Setback. Setback. Setback. Then (Finally) Success! – with Herman Heunis
If you like, you can vote for this interview on HN. If not, it’s cool. –AW
The South African entrepreneur, Herman Heunis, knew that the mobile market was going to take off, so he invested in it — and he lost millions. First he launched a text-based game for mobile phones. That didn’t work because texting was too expensive at the time and sponsors didn’t understand it well enough to foot the bill. Then he tried a mobile search engine. That didn’t work because mobile technology wasn’t advanced enough at the time. Then he tried mobile classifies. That didn’t work because it was too complicated.
He almost gave up. It was painful. But every time he wanted to stop, he’d find an excuse to keep going. He just knew the mobile market would take off, and was determined to be a part of that growth.
“Now come on,” he said to his people one day. “There MUST be a way.” And a woman in his office said, “Maybe we make it too complex for the user-base.” That changed everything. They decided to stop over-thinking and create something simple. So they launched a simple mobile chat system. The problem that killed his earlier idea — texting was too expensive — became their opportunity when their chat became more accessible alternative. Today the company has 18 million users and is profitable. Listen to the program to hear they did it.
Herman Heunis is the founder and CEO of MXit. South Africa’s first mobile instant messenger of its kind. Today, it is used by over 18 million users in 120+ countries and transmits upward of 250 million messages per day.
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