CHOOSING A PURPOSE DRIVEN CAREER by NHLANHLA DLAMINI - CEO of MANELI PETS

This episode features a conversation with Nhlanhla Dlamini, founder and CEO of Maneli Pets, who discusses his transition from corporate management consulting to the entrepreneurship of pet food production but most importantly aligning your Career to your Purpose

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Another episode, another unicorn. Welcome to another episode of Mzansu Unicorns. My name is Teddy Kuzwayo, and on this episode, I'm joined by none other than Gankia Gamini, the CEO and founder of Manelli Pets. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Thank you very much. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

No, it's great to have you. It's great to have you. You know, one of the things that has always fascinated me about you and your business is how did you get into the pet food business?

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yeah, it's not often that you've got black guys from so we're to getting into the pet industry. No, no, no, not at all.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

I mean, we've got a very different view on pets. No, very much.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

And so did the rest of my family. Yeah. Um, so it wasn't directed initially. Um, and also the very model from corporates, which I worked on for the first 10 years of my career uh into entrepreneurship, that move wasn't apparent. I went off to grad school in the US and the UK for four years. Okay. And in that time, that's when I started dabbling with the idea of going into entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

And what I wanted to do with entrepreneurship was one, export more South African products to the rest of the world, ideally food products, because when I was living abroad, I was paying exorbitant prices for pretty mediocre food. Um, and secondly, I wanted to create something that was going to live beyond the time that I actually worked in that company. Um, so those were the initial impulses. When I came back to South Africa, I continued working as a management consultant for three years.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

And at that point, I decided that I'd saved enough and I'd gained enough skills to take a shot at entrepreneurship. Initially, I gave myself nine months to explore different opportunities in the food industry broadly to build a business that's exportable, scalable, unique, and interesting.

SPEAKER_04 1:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

And when I started thinning it down to uh a few different criteria, two popped out. The one is exporting meat to the international markets, and the other was exporting dried nuts. Meat had more traction, it's a bigger market. Uh, we are phenomenal meat producers in this country. Of course, yes. But in pursuing that idea, I realized that there's a lot of um structural barriers for exporting to the US and to Europe. The farmer lobbies in those countries are really restrictive and protective. Um, so I decided to instead viero from meat for human consumption for the pet market. Yeah. And I'm really glad I did that. It's a fast-growing.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

I'm still confused. I was like, how did you transition from humans to pet? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Um getting feedback from people. So I was trying to export ostrich, venison, and lamb to the US.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

And the regulators were saying this is durable, but it's probably going to take you seven years. And I was also trying to seven years. Yes, just because the governments need to align, policies need to be changed. Um and yeah, so I didn't have that patience and that stomach.

SPEAKER_04 3:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

And separate from that, I was also speaking to potential customers in the US to see if they had appetite for buying meat from South Africa. They did, but they kept on asking me, is there anything for pets that use the same proteins that we could exploit and sell into the US market? And there was nothing. Um, so we decided why I decided, because it was a one-man business at the time, to start producing some samples that I could send to potential buyers and wholesalers there. Um, dried bull tongue, dried bones, uh, dried liver, and they loved it across the board. So after about six months of me parallel processing either meat for the human market or the pet market, decided to let go of the meat market and just focus on pets.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

Wow. Do you do you have pets?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

I do. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

You said it very cautiously.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

I said it cautiously because I actually with a cat and I sell mostly dog trees.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

I said mostly dog product.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Do your cats eat dog food? No, they do not. Um, and part of the reason we don't have a dog at the moment is we live in a building that doesn't allow that. Ah, okay. So yeah, my my affinity for dogs has always been there. I wouldn't say that's the main reason I started the business. Um, of course, I do love animals and dogs. Yeah. But it's the main reasons I went into this industry was one, exporting South African products to the rest of the world, yeah, two, building something uh off scratch that to live beyond me.

SPEAKER_03 4:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Uh creating jobs is a really big reason. And obviously the economics and had to make financial sense.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But but let's let's sort of circle back to your upbringing. So you mentioned you your boy from Soweto. So tell me a little bit more about that and just some of the elements that actually grounded you to becoming where you are today.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Sure. So I was born in '84 in Fuller South and lived there with my sister and my parents until the early 90s. Um my family was great, um, as relatively poor as we were, but my it was a nuclear family with two loving parents. Um, my older sister was a great role model. And my parents were very, very hard working with the limited resources they had. My mom worked multiple jobs to make sure that I went to um a Model C school, then a private school. Um, and my dad similarly had multiple jobs. Aside from their work ethic, which is a big thing that I learned from them, um, they were also very kind and community-centered people.

