High-Impact Entrepreneurship

The following profile of Endeavor Entrepreneur Wilter du Toit is reprinted with permission from TechCentral (original article here). Wilter co-founded Virtual Mobile Technologies, a mobile enterprise application platform, with his brother Arno du Toit.

Virtual Mobile Technologies (VMT), a local technology company backed by empowerment group Mvelaphanda, has developed products for mobile devices that integrate seamlessly with enterprise software systems like SAP used by big business. But unlike most such applications, VMT says its solutions work on even old feature phones.

And the company is hoping to take the technology to emerging markets worldwide.

VMT says its solution will work on old, monochromatic, three-line-LCD-based cellphones, right up to the latest and greatest smartphones. This, it believes, gives it a big advantage in emerging markets over its rivals.

The company, founded in 2005 by brothers Arno and Wilter du Toit, wants to extend companies’ enterprise resource planning, enterprise relationship management, banking, inventory management and similar systems onto mobile devices.

Aside from offering platform-specific applications for high-end mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, VMT also creates products that make use of a cellphone technology known as USSD, or “unstructured supplementary service data”, so even older devices can be used.

“Companies don’t have to choose which platform to use,” says Arno du Toit. “When something like Windows Phone 7 comes out, we ensure our products support it, so our solutions remain relevant. Our clients can continue reaching all devices without having to have a development team. It’s also a de-risking in terms of decision making: if a company decides to change devices there are no compatibility problems.”

Wilter du Toit says that this sort of flexibility is essential because the respective market share of the various mobile operating systems shifts all the time. His brother says VMT can adapt to the market as it changes while “managing security, versioning and enterprise integration”.

“Any enterprise service you’re running can now be extended to mobile,” says Wilter. “It’s difficult for companies, even internally, to dictate what devices employees can use.”

The company’s clients include Elizabeth Arden, Imbongi Capital, Zambian mobile banking services company MTZL, Salesforce.com and a handful of Indonesian partners offering VMT’s services in the region.

Wilter du Toit says the company’s support of cheaper and older phones is crucial to its strategy of expansion in emerging markets. “Those are the markets in which we’re most interested,” he says. “Our Indonesian presence is growing, and from there we want to move into other emerging markets.”

Arno du Toit says a number of companies focus on smartphone and tablet applications, and cover the shortfall by means of mobile Web solutions. He says many companies are unaware that they can also reach midrange devices with secure mobile applications.

“Our products can push payslips, leave requests, and other things that help mobilise HR departments,” says Arno du Toit. “We can assist mobile sales forces, streamline mobile workflows and task management, provide mobile access to customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning systems, and provide additional enterprise solutions based on an individual client.”

Wilter says many companies spend large amounts of money on enterprise software systems but don’t always see a return on their investment. “Mobility increases that return by allowing customers and clients to access it and by allowing staff to access information remotely that they would otherwise have to come into an office to get.”

In order to develop its products, VMT has created its own “mobile enterprise application platform” called Ramp. Ramp’s security is endorsed by the US federal technology agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and developers interested in it can download it here.

“We’d like to be the mobile solutions standard for enterprises in emerging markets,” says Wilter du Toit. “This is a market with great potential and one that needs high-quality, secure mobile services.” — Craig Wilson, TechCentral

The following profile of Endeavor Entrepreneur Yossi Hasson is reprinted with permission from TechCentral (original article here). Yossi cofounded Synaq, one of South Africa’s leaders in hosted email and internet security services, with fellow Endeavor Entrepreneur David Jacobson.

Yossi Hasson, MD of open-source software specialist Synaq, is tall, dark, handsome and gifted. Which means my first instinct is to dislike him. However, Hasson proves to be as friendly as he is talented when I meet with him on a cold weekday afternoon in a Sandton coffee shop.

“From a very young age I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur or a business owner,” Hasson says when I ask how he got started in the technology industry. “I thought that was the best thing you could do — never mind being a doctor or a firemen or anything else.”

Hasson says he taught himself how to sell stuff when he was young. His father was self-employed, and Hasson saw entrepreneurship as the best way “to control my destiny and make money.”

