the infection that happens in
hospitals for people, which then sort of like feeds into the whole antibiotics industry, which
is a huge industry. The tubes that are currently in place are just like infected and these guys
are using lighting to basically disinfect these tubes, how do you cut down on bacteria and then
that sort of like impacts the use, the distribution of like antibiotics. And I was just saying,
them taking that whole monstrous opportunity on its own, because every time you go to the hospital,
people just say, oh, we'll give you antibiotics. If you're in the hospital and you happen to be
infected, we'll give you antibiotics. So to solve that, it's such a dent on the pharma space,
which then will be the next phase that I feel like, you know, is tied into the whole health
space as to whether it's like a whole other opportunity to like really, you know, either
make medication specifically for Bandile, or make medication specifically for Melilizwe.
A lot of people talk about the law, but I still think the law will be governed by human beings
for a very long time. And I hope that's the case, but I don't trust that we put our governing systems
towards a piece of technology, whatever it may be. I don't think that it's more than dangerous,
in my opinion. I feel in travel, in travel, and just like, you know, logistics, IoT, robotics,
being complemented with AI, it's going to be amazing things happening there, whether it be
in the agricultural space. How do we make sure that the farmers are much more supported in terms
of just like yielding better crop, optimizing on a little bit of land that they have. So I think
in that space, that combination of like IoT, robotics, and AI, software has had its run since
like the 90s up until now. And now I think hardware is going to have its run for a while.
Right now, Tesla is building their robots and they look incredibly amazing. And they're going
to cost like what $30,000, you know, dollars. And out of the 1% people that have that money,
or the billionaires that are out there, the millionaires, you're going to see this in
real life in the next, let's say, two to three years, where people just like have this
robots in their house and just does everything and everything around just like households.
And I think just to wrap it up, because I see like our time is coming to an end. What would
have been the highlights or the key takeaways for this conversation for you?
Maybe I'll throw that to you and then I'll go out.
Okay. I think for me, I've learned quite a lot about the resilience required to be a founder,
or to be an accessible founder. Not just creating room for other people to have space in what you're
creating or the solutions that you provide, but also being community with you. You know,
there's certain structural issues that I think every founder will struggle with. There's always
structural shocks that come in. But what I've realized from this conversation is that, you know,
the preparedness of who you bring into the table matters. The allies that you have, who's able to
speak on your behalf, be your mentor, your coach, you know, that is also critically and equally
important. But I think for me, you know, looking back at my journey as well, it's always the
rinse and repeat process is always understated because people think, oh, okay, you create a
solution overnight. And I love the fact that you always said, don't rely on your own desktop
research, go to people, validate that hypothesis, refine that hypothesis. And that search past,
you know, is always something that people always look over and like, okay, I just want to apply
people. Whereas you are refining this and you're building this and you're scaling this. So I think
that for me was quite helpful. You know, looking at what you're also doing for your children,
being an example of them pursuing their dreams, you know, make it more relational, make it more
tangible for them is something that I think is quite inspiring. And it's something that I think
what they're starting their own ventures, what is the resilience of their brand? What is the
aftermath of their brand in a way or their brand affinity? So I think for me that I've learned
quite a lot from this. So it seems like a very short time, but it was a meaningful conversation.
So yeah, thank you so much for that. And I don't know if you have take away, take home messages
that you feel are really drive home messages for us. No, thank you. I think one of what I've
learned that you're a great moderator and a great testing to articulate really profound questions.
What I'd hope anybody takes away from this, especially from a founder perspective is that
one, you're going to find something like really don't sit in your computer,
kind of computer, really go out there, meet the market as early as possible and talk to your
customers until you exit your company because you'll always be reiterating. So it's not only
your phase that you do one so many finish. It's always recurring, you're always doing it.
So just build that mindset and have it tied to that having your own mindset as a founder.
So like having rigid morning practices that you take care of yourself, your mentality,
having a very clear why as to what you're doing, why you're doing what you're doing.
That's very important. Definitely emphasizing that. Thirdly, do your part to build the community,
whatever community that you're building, do your part, find your role, find your unique,
standpoint that you bring into the community and just really amplify that to sort of dig up the
bias that you're building into. The future that we have in terms of building is already here and
existing. And we shouldn't think about it that it's so coming. Let's take what we have right now
and understand it drives the narrative of the future. So like with the whole topic of AI,
we already know that it's here. So let's utilize it so that it actually creates the future that
we want it to create instead of it being this thing that we think that it's going to create a
future that we're going to live. That's one thing I'll definitely emphasize on just looking into
the future. Yeah, thank you so much. And entrepreneur, founder, and VC Trailblazer,
Melilizwe Gqobo, thank you so much for your time. And thank you so much for having a
chat with us on the founder space and the ecosystem as well. For those who are listening
for the first time, thank you for picking up this podcast and please stay tuned for more exciting
conversations that are to follow. Thank you. Thank you very much. Love this.