SPEAKER_03 5:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Um, my dad had a shop in Soweto, and a lot of times they were giving away stuff to customers or people in need uh that volunteer in the little time that they had on weekends. So I also had that as part of my makeup. Yeah. So the two things I'd say I took away from my parents are strong work ethic and a sense of community. I've then now tried to dovetail that into many things that I've done throughout my career. Yeah. Um, so I've always looked for things that are not just about the money. Uh it had to be either a job that, yes, of course, will pay my salary and the company needs to be profitable, but I can justify that this is still meaningful for the community or for society at large. I'm doing that more directly now. Uh the reason I left management consulting was because I felt like this is doing great things for the private sector, but it's not doing great things for the country. And the country has a great need for jobs to be created, for social problems or social ills to be addressed, um, and for talented people to choose those causes as one of their main occupations, as opposed to just building wealth for themselves. Um, so I've taken a step backwards financially in terms of the work I'm doing now in comparison to what I was doing before. But we employ over 40 people. Wow. Um, at a time we're employing nearly 200 people pre-COVID. Um, and it's been very meaningful to role model to other young black people that you can do the kind of work that's uh financially rewarding, maybe not the most lucrative, but very meaningful for the community and for society at large.

SPEAKER_03 7:16

Yeah, yeah. I mean, 40 people is 200 people, yes, potentially.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yeah, each of them have families. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

And you you say your your parents, your dad had a shop. Um, were they entrepreneurs?

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Um, my dad was, my mom was not. My mom worked a front office in many different companies. Okay. Um, my dad was quite a hero, actually. Um he was raised in the rural areas by a surrogate family, um, and then he left the villages and Vander to look for his real mom. Okay. Um, and he found her uh after a year of searching um as a teenager, like his as a late teens, and then built himself up from scratch, uh, initially being a delivery guy for a dry cleaner, then a courier or uh rep for meat company to then setting up his own potrier in Soweto and then his own general dealer in Soweto.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

That's where the meat came from.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

That's where the meat came from back then.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Um, so he's always been an entrepreneur. And watching him, I swore to myself growing up that I'd never go into entrepreneurship. It was just too risky, too hard, too little money. Um, and when the chips are down, you're always the person who has to suffer the most in service of everyone else. So I really didn't want that for myself. Yeah. Um, but after working in corporate for 10 years, um, I realized that my circumstances and this generation is different to what my dad was dealing with 30, 50 years ago. Um, so despite how much I had a reservation about going into entrepreneurship, I just felt that I was better equipped to to take on um entrepreneurship and running a business.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Yeah. I mean, do you believe entrepreneurships are made or born?

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Great question. Great question.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

And the reason I asked that is you you you are very much against entrepreneurship. Yeah, right. But your dad was an entrepreneur, your mom wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 9:21

So so at at some point, and not entrepreneurship is not for everyone either, right? For various reasons.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

But but in your case, you're very much a corporate person. Yes. But against your will, you went into entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Um I think it's a bit of both. Uh you need some of the intrinsics of being an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_03 9:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Um, but there's a lot that you need to learn to be a good entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_03 9:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Uh, what are those intrinsics, I believe? Um, grit, yeah, and ability to sell, street smarts, um, ingenuity. So it's not book smarts, but ingenuity, creativity, um, being able to rally people, because that's really what you're doing. Yeah, you're rallying investors, you are rallying customers, you are rallying a team of your staff to come work for you, to operate the way you believe we should be operating. Um, so those are the basic skills that you need to have. Yeah. But there's a lot that you need to learn. Um, far more than I anticipated going into this. And I mean, I went into this with an MBA and a separate master's.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

So Roy Scholar, which I actually want to talk about just now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

So I felt I had decent training and also 10 years of work experience. Uh but my God, I've learned so much at being an entrepreneur. Yeah. So I'd say it's probably about 20 to 40 percent makeup, yeah, and the other 60 to 80 is is learning and experience, uh, which is why people who come from families of business owners and entrepreneurs uh are more likely to succeed just because they've had that training at home as opposed to learning on the job and making expensive mistakes.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Yeah, yeah. But but let's actually talk about the educational background. Because, like I said, I mean, going into corporates you've done two masters. Um tell me about your your decision to study whatever you studied and and how much that has actually contributed to both the corporate um transition as well as the entrepreneurship. Like what did you study and where?

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Um, so I was mostly on bursaries and scholarships for most of my education. Um so was I. Yeah, so similar story. Yeah, um, so in high school I knew that I had to one do really well to get into varsity and get a bursary. Um, and bursaries were aligned to specific degrees, yeah, so that limited my my scope. Yeah, if money wasn't an object, I probably would have gone into drama. I loved drama, yeah. So dramatic.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Why drama?