When he was 11, Hasson started washing cars for money and doing other odd jobs. From there, he roped in his sister and her friends to make key rings for sale in Plettenberg Bay during school holidays. By 15, he was selling medical sports equipment to schools.

“I got my first computer when I was 14, a red Stallion XT. I fell in love with computers and the tech world and the infinite possibilities they presented. I took the machine apart the day I got it, and couldn’t put it back together, but eventually I learnt how to. I got entrenched in technology from there.”

In his matric year in 2000, Hasson launched a social network for matriculants to post pictures and message one another. At its peak, Matric 2000 had almost 3 000 users. Hasson says that was the turning point for him and he decided that, rather than study, he wanted to get involved in the business world immediately.

Hasson’s business partner, David Jacobson, was a hacker who managed to get his computer confiscated by the police when he was 17, and found himself banned from being online for a year. “I saw him as a guy I needed to get involved with because I wanted the best people. We started chatting after school, but at first nothing came of it.”[hide-this-part morelink="Click here to show the rest"]

After finishing matric, Hasson started a business importing second-hand cellphone parts. After two-and-a-half years he sold the company and became a fundraiser for Habonim Dror, a Jewish community charity organisation, for a year.

“I was still involved in programming, website design and that sort of thing, and I was obsessed with Linux and open-source software,” says Hasson. When Jacobson returned from an extended stay in London in 2004, the two mates began talking about business ventures again.

“Dave had built an anti-spam solution for an Internet service provider in SA,” says Hasson. “It was killing expensive proprietary solutions, and it was open source.” Shortly thereafter, the two decided to start Synaq — at the time intended as a managed Linux service company offering open-source solutions.

Synaq launched on 1 September of that year, with Hasson and Jacobson having raised R1m to start the business. Hasson had been working for an online retailer and had other lucrative offers, but decided he wanted his own business.

Synaq grew as a managed Linux services company, and went on to launch products like Pinpoint SecureMail, the first hosted, cloud-based anti-spam service in SA.

Fast forward to 2011, and Synaq is primarily a cloud service provider. It remains Linux-based, but is no longer a custom Linux support provider. “We changed our strategy to be cloud-focused. That’s where we saw the future, particularly with bandwidth costs coming down, more affordable infrastructure, and a skills set that allows us to build scalable systems,” says Hasson.

Hasson says the change of strategy took 18 months to implement fully, but that it proved to be a good move. “We’ve launched a software development division that’s building global cloud services now, rather than only local ones.”

Synaq is launching another new product soon. “It’s called BrandFu, an e-mail branding and e-mail signature management system. It allows for centralised management with integration into Google Apps,” says Hasson. Synaq plans to market BrandFu globally when it launches in August.

Though this may sound ambitious, Synaq is already home to a number of sizeable clients. Hasson says most of Synaq’s customers are small and medium-sized businesses, but bigger clients include MTN.

“All of their e-mail goes through our servers, it’s checked for spam, we make sure the reputation is good, and so on,” Hasson says. MTN alone accounts for 500m e-mails a month on Synaq’s platform.

Synaq has clearly attracted the right sort of attention. In May, Dimension Data’s Internet Solutions (IS) acquired 50,1% of Synaq. Hasson says that although a controlling stake was one of the conditions of the acquisition “we retain full management control.”

“IS is a very good partner,” says Hasson. “They believe in the management team and what Synaq have done to date. The deal with IS gives us leverage, and in turn we’re seeing where we can help them.”

Hasson says IS has little by way of an open-source competency and that Synaq is helping rectify that. IS, meanwhile, will provide Synaq with the necessary capital to expand its operations.

Despite having foregone tertiary education after school, Hasson now holds an MBA from the Gordon Institute of Business Science. “I was 26 when I applied and had no degree. I got rejected. I appealed the rejection, and sent them a list of the business books I’d read and a proposal based on their curriculum. I also met with the academic director, and managed to get a three-month probation,” says Hasson.

He has no regrets about studying later in life because four years of running Synaq “made the MBA classes more applicable, and I was more keen and more active.”

