Fast Company SA - Nov 2014

susan WojCiCki reboots Youtube tYra banks goes to Harvard WHat is goodvertising?

Creative lessons from sa entrepreneurs Vinny Lingham Ian Fuhr Ndumiso Madlala

The Talented Mr Williams pharrell’s Secrets To Success

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novembeR 2014 fastcompany.co.za

Co-working spaces Is this the death of the Cubical Nation?

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the new photo economy Your Face is their Fortune

IF YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE A LEAF OUT OF THIS BOOK,

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FROM AWARD-WINNING ENTREPRENEURS “IF YOU’RE AFRAID OF LOSING MONEY, YOU WILL NOT MAKE IT TO SUCCESS.” – Hamdi Ulukaya, Founder of Chobani, 2013 World Entrepreneur Of The Year

“THE MORE YOU PUT IN, THE MORE YOU GET OUT. THE MORE YOU PUT IN, THE MORE YOU GET OUT. THE MORE YOU PUT IN, THE MORE YOU GET OUT.” – Donna Allie, Founder & President of Team Clean, 2013 EY Award Winner

“YOU HAVE TO BE PASSIONATE ABOUT SOLVING THE PAIN OF YOUR CUSTOMERS. THE DRIVE HAS TO COME FROM SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN MONEY.” – Philip Anson Jr., CEO of STS Aviation

“ASK POWERFUL QUESTIONS. WHEN SOMEONE SAYS ‘NO’, ASK WHY.” - Kathy Ireland, Founder, CEO & Chief Designer of Kathy Ireland Worldwide

“FAILURE DOES NOT MEAN STOP, IT’S SIMPLY A U-TURN TO KEEP GOING.” – Lisa Williams, Founder & CEO, World Of EPI

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CONTENTS

November 2014

COVER STORY 64 Get Busy

Musician, producer, philanthropist, fashion designer, tech entrepreneur and more—Pharrell Williams does it all

BY MARY KAYE SCHILLING

FE ATURES 32 Rebooting YouTube

Susan Wojcicki built Google into a R615-billion advertising giant. Now she’s running YouTube and has to do it again

BY NICOLE LAPORTE

50 Conscious Advertising

Advertising agencies are now promoting cause-related marketing to connect brands with their communities

BY LOUISE MARSLAND

76 The Brave New World of Workspaces

A young workforce, weaned on technology, is challenging the status quo as the ‘death of the cubical nation’ hastens ever closer

BY GLENDA NEVILL

Pharrell Williams’s success all started with music, but at this point his production work is “just one pixel in the screen” of i am OTHER, his media and philanthropic company. (page 64)

4 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

Contents

NEXT 18 “Now I understand the importance of hiring really strong people”

Supermodel turned TV mogul Tyra Banks went to Harvard and is now self-funding a new cosmetics line

BY JENNIFER KEISHIN ARMSTRONG

88 The Photo Economy The hottest startups have one thing in common: our faces

BY SARAH KESSLER

CRE ATIVE CONVERSATIONS 22 Innovator, Visionary, Entrepreneur, Dragon

Vinny Lingham combined his entrepreneurial mindset and love for computing in starting up a number of cutting-edge online ventures

BY MIRIAM MANNAK

44 The Story of a Serial Entrepreneur

From the music industry, retail and labour-relations consulting to the business of beauty—how Ian Fuhr built his empire

BY EVANS MANYONGA

Susan Wojcicki’s skills as a leader and operator are going to be tested at YouTube like they never were during her 15-year career at Google. (page 32)

6 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

Contents

REGULARS 11 From the Publisher 12 From the Editor 14 The Recommender 28 Wanted Kartell has been transforming plastic into high-end furniture. Its latest: a see-through couch

30 Technovore Smartphones are getting smarter— welcome to the Notification Network

BY OM MALIK

48 Wanted Ann Gadd’s Art for Ewe humorously mirrors aspects of the human condition

60 Fast Cities Using technology to solve one of the urban world’s peskiest issues: potholes

BY CYNTHIA GRABER

62 My Way ABC’s casting director Keli Lee has remade the television network into a diversity leader

BY JENNIFER KEISHIN ARMSTRONG

82 My Way MadMead Brewing Co. is SA’s first and only black majority-owned microbrewery. Ndumiso Madlala has struck liquid gold

BY JESSICA HUBBARD

84 The Great Innovation Frontier

Design thinking: It’s inherently disruptive, entrepreneurial, insanely optimistic and creative

BY WALTER BAETS

86 Prototype A bold new street-design proposal could help prevent pedestrian deaths

Ndumiso Madlala has created a microbeer that satisfies the customer’s deep-seated need to feel connected to his or her roots and humble beginnings. (page 82)

8 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

92 Fast Bytes 96 One More Thing You can redesign your surroundings, but better living starts with self-discovery

BY BARATUNDE THURSTON

PUBLISHER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Robbie Stammers

robbie@fastcompany.co.za

ART DIRECTOR

Stacey Storbeck-Nel

stacey@insightspublishing.co.za

CHIEF SUB-EDITOR

EDITOR Evans Manyonga

evans@fastcompany.co.za

DIGITAL PLATFORMS

By Digital Publishing Charles Burman Catherine Crook

Tania Griffin

BACK OFFICE SUPPORT

CONSULTING EDITORS

Louise Marsland & Anneleigh Jacobsen

Managing Director: Rita Sookdeo Account Manager: Ghameeda Idalene

ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR

PRINTER

Keith Hill

keith@insightspublishing.co.za

ADVERTISING MANAGERS Kyle Villet, Zaid Haffajee

OFFICE MANAGER Taryn Kershaw

taryn@insightspublishing.co.za

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER Shan Routledge

shan@insightspublishing.co.za

SOUTH AFRICAN EDITORIAL BOARD Louise Marsland, Anneleigh Jacobsen, Prof. Walter Baets, Pepe Marais, Alistair King, Koo Govender, Abey Mokgwatsane, Kheepe Moremi, Herman Manson, Ellis Mnyandu, Thabang Skwambane

BOSS (Pty) Ltd

CTP Printers

DISTRIBUTION On The Dot

ARTISTS

Cover & Cover Story: Erik Madigan Heck Getty Images, Gus Stewart/WireImage, Matthew Tammaro, David Bloomer, Jeremias Morandell, Bratislav Milenkovic, Adam Fedderly, Noeleen Foster, Ann Gadd, Ryan Lowry, Gluekit, James Bridges, Sergio Membrillas, Chloe Aftel, Sinelab, Jimmy Marble, Stanley Chow

CHAIRMAN

Joe Mansueto Mansueto Ventures

EDITOR

Robert Safian

PUBLISHER

Christine Osekoski

EXECUTIVE EDITORS

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Noah Robischon Rick Tetzeli

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

DIRECTOR, NEW BUSINESS VENTURES

taryn@insightspublishing.co.za The incredible team at Fast Company in New York, City of Cape Town Madam Mayor Patricia De Lille, Dr Iqbal Survé, Takudzwa Hove, Vinny Lingham, Sabrina Hill-Stammers, Etienne Nel, Hazel Hefke and Tony Diekmann

PUBLISHED BY

Bill Shapiro

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER OF GLOBAL MARKETING Erica Boeke

GLOBAL EDITIONS DIRECTOR Bernard Ohanian

MANAGING EDITOR Lori Hoffman

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Florian Bachleda

EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS

Mary Kaye Schilling, Nicole LaPorte, Louise Marsland, Glenda Nevill, Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, Sarah Kessler, Miriam Mannak, Om Malik, Rob Brunner, Cynthia Graber, Jessica Hubbard, Walter Baets, Baratunde Thurston

FAST COMPANY INTERNATIONAL TEAM

PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR Sarah Filippi

PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Managing Director: Robbie Stammers Physical address: 174A Main Road, Claremont, 7700, Cape Town Postal address: PO Box 23692, Claremont, 7735 Telephone: +27 (0) 21 683 0005 Websites: www.fastcompany.co.za www.insightspublishing.co.za

Carly Migliori

PRODUCTION ASSOCIATE Miriam Taylor

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Sarah Lawson

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Mark Rosenberg

No article or any part of any article in Fast Company South Africa may be reproduced without the prior written consent of the publisher. The information provided and opinions expressed in this publication are provided in good faith, but do not necessarily represent the opinions of Mansueto Ventures in the USA, Insights Publishing or the editor. Neither this magazine, the publisher or Mansueto Ventures in the USA can be held legally liable in any way for damages of any kind whatsoever arising directly or indirectly from any facts or information provided or omitted in these pages, or from any statements made or withheld by this publication. Fast Company is a registered title under Mansueto Ventures and is licensed to Insights Publishing for use in southern Africa only.

10 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Back on the hamster wheel Backing Fast Company:

After all the plotting and planning, the media hype and high expectations (from ourselves and many others), the writing and editing, the late nights, the blood, sweat and tears (and fears) and the gulps of Rescue Remedy, we finally came out the other side with a launch edition to which the response was beyond our wildest expectations.

Then this all effloresced into a glorious launch on the top floor of East City Studios, with Table Mountain on one side and the sea on the other; with music, laughter, 200 guests of every culture and creed, and a cross section of business and media. Sorry, Johannesburg, you may be the business hub of South Africa, but as the World Design Capital 2014, Cape Town is the innovation hub—we promise we’ll come celebrate with you up north in the new year.

Highlights of the launch evening included the Cape Craft and Design Institute ‘coming to the party’, with a host of its members supplying us with incredible gifts for guests to win in the tombola; a marvellous video link from the New York Fast Company team, headed by Bob Safian, with wonderful messages of congratulations and salutations

A great show of support from Cape Town Mayor Patricia De Lille

to the South African group; the always side-splitting humour of comedian Dave Levinsohn as our MC; Nifty250’s Instagram photo booth that had us trending all over South Africa; and the Haute Cabrière sabrage, slicing off the tops of our bubbly with his sabre.

However, the crowning point for me was the speech by the Mayor of Cape Town Patricia De Lille, a dear old friend of mine, who spoke so passionately. I quote, “In the knowledge economy, creativity is key to our relevance and survival. This is a vision that we share with Fast Company. As a government, we want to go beyond traditional boundaries. We want to lead conversations about service delivery. We want to create the conditions needed for the future of business.

The 2014 GE Global Innovation Barometer recently measured 26 countries and their perceptions of innovations. It found that South African executives had significantly positive perception of the importance of innovation. The findings show that South African business leaders are more likely to encourage ‘creative behaviours’ and seek new talent to drive innovation than their global counterparts.

“This gives me so much hope because it confirms that our future as a country is indeed bright. A manifestation of that bright future is the launch of Fast Company magazine in our country. It is a great honour that the most recognised and awarded magazine in the United States chose to have their first English title outside of America, launched right here in South Africa.

“May the magazine showcase the creative

leaders South Africa has raised, and inspire those who are still caught up in their trepidation. And may we all be inspired to embrace the uncertain future boldly in our quest for innovation. I know that Robbie Stammers will be a wonderful leader in this quest.” Thank you, Madam Mayor! From your lips to God’s ears!

So, you may be wondering, after all that euphoria, why is this piece titled: “Back on the hamster wheel?” Well, after the successful launch and the fantastic coverage across all newspapers and Internet platforms the following day, we arrived at the office on Monday with a heavy slap of reality. It was time to get back onto the hamster wheel, with deadlines whooshing by. Welcome to the Land of the Monthly! (To be honest, though, we’re all still walking around with big, goofy grins.)

So a huge thank-you to all those who supported us with our launch edition—please continue doing so. We sincerely hope you enjoy this jam-packed November issue just as much. And remember to get our bumper double December/January edition featuring both our South African and the world’s Most Innovative Companies. Until then, on this side we’ll keep turning the wheel for you.

Robbie Stammers

Publisher robbie@fastcompany.co.za @daStamman

NOVEMBER 2014 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 11

FROM THE EDITOR

Creativity is a tool; collaboration is a must The recent Fast Company SA launch was a resounding success, and the feedback from our guests was overwhelming and excellent, to say the least.

The challenge we welcome with excitement and optimism is delivering the narratives that have elevated this publication on an international level.

One of the most fascinating trends I have observed is the rise of innovation, creativity and design-led thinking in South Africa. The sheer number of businesses—small, medium and large—behind some of the most cutting-edge ideas and innovations is increasing at a fast pace. I dare say, as a nation we are moving forward at an unprecedented level. Going forward, I don’t see any reason we cannot, and will not, achieve more than we have dreamt of.

Our cover feature is on the talented Pharrell Williams. He grew up as the kid who didn’t fit in the box: raised in the projects of Virginia Beach, wearing 12 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

Led Zeppelin T-shirts and playing drums in a hip-hop band. Today he is headquartered in New York City. Although he is famous for his musical endeavours, he epitomises the modern talent: He is also a philanthropist, media mogul, author, fashion designer, furniture designer, fine artist, textile manufacturer, tech star, gearhead—even an architect.

This vast array of business ventures is quite impressive.

However, what impresses me most are his thoughts on these endeavours: He stresses that collaboration is the secret behind his success.

No man or entity can thrive in isolation in the modern world. Regardless of personal talent and skill, collaboration is still the vehicle that can drive ideas forward and lead to the achievement of tangible results. So much more can be accomplished when creative minds sit around one table with one goal in mind.

This edition also has inspirational advice from notable South African CEOs such as Ian Fuhr, the Serial Entrepreneur, who argues that establishing businesses in different industries is not a challenge but rather a tool for him to express his entrepreneurial acumen.

Devour it, enjoy it, be inspired by it—but above all, take the key lessons and apply them to the best of your ability.

Evans Manyonga

evans@fastcompany.co.za @Nyasha1e

THE RECOMMENDER

What are you loving this month?

CANDICE-LEE KANNEMEYER Editor, In My Bag blog

S U P E R B A L I S T. C O M I’m constantly online, perusing style websites for inspiration.

My absolute favourite is Superbalist.com . I love their well-curated selection of decor, fashion, art and tech gadgets. Currently, I’m obsessing over their (rather well-priced) selection of seductive Agent Provocateur underwear and American Apparel bodysuits. I’m also having quite a ‘moment’ with their selection of Airloom rugs. Superbalist.com really is my one-stop shop for everything style-related.

K WA M A I M A I M A R K E T

CEO & creative director,

Minanawe Marketing FROM IMIQHELE (ZULUST Y LE HE A DBA NDS) TO COFFINS, MU TI TO BRING BACK A LOV ER A ND A SA NGOM A TO SOOTHE YOUR SOUL, A FRICA N CHIC CLOTHING A ND NIK E ZULU SA NDA LS TO SHEMBE CHURCH ROBES—K WA M AI M AI M ARK E T IN DOWNTOWN JOBURG IS A HIDDEN GEM IN URBA N DOWNTOWN SQUA LOR. WA LK UNDER THE HIGHWAY BRIDGE TO THE M AI M AI SHISA N YA M A WHERE SCORES OF L ARGE, JOY FUL SHISA N YA M A M A M AS GY R ATE A ND ULUL ATE TO BE YOUR BR A AI MISTRESSES; GR A B PA P, CHAK AL AK A AND N YAMA (ME AT ), CR A DLING A NGUDU (QUART OF BEER) BEFORE WA NDERING OV ER TO WATCH THE BOK K E WHIP THE A LL BL ACKS. WORLDS A PART A ND WORLDS SIDE BY SIDE, IT ’S MZ A NSI AT ITS BEST.

w

Preetesh Sewraj

CEO & chief innovation analyst, Product of the Year Consumer Survey

THIRD WORLD CHILD: BORN WHITE, ZULU BRED

BY G G A L C O C K

Read this amazing story of a young, white boy who speaks Zulu before he learns English and goes on to helm a multimillion-rand company. Third World Child shows us that despite the challenges facing our society, those who celebrate and love Africa are the ones who will drive the innovative thinking needed to stimulate growth on this continent. One of the most profound South African stories you will read.