SPEAKER_00 11:59

No, I've become more muted because I haven't done anything performative or drama-like for two decades, but I love drama growing up. Um, I also wanted to be a sports player. Um, so I would have done something in the sports or entertainment or dramatic arts if it wasn't for money.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

Did you play sport? As in, like, what sport did you play?

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Yeah, yeah, I I played at provincial. I played a lot of sports at school. At provincial level, I played uh rugby, soccer, basketball. Really? Uh yeah. All three. All three. Provincial. At provincial. Wow, how to um yes, yeah, yeah. Okay. Um, and then the rest I didn't have time. And karate. Um, also provincial karate. Karate, uh huh. Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Um, and then did you study? I mean, you had to work hard to get to varsity, but you're busy kicking people all over the world.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

We moved out of the hood. Uh, like I mentioned on the just before '94.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Um and in suburbia, there weren't as many kids to play with on the streets.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

So I was desperately lonely uh for a while. And I resented that at the time. But I'm so glad that my parents made that move because it forces you to be self-disciplined to fill your time with constructive things when you are bored. Um, so I filled my time with extra murals uh once offered at school, or all the clubs that are available in the south of Johannesburg, which is where I grew up. So my week was probably about four sports in the summer. One week. Um, I was playing sports on Saturday and on Sunday and three sports during the week at school.

SPEAKER_04 13:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

So that's how I kept myself busy.

SPEAKER_04 13:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Uh and I loved it. Um, so I then went on to Virt on a rugby scholarship and an academic scholarship.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

Rugby scholarship? Yeah. Okay. So you could have also played for the Lions.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Uh I could have. Yeah. Um, but I realized in my trick that one, there's a lot of luck in sports. Yeah. Um and if that luck is not on your side, then all your fortune is lost.

SPEAKER_04 14:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Um, and secondly, I was gifted, but not necessarily in the top five percent, even by my own top 10% by my own admission. Yeah. And you can work to close that gap, but it's it's also really important for people to realize that you're not uniquely prodigiously telling me.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

And it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

And it's okay. Yeah. So still keep playing the sports for enjoyment, yeah. But you probably have a safer bet with academics or something that's something else that doesn't need the top two percent or the top five percent.

SPEAKER_03 14:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Um, so played rugby all throughout varsity and also position were you in rugby? I was a flank, and then after varsity went overseas or in England and in America, I was playing as a back line player.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

Okay, but you know what? As a flank, you're probably top 001% where you'd need to be because South Africa has so many flanks. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

So I'm always saying that there's two positions where you need to make sure you have a BCOM. One is loose forward, you know, so any of the flankers are eighth man, yeah, and the other is props and hookers, like three positions, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Because the springboks are just overwhelmed with so many different options in those positions.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Um, so true. Yeah, and so trade rugby, but what I was studying was at BCOM in computers and also accounting, and really enjoyed that. Um and yeah, managed to finish top of my class, then got a postgrad at the Vitz Business School, and I was meant to go and work in the computer industry for all my undergrad. Yeah, just sponsor the bursary that I had. Okay, but at the last minute, I got an offer from McKenzie and Company, and we went to go and interview with them and really loved what they were doing and the opportunities that that industry presented. So, knowing nothing about management consulting, that was my first job. So my academic choices were very often dictated by my financial circumstances. Yeah, for post-grad, that was a different story. Uh, because I already had two years of work experience and I could choose options and degrees that spoke more to my interests. So, with that said, I then did an MFL at Oxford in international development. And my research and my focus was on youth unemployment in South Africa.

SPEAKER_04 16:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Um, because that was the biggest problem that I saw growing up. That if you've got an unemployed parent or unemployed parents, that family is really, really broken, really, really stuck. Um, which is true for so many South Africans, unfortunately. Um, so if you solve that problem, I think you solved many other problems by extension. Um, so that's what I did for my one postgrad. And for the other postgrad, I wanted to do an MBA to see that if I were uh to do something beyond management consulting, what might it be? And where can I test myself against some of the best? Um so decided to go do that in the US and it was a great experience.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

Yeah. But the MFL with Oxford was a Road Scholar? Correct.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

It was, yes. So the Road Scholarship I got in in 2007, and then I started at Oxford in 2008.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Okay, okay, okay. It's a two-year two-year program. Two year masters. Two year masters. Okay, okay. And then you went to the US, was it also in a scholarship or did McKenzie funded?