“I don’t think people should go straight from school to varsity. Going against the mould is probably something shared by most successful people across all industries,” says Hasson. “They went for what they were passionate about and their perseverance made it work. I recommend working for a company for a few years.”

Having been an avowed capitalist since his youth, Hasson says the notion of a community developing software for free, as in the open-source world, intrigued him. “They were so passionate and, even though they worked for free, they could create better software than companies were making. I also saw the business potential of having access to amazing software for free.”

Asked what the largest challenges are for the local IT industry, Hasson says it’s the shortage of skills, of developers in particular. “We need more Shuttleworths, more rock star geeks. Maybe we just need more role models”.

Another problem is a lack of vision by local entrepreneurs. “US start-ups think about global domination, raise funding to do it and aren’t scared to chase a good opportunity, even if they sometimes get it wrong.”

SA start-ups often fail to aim for global success, says Hasson. “Synaq was no exception. At first we thought too small, too local, and about small problems. We’ve learnt the importance of changing that way of thinking.”

Hasson says that for the local IT industry to flourish, South Africans need access to reliable, affordable infrastructure. By way of example, he says Synaq used to host its servers in the UK and that moving their hosting to SA “increased our expenses 400%. There’s no reason that should be the case – for a start-up that’s a massive increase.”

When Hasson isn’t working, he participates in a number of networking groups and events, lectures part-time at the Gordon Institute on entrepreneurship, and plays poker. “I’m also an avid Starcraft player. I’m still a geek at heart. I try and read a lot of nonfiction, too, and I love to travel.” — Craig Wilson, TechCentral[/hide-this-part]

This article, reprinted from IndigenousNews, highlights the work of Socomal, a Chilean company run by Endeavor Entrepreneur Patricia Cuevas.

“Socomal, a green agricultural distribution company located in Southern Chile, outlines plan to help 27 Mapuche communities develop and expand their farms to make Mapuche agricultural products accessible to the International market.” 

Today, it was reported that Kiñe wun lof Mapu, an Indigenous association comprised of more than 1,500 small Mapuche agricultural producers from 27 different Mapuche communities, signed an agreement with the corporation, Socomal. The agreement included an investment of nearly US$400,000 in helping the Mapuche producers get trained and develop more than 2,400 acres of land for the production of beans and lupins. Ultimately, those goods will be sold at market prices and shipped globally — including to Europe and the Middle East.

Remigio Huenolaf, the spokesperson for Kiñe wun lof Mapu, discussed the steps necessary to reaching this agreement: “We are working in an organized manner and establishing alliances based on the principle of trust between leaders, associations and entrepreneurs.” Huenolaf later added, “Maybe this agreement is a small step, but it is the beginning of a new life for families in this area.”

On the other side of the agreement was Patricia Cuevas, the owner of Socomal and businesswoman from Temuco. She too, expressed her hopes for improving the quality of life in the area. “I started working with the Mapuche communities and we have helped out one another. The most important thing is that they make progress, improve their homes, lands and the quality of life for their families.”

In addition to individuals from Kiñe wun lof Mapu and Socomal, the National Director of CONADI, Jorge Retamal, attended the signing of the agreement as well. He indicated that he was proud of the agreement and indicated, “We are seeing more examples like this one, where the Government, private sector and communities work hand in hand for the welfare of the Mapuche people.”

Endeavor Entrepreneur David Assael, founder of Plataforma Networks, started and continues to expand what has become the most popular architecture site on the web. With fresh content and relevance, an innovative and profitable business model and thousands of daily readers, the site has put Assael on the map – and literally has helped put new architecture on the map of cities around the world. The following article from the Chilean news source La Tercera (translated from Spanish) details the history and growth of the Plataforma Networks.

In five years, Platforma Arquitectura has become an online phenomenon with 50 thousand daily visitors.

An anecdote speaks to this success: One year ago, David Assael was invited to a conference in Israel. “One of the architects asked me if by any chance I knew of Archdaily.com. Clearly, I told him, I am one of the creators and I’m also a founder of Plataforma Arquitectura. He looked at me amazed. He couldn’t believe that these sites came from Chile and not Silicon Valley,” the founder of the two most visited architecture sites in the world recalled.