14 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

GG Alcock

JOEY KHUVUTLU

Co-founder & managing director, Threefold Creative

D I S T R I C T S I X E AT E RY

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A N INCONSPICUOUS TR A DITION A L CULIN ARY E X PERIENCE IN JOH A NNESBURG, HE A D TO DISTRICT SIX E ATERY IN EMM ARENTIA—A COMPACT 12-TA BLE RESTAUR A NT TH AT IS FULL E V ERY NIGHT OF THE WEEK. D6 IS L AID-BACK WITH ECLECTIC DECOR, FA MILY PHOTOGR A PHS A ND A M A ZING CA PE M A L AY CUISINE: FROM BREDIES, BOBOTIE, SNOEK , CURRIES A ND THE BEST MILK TART THIS SIDE OF THE OR A NGE RIV ER.

Matsi Modise

National executive director, SA Black Entrepreneurs Forum

M A B O N E N G P R E C I N C T, J O B U R G A little town nestled in a big city, a place to escape from the corporate buzz, a place to meet the creative spirits, the creative souls, a place to see small businesses rise. As an entrepreneur and an entrepreneurship activist, it’s a place I call my second home.

Debbie Goodman-Bhyat

Founder & managing director, Jack Hammer Executive Headhunters

MINDFULNESS: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO FINDING PEACE IN A FRANTIC WORLD

BY M A R K W I L L I A M S & D A N N Y P E N M A N This book (which comes with an audio guide for an eight-week programme) has been life-changing for me. With the hectic pace of running a business, keeping all the balls in the air with my family, and driving a multitude of new projects, I found myself on the ‘treadmill’ of racing toward deadlines and goals, but not really experiencing the joy of the journey getting there. The wonderful thing about this particular book is its accessibility: I had never meditated for a minute, and so this book and its audio programme were perfect for a novice like me. It totally demystifies the concept of meditation and mindfulness, and has significantly contributed to my overall sense of well-being and genuine appreciation of my extraordinarily happy life.

NOVEMBER 2014 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 15

The Recommender

APP ALLEY Ramsay Daly

MIKE SHARMAN

Co-founder & marketing director, Emerge Mobile (parent company of iKhokha.com)

Co-founder, Retroviral Digital Communications

S T R AVA

HYPERLAPSE

At iKhokha.com, we’re reinventing financial services. We’re obsessed with great design, clean images and punchy video.

Hyperlapse, the latest app out of the Instagram stable (available from iTunes App Store), is something that allows me to put together amazing time-lapse videos in seconds and illuminate our brand in the clutter that is everyone’s social news-feed.

I’m a big fan of Strava (from iTunes App Store and Google Play), an app that measures your progress during exercise routines such as cycling and running. The app plots your movements via your phone’s GPS and has achieved critical mass across the globe, allowing you to compete in weekly or monthly challenges against yourself and your peers. It’s a great resource for documenting your training, and there is no better personal motivator than seeing your improvements over a specific period of time.

Johan Nel

Country manager, Gumtree South Africa

SNAPSCAN Obviously, my favourite is the Gumtree app, but I regularly use SnapScan (by FireID) as well. I believe we are heading toward a cashless society, and this app is one of the ways we’ll achieve it.

I love that I don’t have to carry a wallet with me—all you need is a smartphone. I also use Uber for that reason: it’s a quick and easy way to commute. w

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Radio personality & founder of Big Dawg Productions

FNB BANKING APP

AT THE MOMENT I’M LOVING FIRST NATIONAL BA NK ’S BA NKING A PP. IT ’S V ERY CON V ENIENT FOR ME BECAUSE I CA N M A K E M Y PAY MENTS E ASILY A ND A LSO CONDUCT A N Y BA NKING TR A NSACTIONS WITHOU T THE HUSTLE OF PH YSICA LLY GOING TO THE BA NK. I H AV EN’ T USED A CHEQUE IN Y E ARS A ND THE A PP H AS BASICA LLY M A DE M Y LIFE MUCH SIMPLER. A LL I NEED IS M Y SM ARTPHONE A ND TA BLE T TO CONDUCT A N Y TR A NSACTIONS. 16 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

N E X T

CRE ATI V E CON V ERSATION

“ N O W I U N D E R S TA N D

T H E I M P O R TA N C E O F H I R I N G R E A L LY S T R O N G P E O P L E” Celebrities talk of being a ‘brand’, though that usually means selling their likenesses for big bucks. Supermodel turned TV mogul Tyra Banks wanted more—ownership. So she studied at Harvard, and is now self-funding a new cosmetics line. Its name: Tyra

Interview by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong Photograph by Matthew Tammaro

What drives me is brand, brand, brand—and legacy.

I really want to leave something behind that means some­thing when I’m no longer here. My hero is Walt Disney. I’m reading The Disney Way for the second time right now. It’s about their culture and what he did and how it is sustainable to this day; how there are little kids who go to Disneyland and think Disneyland is Mickey Mouse. They think Disneyland is just the name of it. They have no idea that’s a human being.

New model: “I’ve never been interested in the traditional celebrity licensing, where it tends to be based on popularity and trying to capture that white-hot moment,” Banks says.

Fast Company: You must have received a lot of offers to license beauty products throughout your career.

Banks: Constantly. If you just point to anything on my body, I can tell you. “Ooh, Tyra, put your name on this hair-weave track, put your name on this fragrance, put your name on this jewellery, put your name on these body contours.” I’ve been saying no. I know that I could have done those deals and probably could be sitting back and just chilling on some island and never have to work again. But that doesn’t drive me.

In 2012, you went through Harvard Business School’s Owner/President Management programme. Were you preparing for a launch like this?

Yes. Studying strategy and leadership and marketing and finance and accounting and negotiation and macro­economics got me ready. I was very intimidated by the whole [Harvard] process. To prepare, I actually studied with an accounting professor at Columbia.

What was your school experience like?

It was over the course of three years, and we’d go for about a month at a time and live in these damn dorms and study. And I was terrified of the dorms—terrified!

NOVEMBER 2014 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 19

Creative Conversation

“I was a really bad delegator in the first seven years of America’s Next Top Model; I felt I needed to do everything myself.

A lot of it was probably ego-driven.”

I went to school three weeks early just to check and see what this was about. I asked if my security could be in the dorm next door to me. They were like, “Do you wanna come to Harvard Business School? Well, there will be no security next door to you.” I was like, “What? Oh, my god!” Thank god, I didn’t have to share a bath­room. We had to share a kitchen, a living room and a study area, but not a bathroom.

What did you learn that helped most with this launch?

Marketing. Customer-centricity. Don’t think about what you want all the time. I’ve made mistakes before of doing different projects just based on my dreams, my hopes, my thing—and not really thinking about my customers. We’d look at pictures for packaging and marketing and we’d go, “Oh, my god, we love that picture.” And then we’d go, “But will she like it? No.” And who is “she” for this brand?

My marketing professor at HBS did a case study on me.

He goes, “Tyra, you have these young women who are 15 to 18 years old, and then it skews all the way up to women who are in their forties. And, actually, there are even some men in there as well, based on America’s Next Top Model and the high attraction to that from the male gay community.” Then he realised it’s a gift. If you can think psychographically and not demographically, you can really target a lot more audiences. So we just think about: Who wants to be fierce? Who wants to be their own boss? She can be 13 or 45, you know? And so that’s how we market, as opposed to by age.

Is that why you’re selling through a peer-to-peer model, like Avon? Why not sell at, say, Sephora [a French chain of cosmetics stores in the US]?

Sephora is fantastic. I go in there. I get lost. There are so many great things in there. But I feel that it’s just not for us. We really want to be different. We really want to give power to women. With distribution through Sephora, I could give them power to paint their faces and look fierce when they walk out the door, but I couldn’t give them the financial power that way.

Many peer-to-peer companies could be accused of overpromising to their sellers. How are you cultivating yours?

20 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

QUICK PITCH Brand name Tyra

Notable products Cheek in a Stick (blush) Eyes in a Stick (eyeshadow) Ask for a Raise (lipstick) Oops Liner (a dual-sided applicator with eyeliner on one end and eyeliner corrector on the other)

Big innovation Proprietary “TY-Glide” technology, developed with a European lab, enables the product to glide and blend easily onto skin.

Packaging Boxes arrive with a scent strip that smells of blood orange. When Banks was a young model in Milan, she visited the same café before each audition. One morning, a waitress there squeezed a blood orange and Banks remains captivated by the smell.

Music Banks commissioned an anthem from the singer STORi, called “BOOTYful”.

It’s not just about teaching them how to sell our things; it’s teaching them how to be powerful in busi­ness in general. We call them “beautytainers” because our brand is all about “beautytainment”— beauty meets entertainment. I love making up words.

Our beautytainers are going to be entertaining beautyexpert entre­preneurs who will be able to sell this product. And we have something that we’re developing now, called TyraU, where they can come online and get all of the lessons to start their own beautytainment business for our cos­metics company. It’ll also give them tips and tricks about starting their own business, and about what to do if they have a main job, to get that raise, or to climb that ladder to success.

We’re also really excited about using technology for our beautytainers. For instance, we’ll be one of the first companies in the direct-selling category to have live streaming. I’ll be able to live-stream into parties some­times myself. And customers will be able to click to order on Facebook from their beautytainer.

But it’ll also be available on your website. How do you market your product yourself, without com­peting against your network of sellers?

We may do some things just to get the word out, like Home Shopping Network. But it’s very important to take care of our beautytainers. We don’t want them to feel like we’re cannibalising their sales. So, for all of the different promotional things that we’ll do ourselves—and sales from Tyra.com—there will be a pool of money that goes to the beautytainers, particularly the high-selling ones, so that they understand that’s a marketing aspect of the company.

This is all so different from what you’ve been doing.

Did you feel that anything from your TV experience helped prepare you?

I was a really bad delegator in the first seven years of America’s Next Top Model; I felt I needed to do everything myself. A lot of it was probably ego-driven too, like, “Oh, I’m the one who just has to do this.” Now I understand the importance of hiring really strong people and then get­ting out of their damn way so that they can do it.

Though, of course, you chose to launch a company in a category you know a lot about. Why stay in cosmetics?

Natural beauty is unfair. I would have never been a supermodel were it not for makeup. Makeup truly trans­forms me—and the more I put on, the more I look like a supermodel, to be honest. And so I look at makeup as the great equaliser. You don’t have to necessarily be born a certain way; you paint it on and you can compete in whatever way we deem to be necessary.

Previous spread: Styling: Tina Phan; hair and makeup: Cherity Sampson and Mallory Jo Schweiger

Next

Birth of a businessman: “I think I was born with an entrepreneurial spirit,� says Lingham.

Next

CRE ATI V E CON V ERSATION

I N N O VAT O R , V I S I O N A R Y, ENTREPRENEUR,DRAGON A merging of entrepreneurial mindset and a love for computing has led to a number of cutting-edge online ventures

By Miriam Mannak

Photographs by David Bloomer

Vinny Lingham’s entrepreneurial track record is nothing short of any budding business owner’s dream. His success story, however, didn’t hatch overnight—on the contrary.

Fast Company SA sat down with South Africa’s top online entrepreneur for a frank conversation about his trials, tribulations, successes and future aspirations.

There wasn’t a specific or definitive moment that drove Vinny Lingham, born and bred in East London, onto the entrepreneurial stage. The fact that he comes from a business-orientated family is irrelevant, he says.

“While I was indeed exposed to the world of entrepreneurship as a child, thanks to my parents who ran their own businesses, I doubt that that was the driving force behind what I have done and am doing currently. I think I was rather born with an entrepreneurial spirit,” Lingham explains, recalling how he started his very first business when he was still in primary school.

“I was six years old when I started buying and selling Thundercats stickers at school,” the businessman says with a smile, explaining the 1980s hype around these stickers that one would buy in packets, and then stick into an album; doubles were traded among friends. “I was purchasing packs of these stickers, after which I sold them individually— making more money in order to buy more stickers, and so on.”

It didn’t take long before Lingham discovered computers, for which he developed a great passion.

“Computing intrigued me from a very young age and onward,” he says. “I really loved computers. While other kids were playing outside, I was writing software programmes or playing games, that kind of stuff.”

Eventually, these two ingredients—his entrepreneurial mindset and love for computing— met and subsequently became the main building blocks of Lingham’s business endeavours. The result:

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Creative Conversation

Midas touch: Over the past five years, the Silicon Cape database has grown to 8 500 members, of which some have become very successful

an impressive line-up of successful, and very often cutting-edge, online ventures.

The first was Clicks2Customers, which he established in 2003 and ran from the bedroom of his town house. This company, which still exists, has the objective of helping businesses and organisations to improve their rankings in search engines by tapping into paid-search marketing and digital analytics.

Setting up Clicks2Customers was nothing short of a bold move. One has to take into account that, 11 years ago, South Africa had only cautiously begun to test the waters of the e-commerce arena. Back in the day, very few local companies were tapping into the World Wide Web for commercial purposes.

The rest of the world was light years ahead of the Rainbow Nation.

This is the case still, in some ways. A MasterCard study from 2013, for instance, showed that online shopping in South Africa made up 2% of our country’s total retail market at that time. In the United States, e-commerce had a 17% retail share.

“For the first four years of Clicks2Customers, I had only one South African client—a car rental company,” Lingham says. “Our other customers were based overseas including the US. They were interested in us, a South African firm, because we were doing something very unique. At that stage, we were the best in the world in improving businesses’ searchengine rankings.”

As Clicks2Customers gained strength and customers, Lingham began to spend more and more time across the mighty Atlantic. Eventually in 2008 he moved to America’s tech hub, Silicon Valley, about a year after selling his brainchild.

24 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

“Anyone who tells you that starting and running your own business is easy, is lying.

Running your own startup is very, very

hard and requires everything you have.”

Putting the company—which had grown from a bedroom enterprise in 2003 to a firm with R100 million in annual revenue in 2007—up for sale was a calculated decision.

Lingham: “When we started out, we were one of the first and best in the world in our field. With the influx of new players, it became harder to keep our very hard edge.

That is why I decided to sell.”

Selling Clicks2Customers didn’t mean the end. After relocating to the land of the free and the home of the brave, more companies followed. These included incuBeta Holdings, web development platform Yola.com, and digital gift-card store Gyft.

This last venture was a result of having the right idea at the right time. “Just over two years ago, I walked into a Starbucks and ordered a coffee, for which I paid with a digital gift-card on my phone. This made me think: What if this could work for every merchant, not just for Starbucks?”

The company was an instant hit, and soon started to draw the attention of large investors including FirstData, one of the largest credit-card processing companies in the world. Lingham eventually decided to sell Gyft. Price tag: $50 million (more than R550 million).

