“The Colour of Technology Entrepreneurship in South Africa”

I spent the last 7 months travelling to 15+ african countries to scout for the best entrepreneurs in tech. As our tour is coming to an end, I finally have some time to sit down and reflect on my experiences. So time to go back to where I started this story: South-Africa.

“I fell in love with this idea: This idea that it is not about where you are from, but about what you do.”

About 7 months ago I touched down in South-Africa to start our quest to look for the best entrepreneurs in technology on the continent. We were given a challenge: “Find the best startups and make sure your entrepreneurs are as diverse as possible” they said. Why would this be a challenge I thought to myself? Isn’t SA like almost 80 % black?

So here I was, May 2016, spending about 2 months on the ground in a country that is known for its melting pot of various races, cultures, creeds and backgrounds, with the majority of the population being black. A country, that was once considered “Rainbow Nation”, an ideal that many still aspire to, but seems more relevant for tourist branding purposes than anything else. “South-Africa”, a country I fell in love with, a country where I would definitely want to live -should I be given the opportunity- and the country where the conversation around race never seemed to end…

We traveled to Johannesburg, Soweto, Cape Town and Durban and after going to all of these places, the best entrepreneurs in technology that we found were white south africans or white foreigners (German, Dutch etc.) living in SA. Which got me thinking.. “Why is South Africa failing to produce large numbers of high quality black entrepreneurs in technology?

1)Role Models: I remember visiting an event in Cape Town, a pretty vibrant ecosystem in South Africa. The event was one of those cliché events talking about the importance of entrepreneurship, followed by a panel of investors about the typical blabla and how startups are not investible -yeah whatever, you just don’t want to invest my friend-. I’ll admit that I sneaked out to do some work and popped in every time there was a break for the sole purpose of “Networking”. My eyes caught the eye of a black lady, who had both sides of her head shaved and was rocking a mow-hack of blue braids. We started talking. She was an activist from the township and came to address the issue of these types of events and how they are not accordingly adapted and catered to the young black south african from the township. Another girl joined the conversation. A young stunning beautiful black lady that had made a name for herself in the tech industry. She partly disagreed as she began to tell us her story and how she was born and raised in the township and came from a very poor family. She had outstanding grades and therefore received scholarships that gave her access to good education and the opportunity to blossom. And so if she made it, why couldn’t anyone else? I thought about this for a while. Yes you are an amazing role model, and yes SA definitely needs you to inspire some that believe it is impossible. However, the thing with role models is that they usually don’t represent the statistic. And the statistic is that demographically 76% of SA inhabitants is BLACK. And it are especially the young black people in SA that are the victim of a 2) failed education system, with people that unlike her, are not considered the next Einstein and will most likely not receive a scholarship to go and show the world what they are made of. Which brings me to my next point:

3) Class comes with colour: If you are white, chances are that you are either from a middle class or upper class family. Colour and class comes with:

• 4) Freedom of Time: The thing about coming from a lower class family is that you don’t have freedom of time. You are always busy hustling because … well … you need to survive and money needs to come in. Time is an expensive currency, a currency that many can not afford.

and

• 5) Freedom of Taking Risk: Remember when you were young and your parents told you that you could be anything? Do anything? Become anything? If you in any type relate to this, chances are you come from either middle or upper class. Now the thing about running a business is that it is all about taking risks. You might not earn money for the first months or even years. You might fail.. might win.. nobody really knows. I still believe that starting and running a startup in most parts of the world is generally for those that can afford to take risk, afford to not have an income for a while, afford to play around, and afford to fail. For your black South-Africans, and most Africans, taking risk is not something everyone can afford to do.

6) Lack of exposure and context: There is a huge difference between those that are exposed to different realities and those that only know their own reality and more importantly, context.

I actually might argue that one of the biggest reasons startups on the continent are failing is the incapability of seeing beyond just their own context, especially when it is time to scale.

Anyways, exposure usually comes with good level of education and/or a fair share of travelling around. It is difficult for someone who only stayed in one place for their whole lives to relate to a reality other than their own, making it more challenging , yet not impossible , to build a global business from day 1. This could possibly explain why at the events that we run, the diaspora entrepreneur probably 8 out of 10 times would win from the local-having-lived-in-one-place-all-of-their-lives entrepreneur.

7) Distance Usually, to travel from the township to the city is not a short trip. Heck, to travel from one township to another might even take hours. Being an entrepreneur is also a “people’s game. You need the right people that can help you open the right doors to help the business grow. Unfortunately, these people are mostly located in the city and I don’t think they will travel to the township any time soon.

8) A parallel universe: Despite what the above might incline, perhaps the problem is not just that there are not enough black entrepreneurs in term of numbers, but also there not being enough opportunities for networks to merge and overlap. That ultimately creates parallel universes that don’t speak or work with each other and are really hard to access, making it hard for startups scouts like us to find them.

And so here we were, after 2 months of traveling around South Africa, with the majority of high quality entrepreneurs that we found still being… white.

So, the question remains: What is the colour of entrepreneurship in Tech in SA? or perhaps a better question to ask would be, what is the colour of opportunity in SA? Well… it’s definitely not black. Nevertheless we did meet some amazing black entrepreneurs in technology, doing amazing things.

SA, when it comes to diversity in entrepreneurship you still have a long way to go. However, I have been extremely impressed and humbled by the talent that I have seen being showcased by the black tech community, that FYI, does exist in this beautiful country.

So how do we solve this? Well.. not sure. What I have written above is based on what I could observe as an outsider, but I know that there are some deep rooted underlying issues that stem from a long history and that it is probably not as black and white as I am making it out to be…

… Or is it?

Cheers!

-CM