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Yes, okay. Yeah, so uh a sponsored MBA. I mean, there's still cost overruns for a bunch of things that you need to find out of pocket. Yeah, um, so those were for my own accounts, but I'm very lucky that the the the tuition was covered by someone else.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

Yeah, um, so you don't need to convince me. It's just that work back period, yeah. Exactly. Two years or four years? Two years.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

Okay, that's not bad.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

It's not I'll work back anytime.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

I'll take it.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah, okay. Yeah, so yes, so MFL and then EBA and then I was back in SA in 2012. Yeah, and I've been mostly back since then.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So so so now let's let's go back to wait. Firstly, why Manelli?

unknown 18:27

What is my name?

SPEAKER_03 18:29

Manelli, I think, is um the family that started AVI. Oh, really? I mean, I don't know if it's linked to Manelli at all.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

So I wanted three things in a company name. I wanted an African name that's easily pronounceable. Okay. Because I knew that I wanted this to be an international business. Yeah. Obviously, a name that's available for registration.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Across domain, C I P C blah blah blah. And I wanted a name that has significant or meaning for me or my family. Um, and so had a bunch of suggestions. And the one that took all those boxes was Maneli. Maneli is my mom's maiden name. Uh and she's by far the most important person in my life. Okay, along with my daughter and my wife. Um, but yeah, she is my mom's maiden name, and I just wanted to honor her and what she's done for me, my sister, my family, for so many people.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Yeah, yeah. Wow. So, so, so this this hunch that you have, you know, every entrepreneurship has a story, or every entrepreneur has a story. Which country was it in? Was it in the UK or the US?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Definitely in the UK. Uh so when you shop at Wooly's over like in South Africa, then your first stop in the UK is Marks and Spencer. Yeah, and you use your shirt. Like all these zeros.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

Because it's even in the underground. I mean, Marks and Spencer is everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Yeah. Um, so it's good quality, but it's exorbitantly expensive. So I was like, let me find the next best. And I shopped around a range of places where I was like, where can I find a combination of decent prices and good value, good quality? Um, and it was hard. Um, and I think part of it was just the produce they get is not as good as the produce we have here in SA. Yeah, we've got some of the best fruits, nuts, wines, meats, food in general is just exceptional in this part of the world.

SPEAKER_04 20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

And we in pockets, we know that. Yeah. But I don't think we know it as well as, say, the Japanese do or the Italians do. Um, so so that was the first light bulb moment for me. I was just like, I'm paying a lot of money for lesser quality than I'd be paying at home. And I know that there's this arbitrage opportunity between the quality and the cost in South Africa versus the consumption and demand internationally. Yeah. So that was the first light bulb.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Yeah. Yeah. And then the next light bulb?

SPEAKER_00 20:58

And the next light bulb is then what? What do you pursue within that space? Yeah. And how do you pursue it? Do you you pursue it in its raw product? So, for example, exports exporting grapes and citrus to Europe. Do you add value to make an intermediate product to make a final product? And if it's a final product, is it branded? So what type of product? And how basic is the product? Uh, from a raw product to uh fully processed, beneficiated, branded product.

SPEAKER_04 21:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Um, and where I landed was um lesser on the primary side, so less on the citruses and the grapes uh of the world because I come from Johannesburg.

SPEAKER_04 21:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

I don't come from a farming family, and I didn't really want to move to a farm just yet. Uh so I needed to find something that was more processing related and that still took advantage of the endowment of natural produce we have here. Um so that Meat as one example. That was processed tree nuts. Um, that was wines. Um, I think those were the three that I was sort of looking at. Uh, ideally doing that from Johannesburg. And meat was the one that seemed least explored. Because we do export wine, just uh not as well as we could. We export very little meat. Now we do, but back then we did very little. So I felt that there's a big opportunity for us to be exporting meat when nobody's doing that. And even when Manelli was formed, we were the first South African company African company to figure out how to export to the US and to figure out how to export to Asia.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

So but aren't like Keran beef and those guys already in that space?

SPEAKER_00 22:43

On the meat side, yes, now they are, but this is as recently as three, four years ago.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Really?

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Yeah. Or is it more domestic? It's just uh regional, so selling to the neighboring countries, which is a big market.