Signing the majority share of his gifting firm over to a company with 25 000 employees so soon after it had opened its doors is one of the highlights of his career, the businessman says. He notes that the deal means just the beginning for Gyft. “We see this as a continuation of our efforts, but with a different investor,” Lingham says.

“FirstData is helping us grow Gyft into a global company. Obviously, the equity structures have changed, but the team

has remained the same. This is not an exit strategy per se. I will continue to focus on Gyft for the next couple of years.”

Another chapter of which Lingham is proud is the founding of the Silicon Cape Initiative in 2009. He did so with local entrepreneur, Justin Stanford. “Our objective was to transform the Mother City into South Africa’s tech and information-technology hub. We want to fuel, fund and foster innovation in this country while enabling entrepreneurs to set up tech businesses while finding investors,” he says.

Like pretty much everything Lingham has touched since 2003, Silicon Cape has turned into gold. Over the past five years, the organisation’s database has grown to 8 500 members, of which some have become very successful. A number of them have even managed to conquer the global arena. “Take digital advertising agency, Quirk, which was bought recently by global advertising firm, WPP,” Lingham says. “Another success story is mobile financial services solutions provider, Fundamo, which was acquired by Visa in 2011 for $110 million [R1.2 billion].

“We have seen a lot of good activity in Cape Town over the past five years. That is not bad going, as we had a 20-year vision.

We are just half a decade down the line.”

While the past 11 years have undoubtedly been good to Lingham, there have been lows as well. “Anyone who tells you that starting and running your own business is easy, is lying,” he says with a curt smile. “Running your own startup is very, very hard and requires everything you have. Yes, you will make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. I have made lots of them. That is okay, as most mistakes help you learn.”

He adds that some mistakes are more

30 SECONDS WITH VINNY LINGHAM Background He was born in 1979 in East London as one of three boys.

He moved to the United States in 2008 after selling his first online venture, Clicks2Customers. He currently lives in San Francisco with his wife and two sons.

Education Lingham studied Information Systems at the University of Cape Town, but he never graduated as he quit before obtaining his degree. That didn’t prevent him from excelling, however.

His venture, Yola.com, a company that helps small businesses build websites, has grown to such an extent that it boasts more than 10 million users globally.

Achievements Over the past years, Lingham has taken home various accolades including the African Achiever Award for Top Young ICT Entrepreneur in Africa (2006). In that same year, Clicks2Customers won the TT100 Top Technology Company in South Africa Award.

Other notable achievements include being one of the finalists in the Men’s Health Best Man Awards (2009) as well as the Computer Society of South Africa’s ICT Personality of the Year Award (2008).

In 2009, he was appointed as one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders.

Likes Golf, travelling, Hawaii, braais, his wife and kids, friends, rugby, American football (NFL) Dislikes Rude and stuck-up people, Internet scammers, corrupt politicians

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ENTER THE DRAGONS’ DEN Concept Dragons’ Den premiered in South Africa earlier this year and revolves around aspiring business owners, their ideas, and a panel of five judges who are all successful, proudly South African business owners. The candidates have to pitch their ideas, usually with the objective of getting funding. Ultimately, it is up to the judges to decide whether or not—and why—they will back these budding entrepreneurs.

Creative Conversation

serious than others. One of the main— avoidable—mishaps many budding entrepreneurs make, Lingham says, is not being willing to work the hours it takes to keep a company going.

“I see business owners who, in the first stages of their company, take weekends off, go on vacations and leave early on Fridays.

A lot of them fail. If you are really serious about your business, you should be willing to work 24/7. You won’t get any sleep, as you will have to do the work of three people due to lack of resources.

“You have to work harder than anyone else,” Lingham continues. “That is the only way you will make it. I’m not saying you shouldn’t take a break every now and again.

very well. Don’t try to develop 10 different products or solutions. Concentrate your energies on one single product at a time,” Lingham cautions.

A last bit of advice deals with looking for investors. “As much as you, a first-time entrepreneur, see the value of what you are doing, you need to be reasonable when it comes to attracting funding. Many new entrepreneurs overvalue their businesses, and subsequently fail getting investors on board because they ask for too much. I see that in Dragons’ Den as well,” he says, referring to one of South Africa’s newest kids on the television block. The series revolves around aspiring business owners and their ideas which are subsequently

Meet the Dragons The South African Dragon panel, apart from Vinny Lingham, comprises Lebo Gunguluza (founder of Gunguluza Enterprises & Media), Vusi Thembekwayo (MD of MOTIV8 Advisory), Polo Leteka Radebe (co-founder and director of Identity Partners, a 100% womenowned investment firm) and Gil Oved (co-founder of The Creative Counsel, South Africa’s second largest advertising agency).

“If you are really serious about your business, you

should be willing to work 24/7. You won’t

get any sleep, as you will have to do the

work of three people due to lack of resources.”

Going global The South African edition of Dragons’ Den is a spin-off of the original Japanese television show. Over the past years, the programme has been produced in various countries around the world, often under different names such as Shark Tank (US), Die Höhle der Löwen/ Lions’ Den (Germany), Hakrishim/The Sharks (Israel) and Arena Leilor/Lions’ Arena (Romania). Apart from in Japan, the show names, structures and styles are based on the United Kingdom version.

When Every Tuesday at 19h00 on DStv’s Mzansi Magic, Channel 161 (repeats every Thursday at 21h30 and Saturday at 14h30)

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I take a week off every quarter, but I will always be connected to my businesses.”

Another preventable mistake many start-up entrepreneurs make revolves around a lack of market validation. “Scores of people have good ideas, but can’t sell them because the market they are targeting is not large enough to make money of the idea. I suggest that before you set up your business, you look at the market and what the market needs: namely, your product or service.”

After identifying a niche market that no one is servicing, aspiring business owners should focus on developing and delivering just one amazing solution. “You need to focus, focus, focus on doing one thing

judged by a panel of five successful entrepreneurs, including Lingham.

“I have always been a fan of the show,” he adds. “I have always wanted to get involved. When the opportunity came up, I took it with both hands. It is one of the highlights of my life.”

Despite his very notable achievements, Lingham refuses to rest on his laurels. The question, therefore, is where he wants to be in five years from now. The answer is simple and as clean-cut as expected: “I want to stay happy, I suppose, while focusing on my current businesses and building value-added enterprises—and improving lives as I go along.”

WANTED

Next

CLEAR COUCH For years, Kartell has been transforming the most commonplace of materials—plastic— into high-end furniture. Its latest see-through seat was created by design icon, Philippe Starck

The design:

P H I L I P P E S TA R C K

K A R T E L L’ S U N C L E J A C K S O FA

Best known for shaping the look of upscale hotels, the superstar designer has also created furniture, house­w ares and iconic provoca­t ions such as his gun lamps.

Loosely modelled after minimalist furniture that Starck saw in his aunts and uncles’ homes, this polycarbonate-plastic piece is the latest from Italian furniture com­p any, Kartell, which unveiled its first plastic chair in 1999.

Philosophy “When I design, I always take the perspective of the engineer or an inventor in order to offer the best service with the minimum of materiality.”

Inspiration “I have always loved to work with plastic, as it is a reflection of human intelligence. Men have not created stone or wood, but plastic is the result of human creativity.”

Technique The company’s innovative process uses machinery that injects a steel mould with molten plastic to make a material that looks as elegant as glass.

Significance The Uncle Jack is the largest product of its kind.

“With the biggest ever monobloc transparentplastic–made piece,” says Starck, “it is about showing a technological miracle—one you can sit on.” $1 860 (about R20 500), kartell.com

Set design: Valentina Cameranesi and Enrico Pompili

Photograph by Jeremias Morandell

The designer:

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TECHNOVORE

YOUR SMARTPHONE’S GETTING SMARTER I M P R OV E D N OT I F I CAT I O N S I N T H E N E W I O S A N D A N D R O I D W I L L R E I N V E N T H O W W E U S E O U R P H O N E S , A N D S H A K E U P M O B I L E ’ S P O W E R P L AY E R S

W

ITH THE NEW updates to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android released in September, we are on the verge of another signifi­cant change in how we use the Internet. For six years we’ve been living in the world of apps, but in its place will rise what I’m calling the Notification Network.

Until now, notifications have been a blunt instrument for apps to try to get our attention. Every time you install a new app on your phone, you get a pop-up message that asks if you want to allow it to send you notifications. If you say yes, they arrive with the same intensity as emails, draining precious battery life, making your phone more annoying than savvy, and all you could do with a notification anyway was tap it to launch the app.

Apple and Google were both smart to recognise that if they made notifications more intelli­gent and interactive, it would ameliorate the app fatigue that many people feel given that there are millions of them. The new mobile operating systems, iOS 8 and Android L, now let you con­duct business within these messages. You can reply to texts or like a photo without having to deal with the cumbersome (and distracting) practice of jumping over to that app. Ordering food and goods is imminent.

With time, notifications will only get smarter, and the companies that best understand this new way of communicating with its users will bring us just the right amount of information at the right time. Imagine Uber or Lyft taking cues from your calendar and your current location to recommend that you order a car now in order to arrive at your next meeting on time.

All of these interactive bits will be accessible even on your phone’s lock screen. That’s where the Notification Network will live, making it the mobile equivalent of Facebook’s News Feed. “In the early days of social net­works,” says Bret Taylor, CEO of the document-creation app Quip and co-founder of an 30 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

WE ARE ON THE VERGE OF ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN HOW WE USE THE INTERNET, AND IT WILL JUMP-START A NEW CYCLE OF INNOVATION.

Om Malik

early news-feed technology startup called FriendFeed which Facebook acquired, “you would go to your friend’s social net­work pages and find a handful of up­dates and notifications. When the News Feed emerged, it gave us a nice way to bring those updates to you.”

As consumers, we’re always craving a less complicated, more personalised experience, and the new notifications improve upon the original value of apps. Recall that the reason we have apps is that Apple created them as a solution to the clunkiness of navigating the Internet on a phone in the mid-2000s. Just as that innovation helped make the iPhone a runaway hit, new fortunes are made whenever someone develops a tech advancement that makes our digital lives easier. When the web’s size and scope grew exponentially in the late 1990s, Google had the simplest way for us to find what we needed. When we wanted a more social Inter­net, Facebook delivered the cleanest way to connect us to our friends.

So who wins as more of our interactions with apps take place through notifications?

Google and Apple are obvious candidates, given that much of the notification magic is part of each operating system.

But three of the more interesting startups to watch are WUT, an anonymous-chat app in which Google Ventures has invested; IFTTT, which lets users connect apps to work together; and Yo, the much-mocked alert system. All of these services are drop-dead simple, and WUT and Yo already use a notification-like interface.

One sleeper pick: Facebook, the company that popular­ised the news feed. It has hooks deep in mobile apps, both as the preferred login and as the hosting platform for hundreds of thousands of apps.

If Facebook can use those advantages to drive better engagement for all those apps—across both iOS and Android—the Social Network could become the Notification Network.

Om Malik is a partner at True Ventures, an early-stage investor.

He is also founder of Gigaom, a Silicon Valley-based, tech-focused publishing company.

Illustration by Bratislav Milenkovic

Health System Technologies

The right info at the right time Health Systems Technologies (HST) is a leading specialist provider of optimised and integrated healthcare ICT solutions in South Africa; a world leader in implementation and support of integrated hospital and laboratory information systems.

Since 1999 HST has partnered with healthcare enterprises in the provision of ICT solutions, services, integration and development, and the company supports the delivery of the right information to healthcare providers—at the right time.

HST is part of the Sekunjalo Investments Limited group of companies consisting of healthcare, industrial and informationtechnology divisions.

It has extensive experience and proven ability in the innovative and technical provision and support of healthcare information systems, namely: • Innovative systems development and enhancements • Large project planning and execution • Proven integration capability • Experience of working with leading international partners • Operational knowledge and experience of South African healthcare • Use of web-based tools to provide clinical access • Provision of customised software to suit local healthcare requirements • Support of large patient records across multiple sites • Proven post-implementation support services

Global Health ICT Solutions, Local Customisations HST has successfully implemented and commissioned the following large ICT projects: • One of SA’s largest public-sector hospital information systems (HIS) implementations and support for the Provincial Government of the Western Cape, including a centralised HIS and patient billing and accounts receivable system operating in 35 public hospitals and some 18 community healthcare centres • One of the largest central public-sector Laboratory Information Systems implementations internationally for the National Health Laboratory Service currently in over 200 laboratories countrywide • UPFS-compliant hospital billing and accounts receivable application integrated to the HIS within 35 public hospitals in the Western Cape • Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital UPFS billing and accounts receivable application interfaced to the HIS • The company was also involved in the design and architecture of South Africa’s Electronic Health Record system.

HST is a proud subsidiary of Sekunjalo Investments Limited

For further details or queries, contact: Leon Wolmarans Business Development Manager Tel: 021 683 1506 Email: leon@healthsystems.co.za

YOU T

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GUTTER CREDIT TK

R E B O O T I N G

Susan Wojcicki built Google into a R615-billion advertising giant. Now she’s running YouTube.

Her job: Do it again

By Nicole LaPorte

GUTTER CREDIT TK

Photographs by Adam Fedderly

UBE

W H E N S U S A N W OJ C I C K I TO O K OV E R YO U T U B E in February, she received almost as much unsolicited advice as there are YouTube videos. One open letter not-so-subtly pleaded with Wojcicki, “So please, I’m begging you, please, please, please, don’t f*** it up.”

“There were lots of letters, public letters,” says Wojcicki when we meet in her office in mid-June at YouTube’s San Bruno, California, headquarters. “ ‘Open Letter to Susan Wojcicki.’

‘Do These Five Things.’ There were videos from creators.” Even her family got in on the act. “My mom is a high school teacher, so she would tell me, ‘Oh, the students liked the video you posted today. Oh, the students didn’t like the video that you posted today.’ As though I, personally, posted a video!” she says, laughing.

C R E AT I V E F R I C T I O N

The ever evolving, sometimes uneasy relationship between YouTube and its community of popular video producers February 14, 2005

April 6, 2006 November 19, 2005 The comedic duo Smosh (Ian Andrew Hecox and Anthony Padilla) join YouTube, leading the way in helping to make it a unique platform and in creating revenue from brand deals, apps, games and merchandise.

Judson Laipply uploads “The Evolution of Dance”, a six-minute mashup of 50 years of dance crazes—and an early viral hit.

October 9, 2006 Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion (R18.35 billion).

February 14, 2008

February 10, 2010

Damon Wayans is the first celeb to try to use YouTube to grow new talent. He fails.

Lancôme signs beauty guru Michelle Phan as its official video makeup artist.

Phan’s branded videos are a hit, leading to her own L’Oréal makeup line in 2013.

May 3, 2007 YouTube agrees to split ad revenue with popular content creators.

Jessica Lee Rose, better known as lonelygirl15, is among the first.

June 1, 2009 Google brokers a deal between burger chain Carl’s Jr. and eight YouTube stars, including Ryan Higa (NigaHiga), to promote Carl’s new Portobello Mushroom SixDollar Burger to young men.

GUTTER CREDIT TK

PayPal alums Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim register the domain youtube.com to start “Flickr or Hot or Not for video”.

January 19, 2007 Justin Bieber’s mother posts the first of many videos of her 12-year-old son singing R&B hits.

He’ll be discovered by year’s end.

