Adventures in Cape Town — the sequel
The joys of working in a small enterprise
After the first few busy days in Cape Town, I began working at Yappo and setting the goals and aims of my contribution for the next six weeks.
Before going into the details of my engagement, let me introduce you to the key people behind Yappo: Stuart, the founder, set up Yappo approximately 18 months ago when he spotted a gap in the mobile payments market, specifically aiming at students. His experience of the student market dates back to the beginning of Studentology, an online community for students of South African universities. The Studentology community has thrived and has grown significantly in the recent years; Yappo is effectively a ‘product of Studentology’ taking the existing discount card (StuD card) further and integrating a payment platform at the core of the community.
Alongside Stuart, business partner David has been heading the marketing and communications operations of Yappo. With a breadth of experience in the event management space, David has been instrumental in the rollout of Yappo across the key universities and campuses. In addition to Stuart and David, fellow intern Robert (from the Netherlands) has joined Yappo for 8 weeks to work on the development of a comprehensive marketing strategy and market analysis for Yappo.
Fast forward to the scope of my engagement and contribution: I am supporting Stuart in his activities and discussions as he is looking to exit and sell his stake at Yappo. As broad as this sounds, we have brainstormed and broken down the activities that would enable us to move closer to the target.
Specifically, thus far I have worked on marketable material to facilitate planned discussions (based on market research conducted with a couple of colleagues remotely before I joined on site), and have started looking at the financial accounts of the enterprise — ultimately planning to create a model for the enterprise to inform valuation discussions. Working in a startup environment means that I get a 360° view of how an enterprise is run — getting involved in any aspects that need attention at any point in time. As a good consultant, needless to say that I thoroughly enjoy the flexibility and adaptability that comes with it!
Last week also saw Stuart participate in a startup competition which will be broadcast on SABC 1 in February 2014 (no spoilers; you will have to wait until the competition airs). Additionally, as part of my assignment, we also had an initial filming session featuring Stuart and me discussing about our expectations of my assignment. It is early days and the filming will continue throughout my stay — it will be interesting to see how our collaboration develops over time. Finally, to mark the ending of the first week of work, I had the opportunity to cook dinner for Stuart and David at my apartment in Seapoint — it was a good opportunity to talk about life in general and things other than work.
During the weekend, my quest to explore Western Cape and the surrounding area continued! One observation: Cape Town does get extremely windy during November — Saturday was a bit of a let-down as both Table Mountain and Robben Island tours were closed due to 50km/h gusts. I did however travel around the wider Cape Town area and explored part of the nightlife.
Sunday proved less windy than Saturday (phew!) and I explored the beautiful scenery and wine farms of the Stellenbosch region — words cannot describe how gorgeous the landscape is!
Looking ahead, the rest of this week looks busy yet exciting; Stuart and I are starting to meet with some important contacts that will allow us to move forward with Yappo’s goals. Again, I am feeling tired on a Monday night, yet I do enjoy writing the tales of the week in this journal. If you have made is this far, I’d be happy to hear from you — fire away any questions and feedback you may have! Till next week…
