tech entrepreneur

Inspiration Entrepreneurship-Daniel Ek

2012-01-17T03:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I read an article on Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify, a music sharing service. I found this story quite fascinating and very innovate on how the music industry is evolving. If one looks at Spotify and music industry it can be said the revolution started with Napster which was an illegal file sharing service that was clamped down by government. I think Napster has now closed if not soon to close. The genius of Daniel Ek revolves around the revenue model for Spotify, they have been able to use the fremium revenue model quite effectively and make profit out it. Users can get free service for some time and also subscribe on a monthly basis for as much music as they want to listen, and for less than $10 a month. Obviously they have had obstacles particularly from the music industry unwillingness to change how they sell their music but this is changing. They have also enjoyed great support from Facebook for their service to be social and they have posed a threat to other on-line music service providers like Rhapsody. They continue to grow and its interesting to see whether big companies like Apple and Google might just bring up something that might crush Spotify. Of interest for me is to see whether such a service can be possible in this part of the world, Africa. For this is also a learning opportunity about revenue models and being a maverick, maverick ideas that shift industries.

2012 and business

2012-01-16T10:15:00.000-08:00

The year started on the slow business wise, with most companies starting work on the 7th Jan from festive holidays. This meant I had to wait for some of them and the bank was also slow in opening some of my accounts around this time. But I have finally opened my accounts and hoping to be up and running by next week. I have had hiccups with family issues as well, I had to deal with funeral last weekend and the coming weekend as well, so it has been tough and could not do much work around that time. I still have to get a company website up and running which I plan to do this week, a blog maybe. I can worry about getting a fully registered website towards the end of the month but right now i need to get some cash coming in to cover my costs. Finally I need to get my business plan completed, I have been working on it since last week and its taking longer than I planned.

the dive-2 years later

2011-12-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

its now 2 years later after my finance honours at UCT and i just quit my job chasing a dream. i am following my inspiration and i am hoping it works out. i have had a few weeks now while unemployed and i am feeling a difficult time ahead of me. this will not stop me because beyond the start-up huddles there is better life on the other side. i have recently registered a company and look forward to business operations, still sorting out my bank account and credit card issues which have proved to be pain stacking. in addition i have been spending a lot of time on the internet reading and learning a lot about the on-line environment. its fascinating how the on-line space evolves so fast and people have to be up to date with the changes in order to be relevant in that time, especially for internet businesses. i am now going home for christmas and when i come back i will be full force in the business.

gilad stern - sense and nonsense about affirmative action

2009-10-10T06:12:00.001-07:00

gilad is ceo of eden africa recruitment and focus on black professionals. we had a controversial lecture by him. as you can imagine, it was all racial and many people got offended. he talked about how before black south africans made it into the upper class there was beer made for blacks, electricity for blacks, credit for blacks. it all sounds deeply racial but from a business perspective it made sense. in the 80's and 90's south africa blacks lived in different areas from whites and constituted the largest population in the country. businesses wanted to expand into their market and had to come up with a strategy. so what they did was sell prepaid electricity, sell traditional brewed beer for blacks and shops like edgars offered credit facilities for people who could not afford to pay cash. this proved a success for the businesses. further, he talked about how breweries had to hire black people to deliver beer in black areas and mines hired black mining supervisors.
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vinny lingham guest lecture

2009-10-08T04:58:00.000-07:00

we had vinny lingham yesterday as a guest lecture. he is a pretty interesting guy. he is known for the company he founded, Yola. the guy is south african and recently moved to the states. he found yola, previously known as synthasite about 10 years back. i like the revenue model for yola, they provide quick and easy free website building tools for everyone and sell premium services, say if you want special design website, web domain, hosting or more advanced tools on the website. they target everyone especially startup businesses and they make millions from this model. vinny also raised $20 million in the current economic enviroment, which is outstanding.
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"anything the mind can concieve and believe,it can achieve", napoleon hill

2009-10-03T13:55:00.001-07:00

thats a great quote by napoleon. i got this from one of the websites when i was looking for great quotes. thought i should start my blog with inspirational words. this blog is about me and my journey to becoming tech entrepreneur. i am currently studying finance and accounting and i will will be posting some of my interesting experiences. i am particularly facinated by technology, internet, finance related stuff and businesses.