Matt Brown Show

We’ve seemingly heard it all before – you know, that classic rags to riches story of an entrepreneur who despite all the odds has built a business that has stood the test of time. Well, here’s the thing. For me, these stories are becoming rarer to get ahold of. It is becoming harder to build big businesses from scratch – especially for aspiring entrepreneurs who haven’t acquired what seasoned entrepreneurs often refer to the MBE or Masters in Business Experience. It’s for this reason that when stories of entrepreneurs who have succeeded are shared with other entrepreneurs – lessons and insights are invariably and ultimately, this can make the difference in your business succeeding or failing. One of these stories is the one of Robin Olivier who launched his first business with two partners and just R5 000 between them and a dream – fast forward to today, and Digicapeis a R240-million business with highly engaged and empowered employees, and the goal is to hit R400 million by 2020. This is the story of how Rob

So, yesterday I was giving a talk to a group of entrepreneurs from the entrepreneur’s organization. I was talking about the worlds Unicorn club – essentially a term used for a billion-dollar valued company. I was asked by one the delegates, why South Africa has not produced a Unicorn of its own yet when more Unicorns have been produced in the last 2 years than at any given point in our history. There is no short answer to this – but what is generally pointed to is the fact that South Africa’s startup ecosystem is not where it should be - despite us having the 5th largest private equity market in the world. But after consulting to numerous startups in South Africa the current status-quo is that the venture capital market in South Africa is also not where it should be – one startup founder even told me that the irony with South African VC’s is that they don’t really venture. But in my view, there is no hard and fast rule with this stuff – if you are a startup and you have some traction it is very worthwhile exp

Hey guys so today I want to talk to you about the power of having a personal brand. You know, when I started this podcast it was called the Digital Kungfu show but as you now know it’s called the Matt Brown Show. Since I rebranded the show it has literally 10x’d the listenership but more importantly, I now enjoy multiple income streams from the reputation equity my podcast has created for me. For example, I regularly speak at conferences and companies around the country telling my story and the Matt Brown Show has led to the formation of Matt Brown Media – where we help business create their own podcasts or shows and I attribute a lot of my deal flow to the personal brand behind the company. And this has all happened since I decided to stick my actual name into the name of my show. So, you can trust me when I say that the power of a personal brand should not be underestimated in business. So, to help you understand how to build a personal brand of your own, I reached out to Jen Su, the TV & Radio Presente

The ability to re-invent one’s self is arguably one of the most important qualities that anyone can have. With the world changing as quickly as it is these days you essentially you need more than IQ and EQ to be successful – you now need something called AQ or what the Singularity University calls the Adaptability Quotient i.e. how quickly can you adapt to a changing world and to either solve a problem or fill a gap.In this episode, I chat to Ran Neu-Ner who is most known for the sale of this agency to the Publicis Group for north of a billion rand (for my US listeners that is just shy of $100 million). After the exit, Ran spent some time studying at the Singularity University and at Harvard in the states and it was this experience that lead to him founding a new passion for cryptocurrencies and the blockchain.Today Ran is the host of Crypto Trader on CNBC Africa – and it represents the first show of its kind in the world which is making big waves in the #cryptocurrency community.I chat to Ran about his journ

So, I have a question for you. Have you heard of disruptive technologies like robotics, artificial intelligence and 3D printing before?” Now, I imagine that you would have heard of these terms before. But what if I asked you this: “What workforce will need to employ in the future because of these technologies?” You probably haven’t given that much thought but the truth of the matter is that you are not alone.Since the industrial revolution, we have attempted to automate our businesses as much as we can to drive operational efficiencies –think about the robots that assemble todays cars on the world’s largest production lines, where there used to be thousands of men literally assembling cars piece by piece, today you have a small army of highly efficient intelligent machines doing the job instead.But the advent of computing heralded a new age for automation, as companies today can automate and outsource not only physically demanding tasks but also those traditionally requiring human cognitive abilities. You see

