The Fall back of a Non Technical Founder
By: Njabulo Khulu
Tags: Startup Life, Founder Stories, Mental Health, Funding, Tech

The Fall back of a Non Technical Founder

Life in 2020 can be described as a destructive year. People and businesses have been tested to the limit. As a business owner navigating these waters has been one of the toughest times out there. But worse, this season exposed those with weak and fragile businesses. Covid was the catalyst but ineffective and inefficient practices in your business made u lose more.

Personally this hasnt been the toughest year of my life. 2019 was, but this year was the final blow and nail in the coffin. Iv been made strong by 2019 but iv also been made numb to the pain, im in Zombie Mode. 2020 was different, it broke my limits, I had a mental breakdown and for the first time in my life, I realised how privileged it is to be in the living and living sane. The temporary psychosis exposed me to my big fears and how fragile our lives in this realm are. How mental health in entrepreneurship is important because you could lose your life as u know it. Practicing meditation helped with my recovery and thus my consciousness of what happened to me. Without looking at external matters such as covid and a destabilizing personal life. Funding fatigue has been my biggest killer to my start up journey.

Being a State funded Start-Up has not been as seamless as one hoped and the lack of operational efficiency of the State keeps our business in duress. Our Journey with private funders has probably been worse. The type of solution we want to bring into the market is noble but will it get adoption? (Is the questions VCs and Banks ask themselves) When other similar models arent growing at a pace that is bankable. Without numbers to show exponential growth? Perhaps you should be looking at Angel Investors and Friends of family(Not likely to have that kind of network) or why not work with a corporate? Tried that too, got far enough to speak to important people but rather saw improvement they could use for their own products with their own brand than an opportunity to support an entrepreneur. So that’s the jungle we’re in and the only way to get ahead is to prove you have a market and that its addressable.

I want to say to you that you can build a business without funding, but the caveat is that it would be extremely difficult but not impossible. Did i enter this arena to be a participant or a leader? As an aspiring leader, my ability to lead has been taken away from me due to funding issues. I had timing advantage to enter the market but through delayed development and lack of marketing budget, it was premature to launch a campaign. We release MVP silently to handpicked categories to see where there is traction for our marketplace solution. Now we have lost the market leader position to Corporates who have a mean budget to market the product and render us now a participant in the market. We’ll have to compete on style and ease of use, not on first to market. I believe the Market needs our brand leadership. We just need to execute.

Not being able to complete the final product and having to bootstrap an MVP with independant developers due to late payments has been costly to the operating health of the business. Quality management has not been up to standard.

The State Funding payment process has been over 2 years to get payout for final development of our platform. We hoped to create digital adoption for Africans in doing business online, thus getting more Africans skilled in order to commercialize on our platform. But without traction and sales, we dont have a business. Why not get a technical founder?

Finding The technical co-founder /partner is tougher than you realise. In an ideal world. Technical founder meets non tech founder via angel/ VC networks. The technician needs a finance skilled partner to help with the Governance of the business whilst they focus on the product development. In my business, its the opposite. Im a non technical founder with the vision looking for a technical partner to execute. Im currently in charge of everything. Scoping the product design to the nth detail because its early stage and theres no support available. All disposable income is used in someway so outsourcing development isnt sustainable.

My first technical founder that i worked on early developments with left to pursue a permanent job as he felt there was alot more learning needed in a corporate structure. He is doing well now working as a dev for a large Fintech player in South Africa. He realised he wasnt ready for the journey i embarked on. (I do hope to work with him one day once he mastered his skills)

Other exploits to finding Tech business partners include recruiting service providers. I reached out to self employed developers to build together and the finance issue always came up. No one was willing to give time into this project without payment.

This explains the Fall Back. This is a defining turning point in this Journey for me. I quit a high paying job with an adequate lifestyle to pursue an opportunity to better the lives of South Africans. Making it easier for them to do business. Encouraging the youth to be enterprising through a services marketplace. So that they can win the economics of their community. And leverage this to break the poverty cycle. I have not won with this war but i will keep to the battlefield but away from this Zone.

The fallback is the journey back home to rebuild this business from my parents home. The journey back feels like a full circle and im going home for another life. A life worth living. All my life iv been preparing to build away from home and in my darkest hour, home is all i have. Im now mentally preparing myself for the journey of being raised again. Only this time, we are raising a business. Family business. Community Business. A Legacy business.

The city is Durban, my hometown. it doesnt have the size of the Cape Ecosystem. But iv been in the Silicon Cape ecosystem for 3 years and it has taught me alot. But it hasnt taught me to how to win. These seasons ahead call for winning. And i believe that the Durban DNA is about to change me into a winner.

This fall to me is a fallback. A chance to do it right. To do it better. To see the game better. And if i know anything about us Durbanites, is that you put us anywhere in the world and we will stand out. Im falling back to get that standout magic.