When starting a business in South Africa, or I guess anywhere in the world, one of the things you learn is patience. Similar to fishing, things take time and a lot of patience. While many times I would love for things to happen “now-now” (=south African version of now, which begs the question of what the “now” alone means…), they take time. Whether you are talking changes on the website or getting a phone line, designing logo to writing content for brochures, things take time. And sometimes, this is exactly what we want, or….?!

When people ask me how it is to start up a business in a new country, two words immediately come to mind: Exciting and scary. Exciting, simply because it is a new and different experience, from which a lot can be learnt. Exciting, because all of a sudden you do not have twenty bosses and 40 co-workers that can help you, you are essentially on your own, making all the decisions for better or for worse.

Scary, well, it is. Similar to a journalist, writer or sportsman, you are putting yourself out there. You are making yourself vulnerable to criticism from friends and family, as well as inviting your competition to take a position against you. In our society, success is measured in the profit you can generate and as such, if you have your own business, people will measure your success in the money you turn over. All this and much more, can make the wait for the final go, well, quite pleasant!

In the end, it is about realizing that the business is born as soon as it is registered. From that moment on, you are actually in business, even though no customer has called you yet. From the moment you tell the first person your business phone number or internet address, the ball has started rolling, and it is up to you to accelerate it or slow it down….For us, well, we now have a phone number which means the next purchase is going to be a phone. The ball is accelerating, and as Kate Hudson so aptly said in “Almost Famous”, it’s all happening….