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Her four kids gave her a YouTube crash course. “I was just starting to get to know a lot of these videos, and they’d be like, ‘Oh, no, Mom. That video came out like six months ago.’ And then they would go on about the whole backstory of this content and this creator. I didn’t know how much time they were spending watching YouTube.”

The ambush of advice was, she admits in her amiable way, “a little overwhelming”.

Wojcicki, 46, is a consummate insider­— she’s Google employee No. 16—and a publicity deflector who isn’t used to being in direct communication with a fan base as vocal and passionate as YouTube’s. “She doesn’t optimise for, ‘Hey, I did something that would be a great article, I did this amazing thing,’ ” says Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, who worked with Wojcicki after Google acquired his startup Feedburner in 2007. “On the surface, you might not see her as the archetype for a leader because she’s so nice,” adds AOL chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong, who also worked with

Wojcicki at Google. “But underneath it, she’s a real fierce competitor.” Costolo calls her “the most understated operations executive in the Valley”.

Her skills as a leader and operator are going to be tested at YouTube like they never were during her 15-year career at Google. Although YouTube is one of the most important brands at Google, “there’s a perception that YouTube is punching below its weight,” says Ynon Kreiz, CEO of Maker Studios, one of the leading management-production companies that work with YouTube creators to help them be more professional and make more money. “I assume even Google and YouTube believe it can monetise better. This is something Susan is very focused on.”

Analysts estimate YouTube’s 2013 revenue at $5.6 billion (R62.6 billion).

(Google does not break out YouTube’s revenue in its financial filings.) Facebook, the other Internet phenomenon with more than 1 billion users worldwide, brought in

October 28, 2011

September 18, 2010 Fred: The Movie, based on the thenNo. 1 YouTube channel, is the year’s highest rated cable-TV movie.

Nickelodeon signs creator Lucas Cruik­s hank to a sitcom deal.

October 22, 2011

GUTTER CREDIT TK

Popular YouTuber Freddie Wong uses Kickstarter to raise $273 725 (R3 million) for his series, Video Game High School.

more than $7 billion (R78 billion) in 2013, almost half from mobile advertising.

Indeed, Facebook has been far more swift and nimble than YouTube in migrating both its audience and its business to phones, which is reflected in its $170-billion (R1.9-trillion) market cap.

YouTube, by contrast, is valued at only $15 billion (R167.7 billion) to $20 billion (R223.6 billion).

Complicating matters, Wojcicki joined YouTube amid a rising chorus of concern that creators cannot make a living producing content for the video site. The complaints: that YouTube takes a hefty 45% of revenue from ads that run with videos; and that there is such a glut of content—YouTube brags that 100 hours of video are uploaded to the site per minute—that it depresses ad rates and inhibits even the most popular creators from selling out their inventory.

The growing discontent came to a head in August 2013 at VidCon (both the digital video industry’s confab and the

October 17, 2012

YouTube spends a reported $100 million (R1.1 billion) to fund series and channels. Celeb programming from Madonna and Amy Poehler fizzles while homegrown talent thrives.

Ray William Johnson, owner of the then-No. 1 YouTube channel, quits Maker Studios, the No. 1 YouTube producer, over revenue and rights.

April 30, 2014

November 3, 2013 YouTube’s first Music Awards is marred by grumbling that YouTube cared more for traditional stars than its own creators.

Wojcicki rolls out her strategy to promote YouTube’s homegrown talent with an ad campaign featuring Michelle Phan, DIYer Bethany Mota and baker Rosanna Pansino.

October 14, 2012 July 15, 2012 “Gangnam Style”,

by Korean pop star Psy, hits YouTube.

It racks up 1 billion views by December and 2 billion by June 2014.

Red Bull draws a record-setting 8 million live viewers to watch skydiver Felix Baumgartner free-fall to Earth from the stratosphere.

May 1, 2013 DreamWorks Animation acquires AwesomenessTV, a tween network that’s home to Ingrid Nilsen, for up to $117 million (R1.3 billion). The goal: Build a media company.

February 5, 2014 Susan Wojcicki, Google employee No. 16, replaces Salar Kamangar, Google employee No. 9, as the senior vice president in charge of YouTube.

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GUTTER CREDIT TK

YouTube universe’s Comic-Con), when entrepreneur and angel investor Jason Calacanis delivered a keynote address saying that YouTube’s tariff didn’t allow creators to make high-quality videos, and urged attendees to protest. Almost a year later, Calacanis’s stance hadn’t changed. “I don’t think it’s gotten better for creators yet,” he told me in an email.

“Currently, 99.999% of creators are not going to make a sustainable living on YouTube.”

With both creators and their management feeling disrespected and restless, bigfoot competitors such as Amazon, Disney, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo are circling. If YouTube can’t translate its longtime dominance of online video into converting the $212-billion (R2.3trillion) global TV advertising market to digital, its would-be rivals figure that maybe they can.

To fend off the encroaching opposition, Wojcicki has to align the interests of Hollywood, Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley—all of which play important roles in the increasingly complicated YouTube ecosystem.

At the same time, she may also have the most daunting job at Google. Inside the advertising giant, the perennial question is: Where is the next R100 billion in revenue coming from?

Right now, all eyes are on Wojcicki.

Wojcicki’s Google career can be summed up by two superlatives that have been applied to her: The Most Important Person in Advertising and The Most Important Googler You’ve Never Heard Of. If you know anything about Wojcicki, it’s that Google was founded in her garage, which she rented to Sergey Brin and Larry Page when they were fresh out of Stanford and noodling around with turning their graduate project into a business. “I feel like I saw when it was born,” she says.

Wojcicki did a lot more than just watch.

She’s one of the architects of AdSense, the revolutionary system that allows websites and blogs to make money on their sites by displaying Google ads. As Costolo says, “She’s pretty much responsible for Google’s revenue engine.” Google generated $55.5 billion (R620.2 billion) last year. Wojcicki also championed Google buying YouTube in 2006, though when she tells the story, she’s not bragging. “I saw some of their numbers and I just realised how much bigger they were than we were”— Wojcicki ran the rival Google Video at the time—“and even if it doesn’t look good for you at that moment, you have to make the decision

B E T H A N Y M OTA I N C .

Date she joined YouTube June 8, 2009 Content Do-it-yourself hair, makeup, outfit and crafts tips featuring products Mota loves Subscribers and views 7 413 220 and 565 871 410 (as of October 10, 2014) Popularity Mota’s channel ranks No. 49 across all of YouTube and is No. 3 in How-To & Style Ad revenue According to experts, between $500 000 (R5.4 million) and $750 000 (R8.2 million) annually from her share of the ads that run against her videos

that it’s not really about you but what’s the right long-term thing for the company.”

When Wojcicki says, “I’ve been, like, the mom of Google,” she means it literally and figuratively. She was the first employee to have kids, and she’s played a key role in nurturing Google into corporate maturity. She talks about her children and several Google milestones with the breezy cheer of a proud parent.

As she sits in her candy-coloured redand-white office, wearing skinny jeans and a Google T-shirt partially covered by a loose sweater, a huge roomful of millennials right outside, Wojcicki makes clear that now it’s YouTube’s turn.

“YouTube is growing up, is basically my view of it,” she says. “Growing up means our creators are growing up, they’re getting more well-known. We’re providing

Outside revenue

GUTTER CREDIT TK

Mota designs collections for teen retailer, Aéropostale

that they were indifferent to our existence and, if anything, saw us as somebody who would eventually need to go away,” says Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures, which has a stake in Maker Studios. A former executive at a YouTube network puts it this way: “YouTube reeked of Google arrogance.

It was a definitive disposition that ‘We know best.’ ” In contrast, Wojcicki flew to Los Angeles within her first month on the job for several days of fence-mending meetings with the YouTube networks, venture capitalists and individual creators. She mainly took notes and listened, and her attitude went a long way toward telegraphing that YouTube would have a new management style.

Suster says Wojcicki’s visit “was the first time anyone [from YouTube headquarters] had ever reached out directly to me.” Adds Sarah Penna, co-founder of Big Frame, which represents YouTube stars such as Sawyer Hartman, “They tend to keep us in the loop on major product changes a lot sooner.”

Wojcicki’s interest in creators—whom she calls the “lifeblood of YouTube”—seems to stem from taking a real joy in them. When Wojcicki visited AwesomenessTV, the DreamWorks-owned digital studio in Los Angeles, she caught sight of YouTube personalities Niki and Gabi and asked if she could take a picture with them. “Not only did she take the picture, then she tweeted it,” says Brian Robbins, AwesomenessTV’s CEO. “I was like, okay, she’s a little bit of a groupie. That’s a good thing.”

Robbins calls Kamangar a “really cool, smart guy”, but says that Wojcicki has impressed him in a different way. “I just felt like she really understood what we’re trying to do. It’s about content and talent, not just an algorithm.”

In just a few months, these gestures crucially changed the feeling among content creators and their backers to one of cautious optimism. But make no mistake: Underneath Wojcicki’s fangirl friendliness is someone “who really drives

D U R I N G YO U T U B E ’ S P R E S E N TAT I O N TO ADVERTISERS, BETHANY M O TA O U T S H O N E B O T H P H A R R E L L WILLIAMS AND JANELLE MONAE.

programmes for them to generate more revenue so they can generate even better, high-quality shows, and then also connecting them with the advertisers.”

Wojcicki’s approach has been a sharp departure from that of her predecessor, Salar Kamangar. An introverted techie, Kamangar, Google employee No. 9, preferred to stay behind the scenes, delegating to lieutenants such as Shishir Mehrotra, who ran product and monetisation, and Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s liaison to the Hollywood community. According to several sources, YouTube management seemed closed off and imperious—to both talent and the production companies that arose to manage them, known as multichannel networks, or MCNs. “Every MCN’s view under the Salar and Shishir leadership was

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makeup artist Michelle Phan (7 million subscribers) and nerdy baker Rosanna Pansino (2.7 million), were the first batch to see their faces plastered on billboards, subways, glossy magazine ads and in TV commercials. This summer, YouTube has featured VICE, the guerrilla news outlet (5.1 million), and Epic Rap Battles of History (11 million), a comedic series that stages musical showdowns such as Chuck Norris versus Abe Lincoln.

Mota appeared at the New York event, and her involvement paid immediate dividends in exposing ad buyers to the power of YouTube celebrity. Mota’s endearing I-was-bullied story outshone performances by Pharrell Williams and Janelle Monae, and hordes of ‘Motavators’ wearing Aéropostale T-shirts with that moniker deluged Madison Square Garden,

500 000 subscribers. There are 8 000 of those,” this person says. “Sixty-five thousand have more than 100 000 subscribers. And you’re gonna take 12 out of all those? That’s tough.”

What’s missing in the carping, though, is what the Beacon programme represents: a big bet on YouTube’s native talent. Less than three years ago, Kyncl led YouTube’s ‘original channel’ initiative, which ploughed more than $200 million (R2.2 billion) into creating series developed by mainstream stars such as Jay Z and Madonna. Although there were a few standouts, such as Rainn Wilson’s SoulPancake, which has 1.35 million subscribers, most of the channels fizzled. (YouTube disagrees with this characterisation, citing that 86 funded channels are among the top 1% YouTube channels and 35 have more than 500 000 subscribers.)

By going after traditional entertainers, Kyncl and company miscalculated the special appeal of YouTube stars and what their audiences love about them. They’re extremely good at engaging directly with fans, particularly very young ones; and they’re expert at marketing their content across social media. In a sense, Beacon is both a pivot and an affirmation of that original-channel initiative. YouTube still wants stars making content for YouTube; it just realised that the stars it wants have been on the platform all along.

Wojcicki seems ready to invest even more deeply in YouTubers. “We have all these pretty nascent creators. What do they look like in five years? Do they have longer shows? Can we help them economically to grow their shows? I don’t think we need new creators. All that content is original content, but how do we make it even better?”

Although Wojcicki wouldn’t discuss any future plans, one source says that YouTube is, in fact, already pairing some of its stars with Hollywood producers to create longer-

“ YO U A C T U A L LY C A N M A K E A L I V I N G B E C A U S E O F YO U T U B E , ” S AY S A S O U R C E . “ YO U J U S T C A N ’ T M A K E I T O N YO U T U B E . ” forming a line around the block-wide arena, to steal a glimpse of her.

“Our campaign helps [YouTube creators] expand their audience to casual fans, which is what you normally get from mainstream marketing,” says Kyncl. “That’s how they become household names. And that in turn puts a positive light on YouTube. It changes the discussion.”

“It legitimises us all,” says Aimee Helfand, founder and CEO of the content network, BabyLeague. “If there’s a billboard for a Tom Cruise movie and behind that there’s a YouTuber, people driving down Sunset are impressed.”

But not everyone in the large and voluble YouTube talent pool embraces the idea of trickle-down benefits. One YouTube source cautioned that there is already “ire” among some creators. “Let’s define a YouTube star as anyone with over

Timeline: Gabriela Hasbun/Aurora Photos (Chen, Hurley); Grant Hochstein/The New York Times/Redux (Karim); Ethan Miller/Getty Images for Bacardi (Laipply); Robin Platzer/TwinImages/ Photoshot/Newscom (Phan); Alamy (Cruikshank); AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes/Corbis (Wong); Balazs Gardi/Red Bull/dapd/AP Images (Baumgartner); Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for YouTube (Eminem); Andy Kropa/Invision/AP (Pansino)

toward outcomes,” says AOL’s Armstrong.

Mom may be supportive and empathetic, but she’s no pushover. Wojcicki has centralised authority in her office, prompting a wave of executive turnover.

And even as she makes nice with creatives, she’s not budging on YouTube’s share of the ad revenue. She has other ideas for how to make them happy.

“Oh, this is from my line,” Bethany Mota says, delicately touching the floral minidress that she’s wearing. Her clothing and accessories collection with the youth fashion retailer, Aéropostale, is one of the ways Mota has leveraged her fame on YouTube, where her weekly videos featuring whatever makeup and clothing she’s wearing (“What I’ve Been Loving!”) have attracted almost 7.4 million subscribers and more than 565 million views (as of October 2014).

At 18, Mota is a YouTube veteran. She began uploading videos when she was 13 and “kind of bored”. She adds: “I was also being bullied at the time, so I kind of didn’t really want to do anything. I just wanted to stay inside.”

In person, Mota, who hails from Pleasanton, California, is a cute and cheery girl. But put her in front of the camera or an audience, and she’s a star with a rare gift for forging a kinetic connection with fans. Suddenly, her smile seems a mile wide and her bubbly energy becomes contagious. “Teens want to relate, engage and connect to what is real, and Bethany projects that,” says Emilia Fabricant, EVP of Aéropostale Brands, explaining why she signed Mota.

Mota embodies phase one of Wojcicki’s push to grow YouTube: Promote advertiser-friendly stars who can draw more attention—and dollars—back to YouTube. The company’s lack of promotion, both on and off the site, has been a consistent complaint among YouTubers, and it’s something Wojcicki is addressing aggressively. During a presentation to advertisers in April in New York, she unveiled what’s internally known as Beacon: a campaign to promote the bejesus out of a select group of brandready YouTube stars. Mota, along with

form programmes that could be cut into 11-minute segments to work both on YouTube and on TV. “Traditional content—I think it works on YouTube. I don’t want to say it doesn’t work,” Wojcicki says carefully, “but it doesn’t always take advantage of the fact that it’s a new and different medium.”

