When he had just entered varsity, Kali Ilunga was chomping at the bit to get into business. His first foray was when he was 17, with a publication aimed at private schools, called “War Cry”.
“I worked with two friends and we got our first edition out in three weeks because there was a festival coming up and it was a great opportunity to launch.” At the time, Ilunga didn't have a mobile or access to a landline, but would cold call for advertising from the Wits pay phone. “I called up a whole bunch of big brands, and out of about 30 brands I got sales from about three brands,” Ilunga laughs. “Unfortunately, our first edition was the worst edition ever, but it got the ball rolling.”
The big lesson Ilunga takes from those days is belief. “It was so important for me to believe in what I was selling, and when I did, it didn't even feel like cold calling. It was more about trying to persuade someone else what I was convinced about. It was important to be passionate. I saw a big difference in results when I was tired and bored, as opposed to when I was convinced and passionate. The big lesson for me is that if you are building a business out of your ideas, you need to believe in it with all your heart, or else you can't expect some one else to buy into it.”
Learning from experience
Ilunga printed five different editions of “War Cry”, but the business model stumbled when he realised the huge cost of printing was eating up all the profits. “It's been good experience, but this year we're relaunching the business and taking it mobile, which I think will be a better business model and should do incredibly well.”
When people saw what he did with “War Cry”, Ilunga was soon offered a job, but realised again that belief is more important than money. “The work that was being done didn't excite me, and I soon realised that believing in a business is much more sustainable than chasing sales targets just for the intention of generating sales. Chasing sales targets gets boring very quickly when you don't have a challenge that ignites your soul.”
Ilunga returned to his business, an emerging company that he loved and believed in. “I returned and created a programme to teach people how to drive on mobile. We got 130 000 users in 10 weeks and it made it clear that the medium is something brands can get excited about, and that mobile is important for educators.” Ilunga says mobile enables a synergy between what brands want and what users need, yet is infinitely measurable and still leaves space for doing social good. “The reach and accessibility of mobile is incredible, it is in the pockets of so many millions of people.”
A couple of years later and Ilunga is set to drive his business into Africa. “I believe South Africa can lead the thinking on how to use digital across Africa. Not just for the sake of going digital, but to achieve critical business goals and to gather insight and engage customers in a conversation and relationship. The business we are in is about building platforms that educate people on the continent through socially relevant information.”
The first of these offerings is Moomba.mobi, where young consumers are given educational content to enrich their lives. “There's a learner driver's programme that assists people with getting their driver's licence; we have a personal trainer to help people get fit; as well as “Study Assist', which helps people going through Matric. There is content that deals with social issues like 'GirlGorgeous', which is sponsored by Procter & Gamble, Foschini and Cell C, and helps young girls to redefine what it means to be beautiful.”
Dressed for success
Ilunga is poised for success in Africa, with a variety of innovative mobile offerings that are front ended with a consumer content offering and back ended by research that's useful to brands. But he's also tasted the bitterness of failure. “I have had failure with a couple of concepts that I thought were the next big thing, but that nobody bit on. Three or four years ago, things looked financially really bad for me, and in a sense, the company was on the verge of failure. But that is the life of an entrepreneur and I don't choose to look at things in terms of failure.”
Principles are your magnetic north.
Kali Ilunga, founder, Spoken Ink
Rather, Ilunga looks at each bad cold call, at each trip that doesn't yield a return, as an experience. “I haven't ever had a failure that made me feel like a failure. I feel I have had a series of minor or major disappointments, but I have never felt at a dead end. I don't have the mindset that would convince me that I could fail at everything. I have a ton of experience, so many relationships, and business models that I could replicate elsewhere, so in a completely non-arrogant way, failure would almost be impossible, because even if I had to go bankrupt, I have so much with me that I get to carry forward.”
There's a poem that Ilunga recently read that means a lot to him. It speaks of meeting an old man, and that when you do, you don't just meet a person but his legacy, his experiences and perceptions. “Whatever moment I am in when I arrive in front of you I come with a whole wealth of experiences. I know what it is to be down, I know what it is to have an idea that doesn't guarantee success, but there's always the drive to continue. And when I meet you I do so with so much optimism, humility and hope. This is because 'failure' has broadened me and made me humble. It has even inspired me because it has forced me to ask myself whether failure will define me or not. I have chosen for failure not to define me.”
The toughest part of any business, according to Ilunga, is to detach oneself from the business brand and not to get overly involved. “Previously, if the business was doing well, I was flying high; if it was doing badly, I was a wreck. You need to manage yourself so that you are not completely wedded to the daily success and failures of the business.”
Another key lesson is about understanding the compromise between ideals and reality. “We come into business with great expectations and a Utopian idea of how to make money, hire people, and change society. But then the hard reality hits of a client not paying, an employee stealing from you or you have a major difficulty. When this happens, you need to hold onto idealism, but not let your hope make you na"ive. You still need to hope and dream and have ideas, but without them being gullible or unrealistic. What's important is to hold the two in balance. To have the dream, but still deal with the daily realism and practicalities of running a business. Similarly, you can't let the practicality of running a business flood the dream. It's a tension you need to maintain.”
What's most striking about Ilunga is that he is a principled entrepreneur. “Principles are your magnetic north,” he says. “With business, a deal can sway you beyond where you want to go, or you can experience a situation where the deal has you instead of you having the deal. You can tell a little lie to close the deal, but then you start to lose part of yourself. It is crucial to have a very clear idea of what you will or won't compromise and what your values are. What you will say yes to and what you will say no to. This gives you a clear footing - it gives you a north star.”
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