Business in Your Pocket

Many users lament the state of the internet in South Africa. A recent
report by MyBroadband
(http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadband/61094-the-state-of-broadband-in-south-africa.html)
shows that the average internet speeds in South Africa have moved to
close to the 1.8 Mbps. It is estimated that an additional R 200 billion
will be required over the next period in both public and private sector
investment to get it to official broadband dimensions – however the 1.8
Mbps threshold is a key indicator that we are on our way. This is up by
0.3 Mbps from a year ago and since 2007 we have moved from 0.5 Mbps
showing that investment and growth in this area is pushing the limits of
connectivity in this country. South Africa is lagging behind the rest of
the world – being ranked 109’th in the world in terms of broadband
penetration – but we will start edging up as people understand the
significance of the change we are about to experience.

While 2 Mbps will officially be broadband as the rest of the world
knows it – it has a different significance for students.

The average internet connection in South Africa is now ready for
business.

More importantly – the average cell phone in South Africa is internet
enabled and data is a growing area for all cell phone companies. This is
boosted with the recent roll-out of 4G or LTE networks which bode well
for increasing access to critical services using cell phone and other
internet enabled devices.

21% of South Africans now us the internet. If you look at this
statistics differently it indicates that 50% of all working individuals
access the internet and that the opportunity to make an impact on growth
and productivity in the country is idea.

South Africa’s internet is open for business.

The best way to do business is to be open for business. While many
will be intimidated by the prospect of starting a business – it may be
much easier than you think to sell stuff online.

So how do you start ? This guide presents a couple of tools that help
you in this process.

What do you need ?

To start a web business you need five things

1. An audience

2. A web site

3. A business model

4. Something to sell

5. Some education

This article simply states that the time for internet business models
in South Africa is now. It is time to start thinking about news ways in
which to achieve business objectives.

Getting an audience

Okay – so people are using the internet – but where do you get an
audience? Audiences need to be built by providing something that is
useful. It may be news, content, information or a specific method or
tool to do something. People only go to web-sites because they are
looking for something, someone or some place. You need to provide
information that makes it interesting for people to get to you. A great
way to start building an audience is social networking. By building a
loyal following on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Circles and Twitter you
have someone to talk to. Now – what to say? Email if free and also a
great tool to get in touch with people.

Tell people that you are selling stuff, how much it costs and send
them TwitPics of it. Put your ideas out there. Get them to follow you by
making informative or controversial statements. Get out there. Online is
the new print advertising.

Print advertising is also a great way to get people to notice you.
Brands are built in newspapers and products are sold online.

A web-site

It goes without saying that to sell something on the web – you need a
web-site. Don’t despair – if you have a Google account you can start off
with a Google site through sites.google.com or through www.wozaonline.co.za – two free
web-site services. If you are a the institution student you can also do this
through a Google service at hosted site tools

Most of us think that a web site is expensive. It really does not
have to be. Even a hot web-site can be had for as little as R 100 per
month. Good hosted solutions of free systems such as WordPress, Drupal
etc. allows you to deploy as fast as the speed of thinking.

If you move to www.eshop.co.za
today you can also sign-up for an ecommerce solution in which you first
few products that you sell online is for free. Add a www.payfast.co.za payment gateway
and you are selling online like a pro. The amazing thing is that up to
now we have not spent a cent and we are trading.

Something to sell

You are not going to get far without something to sell. Think of
things that you can provide. Maybe it is great stories, scanning
services or office administration. Anything is possible. Start putting
ideas out there of things that you think that you can do, make or sell.
It may not be where you end up one day – but the guy that built a $ 24
million dollar business out of providing cupcakes to businesses may also
not have thought that this would be the business that he would be in
forever (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505143_162-41841298/how-does-a-cupcake-company-rock-the-inc-500-list/)

A business model

Prof Michael Rappa – the first person to do a systematic study of the
business models on the internet classified business models on the web in
a range of categories (http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html)

It really is instructional to review these and to get a sense of some
of the ideas he presents here.

The basic categories of business models discussed in the table below
include:

• Brokerage

• Advertising

• Infomediary

• Merchant

• Manufacturer (Direct)

• Affiliate

• Community

• Subscription

• Utility

He explains some of these business models and gives some food for
thought in terms of deciding how you are trading on the web.

A great tool that we use in class as well is http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com, which gives a
business model canvas that asks some of the most important questions in
terms of customers, suppliers, revenue generation models etc.

A young entrepreneur made a lot of money just reselling travel
tickets on behalf of a travel agent. All that he provided was
convenience and a practical payment mechanism. He did it all from his
Blackberry phone. So you don’t need much to start. But a good business
model is critical to sustain a business. So think it through.

These ideas together form a traditional business plan and puts you
well on your way to becoming the next superstar of the internet.

Some education

Just as you can make your business portable – so you can make your
education portable. The whole idea of an MBA in your pocket comes handy
when you are sitting down and planning to take over a new market or
country. education providers offer a range of its programmes on various devices
and we are sure you do not want to make a move without this knowledge by
your side.

As business grows – the task of the entrepreneur is to balance
opportunity with means to achieve these. Education is a great tool to
give you that advantage.

Conclusion

Ten years ago it would have cost you a couple of million rands, a lot
of guts and more money and expertise than most of us would have to start
and run a business on the internet.

Today this process has become a lot easier with offerings that are
available that makes it possible to start trading at no cost. There are
great and flexible options that allow you to run large and professional
web-businesses with very little money down. The limits are gone and it
is time to realise that in South Africa specifically we must stop
moaning and begrudging the state of the internet and to start doing real
business online.

For the active entrepreneurs that are testing and trying ideas on
many platforms that are emerging, the new way the world works will
represent the tools and techniques that they will use to make the next
billionaire generation.

This notion of being able to run and manage your business from your
pocket has become popular and the concept is that the next generation
will be a portable generation – carrying empires in their pockets and on
tablet devices.

Many futurists have predicted that the next generation will work and
conduct commerce differently and the people that are currently trading
in this arena will be the winners of tomorrow.