Wojcicki is trying to eradicate, once and for all, the lingering perception in adland that YouTube is just “endless, endless streams of garbage,” as Tony Weisman, CEO of the ad giant, DigitasLBi, described the knock. She wants advertisers to think about people like Mota as they would a starlet on the CW, and running spots on VICE as akin to buying time on CNN. If she succeeds, she can woo more brands at higher rates.

Which brings us to Google Preferred, another key piece of Wojcicki’s strategy, which she introduced during her April unveiling to advertisers. Preferred lets brands target the top 1% or 5% of YouTube content in 14 categories, such as beauty, food and automotive, spotlighting more distinctive programming than the lowerbrow comedy and video-gaming content that dominates the site’s overall leader board. Advertisers who opt in are also guaranteed a minimum number of viewers in the same way that they are on TV, as well as data on effectiveness.

“Brands want more control over where their ads appear,” Wojcicki says. “We also have a 100% audience guarantee.”

Advertisers and content creators have largely applauded the programme, which they feel is long overdue. “[YouTube has] made it an environment that is really suitable for premium brands,” says Weisman. Adds Keith Richman, president of Defy Media, a digital media company that owns the highly ranked channels Smosh and Clevver, “When we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on programming, it’s great that there’s a pathway for that to be noted differently to advertisers and brands.”

In a sense, Preferred tries to manufacture scarcity, to create a more desirable tier in YouTube’s vast mass of inventory. As Brendan Gahan, who works with brands to pair them with YouTube

stars, puts it: “It’s really just a packaging job. They’re trying to sell the same way people have been buying TV for decades.”

YouTube doesn’t disagree. As Kyncl notes, “We’re basically making it easy for people to buy ads on YouTube.”

“You guys should be doing cool stunts.

Like using 10 000 Ziploc bags to create an art piece.”

Joe Penna, who goes by MysteryGuitarMan on YouTube, is advising executives from SC Johnson, Ziploc’s parent company, on how to connect with audiences on the site that’s been his home since June 2006. Dozens of marketers from brands such as Target and Verizon have gathered on a dimly lit soundstage at YouTube’s sleek and spacious LA production facility to try and learn the secrets of YouTube from the creators who know them best. It’s been three days of panels, workshops and revelry (buckets of microbrewed beer are being set up outside, and caterers are firing up the braais) in an attempt to “help advertisers become better content creators,” says Jamie Byrne, YouTube’s director of content strategy. “This is really about helping brands understand YouTube better, so they can commit to bigger media spends.”

Although this programme predates Wojcicki’s arrival, it’s functionally phase three of her growth strategy, one that largely operates independently of all of the challenges she faces in corralling stars and their handlers. Until recently, brands were focused almost exclusively on trying to create a viral video, latch onto a viral phenomenon on YouTube, or partner with established YouTube stars to integrate their brands into videos. “Everyone wants a big flashy piece” like a viral video, says Gahan. “[YouTube] is saying, ‘Don’t rely on that, though it’s great if it happens.’ That’s really starting to sink in for a lot of brands.”

In particular, YouTube is encouraging brands to develop series and build a subscriber base. “Brands are figuring out that producing video content regularly is really important,” says Alison Provost, CEO of Touchstorm, a platform for brands to run digital video campaigns.

Ask around the YouTube universe which brands can create content on par with the platform’s top stars, and two names emerge: Red Bull and GoPro. Both trade mostly in high-octane thrills that get young men revved up. But neither is a major television advertiser that’s moving its traditional spending to YouTube. In that way, they’re outliers rather than the kind of exemplars Wojcicki wants to replicate across corporate America.

More encouraging for YouTube are programmes like Honda Stage, an ambitious music channel the carmaker launched in June. In a complex deal with Live Nation, YouTube, the music site Vevo, ClearChannel and the Revolt cable-TV network, Honda will present performances and interviews with artists in an effort to reach millennial car buyers. The deal was brokered by the media-buying behemoth MediaVest, and Honda tasked RPA, its ad agency, to develop ads to support Honda Stage (because, after all, how many people are bored at work and wondering, What’s going on at Honda’s YouTube channel?).

As for most of the corporate world?

“They aren’t there yet,” Gahan admits, “but they’re aggressively trying to close the gap.”

Hence advice from people like MysteryGuitarMan, who has 2.8 million subscribers and is now telling the intensely attentive Ziploc team, “The first 10 seconds of a video are really important. You throw them into shock,” he says, smiling from behind a pair of his signature black sunglasses, which he never removes.

George Strompolos’s eyebrows are dancing. I’ve been sitting in a conference room with him at Fullscreen, the LA-based company he founded in 2011 to manage YouTube talent, and for the past hour, Strompolos—who is tall and lean, with dark, smoky features—has been studiously soft-spoken as he talks about the evolution of his company. But now he’s excited, almost twitchy, as he goes on about O2L, a “YouTube supergroup” that Fullscreen put together. (Think One Direction, but with video bloggers.)

O2L (Our2ndLife) represents one version of YouTube’s economic potential

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for content creators. “You actually can make a living because of YouTube,” as one source puts it. “You just can’t make it on YouTube.” Strompolos is more politic in his explanation. “Six years ago, it was as simple as put up a video, get some views, get some money, right?” (He would know: Before starting Fullscreen, Strompolos ran YouTube’s partner programme, doling out the first revenue sharing to popular creators.) “But as it’s matured, it’s still that, but it’s so much more.”

He’s giving O2L what he calls “the 360-degree of opportunity,” a pie that shrinks YouTube as a revenue source.

“We’re putting them on tour. We’re in talks for television shows. Merch is selling like hot cakes. So it’s just an evolution of a new space.”

“The YouTube narrative [about ancillary revenue for creators] has been, ‘These are YouTube-enabled businesses. YouTube is the core,’ ” says a former YouTube executive.

“Michelle Phan, this multimillionaire with a L’Oréal makeup line—all of that is because of YouTube.” According to sources familiar with how YouTube’s revenue sharing works, a top star whose videos are being viewed 25 million times a month likely makes between $450 000 (R4.9 million) and $900 000 (R9.8 million) annually from

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YouTube. When stars do an original video for brands, these deals can run anywhere between $20 000 (almost R220 000) and $250 000 (R2.7 million). And then there are the fan fests and tours, which not only wouldn’t exist without the interaction between stars and viewers on YouTube, but also benefit from the platform’s largesse.

“YouTube first sponsored us in 2011 and helped us get off the ground,” says Meridith Rojas, co-founder of DigiTour.

Wojcicki, who several times told me that it was important to her that creators find ways to remain on YouTube, says she is thinking about other “economic incentives” for YouTubers. “Creators are going to look around and they’re going to figure out, Where do I get the most audience and generate the most returns?” she says. “So I think there is opportunity for us sometimes to fund content.”

Still, Fullscreen and other networks have ambitions that far exceed what Wojcicki is offering. “It’s not just about being a YouTube channel,” says AwesomenessTV’s Robbins. Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, bought Awesomeness in 2013 in a deal that could ultimately be worth $117 million (R1.2 billion), because “he wants us to grow into our own media company”.

As online video has taken off, almost all of the major studios have invested in YouTube networks. In March, Disney bought Maker Studios for $500 million (R5.4 billion), with performance

FILMMAGIC/ GETT Y IMAGES/ GALLO IMAGES

Wojcicki speaks on stage at the Google presents YouTube Brandcast event at The Theater at Madison Square Garden on April 30, 2014 in New York City

benchmarks that could elevate the deal’s value to $950 million (R10.4 billion). “Most of the big networks are going to get swallowed up by big media companies that are still trying to figure things out,” says one former YouTube executive. “They think that these MCNs have some secret sauce. FYI, they don’t.”

Wojcicki calls the marriage between traditional Hollywood and these networks “a huge validation of the platform”, and says she hopes to see the synergy between them play out on YouTube. Multiple sources view Maker as a promotional vehicle for Disney, whereby Disney would give Maker talent access to its treasure trove of intellectual property to help the Mouse House connect with a generation that it desperately needs to hold on to.

Wojcicki’s eyes light up when she talks about how Disney’s animated megahit Frozen played out on YouTube for months after the film’s release. “The Frozen videos have been viewed, like, 1.4 billion times [as of September 2014],” she says. “My children, for example, listened to Frozen on YouTube all day. They listened to the official songs. They listened to them in Chinese. They want to see kids their age singing the songs. They like to see a different rendition done by another famous singer.”

The Frozen phenomenon happened organically, and Disney supported it rather than squelching what are obviously infringing uses of its property.

“They let the covers stay up, which was really important,” Wojcicki says. “It’s kept the content fresh and alive, and that must have been significant in driving more awareness, more interest. My kids are watching all those Frozen videos, so they want Frozen books. They wanna go again.”

If Wojcicki can prove that YouTube is an unparalleled promotional force for a brand like Disney, she’ll unlock new interest from other big brands. But she can’t limit the rising ambitions in the online video industry. “I worry sometimes about them leaving the platform,” she says of her homegrown stars. “Or going somewhere else.”

YouTube in recent months has seen a deluge of big companies coming after it.

Comcast is testing a new video platform through its new X1 cable set-top boxes

(decoders). In March, just a month after Wojcicki’s arrival, Twitter poached Baljeet Singh, a popular YouTube executive, to help produce more video to sell ads against. Disney-owned Maker launched Maker.tv, an online video site for “the best of” Maker talent, showcasing content not available on YouTube. Maker chief Kreiz insists the programme is complementary to YouTube: “Our job is to reach as many people as we can, wherever they are. And not everybody is on YouTube all the time.”

But it’s hard not to see it as an attempt to steal the YouTube playbook.

Perhaps the most brazen challenge has come from Yahoo. Earlier this year, Yahoo began meeting with YouTube content creators to try to lure them over to its network of sites which, on the desktop at least, rival Google in terms of audience. It dangled a better revenue-sharing deal or a fixed ad rate said to be 50% to 100% higher than YouTube’s. Yahoo also reportedly touted its ability to distribute its content across Yahoo-owned sites, particularly Tumblr, whose demographics are much closer to YouTube’s youth brigade than Yahoo’s ageing users.

Even though Yahoo is viewed by YouTube brass as “a B-level company, or a C-level company,” says one YouTube source, “the fact that they were trying to steal some of our artists and content was really startling.

It’s like you have David and Goliath, and suddenly Goliath is very afraid.”

Yahoo being Yahoo, its negotiations with content creators have hit several roadblocks. Yahoo had been asking to own content and for an exclusive window to air it, onerous terms for YouTubers accustomed to more loosey-goosey arrangements. Yahoo is reportedly now okay with content living on other platforms (including YouTube), but it has yet to land a YouTuber. In late June, reports surfaced that it would make a bid for Fullscreen, paying at least $250 million (R2.7 billion) to buy its way into competing against YouTube. (AOL, the Chernin Co. and Viacom were also reportedly interested in Fullscreen.)

The truth is, Wojcicki has several advantages that these competitors will have significant trouble matching. For one thing—and it’s easy to forget this— YouTube is the only social media platform

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that has paid creators. Not Facebook, not Twitter, not Tumblr, not Pinterest, not Vine—no one. “It’s amazing that YouTube pays,” says Josh Cohen, co-founder of the digital-video news site, Tubefilter, and executive producer of the Streamy Awards.

“It’s built up a lot of goodwill that way.”

And there’s more. “The dirty secret about YouTube, which I think not a whole lot of people get at the moment and is great for YouTube,” says one digital video executive, “is people who consume on YouTube don’t then go outside of YouTube.

So if you think of Smosh, they have 18 million subscribers. As a business, two-thirds of their revenue happens on their website. But you look at their traffic that goes from YouTube to their website,

hard time asking for help, and everyone just voluntarily offered it.” In short order, she had 1.8 million subscribers.

“YouTubers know how YouTube works,” says Big Frame’s Penna. “What’s the community going to be like in these different platforms? No one knows. Until a couple of people make that leap and it’s successful, it’s going to be challenging.”

Even an 18-year-old like Bethany Mota feels the pull of YouTube. “I didn’t really know that I’d ever be designing clothes or anything like this when I started,” she says, “so I just want to keep making videos. Obviously, TV and movies are interesting to me, but I don’t look at that as what I want to dedicate all my time to. I see it more as a way to expand what I’m doing and to draw back to my YouTube channel.”

In late June, at VidCon, Wojcicki underscored her feelings about creators.

While hordes of tween fans waited in mile-long lines for glimpses of YouTube stars such as Kian Lawley (a member of O2L who looks like a cross between Justin Bieber and Joe Jonas), Wojcicki addressed a more sober crowd of YouTubers in an upstairs ballroom at the Anaheim Convention Center. “You guys are the real stars!”

Wojcicki said with soccer-mom enthusiasm, as she paced the stage in a pair of skinny jeans and a YouTube T-shirt. “It’s strange that I’m the one who’s onstage.” She then rolled out a slew of initiatives, including support for 60-frames-per-second video to better showcase gaming footage and a way for fans to pay stars directly, all the while stressing that “creators are the essence of YouTube”.

When Jenna Marbles, whose YouTube channel has more than 14 million subscribers and whose videos have been watched more than 1.5 billion times, ran on stage wearing a fluorescent-pink miniskirt and tube socks, Wojcicki beamed. The mom of Google has a new family now.

‘ C O M M U N I T Y ’ M AY B E O N E O F T H E MOST OVERUSED WORDS IN THE T E C H I N D U S T RY, B U T E V E N A CY N I C H A S T O A D M I T T H AT YO U T U B E H A S A G E N U I N E A N D H A R DY O N E . it’s like 1% of the total. The rest is coming from Facebook and Twitter. So the idea that if you’re Yahoo or any of these guys, thinking their subscribers will follow them, I don’t think that’s necessarily true.”

YouTube is where creators have grown up; it’s what they’re familiar with, and it’s where their friends and fans live. No other platform has that type of engagement.

‘Community’ may be one of the most overused words in the tech industry, but even a cynic has to admit that YouTube has a genuine and hardy one. Stars support and promote one another with as much fervour as they upload videos. Grace Helbig, a comedian who had to relaunch her channel under a new name and rebuild her subscriber count from zero after leaving the digital network My Damn Channel, was nervous about the prospect of having to start over in amassing her fan base.

“Everyone rallied around and lent their support and asked people to subscribe to me without me even asking them to,” she says. “I’m the kind of person who has a

laporte@fastcompany.com

Additional reporting by Sarah Kessler, JJ McCorvey and Varun Nayar

CRE ATI V E CON V ERSATION

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THE STORY OF A SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR Ian Fuhr’s business empire was born on a dream and built on a feeling

By Evans Manyonga Photographs by Noeleen Foster

There are very few South African business owners who have the necessary acumen to become ‘serial entrepreneurs’. Generally, entrepreneurs explore different sectors and settle on one particular speciality that proves viable. Ian Fuhr belongs to the unique class of businesspeople who have explored various sectors and have been outstandingly successful at all of them. Fast Company SA’s editor found out how he does it.

Fuhr has been so extraordinary that his own success has changed his ideology and life perception. “I started out thinking success was about money, power, fast cars, wealth and women, but through my experiences over the years I now have a completely different understanding of what success means. For me, it means improving lives and making a significant difference in other people’s lives. You need to be able to touch people’s lives in a positive way and be able to do things differently,” says the current CEO of Sorbet, South Africa’s biggest beauty chain.