Research. This is arguably one of the most undervalued initiatives that any business can take but interestingly, it seems that research as a strategic capability is to this day not used by many entrepreneurs and business owners and even worse ignored entirely. The other day I was interviewing Anish Shivdasani, the founder and CEO of Giraffe who happened to win the global Seedstars program and we were talking about “market liquidity” – which refers to the extent to which your market buys your businesses products and or services. Now all the worlds leading companies are involved in some form of research driven market liquidity initiative and so if you are not doing independent research into your market then you really are missing an opportunity to position you and your business as a thought leader in the space. Take my company Matt Brown Media for example, we have our own market liquidity initiative by undertaking the largest ever independent research project into the South African podcasting industry – and thi

One of my goals for the year was to get all the investors from the hit TV series the Shark Tank onto the Matt Brown Show. It’s taken me a year or so to track all them down but finally I managed to get my last Shark onto the show. Her name is Dawn Nathan-Jones. Now many of you would have seen or heard of the brand Europcar, well Dawn was at the helm of Europcar as its Chief Executive Officer for some 14 years and today she sits on several company boards as an advisor and of course as you know is investing into exciting startups within the South African ecosystem. Interestingly, we recorded this interview inside Workshop 17 in the V&A waterfront in Cape Town which is a thriving technology hub in the heart of the mother city and which in my view was the perfect location to explore Dawn’s journey in business and unpack what she has learnt in the process of becoming one of South Africa’s leading women in business.Support the show

It’s not often that you sell out two events back-to-back in any industry but fortunately for the Matt Brown Show this is exactly what has happened. The Cape Town leg of the Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain/Bitcoin and the future of money tour was a resounding success with about 300 people filling the Nedbank auditorium in the V&A Waterfront. At the previous event we had quite a philosophical discussion about cryptocurrencies and the blockchain so in this episode we bring it down to the real-world applications both from cryptocurrency trading and business perspective. We also had a change in panel with Werner Van Rooyen from Luno joining the previous panelists of Simon Dingle and Lorien Gamaroff. So without further adeu let’s get on with the show!Support the show

Value systems. To a large extent they define your life whether you're an entrepreneur or not. You see, they govern how we make choices and choices (AKA decisions) really are your ultimate power. In this episode I chat to Alex Simpson, a serial entrepreneur and the CEO of BeYourLegacy.com about how to work identify and work with your own value system to ultimately succeed in business and more broadly in life.Support the show

Initial Coin Offerings (ICO's) represent a new way for entrepreneurs to fund their businesses. In this episode I chat to Rob and Jaco from Sports Podium about their upcoming ICO and token sale and what they've learnt in the process of working with cryptocurrency backed alternative funding vehicles.Support the show

The path of an entrepreneur can be pretty lonely at times and it's often difficult for people to understand exactly what you are going through. Earlier this year, I founded my own mastermind group with 5 other entrepreneurs where we discuss our personal challenges and business problems. The group also helps us achieve goals through peer group accountability. It really has been such a valuable experience, that Nick Argyos and Ciaran McKivergan thought it would be a great idea to run a "mini-mastermind" session on the Matt Brown Show to bring the experience of being in a mastermind group to life for my listeners. Power episode.Support the show

It was 2007. The recession has not yet hit and markets were booming. Autotrader sold 108,000 copies of their print magazine but magazine sales started to decline. This sparked a journey of the re-invention of Autotrader from a print only play into digital and tech business - against the advice of highly paid consultants. Today Autotrader makes R185 million from digital revenue. In this episode we unpack the story of this pivot and what George Mienie, the CEO of Autotrader learnt in the process. Power episode.Support the show

This episode is proudly sponsored by IT Web. Cyber security effects businesses of all sizes. Whether you are major corporate or you are running a small enterprise the ability of your business and it's IT infrastructure to protect you from cyber attacks is becoming more and more important in the digitally connected business ecosystem that we find ourselves living in today. Perhaps the biggest consideration to be made in the cyber security space, is the fact that the problem of cyber security isn't one that get's solved, it never goes away because of the evolution of technology and the ever growing demands of remote working and connected employees. On this episode, I chat to Nick Dawson, he is the global Director of Knoxx strategy & Business development for Samsung electronics in Korea - and we explore why cyber security matters for businesses and executives, how to detect and prevent cyber security threats, how to protect your company data and and much, much more. So without further adieu en