SPEAKER_03 22:54

Oh, as in SADAC region. Oh, okay. So not so much because I do remember uh not so long ago, they were talking about China as as a market. I mean, I don't know if they're there now, but they do remember articles.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

So the lights of Tatarn and Beefmaster are exporting to Asia now, yeah. But with all of them, they've figured out how to do it in the last five years. Okay, so it's more recent. Yes, yeah, and also China opening up in the last five years.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

Yeah, there was a lot of regulations linked to it, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Yeah, um, so the the meat industry seemed like a bigger white space opportunity to exploit versus other areas like wine and tree nuts. Um, so that's sort of how I thinned it down. Yeah, um, but then you have to test the validity of this hunch of the idea. So I rented a room within a meat processing plant in Boxburg. Yeah um, some guy that I knew who was one of the shareholders was like, sure, if you pay us some rent, so I think I was paying like five or ten thousand rand a month, five thousand rand a month to use one of the rooms and one of the ovens that they had to learn how to make pet treats, um, learn how to make bull tongue, learn how to make uh dried bone, learn how to make uh a range of things. Yeah uh and I wanted to focus on all natural, which is the smaller section of the pet market, but a fast-growing one and a more margin-rich one. Um so yeah, I learned from scratch, and then six months later, um my co-founder joined and he added some some impetus and some creativity to the process. Yeah, and uh, but say three or four months later, we had like a mini catalog that you could put together to now start parading in front of potential wholesalers, buyers, and that's when it felt like the business was actually coming to life.

SPEAKER_03 24:42

Yeah, but but it was a bit of a journey, so that that hunch, going back to that hunch, that was oh seven, oh eight.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Uh oh eight, yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

And then you did the US after up until 2012.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Yes, but then you still worked, you did your your work back to 2014, 2015, exactly, and then that's when the business actually started.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

So it was a good like seven to eight year journey, actually. Yes, and and and that's probably something that a lot of people don't recognize, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Entrepreneurship is not an overnight success. No, certainly not. Um, and and that's all ideation in my head, yeah. Um, and talking to people, um I was clear in my mind that I I need a salary, so yeah, I I couldn't take a year out back then to just mess around. I was also wanting to get married. So there's um cost related to that that I needed to be mindful of. Yeah, but after saving a bit more money um and getting married, yeah, um, I felt that I had a bit of um a savings buffer to allow me to experiment. Yeah, a partner who also had a salary, which was hugely important uh because my salary went way, way down when I decided to go into entrepreneurship. Yeah um and a bit of maturity and data and feedback from different sources to feel like this is the time to figure out if the idea can actually go to a fundable business. Um and even that experiment took 13 months from going from leaving McKenzie, uh doing some feasibility studies, um, sending samples back and forth to the US, getting feedback, putting together a catalog, putting together sample packaging to then get offers or letters of interest from people overseas that I could then use for fundraising.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and just that that time period between when you officially started to when the business now started sort of settling, given that you you pivoted right from humans to pets.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

What is that time period?

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Uh 12 months. 12 months.

SPEAKER_03 27:03

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Okay. Within about three months, I knew that the you me for human consumption.

SPEAKER_03 27:09

Oh, okay. So it is within actually that period where you pivoted.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Yeah, that I decided to park that idea. Okay. I still think it's a great idea. It just needs capital and patience to unlock that opportunity. Yeah. In a different political and trade environment.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Um currently trying to get anything into the US, no luck. Uh, but with a different dispensation of government, I think there is appetite and ways to do that, especially for proteins that don't challenge American proteins head on.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

And they do a lot of beef and a lot of chicken. So exporting beef and chicken there wouldn't quite make sense. But they don't have ostrich, they don't have venison, they don't have a slate of things that we've got here that are arguably complementary to what they have in the US. Yeah. So, but yeah, I decided to park that idea within three months of my foray into entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_04 28:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

And the next nine months were coming up with samples, working on costing, coming up with a catalogue, um, talking to people that I could bring into the business once I feel like there's enough traction, talking to uh funders or angel investors who could put in the first part of money once I felt that there was enough to warrant a business. Um, so the first round of angel investment that you got was exactly 12 months or exactly 11 months after I left McKinsey to go into entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

Okay. And and just take me through some of the early struggles. I mean, I can't imagine it was a walk in the park aside from the salary dip.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Uh so this is what 10 years ago, uh 11 years ago that I left McKenzie. 42 now, I was 31 then.

SPEAKER_04 28:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Uh it shows because I was a lot more naive and optimistic about the world and my talents and everything else, yeah. Uh, which is maybe a good thing because if I was as jaded and as mature as I am now, I never would have done it. Um so the things that changed and that I had to learn were one, obviously, um, salary. Yeah, you the certainty of a salary number one is not there. The quantum of the salary is way down.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

Coming from Mackenzie.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

So your lifestyle and your costs um have to go down significantly.