It all started in 2005 with Católica University grads David Assael and David Basulto’s first web project, Platforma Urbana, a site that brings together information on urban building and style and that after a year expanded to Platforma Architectura.

In a matter of months, the website that tried to put Chilean and Latin American architecture on the map became one of the most visited sites: from 14 daily visits to 50 thousand. Soon they decided to replicate their model, but in English, under the name of ArchDaily. The phenomenon continued, growing today to 200 thousands daily visits mostly among U.S. users. The company also expanded and now employs about 40 people in three offices in Providence.

“Since the beginning we had to be clear that the principle actors were neither the people who built the site nor the state that regulates it, but rather the people with the purchasing power who decide where they want to live. The idea is to inform and generate discussion about the problems of a city and the existing architecture,” said Assael. “Suddenly, we realized that we had become the source for architecture publications, students, professors and the general public.”

The site isn’t just about Assael’s taste and perceptions. After being published on the site, foreign and local architects and firms like Polidura, Talhouk and Drn Architects, have become known in the industry. David Barragan, an Ecuadorian, spoke to this: “There is a before and after Casa Pentimento on Plataforma Architectura. It was overwhelming. Publications started calling us, we were invited to conferences and workshops and we were even invited to participate in an architectural showcase in Abu Dahbi.”

The Role of Heritage
With the success of Plataforma Urbana, the site space Plataforma Patrimonio emerged as a place for people to discuss news and themes about how to rehab traditional neighborhoods and classic architecture. “Heritage is one area in which we don’t do very well in Chile. European countries didn’t give due weight to for a long time but then they realized that it’s vital to preserve their own culture and roots,” says the architect.
“The major problem today is that we don’t have the institutional framework required to regulate historic property. You can’t freeze the houses, so the idea is to identify, protect, invest in and improve heritage properties. Today, a person who has a home declared a heritage site must maintain it. He can’t sell it or improve it. The state should become more responsible,” said Assael.

So, as its first initiative, the site provided extensive coverage of Heritage Day, in addition to publishing articles related to preserving architectural heritage. The idea is to continue this conversation in a familiar language. For Assael, this has been the great contribution of his online projects and it will continue to be so: “We are not interested in passing the role on to someone else. We don’t want to become a fetish but rather a source of utility. We like to be an everyday tool.”

The architectural world appreciates this mentality. “We check it often, above all to be up on major themes and controversies. I like the definition they give: ‘The best architecture in the world, as soon as possible’,” says the architect Sebastian Gray. Meanwhile, Albert Tidy, Director of the Architecture School of San Sebastian University, highlights above all the “magnitude and freedom” of the medium: “It has become an essential reference for architects.”

To make the company sustainable, Assael and Basulto invented a profitable business model in which some 20 companies in the construction field pay to advertise their products on the web. “The architects need to know what the appropriate brick or cement for their work is. Now we are the intermediary between suppliers and architects,” Assael said.

For now, the goal of the architectural techs is to continue positioning their websites across diverse landscapes. So far, they haven’t done bad. In the last three years they’ve met with the king if Spain, Saudi Arabia and the president of Israel. In March, they gave a lecture at Harvard, and two weeks ago they were invited to the annual of the American Institute of Architects in New York. “More than creativity, the key to everything has been perseverance. There are many projects that start, last six months, and fall apart. We were focused for five years on starting and building this and now we will persist,” concludes Assael.

Pamela Chávez-Crooker, founder of Aguamarina, recently spoke with the Latin America Venture Capital Association about how she took her biotech company from garage start-up to a go-to company for some of the world’s largest copper mines.

Find the full LACVA interview here.

LAVCA: When talking to investors, how do you describe Aguamarina?

Chávez-Crooker: Aguamarina SA is a biotechnology services company that combines industry expertise and innovative biotechnology to improve operational efficiency in mining.

LAVCA: Media attention surrounding recent mine collapses, including in Chile, has brought a lot of attention to the outdated extraction methods in mines that are potentially harmful to miners’ lives and the environment. How does Aguamarina address this problem?

