Self (un)employment...

The end of this month marks the 5^th year of my self (un)employment. I term it as such because I spend more time conjuring up the dream as opposed to executing the dream. I say 5 years, but it’s more like 8 years. I suppose this is the kind of thing a person writes when they have made the cover of Forbes magazine and they are now relaying their story of their journey to success.

In between my little triumphs, I tend to have a lot of time to reflect and this is such a time. I have some of my peers and relatives on the one hand who think I am a raving lunatic after spending so much time, effort and money chasing quite a ‘prestigious’ profession I just walk away from it chasing a seemingly far fetched dream, and on the other side I have quite a few peers who seem to think I live a rock star life.

Well here is my story. In November 2006, life was superb. I was an Investment Banker in one of South Africa’s top banks. I had a great job, I was based in Cape Town, worked at a great institution, fabulous bosses, great clients and superb work mates. I had a pretty cool place, cruising around in my black 147YAWGP which was about to gain a brand new German, drop top sister in December, black ofcourse. I was an ambitious so and so. A few months earlier I had realized I was tired of the pace of Cape Town. I realized that I was about to hit my ceiling workwise and so I was keen to get back to Joburg because that’s where all the action was, not to mention a lovely girlfriend living there too. So mind was made up. I was in the pound seat, a ‘black’ CA earning pretty well not to mention millions of rand worth of shares in a publically listed entity (not vested yet but still a great bargaining chip) a pretty attractive offer on the table from an equally well respected financial institution in South Africa. Man, I had no worries going to sleep, I still don’t really.

The funniest thing though was that cash, attractive employment offers, I was still undecided, something was gnawing at my soul… Now that I am thick in it I now understand what it was. Ever since I was young and I mean like 12/13 or so, I have always felt the need to find my own way of making cash pocket money was for the birds. It began when I saw an ad in the Sunday times I think it was, for a company called the National Sales Association. It was a catalogue of personalized stationery (before emails and the internet), cards, teddy bears, mugs, cups etc. I ordered my catalogue and woe betide any neighbor, teacher, uncle, aunt who crossed my path, I would bring out my samples and pitch the feces out of my products. I spent many an hour walking the streets of our neighborhood looking for clients. I also learnt how to cut hair with scissors and working a fade with a blade and a comb, so I’d cut my mates hair for a fee. A few years later came my next little venture. You see we played a lot of tennis growing up and I used to break strings like they were made of cotton, it was most annoying because restringing them was time consuming and expensive. So I got wind that the guy who owned the sports shop in Umtata was selling his old one. I went in for a few lessons on how to use it and I think I paid R100 for it, bought enough string to restring 30 racquets for roughly R150 and I was charging R35 a racquet and it took about an hr and a half per racquet, supplementing that with offloading trucks at the local Spar, waiting tables at La Piazza, man I was set J

So anyway back to my story…so one day I go to gym (in Cape Town) and have a conversation with an old university ‘friend’ he asks me my plans, I tell him I want to head back to Joburg, he says come and speak to me. I wasn’t too sure what about, but I hoped…. So I went…He told me about his business and that he was looking for someone to run the Joburg business, I was like I’m in, without really thinking too much about what I was giving up, but finance and banking was something I learnt, networking, yakking to people, doing my own thing, was something I felt came naturally to me. We had a few conversations, went through a few iterations of the shareholders agreement, and to my discredit very naively on my part as it would turn out, but that is part of the learnings on this path called life. So off we went, I was a 26% shareholder in my first business that had R0 revenue R0 assets. But the business idea was sound and my partner was most helpful. In the first year we turned a few million rand, margins were crazy high, second year we turned even more millions and half way through the third year we were set to turn plenty more million, unfortunately not too much of that came to me, my naivety! Man I had fun, we had fun, it was a small business when I joined, perhaps only 8 of us when I left we were about 40 or so. Anyway things changed as they tend to when money starts to flow, maybe it was me who was at fault, a few things I thought we had verbally agreed on were not to be, my enthusiasm was waning and I realized that perhaps this isn’t the environment for me, so I started hoarding cash as if it were cans of food and the apocalypse were coming and we parted ways, company was turning millions, profit also millions, you would have thought 26% would net a fair bit ehhhhh!! NO SUCH LUCK…NAIVITY…But alas 5 years later we are still alive right?

So on the 30^th July 2009 I packed some items of clothing into my little German love (girlfriend was no more, relationship unfortunately died before I left CT…life right J) …my happy place and headed to Durban for the All Blacks v Springbok test match, then to Cape Town, my second love for a wee break. Mindset was (and still is) from now we create a job instead of take a job. First port of call, hook up with my mate Zulfiq, set up our business ZYNC (Zulfiq Yaw iNCorporated, cool right? J) to pursue opportunities. 2 weeks in Cape Town became 8 mths, as it does…A business we had been looking at strung us along forever and I drew a line in the sand saying if nothing happens by the end of March, I would head back to Joburg, nothing happened so I returned, but during that time I tried my hand at steel trading, oil trading, sugar, rice, coal, gold, airtime, came close so many times, but inevitably failed even more times. Fortunately for me, through my network and past employers and colleagues, I obtained pretty decent consulting contracts, Venture capital, sustainability, energy conservation, business plans for stone quarries, setting up bank infrastructure. A lot of these I have had zero experience in but learnt on the job and delivered in most cases an acceptable result for the ‘employers’. Not the smartest around I know, but man am I mastering the art of operating smartly J

It’s been a rough ride I tell you, for the first 4 years or so German love was disposed of in a flash, replaced by a didn’t pay a single cent as a salary, all the cash that the business earned has been reinvested into it to take advantage of any opportunities. Like right now as I sit here and type I don’t factually know where the businesses next win will come from. Working on a few things here in Ghana, but they rely on other people to make them work and their urgency isn’t anywhere near where mine is. That being said, right now even though I am not getting any younger, there are fewer other places I would rather be. I am superbly blessed to own my time, blessed with the gift of having travelled more in the past 8 years (searching for business opportunities) than I have in all my prior life twice over, should it happen that my folks or siblings need anything I should hopefully be in a position to help. I also feel very fortunate to be learning to live within my means and also not to live for others. It is very easy to get caught up trying to keep up with the Jones

I realized that I was never going to be wealthy working for someone, I may well never be wealthy working for myself neither, but what I don’t have is the stress of worrying if my job is secure (because I know it isn’t J). I am yet to directly create the job I hoped to. I may have done so indirectly through all the deals presented to investment committees during my consulting work, but I want someone else on my payroll.

If in your heart of hearts it is your desire to do your own thing, I would strongly recommend it, but if you think it will take 2 years to be up and running, cater for 5, cos it no be easy oooh! So am I successful? Man, those are other peoples concerns. My concern is waking up in the morning with a grateful heart for the opportunity to live like I do, hoping one day the golden goose will be found, but till then making mistakes, learning from them, having opportunities to do something meaningful and to live. I have and will continue failing, but as long as we live to tell the tale with a smile what more can one ask….