SPEAKER_04 29:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Um, and two, the amount of stuff you need to do on your own when you're an entrepreneur versus what happens in a company that you kind of take for granted. So um a letter head, uh, a logo, a website.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

And this is before AI. Yes, exactly. So you have to go and like, I don't know, hire classic designers or do it yourself.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

So that first year I felt like I was doing 3x the work that I was doing the year before for a tenth of the salary that I had. And I was like, why am I doing this? Yeah, um, but you you need to put in that initial investment, and it's really, really hard because I was on a good track in consulting. Yeah, um, I wasn't pushed out in any way, but I enjoyed the work. Um, to then leave that on a good wicket to go into a life of struggle. You have to be clear on why you're doing this. Because if you're not, yeah, um, and your why has to also be linked to your passions and your worldviews. Yeah. If you don't have some of that chemistry in place, it's just way too easy to call it quits. Um, so yeah, to answer your question: salary, lifestyle, uh, workload, yeah, diversity, a range of work that you need to do. Uh, and the last one is the accountability as an entrepreneur versus the accountability that you have to live with when you're within a corporate.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

If you're in a corporate and you deliver a project and the project isn't as great as people are hoping for, no one person is to blame. They're not going to come and find Teddy and be like, hey Teddy, this was a six out of ten. We're expecting a nine out of ten. Therefore, only paying 60%.

SPEAKER_04 31:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Um, so the institution just has a lot of padding for blows, for criticism versus for entrepreneurship. It's it's all you. It's all you. Product is not great, yeah, it's on you.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Money doesn't come in on time, it's on you. Um, you don't hire someone, it's it's on you. You disappoint an investor, it's on you. So that level of responsibility and accountability was a huge step up from what I was used to before. Um, and it's not that I was devoid of responsibility before, it's just that entrepreneurship really makes you the spear tip on many, many things.

SPEAKER_03 32:04

Did you ever feel like giving up at some point?

SPEAKER_00 32:09

How many times per year? Why am I doing this? Why am I subjecting myself to this horror and struggle? Um, I myself have have that feeling a lot. Yeah. Um you also get feedback from friends and family where they know that you could be working less and making more money doing something else, and they kind of question you on that. Um and you you have to strike a balance between being resilient um and hardworking and persistent versus being stubborn and thick skinned um and not hearing people giving you legitimate feedback. Yeah. And it's hard to figure out which is which is happening in a situation. Um, so yeah, I doubt I think for any person who's not a sociopath as an entrepreneur is a very real consistent feature. Um, even when things are going well.

SPEAKER_03 33:11

And I mean, how important is the the support structure in that journey? Because you've got responsibilities. You have a wife, you said you wanted to get married, you're very clear about that. You now have got a young one, yeah, and you also have the rest of the family, you know, if if you are supporting them in any way. You know, how important do you think that support structure is?

SPEAKER_00 33:35

It's hugely important in in many ways, but I'll focus on two. Yeah. The one is the um emotional or sentimental supports that you get from friends and family, yeah, especially your meter family. That's yes, that's really hard what you're dealing with or what just happened, um, but you you're still doing well, and think about all the other good things you've done in the last two months.

SPEAKER_03 34:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Um, so people being in your corner, yeah. Um, and not just to kiss your ass, but just to give you perspective that this is hard, but you're still doing a decent job, you're doing a good job. Um, and secondly, the financial support.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

That I would not be able to do this if I didn't know my wife. Wow. Um, I certainly wouldn't.

SPEAKER_04 34:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

And I would not be able to do this if there were tough moments and I could call on a friend to say, I've got payroll coming up and I'm short. Um, I've tried four other things leading up to this. Can you please assist me? Um so having that sort of support is imperative. Yeah. And if you don't have those two things in place, yeah, you your tenure as an entrepreneur is going to be short. But the converse of that is the the entrepreneurs who typically do survive the slog of being an entrepreneur are the ones who've just got more runway, emotional runway and financial runway.

SPEAKER_03 34:58

I love the emotional runway actually. Never thought about it that way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

So yeah, if you've got a family that can just give you five, seven, ideally ten years of the space, the emotional bandwidth, and the financial support that you need, you'll find your way to your profits. You you might meander and fumble and make big mistakes, but you'll find your way there.

SPEAKER_04 35:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

If you don't have that sort of long runway on those fronts, then it's going to be a far harder journey.

SPEAKER_03 35:27

Yeah. Yeah. And and I mean, you know, if if one thinks about possibly the pressure that you will have gone through in that you've you've started from the bottom, now we're here. If I can quote great, but but what I mean by that is I look at your upbringing. You know, you probably started in a township school, and and by the way, I've got a very similar journey, but but depression and the anxiety. Started in a township school, went to a Model C, went to a private school, went to two of arguably the best universities in the world, in Oxford and Harvard. And that CV is the corporate CEO. That's how it's spelled.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

But you decided to go into Bed Food.

