I’ve been building, selling, and hustling in some form since I could hold a paintbrush or a flag toothpick.
Around age 7 or 8, on holiday with my family in Sodwana during the Olympics. I made tiny country flags, stuck them onto toothpicks, and walked around selling them at the resort for R1 each. That was my first taste of building something and getting paid for it.
I also bred guinea pigs (though I wasn’t great at selling them, they just kept multiplying). My mom eventually sold them to the zoo as snake food. She kept the money to pay back the loan she gave me to buy them, with interest. Lesson learned.
There were countless entrepreneurial ventures along the way, all of which shaped me into the entrepreneur I am today. Start early, would be my advice. But entrepreneurs always do, they can’t help themselves.
Success is a skill
There are many “recipes” for success but I’ve learned that you need to learn how to become successful. It’s a craft, and not something you stumble into. And it takes time – sometimes years of quiet grinding, listening and refining. And it doesn’t just apply to your ideas, but also to yourself.
If someone had helped me understand that earlier, I might’ve had more grace for the process.
It’s not unusual to feel like you’re in constant chaos and/or crisis mode when you start building something. And then when things start actually working, you expect it would feel amazing but rather it feels weird, or it did for me.
I started getting anxious and looked for problems that didn’t exist, picked apart stuff that was fine and yes to things just to feel busy again. I was uncomfortable because everything was right, because I was so used to chaos that peace felt unfamiliar.
Chaos can easily become a comfort zone, and stepping out of that takes real work. To scale, I’ve had to unlearn the habit of always doing. I’ve had to teach myself that stillness isn’t laziness. That space in my calendar isn’t a failure and that clarity can only happen when things are calm.
It’s a strange shift from builder to leader. From “more” to “better.” But it’s the only way to grow something that lasts. The lesson here? Peace takes patience.
The world often sells success as a zero-sum game. Like someone has to lose for you to win. Like your family has to suffer for your grind and that’s somehow noble because “you’re doing it for them”.
But I’ve learned it doesn’t have to be that way. You can build something big without becoming someone small. You can win in business while still being a solid, dependable human being. That’s the kind of success we need to celebrate and talk about more.
Access unlocks the future
If there’s one thing I know for sure it’s that South Africa is full of brilliant, resourceful people with ideas – ideas that can address our most fundamental problems in a smart and sustainable way. But most never get a chance to build. And in order to change that reality we need to fix economic access for tech builders.
If we could give just 1% of the population the tools, mentorship, and support to turn ideas into income, to build real businesses that solve real problems, we’d change the country from the inside out.
My own business is dedicated to giving creators the digital platforms and ecosystem they need to go from zero to sustainable, and eventually scale.
The ‘soft’ skills
Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss is a book I recommend to almost everyone. It’s not just a book about negotiation. It’s a book about people. About understanding tone, intent, pressure, and emotion, especially when stakes are high.
But when it comes to people I was lucky to grow up in a somewhat unique environment. I’m the second youngest of seven kids and the only boy among six sisters and that reality shaped so much of who I am today. I had to learn early how to read the room, understand emotions, and pick up on what wasn’t being said but still deeply meant. I couldn’t win arguments with brute force, so I had to get good at persuasion, empathy, and timing.
It turns out, those are some of the most useful skills in business especially when you’re building teams, closing deals, or leading through chaos. Being raised in a house full of strong women gave me a masterclass in emotional intelligence without ever calling it that.
Things may still fall apart
Even with the right tools, the best people, the clearest mind and the best will in the world, things can still fall apart.
I’ve lost businesses, money, relationships, and pride. And for a long time, I thought doing the “right” things guaranteed a straight path. But life doesn’t work like that.
The hardest lesson? God’s timing is not your timing, and success isn’t owed, it’s built over time, through fire.
