Entrepreneur Porn

Rapelang Rabana of BlueVoice

I had a few beers yesterday with the highly energetic Greg Durst, who runs Endeavor South Africa.

Endeavor is a highly selective entrepreneurs' network that aims to find 'high-impact' entrepreneurs in developing countries who are already swimming in the deep end of the pool and toss them a buoy. Sorry, make that a lilo with a built in champagne cooler.

Okay, I'm embellishing a bit; Endeavor won't make life easy for you, but they will significantly help fast-track your business into the 'big leagues'. But only if they believe that you're already well on your way to changing the world.

One of the interesting things Greg and I touched on was 'Entrepreneur Porn'. I've received a lot of free 'consultation' for my business over the last 2 years from brilliant entrepreneurs (Vinny Lingham, Steven Levy, Tai Schierenberg to mention but a few) who wanted nothing in return. I reap this up, realising that there is no way I could repay them. What I can do however is 'Pay it Forward'. Even though I'm still in the startup phase, I've made a lot of mistakes and have learnt a thing or two about starting a business. I get high from being able to help out young entrepreneurs who have great ideas. Greg calls this phenomenon 'Entrepreneur Porn'!

I got a good dose of 'Entrepreneur Porn' today when I met up with Rapelang Rabana, a young computer scientist who was going to be reaped up by a major investment bank upon graduation. She was filling out the application form and came to the question: "Please describe how you would fit in at our firm?". She couldn't find an answer and plunged into the deep end of the pool! I.e. she started her own business, developing a Vo3G (Voice over 3G) application. Go check out BlueVoice. They're launching in January so get ready to start paying R0.10 a minute for mobile phone calls!