When raising money, a useful technique is to ask Bob for a commitment “subject to”. Ie: Bob will invest R1mil subject to you finding another R4mil.  Then when you go to the next potential investor you can say “Bob is in for R1mil if we raise another R4mil”. Both Bob and the new investor can…

The more dependencies, the less options. Less options means less flexibility. Less flexibility means you’re chances of finding a winning path are lowered. If you want to win, minimise your dependencies.

Whether you’re chasing customers or chasing investors, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a princess. It’s just how it is. It’s a numbers game that you have to commit 100% passion and enthusiasm to. Sometimes its a long slog. Sometimes its just so easy! Most times, just remember: The first…

Most times, you must focus on work you enjoy. Not because it’s easy, but because you’re good at it. You must put all your energy into what you’re good at. But sometimes you have to do stuff that don’t enjoy. It’s not a distraction, it’s just what you have to do.

Most people are afraid of losing. Of failure. That’s why most people can’t be entrepreneurs. You can’t be an entrepreneur if you’re afraid. Fear is crippling. Customers can smell it. If you’re going to succeed you need to be confident and move forward. Scared people never win.

If you don’t go for the win, that means you’ve also avoided the chance of failure. But what’s the point? Starting a business is not about safety. It’s about financial freedom and chasing your dreams and winning. You have to give yourself a chance to fail. Not trying is a fail.

Every now and then, you come across a rockstar youngster. Someone with ambition, energy, integrity and brains. And maybe even some commercial savvy. Hold on to her! Rockstars are rare. Make sure you find some way to keep her challenged and interested. Keep her close. She’s gonna make you rich.

You’re already at war. So you can’t make war. With enemies there is only one alternative path: peace. You can only make peace with your enemies.

Humans react to incentives. You get what you reward for. No reward = no results. There is a much-cited FedEx case study where the company was struggling to meet its overnight delivery commitments. No matter how hard it tried, FedEx’s warehouses could not move the goods on times. One day a FedEx manager changed the remuneration structure of…

Conformists are cowards. They don’t have the guts to fight the crowd. They know they are defeated before they start. They meekly get into line and follow instructions, even though they know the path is wrong. Don’t be that guy. Maybe you can’t speak out. Maybe you can’t intervene. Maybe you can’t stop the crowd….

Most of the time you need a plan B. A safety net. A fallback position. But sometimes you need to make quitting more unpleasant than fighting to the end. It is easier to persevere when you don’t have options. For example, tell everybody about your grand dream. Knowing that other people are watching will motivate…

Assume you have an employee called Jane. In order to have a trust relationship, you and Jane need to trust one another. If either party has no trust, there is no trust relationship. Trust is multiplicative. 1 x 0 = 0. How do you win the trust of someone else? Action. Words are wind. People will judge you…