Two of the biggest challenges faced by South African technology start-ups are: keeping up with an ever-changing business environment; and finding the right investors.
So says Brian Timperley, MD of Turrito Networks, who predicts tech start-ups will find themselves moving in a particular direction or backing a particular technology to start with, only to find it becoming redundant, or worse, irrelevant, before they have started making money.
To Timperley finding investors, or more importantly the right investor, is also a challenge for start-ups. Even those that self-fund may still want to find backers who can offer advice and assist with the risks that start-ups frequently face.
Most often, the problem is not finding investment, he notes. "The challenge is finding the right type of investor, someone who sees where your business can go, rather than just what it is capable of now," he says.
According to Timperley, to overcome the ever-changing market, businesses need to be agile and must be prepared for business to change dramatically.
Timperley advises SMEs to focus on a handful of their best offerings. Find the ones that work and then, make hay while the sun shines, he emphasises. "Make sure you are on the lookout for the next opportunity."
From zero to R50m
Johannesburg entrepreneurs Timperley and Louis Jardim have bridged the gap by building Turrito Networks from zero to R50 million in four years.
"In November 2010, we were just two guys with some good industry contacts and an idea that we could serve small to medium-sized businesses better," says Timperley. "We pitched our business ideas to MICROmega in early November, and the company pulled the trigger on our investment almost immediately.
"We were fortunate to find investors who believed in us, set us up with space in their Sandton offices and set us ticking. Four years later, we're a major service provider in our own right and regularly invited to RFP briefs alongside the biggest suppliers in the industry."
Timperley points that he and Jardim started with the commitment to provide SMEs with the level of service that in most cases only major corporates can get from the networks. "We'd both been account managers taking care of clients like the big banks, who got proactive management and instant responses," he says.
"But when we looked at other account management teams, we saw inexperienced resources handling hundreds of customers each, and of course those customers were being neglected. This is just the nature of big business, and the only way they could scale to SME customers. We knew there was a better way."
Turrito Networks started as a reseller of other networks' connectivity services, using some strong tech hires and a network of high-level industry contacts to ensure medium-sized clients got top-level service.
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