SPEAKER_03 36:21

So the pressure and the anxiety, and not only from your family, but I can imagine from society should would have been a mess.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Yeah. Um, it absolutely was. And my my former employer, my former colleagues, people around me are still a little bit puzzled about is this the best use of your talents in your time? Yeah. Um so it would have been easier to follow those expectations. And those expectations would have landed me in a place that's just fine or great, actually. Um, I so I don't discount that path and people who make those choices. I might have made those choices and have felt great about it.

SPEAKER_04 37:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

Um, and I know people have made those choices and I really support them. The thing that gave me pause was I've won life in this really precious generation where all throughout history it was near impossible as a black person to really impact change or the direction of your generation.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

Um and now you can't do that on your merits, on your own talents.

SPEAKER_03 37:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

I want to use my one life and my talents to do more than lead an organization.

SPEAKER_04 37:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

I want to create jobs. I want South Africa to be more recognizable as an exporter, as an international player. Um, I want to make it possible for black people to start a business from scratch and have it grow to maturity and have it grow into like corporate and professional size. Um, so it's a less common path, but it needs early pioneers to chart that way. Um, even working in corporates in the 70s and 80s was unheard of. Yeah. Until you saw someone who was in corporate, and you're like, okay, well, if he can do it, then surely I can do it. Yeah. Um and at once going into entrepreneurship and starting a business and running a factory and exporting to feel like that in 20 years' time. Yeah. People are like, ah, but I know three or four people that have done that to look like me. So surely I can do it too. Um, so so that's the reason I've chosen this path. Yeah, I think it's more meaningful for black people in this country, for our generation, for this country in general, regardless of race, yeah, to see people taking a more risky path that is more important for unlocking up economic opportunities for the country.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

And you're doing it your way because you know you mentioned just now that it's better than or more fulfilling than leading an organization because it's your organization. Yeah, you're the one that's actually shaping it. And so just that level of fulfillment is probably worth more than anything you can think of.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

It's huge, yeah. And like the there's a lot of cons and setbacks to being an entrepreneur, but there's also a lot of pros. Yeah. Um, creating something that you believe in and it taking a form that you can recognize is hugely rewarding. Yeah. Um, having autonomy of what you do and of your over your time, yeah, also massive. Um, the flexibility I have as an individual is also really important, which is flexibility that I wouldn't have had if I was beholden to a board and escrowed a big company. Um, so there are latent benefits to being an entrepreneur or working for yourself that I recognize and I'm I'm really grateful for. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:48

And and and then just just to to sum it up, is where's your business going? Where's my business going?

SPEAKER_02 39:57

You're not gonna go back to food or to to humans.

SPEAKER_03 40:01

You you you you think the the pet food market is big enough to grow your business.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Yes, it is. And I'll answer the question by giving you a bit of the history. So when we started out, Manili was entirely an exporter. Um, we had 10% of our revenue from Walwards in South Africa, and 90% was exports.

SPEAKER_03 40:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Then COVID happened and we lost all of our export business in one week.

SPEAKER_03 40:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

And we had to figure out how to stay in business.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Um, so we did that by finding a range of South African customers.

SPEAKER_04 40:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

And we now sell to over a thousand retailers in South Africa. Wow. Um, in all the provinces. So it's a very proudly and very diffusely South African company at the moment. I never thought that when we started out, but I'm glad that we're there. There's a big opportunity for us to chase and exporting, which is where we are gearing up to get back into. We're exporting on an ad hoc kind of way, but you want to export into this large, massive market internationally. The pet industry, I think, is big enough and interesting enough for me to focus on for at least this chapter.

SPEAKER_04 41:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

Um it's quadrupled in size in the last 10 years. Oh, really? From a$60 billion industry to a$240 billion industry.

SPEAKER_03 41:16

Oh, just food?

SPEAKER_00 41:17

Just pet food. No, the pet industry. Oh, just the pet. Yeah, and half of that is food. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

Oh, half of it is food.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Yes. It's incredible. Our GDP as a country is$400 billion. So yeah, that's that's huge. It's a huge, huge industry.

SPEAKER_03 41:29

What's$500 billion or$400 billion?

SPEAKER_00 41:31

$260 billion to$240 billion. Okay, so it's more than half our GDP. Yes. Okay. Yeah. One dog industry. Dogs to be eat that much. Yeah, so it's it's a big industry. Um, and I want to keep it at the helm of the business while we are still experiencing double digit growth.

SPEAKER_04 41:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Um, when we get to less than that, uh it's probably time for me to hand over the patent to to someone else.

SPEAKER_04 41:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

Um, and there's still a lot to be done, but I feel like I would have done the the really hard work and what I set out to do.

SPEAKER_04 42:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

What I do beyond that, I'll explore at the time. Yeah. It might be an adjacent opportunity, it might be uh public service, it might be something else completely different. Um, time will tell. But at least for the next at least five years, I'm going to be focusing on doing as good a job as I can on making good on this opportunity.