Cryptocurrencies, The Blockchain/Bitcoin & The Future of Money. This subject is arguably one of the hottest subjects in the media right now and for good reason. It promises so much – the least of which is the decentralization of the monetary system and the potential financial inclusion of the poor.This event is the first live podcast driven media event of its kind and after I released the tickets it sold out the first-time in less than 12 hours. Then after releasing the next batch of tickets it sold in less than 4 hours and when I released the final set of tickets it sold out without me telling anyone – they demand for answers from the south African public was simply insatiable. So, you are about to hear what went down at my first “live” podcast event when I interviewed South Africa’s experts (if there is such a thing) on the current developments within the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. Your guests are Simon Dingle from Phantom Design, a genius in his own right but also very outspoken and hilarious

This subject is arguably one of the hottest subjects in the media right now and for good reason. It promises so much – the least of which is the decentralization of the monetary system and the potential financial inclusion of the poor.The Back StoryThis event is the first live podcast driven media event of its kind and after I released the tickets it sold out the first-time in less than 12 hours. Then after releasing the next batch of tickets it sold in less than 4 hours and when I released the final set of tickets it sold out without me telling anyone – they demand for answers from the south African public was simply insatiable. So, you are about to hear what went down at my first “live” podcast event when I interviewed South Africa’s experts (if there is such a thing) on the current developments within the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. Your "Expert" PanelYour guests are Simon Dingle from Phantom Design, a genius in his own right but also very outspoken and hilariously funny in the process o

Mindsets. An entrepreneur’s mindset – essentially a set of working assumptions about your intelligence, talent or abilities is critically important to understand when it comes to decision making in business. You could call it decision making theory – or the reasoning behind doing something in your business or not. Often there is far more success to be found when you do decide to do something as opposed to deciding not to do something. So, let me give you some context. In this episode, I chat Anish Shivasani the founder and CEO of Giraffe about their journey disrupting the recruitment industry. Now many of you will know that they won the global Seedstars program – not just south Africa which eventually lead them to finding investment with the US based investment fund Omidyar – which was formed by the entrepreneur Pierre Omidyar, who founded the eBay auction site which is today worth an estimated US$9 billion. But here’s the funny thing. They almost didn’t enter the Seedstars completion at all – but their minds

Storytelling. It’s one of the biggest buzzwords in business—storytelling—and it’s how savvy companies are satisfying the public’s never-ending hunger for content. With compelling characters, relatable plots and, most important, authenticity, innovative story tellers are connecting with consumers, colleagues and investors on an emotional level – something which will always distinguish your business from that of a competitors. I chat to Mike Sharman about how entrepreneurs can craft a great story for the businesses and its products and services.Support the show

Tom Asacker is the author of five critically acclaimed books: The Business of Belief, Opportunity Screams, A Little Less Conversation and A Clear Eye for Branding, groundbreaking books that describe new practices and ideas for success in times of uncertainty and change, and Sandbox Wisdom, a heartwarming story about a CEO’s search for meaning and success in the world of business. In this episode, we discuss how entrepreneurs can build great businesses but at the same time stay true themselves and ultimately, their happiness.Support the show

Can entrepreneurs save South Africa's economy? That was the question I had to have answered when I interviewed Gil Oved, the co-CEO of the Creative Council and Romeo Kumalo, the former CEO of Vodacom and the current CEO of Washrika Holdings. In this episode we uncover how entrepreneurs can save South Africa's economy and a whole lot more. Power episode.Support the show

Mark Sham comes back onto the Matt Brown Show for the second time to discuss the subject of change and how entrepreneurs can work with change both within yourself and within your business. Change is not an easy thing to deal with as an entrepreneur so in this episode we discuss and share insights and learnings from our own experiences in business about dealing with change in our own lives. This is a power episode!Support the show