Chávez-Crooker: We are currently focusing on the world’s main copper mines as clients and work with them to customize services that will address their main challenges in productivity and/or operations through biotechnology.

Biotechnology reduces the environmental impact of the operations by reducing contamination. Water is used in a more efficient way and we’ve developed processes so mines can reuse materials and water. In other words, we help produce a cleaner copper. We work in the areas of biocorrosion, bioleaching, bioremediation and water treatment.

We are able to do this by leveraging our expertise in microbiology and industry relationships to provide targeted research, diagnose problems and provide the technical services the client needs.

We believe there is a lot of work to be done over the next few years in order to build a more sustainable industry, and biotechnology provides a viable option to help the industry achieve this.

LAVCA: How did you come up with your business idea?

Chávez-Crooker: My scientific background allowed me to understand the main challenges to improving recovery and productivity for the copper mining industry. By identifying these challenges and understanding how biotechnology could help resolve obstacles, I knew we’d have an opportunity to scale up our own technologies more quickly than traditional methods. Aguamarina’s main investor, Juan Manuel Aguirre, brought practical business experience, which allowed the company to develop more quickly than if I had been trying to do it alone.

We started Aguamarina in my garage in 2007 and within a year moved to a bigger facility where we built a scientific lab. After another year, we built new offices and expanded the lab. Now we are fully operational and accelerating growth. Through Endeavor, I was able to present Aguamarina to a team from the Ross Business School, Michigan (MAP program), and they helped us to refine and build our business plan. Now, we are focusing on implementing the updated model with two technologies that we will be launching soon.

LAVCA: What sort of financing have you received thus far?

Chávez-Crooker: We attracted capital from a Chilean VC firm that has a new program focused on clean technology. We just signed a new partnership with them for 25% of the company for US$1.2M. We are very proud and excited about this.

LAVCA: How are you putting your latest round of funding to use?

Chávez-Crooker: Most of the money is being use as working capital. We are hiring a new CEO at the moment in order to improve our organizational structure, connectivity and oversee the overall business plan.

However, the investment will also continue to help us grow in other ways. We have started exporting to Peru, and I am looking to move to the United States in the next couple of years.

LAVCA: Why the US? Will you continue operations in Chile?

Chávez-Crooker: Yes, we would definitely like to keep our operations in Antofagasta. However, we’ve realized that Aguamarina is one of the top biotech companies in Chile, and having reached this level, there is a real opportunity to scale up very fast. To do so, we need to be connected to the main research centers in the world. Opening an office in US would help position us strategically to build these additional relationships.

LAVCA: What feedback have you received from investors about where to make improvements in your business model?

Chávez-Crooker: The input from investors has been very helpful. The first thing they recommended was to incorporate a CEO into the company, so I can focus on my responsibilities as Chief Technology Officer. This is really our main priority right now, in addition to finalizing the other two technologies we’re currently working on. We need someone who understands how to bring these technologies to market.

LAVCA: Can you tell us about some of the clients you are working with now? What do you see as your competitive advantage?

Chávez-Crooker: Aguamarina’s current clients in Chile represent some of the world’s largest mining companies, including CODELCO, Mineria Escondida, Compania Minera de Collahuasi, Minera El Abra, among others. We are located next to mines, which allows us to work closely with them on technological solutions. With our trained staff of experienced scientists, we are creating solutions that produce the cleanest and safest copper in the world.

LAVCA: As a scientist by training, what do you find most challenging about running a business? Do you have advice for other scientists with a business idea?

Chávez-Crooker: The day to day operations of running a company are new to me. Through Endeavor I have been able to connect and work with great professionals to help in the aspects of running a business where I have no experience. In addition, I am studying at the School of Business at the eCLass program of Universidad Adolfo Ibañez in Chile so I can prepare myself for the changes and challenges we will face as the company grows.

LAVCA: Where do you hope to see Aguamarina five years from now?

Chávez-Crooker: We see Aguamarina as a biotechnology developer for the world’s copper mining industry. We will have plants scaled up and a clear understanding of how much value we add to the operations, production, environment, health, safety and community.