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A spirit of fearlessness, fun, honesty and respect has underscored Fuhr’s business ventures. In addition to Sorbet, his entrepreneurship adventure has spanned the music industry, retail as well as labourrelations consulting. When trying to comprehend the full scope of his journey, the intriguing question would be: What has pushed his drive, creativity and ambition?

“I think the important thing is that I have always tried to challenge the status quo in any industry that I have been in. I have been in several different industries. That in itself has been slightly unusual, as most people stay more or less in the same industry and try and grow within that. I would change industries on average about every seven years—I call it the seven-year itch,” he explains.

He would not only change his businesses, but also change industries and challenge the conventional wisdom of those sectors. “For instance, in the beauty industry, the standard way of doing things had been going on for

years, and my idea was to come in and try to turn that upside down and shake up the tree a little bit.”

Fuhr enjoys this experience, as he feels it continuously stimulates his creativity and ultimately keeps him innovative. “Each time it has been a bit challenging, as I had to learn the industry first before I could even understand what needed to be changed, but that is part of the fun for me. It hasn’t always been successful, but mostly we have come through just fine.”

The Sorbet beauty chain now has over 110 outlets located mainly in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban, with more than 1 000 staff members and in excess of 160 000 loyalty members.

Highlighting his humility, Fuhr explains he has not really changed the beauty industry through Sorbet, but rather redirected the way it works. “It may be a little arrogant to say that we have changed the industry, but I think we have certainly taken it in a slightly

Be a people's person: The focus always needs to be on people: those you are leading and those who are being served, says Fuhr.

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different direction. We have made beauty care more accessible. A lot of people who would not previously have gone to beauty salons to have treatments are now doing that. People who used to use soap to wash their face are starting to use more professional skin-care products. So from that point of view, we have opened up the marketplace—whereas before, going to a beauty salon was more of a luxury exclusively enjoyed by the wealthy.”

Sorbet has also opened a male-grooming salon called Sorbet Man, which has been exceedingly well received. “We opened the salon at the end of August in Sandton City in Johannesburg and, I must say, it has been a rip-roaring start in terms of reviews and revenue.”

Fuhr’s race-relations background has helped him ensure Sorbet caters to all racial groups. “Coming from that background, I am aware South Africa has a very diverse population, so we cater across the board as we are doing hair, shaving, skin care, manicures and pedicures, and waxing among many other things,” he says.

In his recently released autobiography, Get That Feeling: The Story of a Serial Entrepreneur, Fuhr explains how it all began when he left university six months before graduation and pursued his passion for music. “I had lost interest, quite frankly, so it was not about bravery but more about stupidity and joining the ranks of the uneducated—but I simply could not feel the stimulation and passion for what I was studying,” he says.

“The music industry was biting me and I was singing in nightclubs at the time, so I thought that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to pursue the music side of my life.

Being a musician was fun and okay, but I honestly realised I was not good enough to be a professional, so I decided to get into the business of music instead. My father happened to meet the managing director of Gallo Records at the time, and through his recommendation I ended up working for them—that is how my journey really started.”

Fuhr eventually went on to establish his own record company called Priority Records, which he later sold to Jive Records in the

Spa at home: Fuhr believes Sorbet has taken the beauty industry in a slightly different direction. “We have made beauty care more accessible.”

United Kingdom.

So is there a blueprint for choosing successful business ventures? What gives an entrepreneur the foresight to jump across industries, build from the bottom and still be successful at those ventures?

“When you look through my history, it looks like I planned all these moves but, as the saying goes: ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.’

I have never been someone who’s good at planning ahead. I don’t think too far down the road. I go with the flow and then things happen. At times, things move quickly, but sometimes you have to be patient and do your part the best way you possibly can. I haven’t really sat down and strategically planned my life in any way—life has happened to me, rather than the other way around.”

Growing up during the apartheid era,

Fuhr was raised in a largely protected environment. However, going into business exposed him to the harsh realities of the system and a closer interaction with black people.

“I grew up protected as a young, white boy in the Jewish environment and had never been exposed to any black people; other than with our gardener and domestic worker, my interaction back then was zero. The only time I would see anything out of the ordinary was when the police would come and check passes. I was too young to even understand it and too naïve to worry about it.

“All of a sudden I got thrown into this other world when I started with Kmart [the discount department store he opened in Jeppe Street, Johannesburg with his brother and which later became Super Mart] and I found myself in a completely new environment and hopelessly out of my depth as a young 22-year-old boy, now having to manage people,” he recalls.

“The customers were all black and, never having interacted with black people in my life, it was a very steep learning curve. Then certain things happened that awakened my understanding of what was really going on in the country and that developed with time and I became very interested in what was happening. I thought to myself that most white people out there were just carrying on as if everything was normal because they had no idea of what was really going on.

“On the other hand, I got exposed to a completely different world that took me by surprise.”

Fuhr decided to read everything he could find on apartheid and its origins. High-profile black South Africans such as musician Hugh Masekela also aided his education and he decided to rebel against that system. “It was just so brutally unfair, for example, not being able to appoint a black manager in a so-called ‘white area’—although white areas such as the centre of town in Johannesburg were mostly occupied by black people. That was just crazy for me: the customers were black, yet the manager had to be white—and so we just challenged that. It was absolutely

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outrageous and ridiculous as far as I was concerned,” he says.

Fuhr believes it is vitally important for any business to understand its employees, which is part of the reason he tried to understand apartheid and how it had affected most of his employees. “I think the biggest problem is that people want to divorce the social environment from the workplace. You can’t ignore the social element of life from work—otherwise, as an employer, you will get frustrated,” he says.

He explains that this approach has ensured a more close-knit business and ultimately higher returns. “I think I managed people differently, I showed more personal interest and I showed more empathy—people are not used to that. People are used to hard-line managers, but I believe that as an executive, you are there to service people and to enable them to go and serve their customers; the only way to do that is to create a working environment where people are comfortable and they feel respected. You would think the world understands that today but, unfortunately, that’s not how things always go.”

It’s no surprise that Fuhr has serialised his experiences in his autobiography, which has been well received by readers. His love for the English language and an urge to share the lessons he has learnt compelled him into writing. “I always thought to myself that one day I would need to share my experiences, so I kept a lot of the cuttings of all the things I mention in the book. I had all the dates and essential details. After Sorbet eventually took off, I looked back at my life and felt I had an interesting story to tell,” he says.

“I also felt there were lessons I wanted to share with other people and hopefully new entrepreneurs who were starting up in their businesses. I hope it will inspire them to be bold, because in business you need to be bold; you can’t go in lightly or tread carefully—you just have to go for it, heart and head first.

And, ultimately, I also wanted to leave a story for my children and grandchildren so they would one day know what the old man did in his time.”

Sorbet is in a highly competitive and creative industry, so keeping the business evolving and relevant is a key aspect. After

founding the business and establishing the cultural foundation, Fuhr involved his three children—two daughters and a son—in the day-to-day running of the group. The Sorbet Group’s MD Rudi Rudolph is also a big influence on the direction of the organisation.

“My three children have been heavily involved in the business, especially my daughter Jade, who is the marketing manager. They have been mostly responsible for the development and creative aspect of the brand, which is very critical. I set the ball rolling, created the culture and now it is up to them to build on it. The next generation is taking over,” he explains.

In his book, Fuhr writes that “only statues stand still”. He explains it would be easy for him to say the group can now relax with its 110 stores, but that would be risky and counterproductive. “That is probably the most dangerous attitude you can ever have.

Because, before you know it, someone else is eating your lunch. Business requires constant renewal and innovation and moving forward, so even when people are copying you, that’s fine—while they are copying the last one, you are on to the next step. That’s how great businesses are born. We can’t say we always get it right, but the idea is to try and be as innovative and rejuvenating as we can all the time, and to try wherever possible.”

Anticipating the future is a very critical element in business and entrepreneurship,

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according to Fuhr. “One of the greatest things in business is to be able to anticipate the future. The world changes by the day, virtually, with all the technology and everything else that’s going on; as soon as you feel you are settled, there is another change. So you need to anticipate as we did with Sorbet Man, for example. You have to anticipate something is going to be a trend, so you watch what’s going on and you read the articles that highlight the growing interest in male grooming and you judge if it’s the right time to get in,” he explains.

“So rather be ahead of the game than sucking on the hind tit. One of the quotes in my book is, ‘The lead dog in the pack has the best view, as the other ones are looking up his arse’. The others are there just checking, and following. So I like that as a description.”

Fuhr notes that one of the most important business principles he has learnt is the ability to create a culture of people and service. “It is not about profit maximisation, how much money you can make or how quickly you can become rich—it is about how you manage people and how you serve your customers.

Those two things are without a doubt the most critical in business,” he says.

“Business is nothing more than people serving people, and I think too many people and too many universities and all these good books concentrate on how to make money.

That is great, but I think if you don’t get the

serving right, the money is not relevant, as it will never come. Money only becomes an issue when you are serving people well and you meet the needs of people. The focus always needs to be on people: the people you are leading and the people who are being served. Those are the people who make up a business; if you can’t get that right, then there is very little else that will happen.”

To most people, the transition from music to discount department store to beauty store chain would seem a daunting challenge for one lifetime; however, Fuhr believes a specific industry is not the challenge, as he merely sees it as a tool to express his entrepreneurial acumen. In essence, the same principles prevail regardless of the industry.

“Be it music or race relations or beauty, it does not really matter, as that is just the tool.

The essence of it all is: Are you making a difference, are you challenging an industry, and are you leading? It is a bit like pioneering, in that you always want to be a pioneer in terms of how you develop your business. The pioneers are the people who go out where no one has been before and they are trendsetters.

They are always trying to break new ground

innovation come up often in my conversation with Fuhr. He is not satisfied with merely being the trailblazer in the beauty industry.

He is constantly looking for ways to improve and innovate, in a quest to avoid falling into the dreaded business graveyard. “You have to keep striving, and when you get close to the top of the mountain then create a new one. You start again and you keep climbing and always try to get better. There is nothing worse than complacency in business—that really is the killer,” he says.

“My favourite store in the 1970s was OK Bazaars. It was an icon, the only business that was way ahead of everyone else—and now it doesn’t even exist. If you had said to me back then that in 10 to 15 years OK would no longer exist, I would not have believed it.

There are numerous examples. If you look at the top 50 companies in the United States 25 years ago, probably only 10 are still in that top 50. That is why constant improvement is the key to survival.”

Keeping true to his beliefs, Fuhr is set on expanding the Sorbet brand. New departments and franchises are part of the expansion model, as is international expansion and

“Business requires constant renewal and innovation and moving forward, so even when people

are copying you, that’s fine—while they are

copying the last one, you are on to the next step.” and do new things differently.”

Balancing creativity, profit, culture and personal commitments is another challenge that serial entrepreneurs often encounter.

However, Fuhr takes things in his stride and insists it is all part of the bigger picture.

“I think business is like a jigsaw: There are so many elements and you have to get all the pieces to fit the picture; if you can’t get one right, it spoils the whole image. It is being able to manage all these different elements into one business which is a continuing challenge.

You may have one right but not the other, and brands are built on the ability to get all of that right. You need to be able to take care of the details in each and bring everything together under one umbrella. That is an ongoing challenge, and I certainly can’t say for one moment that I have got that one hundred percent right yet.”

The aspects of improvement and

establishment. “We will be looking at a Sorbet Drybar [an express hair salon], Sorbet Man, Candi & Co. [South Africa’s first franchised ethnic hair salon] and we will be opening our first salon in the United Kingdom within the next six to eight months. I would personally love to see these new strategic brands taking off, and hopefully one day Sorbet will be an iconic brand locally and internationally. That is the dream because we have to aim high. I must say, for the first time we are in a position to really maximise on the success of the brand,” he says.

So what is next for the vast Sorbet franchise and Ian Fuhr, I enquire? “I would eventually like to be running entrepreneurial workshops, inspiring and educating people and maybe writing more books,” he responds.

I, for one, would not be surprised to see Fuhr at the helm of a new business juggernaut in the near future. It is in his nature.

30 SECONDS WITH IAN FUHR Education Fuhr matriculated at King David High School Victory Park in Johannesburg.

He dropped out of his BCom degree at Wits and became a singer.

Family His father was a founding director of Russell’s and started the Joshua Doore furniture company.

Sorbet is essentially a family business.

Three of the senior managers are Fuhr’s children—Brent, Jade and Courtney— and one his niece, Debra Rosen.

Business interests His working career is lined with a number of entrepreneurial start-up businesses including: a retail chain called Super Mart, which was sold to Edcon in 2003; a record company called Priority Records, which was sold to Jive Records UK; a race relations and customer service consultancy, Labour Link, which consulted to public companies between 1991 and 1997; and a national chain of beauty salons called Sorbet, launched in 2005.

Fuhr is also one of the co-owners of the Lion Park just outside Joburg.

Achievements His book, Get That Feeling, was released by Penguin Publishers in August 2014. It tells the story of his lifelong entrepreneurial journey that started when he was 22 years old.

Sorbet has grown to 110 outlets, of which 104 are franchised. The chain now has its own Beauty Therapy Institute for the education of beauty therapists and nail technicians. It has also launched the Sorbet Drybar concept, an express hair salon; a men’s grooming salon concept, Sorbet Man; and Candi & Co, an ethnic hair salon concept.

Lkes Spending time in the bush, writing and watching sport—especially rugby and cricket

NOVEMBER 2014 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 49

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WANTED

ART FOR EWE Baabaaism takes a humorous view of society

Ann Gadd is a South African artist who “creates art with a smile”. Since her first sheep/ ewe painting in 2001, the art has flocked off from South Africa across the globe and has featured in numerous art exhibitions.

The Life of Ewe series illustrates the philosophy of Baabaaism. It is a 21st century art movement, characterised by its emphasis on ruminants (specifically sheep) in art. The movement was a protest against the conformism in art and a rejection of the prevailing subjects of Arniston cottages and badly painted seascapes.

Its name derives from the sound a sheep makes upon seeing a New Zealand farmer approaching, says Gadd. The term was first used by sheep in AD 436 as comment on the lack of social hierarchy in art at the time. The name has since been used in relation to works of sheep artists, most noteworthy being Ann. The ordinary subject matter as a crucial element of human perception (and baabaaques) characterises this movement, which follows on from Impressionism, Dadaism, Cubism, Fauvism, Minimalism, Purism and all other ‘isms’.

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According to Gadd, the Life of Ewe series tries to mirror certain aspects of the human condition.

“Sheep, in their inane conformist lifestyle, have much to mirror to us about the human condition: Eat, sleep, toil, die for a purpose that remains beyond their (and our) deeper understanding. Like sheep, we seldom stop to question our life, its purpose and the validity of what we do.

Struggling to achieve a stable patch for ourselves and yet being ever threatened by the inevitable tumble downhill, in the repetitive conformism of our lives, sheep become icons for the difficulties ewe [you] face. Living in a postpaternalistic, male-dominated society where Rams rule, sheep—from the lofty mountains on which they are depicted [in her paintings]— set themselves up for an inevitable fall,” she explains.

“I intend, through humour, to get ewe—the viewer— to question why you do what you do, and push you to challenge your beliefs and understanding of the nature of your reality.”

