It is likely that Herman Heunis would have been a lot more peaceful if he hadn't founded MXit. But it's unlikely that he would have been happier. MXit has given his life an adrenalin injection with its staggering growth, the demanding nature of the business and the fact that the chat business always makes controversial news headlines. “Never have I bet so much on one venture, although it was never planned like that - due to certain circumstances it just happened. MXit provided (and does still) a level of excitement that is hard to match,” says Heunis.
The free instant messaging application currently enjoys more than 19 million users in over 120 countries and about 250 million messages are sent using the system each day. This growth has come at whiplash speed. MXit was first released in 2003 as part of the communications platform for a mobile multiplayer game. MXit Lifestyle - the company that manages the MXit application - was formalised in 2006.
“We started off as a small team of eight people and we are now well over a hundred in different offices - and we are still growing,” says Heunis. “The challenge is to grow in size and revenue, but to stay agile and almost guerrilla-like - anything but corporate. Your staff is your most important asset - so the vibe in the company needs to be right.” Heunis spoke to ITWeb in between expanding MXit's global footprint into Mexico, declaring a war on porn, and launching football content onto the platform just in time for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
ITWeb: How has MXit's growth challenged you as a person and as a leader?
Herman Heunis: I had to undergo a personality change from software engineer to CEO. From the peaceful world of churning out code to the demanding world of strategy, income statements, staff, competitors, hostile press, hostile network operators and so on - but I would not change it for the world. Maybe I've become a full-on adrenaline junkie now?
ITWeb: What have you learned along the way?
Herman Heunis: I can probably write a 1 000 page book on the mistakes we have made and we are still learning - at an incredible pace. To highlight only three things: choose your business partners very carefully, they can make or break you; appoint the right staff and if you can't find them, don't appoint anyone; and nurture a culture of belonging in the company.
ITWeb: How do you market MXit or grow the user base?
Herman Heunis: We keep on adding new features and services to attract users from different spheres of life. We hope to launch a number this year - some very exciting and others out of pure necessity to position us for future moves.
ITWeb: How did you grow in markets outside of South Africa?
Herman Heunis: Mainly viral. We have tried other approaches but with very limited success. Social networks have a mind of their own and all you can do is provide catalysts to spark growth or change.
ITWeb: What is viral marketing and how does it work?
Herman Heunis: Without revealing state secrets - it basically works on the principle that users promote your products and services for you - you don't do the promoting. We used a number of “interesting” avenues to ensure this happened.
I had to undergo a personality change from software engineer to CEO.
Herman Heunis, founder, MXit
ITWeb: How would you define innovative and how do you foster innovation?
Herman Heunis: A product (or for that matter, a company) without growth in our space (the Internet world) is basically a dying one. You have to rejuvenate your product and offering by pushing the boundaries of what is possible and practical and what is not. Some will work - others will fail - and if you accept that, you are halfway there. I think small agile companies are ideally suited to innovate - especially if the vibe in the company is one of “we are here to shake cages”. In some big corporates (not all), there is significant red tape involved in creating something new and it's not really conducive to exploratory behaviour.
ITWeb: What kind of role is MXit playing in Africa?
Herman Heunis: Massive - we have revolutionised text and multimedia communication to make it virtually free. We have tested a number of ideas that no one thought would work and we are playing with things in m-commerce, education, entertainment and others - some might actually take off and be hugely successful. I'm a firm believer that the mobile phone can play a major role in education and social upliftment in Africa.
ITWeb: Will micro transactions become big business in mobile and online?
Herman Heunis: Absolutely. We currently are doing several million micro transactions per day already and this will increase. The lines between micro transactions and real transactions will become blurred and so will the lines between the banked and the unbanked communities in South Africa and possibly other countries.
ITWeb: Do the media understand MXit? Why is MXit always portrayed as the 'bad guy' of child abduction or similar stories?
Herman Heunis: Unfortunately not, and it has been our biggest challenge. You know when you explain to the ordinary-man-in-the-street what MXit is and how it works, the reaction is always one of: "The media got it wrong - how can they say such things?"
My take on this is that for many years, everyone knew that the Internet had a dark side, but they did not fully understand it. The average person (and most of the media) really battles to understand technology. And suddenly this small Stellenbosch company appeared and someone yelled “wolf, wolf” and all hell broke loose. The bottom line is we have very little control over what users send to each other, just as the post office has no control over what is written in letters that it ships and delivers. We have very little control over what people do with their personal information and who they meet - we can tell them not to do it, but we cannot stop them. It's similar to people speeding - there are fines and other measures that should act as a brake, but still people speed.
ITWeb: What are the more interesting things that have happened lately on MXit?
Herman Heunis: Our multiplayer educational game, tiXi, is constantly growing and I think we have proved the point that MXit can be used for educational purposes in a fun way. Our Chess platform has crossed the 50 000 user mark and is still growing. These two "prototype" projects certainly paved the way for much more exciting things that can be done on MXit on the mobile phone. Our EVO product, which is a decent PC equivalent of MXit, is growing strongly and we are still adding functionality to it.
ITWeb: What is the future of MXit?
Herman Heunis: We want to conquer the world - at least the mobile world - and we are on track. It is substantially more difficult to do it on mobile than on the Web as many of the big Silicon Valley tech companies have realised. We want to play in the e-commerce space and entertainment is huge for us - and we want to allow third party developers to use our platform to develop for our community; we will share revenue with them. An open API will be released shortly.
ITWeb: Why have MTN or Vodacom not been able to emulate your success?
Herman Heunis: We had first-mover advantage, and we have the ability to innovate quickly. It is very difficult for a big company to be agile even if it outsources the work to external companies. We have launched brand-new products from inception to full production within eight weeks, and even that pace has sometimes been too slow.
ITWeb: What's the future of instant messaging - how will this evolve from a market and user experience perspective?
Herman Heunis: My personal view is that IM and e-mail and social networking will merge in such a way that the lines will become blurred. When the battery life of mobile phones is sorted out, the application will always run in the background. I also think that the whole new social networking experience will change radically, I just don't know how this will happen (yet), but it will change.
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