SPEAKER_03 42:27

And do you see then the you going beyond food, but still within pets? I mean, I can imagine that market as well, you know, when you think about insurance.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

When you think about insurance, we're already cross-selling pet insurance with one of the large uh insurers in the country. Yeah. It's a pilot that you want to now formalize into a line of revenue. Um, so that side path or extension is already happening. Um, accessories is also an easy extension from accessories. And accessories are also margin rich, and people spend a lot on they're not just dog chains and chains, leashes, training collars, um, toys, all of that stuff. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:14

People spend money on that.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

The three things that people spend the most on their pets are uh food, vet services, and accessories. So that$240 billion dollar industry makes sense, yeah. Yeah, it's mostly consumed by those three things. Um, so there's a lot of adjacencies to pet food and pet trees that we could explore, or decide that we want to explore something else in the human snack side. Yeah. Because there's a lot of parallels between human snacks. Yes. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Um, so time will tell. Um, I'm not hunting for new opportunities because there's a lot that I'm working on right now.

SPEAKER_04 43:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Um, but when the time is right, I know opportunities will make themselves evident.

SPEAKER_03 43:56

And then just lastly, the the Africa opportunity. Are you interested in that market at all? Because I mean you you spoke a lot about exporting overseas and then kind of the national presence. But what about the rest of Africa?

SPEAKER_00 44:12

We've tried to, but two things have made it difficult. One is our price points. Um, we sell premium, yeah, human grade uh pet food, yeah. Um, which it's mostly Europeans and Americans and rich Asians who can afford that.

SPEAKER_04 44:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Um, it's not that to say that there aren't rich pockets within Africa, there's plenty of those, but yeah, it's easier to go fishing in Asia and Europe as opposed to on the continent. Um, and then secondly, is intra-African trade is still uh characterized by a lot of barriers. Yeah, it's easier to export to Europe, uh, it's easier to get uh import permits from Europe, um, from South Africa. If you export into Europe, uh it's easier to get papers than it is to say to the DRC or to Angola.

SPEAKER_04 44:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

So there's a lot we need to do as a continent to make intra-African trade more seamless, um then business business will follow. So it's those two reasons. And that the our cost is a little bit high for the average consumer on the continent, and two, intra-African trade comes with more challenges and barriers than um international trade.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

But is is there a market in general? I mean, when you say your price point is too high for the African market, is there a market for pet experiences to begin with in Africa? Oh, yeah, absolutely. So they do like their pets as well.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They absolutely do. And South Africa is not an island on the continent. We were part of the continent, okay. And we've got a big market here.

SPEAKER_04 45:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

So we've got a big market here. We would have a market in Namibia and Mauritius and everywhere else on the continent. Um, there are people who have domestic pets who they treat like family and they've got the spending power to do so. Um, so it's yeah, the market is there. It's just it's tougher to serve.

SPEAKER_03 46:00

Yeah. Okay. Thanks so much. It's been fascinating. I've learned more about pet food and the pet industry in the 45 to 50 minutes than my entire life, actually. I mean, I I never really had a pet. I'd have you know cats, dogs here and there, but with three kids, I think I should get a pet. Yeah, you should. Yeah, but I think it's about time.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

Um, pets are phenomenal. Um, and I mean, I grew up with a dog that was all sporty nor eggs. So of course, yeah. Yeah. Um, but how they bring kids alive and give kids compassion and responsibility, yeah, I think is really important. Yeah. Um, and humans have always lived alongside animals. Yeah, we need to recognize that. Um, it makes us better people. It's yeah. So uh I think having a pet for anyone who has the means to do so is something you should do at some point in your life.

SPEAKER_03 46:59

Yeah. Well, I hope next time we speak, you'll have had a dog.

SPEAKER_04 47:06

Get a dog.

SPEAKER_03 47:09

No, thanks so much. Uh it's been a pleasure. And I wish you the very best in your future endeavors. I think what you're doing is really phenomenal. And not just for for South Africa, but for the black South African. Uh, and I isolate that because very few people are pioneering certainly this industry as black professionals and black entrepreneurs. And so, really, on behalf of black entrepreneurs and professionals, I actually want to thank you. I don't know if people thank you enough, but but pioneering something like this, very risky. Um, white dominated to a last degree, and being able to make an impact globally is truly phenomenal. So, kudos to you.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Thank you for saying that.

SPEAKER_03 47:56

I appreciate it. Yeah, excellent. Man, show after yourself. I will do that. Cool. All right, thank you for watching this episode. If you enjoy this episode, don't forget to like, share, and subscribe. And we'll see you soon. Chop chop.