Visit artforewe.co.za for more details

CONSCIOUS ADVERTISING

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The case for ‘goodvertising’: how advertising agencies have shifted

gear and are promoting cause-related marketing to connect brands with their communities

By Louise Marsland

NOVEMBER 2014 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 53

ONCE UPON A TIME, T H E R E WA S A B R A N D T H AT H A D A N E P I P H A N Y T H A N KS T O I T S A DV E RT I S I N G A G E N CY, A N D D E C I D E D TO HELP PUT A STOP T O T H E R A M PA N T CONSUMERISM T H R E AT E N I N G T O D E S T R OY O U R W O R L D —

BY D O I N G G O O D. A fairy tale? No, this is the era of cause-related marketing, of corporate social responsibility, of a conscious awareness of the impact of our actions on the world around us.

There is no ‘happily ever after’ yet, as agencies such as Ogilvyearth, part of the global Ogilvy & Mather agency network, and [dot]GOOD in South Africa, tell us they still work hard at convincing brands that ‘doing good is good for business’.

Over 52% of millennials in the United Kingdom believe brands have the potential to be a force for good, according to a recent survey

by Initiative, an Interpublic Group agency. Millennials said they would be more loyal to brands that helped improve societal or ecological issues, while 59% urged brands to be more active in improving causes.

Havas Worldwide’s millennials research, titled “Hashtag Nation: Marketing to the Selfie Generation”, released in October, highlighted the fact that this first truly digital generation is looking for brands it

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can trust. The survey found that millennials believe people should consume less and that they can have a bigger impact with what they buy than how they vote.

The core message from the annual Loerie Awards international judges’ seminar in September was that ‘doing good is good business’.

Facebook’s head of Europe, Middle East and Africa, Rob Newlan, coined the word “ADDvertising”, emphasising that brands and agencies needed to add value to the lives of consumers and make a meaningful difference in their worlds.

Michael Baretta of [dot]GOOD, which bills itself as South Africa’s first “for-good marketing services agency”, helps brands and business create a “greater purpose” while still producing profits.

Baretta believes organisations need to show their “soul” to connect with their communities—and to do that, they must drive and be sincere about social change.

In November, Ogilvyearth South Africa launches a book for business, The Conscious Industry, replete with rhyming verse and pop-up facts, in the tale about a blundering brand that realises the error of its ways in wasting resources, hiring illegal labour, and sourcing raw materials from factories with dubious practices.

The question is: Why do brands still have to be convinced that social responsibility should be sewn into the very fabric of the organisation? One of the world’s biggest multinationals, Unilever, has done just that, globally—a fact that it promotes widely, and with positive results from the communities to which it sells products.

Joe Public South Africa’s chief creative officer Pepe Marais says there was a fundamental change in his advertising agency when they started putting their clients first, instead of the bottom line.

“We are in business for our clients, we mustn’t forget that. How can you do what you do without truly serving your customer first?

“If you want to do ‘goodvertising’, then you have to have your client or customer at the core of your business. Then you can start serving the people in your business. Then you can invest more in your people. Then you can start investing in communities.”

Joe Public this year won two Gold Pencils at The One Show in New York for its efforts on the ‘One School at a Time: Project English’ radio campaign—the agency’s own social responsibility programme to improve education in South Africa.

Baretta says there is still education needed to convince some organisations that consumerism without a conscience will impact on the sustainability of brands, as well as their consumers.

The Conscious Industry opens up with a brand having a nightmare about something being not quite right in its pretty packaged world.

Melissa Baird: Sustainability strategist at Ogilvyearth

As the brand digs deeper and finds good practice being flouted…

“From labour to materials, to law and regulation, it seemed whoever was in charge was on a paid vacation!”

The book exhorts brands in all industries to ensure the products they source, their production line and suppliers all comply with best practice, are ethical and set standards for sustainability— not least because their customers also expect it.

The brand decides to take a stand to right the wrongs, and declares: “Honourable members of our board, suppliers, all and sundry, The time has come to work as one to solve a serious quandary.

Let’s meet and fix, once and for all, the things that are now broken.

I’ve seen the future, it is bleak. This conscious brand has spoken!

Let’s strive for better practices in everything we do, And leading by example must be our motto, too.”

It sounds utopian, but the sad truth is that we have no

Michael Baretta: Founder of [dot]GOOD

Pepe Marais: Chief creative officer at Joe Public SA

choice, concur Baretta and Melissa Baird, the book’s editor and an Ogilvyearth sustainability strategist.

Baird believes the influence that advertising can exert in creating calls to action for behaviour change is significant and must be harnessed.

“There are three elements to sustainability: environmental, economic and social. When industries and brands pay attention to all those three factors, then change can happen… The book aims to get clients to look at things in a different way… to break it down, not

BRANDS AND AGENCIES N E E D T O A D D VA L U E TO THE LIVES OF CONSUMERS AND MAKE A MEANINGFUL DIFFERENCE IN THEIR WORLDS.

NOVEMBER 2014 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 55

Illustrations from Ogilvyearth SA's The Conscious Industry, edited by Melissa Baird

MILLENNIALS BELIEVE PEOPLE SHOULD CONSUME L E S S A N D T H AT T H E Y C A N H AV E A B I G G E R I M PA C T W I T H W H AT THEY BUY THAN HOW THEY VOTE.

dumb it down.”

The Conscious Industry is the second book in the series produced

by Ogilvyearth SA; the first in 2008 was The Conscious Brand, which narrates the story of a brand that realised it wasn’t enough to be a respected organisation.

It also had to be a loved brand that added value to others by “doing

good”, not just “doing well” for itself.

Marais says it makes sense for advertising agencies to get involved, as creative people are natural problem solvers. He does sound a word of warning, though, that for any business, any marketing department, any agency—its first responsibility is to build sales through advertising that enhances product quality and services. His concern is that people only change when things are so bad that they are forced to. Business leadership needed to be convinced and harnessed, as change from the top down was far faster than from the bottom up.

“There is definitely a shift in belief systems and there are trailblazers, social change is being spoken about… but we are at the beginning.”

Baird hopes to provoke exactly that kind of conversation and encourage brands to narrate their own journeys. “There is great work being done out there. But somehow we are missing the stories around social transformation. We all need to work together: brands, non-governmental organisations and agencies, to create real campaigns that have real relevance, as well as building brands and making sales.”

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Advertising agencies are pivotal in this, Baird says. “We are responsible for creating consumerism as we have, so we are responsible for encouraging clients to communicate the right messages.”

Baretta says the marketing strategy of the future will be influenced equally by legislation as it is by consumer spending.

“Brand authenticity is going to become critical for future marketing; brands will no longer be allowed to say one thing and do another. Consumers will use social media and their rands to keep brands in check. Consumerism simply can’t continue as it is—we are depleting our natural resources, and brands will need to act responsibly in order to remain sustainable. Brands that champion sustainability now, will win in the long run.”

The final page in the Ogilvyearth book contains the Conscious Industry Credo and urges industry to “lead by example before you lead purely by profit”, because “a conscious industry makes its own happy ending!” Indeed. That would be a story worth the retelling for generations to come.

[DOT]GOOD'S 5 TIPS FOR MARKETING WITH IMPACT Combine marketing and corporate social investment (CSI) initiatives for greater impact. Look at the bigger picture: What are your short- and long-term goals?

Could the beneficiaries of CSI efforts be future consumers, for example?

Determine the deeper needs of your consumers and how your brand can help them achieve these.

Allow your brand to connect consumers with causes or movements that they feel strongly about to build a long-lasting relationship.

Determine what your brand stands for and align with the appropriate cause/ movement. People care about why organisations do what they do—tell a good story.

Highlight the good that your organisation/ product/service does. Don’t lie or try and hide things; it will come back to bite you. Rather change those aspects internally.

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MASTER CLASS

NERD POWER The Fault in Our Stars author John Green on building a passionate audience

By Rob Brunner Photograph by Ryan Lowry

His beloved book has been made into a movie, and his YouTube videos have been viewed an astounding 1.6 billion times. Here’s how Green has created and maintained his unusually devoted fan community.

How did a young-adult novel about teens with cancer turn into a best-selling phenomenon that makes even sceptical grown-ups weep all over their Kindles? Partly because John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars is irresistible, mixing wit and emotion without a hint of mawkishness.

But credit also goes to Green’s devoted online fans, known as Nerdfighters. Green and his brother, Hank, have grown the group through an ongoing series of hugely popular YouTube videos, which have attracted more than 1.6 billion views (yes, billion).

With the movie version of TFIOS having sold more than R3.3 billion in box-office tickets worldwide (and Green and his wife’s new online contemporary-art show, The Art Assignment, now on PBS.com), that fan base could soon get even bigger. Green explains his approach to creating community.

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John Green

Author, The Fault in Our Stars

A signature marketing move: Green is so devoted to fans, he agreed to sign the entire first printing of The Fault in Our Stars. All 150,000 copies. “That dramatically expanded the initial reach of the book,� he says.

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Master Class

S TA R T S M A L L

Hey, your book is a movie!

When Green and his brother began making videos in 2007, their ambitions were modest.

“It grew very slowly. When we’d made 120 videos, we had fewer than 200 subscribers. If our goal was to have a wildly successful career on the Internet, we would have quit. But we really liked the people who were watching.

That was enough. Then in July 2007, my brother made a video about Harry Potter the day before the last book came out, and almost overnight we went to more than 7 000—which at the time just seemed infinite.”

P H O N I N E S S I S D E A D LY If your goal is real connection, never pretend to be something you aren’t. “You have to be authentic with your audience. When you treat them well, they respond generously. We do a lot of non-profit work, and a lot of times [those organisations] say, ‘We want young people to like this, so we’re going to do this “hip, young” thing.’ I just wince. All you can be is yourself.

In my case, part of that is being old. I don’t know about One Direction, and they forgive me because I don’t pretend like I do.”

Green’s three favourite things about The Fault in Our Stars going Hollywood:

01

02

03

SEEING IT COME ALIVE

P L U G G I N G T H E PA C E R S

A CAST CONNECTION

“I couldn’t believe a major Hollywood studio was making a movie in which the female lead has tubes in her nose the entire time.

That took guts. It’s an extraordinarily faithful adaptation. The producers and the studio are very conscious of the Nerdfighter community and, in a healthy way, a little bit scared of them.”

“I live in Indianapolis, where the book is set, and I put [a character] in [former Indiana Pacers basketball star] Rik Smits’s jersey in one scene in the book.

Getting a Rik Smits jersey into a movie was pretty exciting for me, and it’s actually my jersey, so that was pretty cool. It’s an oldguy thing.”

“Meeting [TFIOS co-star] Willem Dafoe was amazing, because his parents lived five doors down from my parents. I often saw him when I was a little kid, but I was always too terrified to talk to him. And then he was in the movie version of my book, which was surreal.

And I was like, ‘I grew up on your dad’s street.’ He was just shaking his head for the next three days [laughs].”

BE AN OPEN BOOK

D O N ’ T S E T T L E F O R T H E O R D I N A RY Marketing yourself requires imagination. “I like feeling like I’m part of a community of fans, so that’s what my brother and I have tried to do. My brother is a musician and is very personable on stage. We put together an hour-and-15-minute show and toured the country in this ridiculous van that was painted in the colours of The Fault in Our Stars.

Then in 2013, we did a real show [at Carnegie Hall], and it was much more of an experience.

Generally, I think book tours only work when they provide experiences.”

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Stars stars:

Shailene Woodley, right, and Ansel Elgort appear in the film adaptation of Green’s book.

U S E YO U R A U D I E N C E F O R G O O D The brothers’ charitable efforts are an important part of how they relate to fans.

“People don’t tend to become Nerdfighters unless they are passionate about making a difference. If you make stuff that’s in accordance with your values, you will end up with an audience that shares them. It’s so much more fun to genuinely like and care about your audience than it is to be like, ‘Ugh, these people again?’ We’ve been lucky, although it’s very much on our minds as the movie ramps up. But I never had a sense of ownership over The Fault in Our Stars after it came out. I always understood that once a book is finished, it

doesn’t belong to you anymore. It belongs to the readers, for better or for worse.”

K E E P C R E AT I N G Green’s next book is coming slowly. “It’s a big question: How do you develop and care for an audience while doing the time-consuming, introverted work of writing? I’m still trying to find that balance. It’s hard to write a book when you’re in the shadow of another book.

That’s a problem I’ve never been lucky enough to have until now. Usually you write a book and three weeks later it has disappeared. It’s sad, but then you get to work. But I’m still talking about The Fault in Our Stars.”

Illustration by Gluekit

James Bridges/Twentieth Century Fox (source image)

Sharing your life—adversity and all—makes an audience genuinely care, and Green was open with fans about his four-year effort to write TFIOS. “They’d seen me struggle, they’d heard me read [parts of books] that had to be abandoned. It made them feel invested in it from the beginning. I’m more likely to read a book written by a friend, and if you extend that idea out, people are more likely to read books if they feel a personal connection to the person who created it, and to the process.”

Next

FAST CITIES

Early detection Most potholes start small; some beneath the road surface where drivers can’t even see them.

When installed in a customised van, VOTERS can scan almost 130 kilometres of road per day, identifying potential issues before they expand into tyre-busting asphalt chasms. “We need to interrupt that cycle,” says Wang.

A four-part system

THE END OF POTHOLES? A team of researchers at Boston’s Northeastern University is using technology to solve one of the urban world’s peskiest issues

By Cynthia Graber

Illustration by Sergio Membrillas

62 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

Road repairs are easier, and as much as five times cheaper when problems are detected early. But sending crews to continually survey streets for damage isn’t practical, and minor cracks often grow into gaping holes before workers can get to them. A group headed by Ming Wang, a professor of Environmental and Civil Engineering at Northeastern University, has developed a clever solution called Versatile Onboard Traffic Embedded Roaming Sensors (VOTERS). Here’s how it works.

As the van rolls over the road surface, a sensor records changes in air pressure inside the tyre caused by bumps. A carefully calibrated microphone senses any jostling sounds, and a unique radar system scans the surface between the wheels, checking for problems missed by the tyres, and for pockets of air or pools of water beneath the road surface—likely signs of potholes-to-be. A video camera trained on the ground behind the van offers an overall picture of crack density and helps corroborate info from the other sensors.

Crunching numbers As the van travels, information is sent to a computer, where it’s sifted through by VOTERS software. Analysts then examine the results to determine when and where to send repair crews for the most

effective prevention.

The info reaches city planners in days rather than months, and at a frac­t ion of the cost of traditional methods.

Catching problems early, before disasters occur, means long-term savings as well.

The holey grail Wang is in the process of spinning off a firm that cities can contract with to perform annual road evaluations. But the real goal is to persuade auto manufacturers to embed tyre sensors in new cars, thereby crowdsourcing vast, continuously updated troves of data on road quality. The resulting info would be less detailed than what VOTERS can pick up, but it would still improve road maintenance dramatically.

“This is not a crazy idea,” says Wang. “It could be cheap. Every car could have it—it would be that easy.”

GOING TO POTHOLES

During the launch of Operation Tselantle in July this year, South African Transport Minister Dipuo Peters said over 60% of the country’s roads were in a bad state. The initiative, which was to be rolled out throughout SA, was targeted at eradicating potholes as well as rehabilitating and maintaining road infrastructure.

FAST COMPANY PROMOTION

C E L E B R AT I N G T E C H N O L O G Y ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND I N N O VAT I O N I N C A P E T O W N The ceremony for the first Vision to Reality Awards at the iconic Cape Town Stadium marked the highlight of a month-long programme for startups and emerging companies in the information and communication technology space

W

hat would happen if you created a platform for entrepreneurs, academia, corporates, government and investors to connect and collaborate to turn ideas into results? PwC’s Vision to Reality programme (in collaboration with the City of Cape Town, Wesgro, Western Cape Provincial Government, University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, the Cape IT Initiative’s Bandwidth Barn and World Design Capital Cape Town 2014) is the first of its kind in South Africa—and the answer to this question.

On 17 September 2014, PwC announced wiGroup as the winner of the first Vision to Reality Award. Along with a number of other contenders, wiGroup underwent two rounds of thorough judging by an independent panel and received mentoring in between the rounds.

Says Bevan Ducasse, CEO of wiGroup: “Participating in, and being voted as the winners of the PwC Vision to Reality programme, has been a great experience for wiGroup. The programme fostered a supportive and efficient environment with numerous opportunities to draw lessons from senior PwC staff, high-calibre judges and the very strong field of contenders who took part.”

Runner-up was Entersekt, with IT School Innovation and Triggerfish Animation Studios tying in third place.

“Entersekt is very pleased with the recognition this award has brought us.

PwC must be commended for bringing together such a large number of people from various interest groups to encourage and celebrate entrepreneurship. This event will add immeasurably to the groundswell we currently see around the realisation of

the full potential of Cape Town and surrounds as the IT and technology hub of South Africa,” says Schalk Nolte, CEO of Entersekt.

Hosted in collaboration with the SA Innovation Summit, the award ceremony brought together various groups from the startup ecosphere. Speakers Solly Fourie (head of department—Western Cape Economic Development and Tourism) and Tim Harris (head of investment—City of Cape Town) emphasised their commitment to invest in the ICT sector. Marlon Parker (founder of RLabs) and Hannes van Rensburg (founder and CEO of Fundamo) spoke to the challenges and excitement of being an entrepreneur, providing motivation and inspiration to many in the audience.

The entire evening was a celebration of innovation and entrepreneurship alike.

Winner: wiGroup

2nd place: Entersekt

From left to right: Danie Fölscher, partner in charge of PwC Western Cape; Howard Moodycliffe, wiGroup head of marketing & international; Peter Miller, wiGroup retail division head; Mia Meyer, wiGroup consumer application division head; Bevan Ducasse, wiGroup CEO

From left to right: Tim Harris, City of Cape Town head of investment; Danie Fölscher, partner in charge of PwC Western Cape; Schalk Nolte, Entersekt CEO

Joint 3rd place: Triggerfish Animation Studios and IT School Innovation

Winners of the 2014 PwC Vision to Reality Awards

From left to right: Stuart Forrest, Triggerfish CEO; Danie Fölscher, partner in charge of PwC Western Cape; Dr Jacobus (Lieb) Liebenberg, IT School Innovation CEO

The other finalists at the awards were; ArcAqua, Energy Partners, Euphoria Telecom, GoMetro, MellowCabs & Redbutton Mobile NOVEMBER 2014 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 63

MY WAY

Next

REAL COLOUR TV Casting director Keli Lee has remade ABC television network into a diversity leader

By Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

This autumn, ABC network launched an unprecedented four prime-time series with non-white leads, adding to an already diverse lineup that includes Modern Family, Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal (titled The Fixer in South Africa). Keli Lee explains how she did it.

First sight: Lee’s family immigrated to the United States when she was 2, and she watched a lot of TV. “Even then, I was aware: This was not reflective of what I see every day,” she says.

3. The execution In 2001, with support from top Walt Disney and ABC execs, Lee created a showcase for undiscov­e red actors of all colours to perform for the network’s producers and casting directors— thus changing the system. Before long, the network had a diverse roster of stars.

1. The problem 4. The result Network TV has long been a notorious whitewash. Lee first joined ABC in 1992, and eventu­a lly began asking why its shows weren’t more diverse. The explanation she kept hearing: “It’s the talent pool.” That answer, however, was only par­t ially correct.

“We still have work to do,” Lee says. But over time, the effect of the showcases has been felt throughout ABC’s lineup.

This year, the network introduces more than new faces: Comedies Black-ish and Cristela are their creators’ first TV shows.

2. The epiphany It wasn’t the talent pool, she realised. It was the talent system. Producers contacted agents, agents represent experienced actors and, on TV, all those actors were white.

“If there are other people who are out there who want these opportuni­ ties,” Lee thought, “I’m in a position to help.”

64 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

Photograph by Chloe Aftel

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SECRETS OF THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE

GET BUSY HE’S T HE CR EATI V E F OR CE B E HIND NUME R O U S P OP HIT S, A P HIL A N T HR OP I S T, FA S HION D E S IGNER, T ECH E N T R E P R E NE UR, A ND MOR E. HO W P H A RR E L L W IL L I A M S D OE S I T A L L

By Mary Kaye Schilling

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Photograph by Erik Madigan Heck

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P H A R R E L L W I L L I A M S is on a Gravity

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high. “Whew! Whew!” he says.

“Listen to me, it is crazy.” The 40-year-old musician, producer and mini mogul is seated on a rolling chair in the tranquil recording studio at the top of Miami’s Setai Hotel; he’s small and delicate, like an Egyptian cat, with ropes of delicate gold necklaces and bracelets encircling his neck and wrists. The windows behind him look out on the Atlantic Ocean and, sitting with his back to the brilliant sun, his silhouette flickers as if a mirage. Naturally, Williams has a home theatre, but he couldn’t wait and saw Gravity soon after it opened, in 3D. “I was so happy with the pixelation,” he says. We talk about the scene where George Clooney drifts off into space. “I woulda ruined that moment,” he says, picturing himself in Clooney’s place. “I woulda cried like a baby.” I wonder if the idea of a black void, of being completely alone, scares him. “I don’t fear anything; I know what to avoid.” Williams laughs. “I like looking at space, but I don’t need to go there myself.”

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Pharrell Williams and American Eagle Outfitters celebrate the Budweiser Made in America Music Festival on August 31, 2014 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

SECRETS OF THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE

70 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

and co-wrote, and Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”, which he co-wrote. He is worth around $80 million (about R886.9 million) and takes in roughly $10 million (R110.8 million) a year, after taxes. Williams is also a coach on the hit NBC singing-competition show, The Voice.

But even Williams will acknowledge that at this point his production work is “just one pixel in the screen” of i am OTHER, his media and philanthropic company—a sort of creative cardiovascular system with Williams at its heart. Included at the moment

are fashion labels Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream; the cloud-based music-creation platform, UJAM; a YouTube channel (also called i am OTHER); and From One Hand To AnOTHER, a non-profit empowering kids in underserved communities. His partnerships include the enviro-friendly textile firm, Bionic Yarn, and Collaborative Fund, financier of outside-the-box creative endeavours such as Kickstarter. More tangentially, he’s flexing his tastemaker muscle as a guest curator on eBay.

A GROWING EMPIRE

T HE TA L EN T ED MR W IL L I A MS

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He’s adding Gravity to a list of favourite films that include Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Contact and Cloud Atlas— metaphysical explorations of the nature of being and how we grapple with the obstacles placed before us. Dreams, in each, are achieved by rejecting commonplace conceptions of what’s possible, an ethos that guides everything he does. His personal bible is Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, the best-selling fable about following your destiny or “personal legend”—the enthusiasms that get buried as we grow up, by prejudice, guilt and fear. “That book confirmed what I always thought in my heart and felt in my mind,” says Williams, who is building a small empire, brick by idiosyncratic brick.

He aspires to something like Andy Warhol’s Factory: a hive of creativity that is also profitable, with a heavy dose of altruism.

But though he designs clothes and chairs, dabbles in sculpture and architecture, and mentors kids, he will tell you that he is “a musician and not much more than that.

Sometimes musicians say things like, ‘I’m so happy they see beyond the music.’ I’ve said it, too. But people aren’t seeing beyond the music; they’re seeing something in it. I’m always thinking I’m so eclectic, but the truth is that everything boils down to music for me. That’s the key to my success.”

Certainly, it all started with music. His two decades in the business have yielded 17 top 10 hits, a No. 1 album and three Grammy Awards. Williams’s career started with his performing-producing partner Chad Hugo, together known as The Neptunes (ranked No. 1 on Billboard’s list of the top 10 producers of the ’00s). Eventually, he and Hugo formed N.E.R.D (No one Ever Really Dies)—a group that, with its deft fusion of rock, R&B, funk and hip-hop, remade pop music in its image.

Last year, in addition to his Neptunes work, Williams began to write and produce on his own. Since then, he has, among other things, produced tracks for blockbuster albums by Miley Cyrus and Jay Z, cranked out the soundtrack for the hit movie Despicable Me 2 and, at one point in June 2013, had the rare distinction of occupying the No. 1 and No. 2 slots on Billboard’s Hot 100, with Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”, which he produced

Musician: His solo efforts, plus four albums with N.E.R.D and one album with Daft Punk, sold 2.7 million copies.* Music Producer: Singles he collaborated on with Robin Thicke, Daft Punk, Jay Z and numerous others sold 9.7 million copies from January through September 2013 alone.* Philanthropist: From One Hand to AnOTHER, which he founded in 2008, helps kids ages 7 to 20 meet their potential through music, technology, art and motivation.

Fashion Designer: Clothing lines Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream, started in 2005 with BAPE founder Nigo, manufacture high-quality streetwear such as T-shirts, denim, shoes, shirts and accessories. He regularly guest-designs for companies as varied as Gap, Timberland, Topshop and Moncler.

Media Mogul: His YouTube channel, i am OTHER, launched in 2012 with eight programmes.

It currently has more than 250 000 subscribers and 21 million views.

Author: 2012’s memoir, Places and Spaces I’ve Been (with contributions from Buzz Aldrin and Jay Z).

Furniture Designer: Perspective Chair (with Domeau & Pérès), May 2008. Tank Chair (with Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin), November 2009.

Jewellery Designer: Collaboration with Louis Vuitton (2008).

Fine Artist: Collaboration with Takashi Murakami on a sculpture for Art Basel (2009).

Textile Manufacturer: Partner in Bionic Yarn, which turns plastic bottles into clothing and bags.

Tech Star: Co-founded UJAM, a cloud-based musiccreation and production platform, in 2010.

Gearhead: Co-owner of Brooklyn Machine Works bicycles.

Architect: Announced plans to collaborate with Pritzker Prize winner Zaha Hadid on a prefab house. *Data provided by Nielsen SoundScan

The name i am OTHER speaks not only to the mythology Williams has created for himself; it’s a clue to how he innovates so effectively. “I’ve always been the kid who didn’t fit in the box,” he says. The one who grew up in the projects of Virginia Beach, wearing Led Zeppelin T-shirts and playing drums in a hip-hop band. The year-old company is headquartered in New York, with satellite offices in Miami and Los Angeles—all cities that, like his hometown, are close to water, an element Williams finds both inspiring and calming.

He surrounds himself with people who “recognise that they are different, and they’re unafraid of that and don’t mind shaking hands with the next different person. Most anything I do I do because it involves someone I can learn from,” he adds. “Sometimes you just gotta put your pride aside and be quiet so that you can absorb not only what a person is saying but how they are saying it— their energy, their body language. It’s all for a reason.”

Though he says he has no idea how many people now work for him, he’s very clear that only two of them are men.

“Oh, I would go crazy with an office full of dudes,” he says.

“What am I going to talk about? Football?

Williams on the red carpet at the 86th Annual Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on February 10, 2014 in Beverly Hills, California

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SECRETS OF THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE

A DAY IN T HE L IFE TIME HE GETS UP:

“Generally, around 9 a.m.”

(He never uses an alarm clock.)

FIRST THING HE DOES EACH MORNING:

“First thing I do is thank the Master. I thank God every day. Then I lie there for a few minutes and just sort of... be.

Then I shower, and that’s where a lot of my concepts come from. I write songs in there sometimes. If you don’t interrupt [your subconscious] with the ego, or are like, No, it’s gotta be like this, then a lot of ideas will come. Once you start judging it and editing it, then you’re no longer tapped in. You’ve moved it over to your mind before you even realise it.

So I spend a lot of that time just standing there in the water with a blank stare. It is often the reason I’m tardy.”

To potential collaborators, he adds: “When you hear me say ‘traffic’, and I wink, you’ll know what that means.”

APPS AND OTHER ASSISTS:

Apple’s Logic Pro. “I’m a creature of habit. Now that I’m on it, it’s hard to get me off.”

TYPICAL SCHEDULE:

“I do phone calls from somewhere between 10:30 a.m. and noon.

I’m usually entering the studio between 12 and 1. I work from 1 or 2-ish to maybe 9 or 11 every day. Somewhere between 4 and 6, I may have to get on one or two conference calls about things outside of music.”

LAST THING HE DOES EACH N I G H T:

“When I get back to my room late at night, I first watch MSNBC, then some Discovery Channel stuff. Then I’ve gotta go to TiVo and look at all my esoteric aliens stuff, like Ancient Aliens. I have to spend at least 30 minutes on that a night.”

TIME HE GOES TO BED:

“Some time between midnight and 2 a.m.”

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I don’t know anything about sports.” i am OTHER’s vice president Mimi Valdés, who has been tapping away on her iPad, looks up to mouth the word “nothing”. Williams laughs. “Women have always been my motivation, and equality is quite naturally a theme for me. So it’s all oestrogen: oestrogenic—I’m going to create a term— intelligence. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, and everyone works way, way, way harder than me.”

Williams’s lodestar—the secret, he says, behind all of his disparate ventures—is collaboration. Whether it’s partnering with film composer Hans Zimmer to create UJAM

“ I’M A LWAYS T H I N K I N G I’M S O E C L E C T I C, B U T T H E T R U T H I S T H AT E V E RY T H I N G B O I L S D O W N T O M U S I C F O R M E . T H AT’S T H E K E Y T O M Y S U C C E S S.” or working with the artist Takashi Murakami (their sculpture, The Simple Things, fetched $2 million—R22.1 million—at the 2009 Art Basel) or running i am OTHER with his staff, “you are only as good as your team,” he says.

“When you envisage success, you should see all the people you work with, in addition to yourself. When I look at that picture, I see giant angels who are much smarter than me, who can oversee the things that I don’t know shit about. I used to hire 21-year-old monsters with a twinkle in their eye,” he adds. “I saw potential, but it was what I thought they could do, not what they could actually do. But you know what happens when you surround yourself with people with experience, who’ve seen everything a million times? A lot of them are gonna be older than you. When they vet people, they need to see more than twinkles; they need sparks.”

Williams’s productivity is remarkable, but perhaps more impressive is his humility.

In the two hours we are together, he takes

Collaborative Fund and i am OTHER have invested in Quarterly Co., an online site that curates ‘packages’ from artists to their fans and, more recently, the website Rap Genius.

“P’s energy is endless,” says Shapiro, “and his thirst for knowledge is unparalleled.

He truly enjoys learning new things and meeting new people—something most people are overwhelmed by.”

Williams is a fan of what he calls tapping in: being open to the kinds of peripheral ideas that lead to innovation. It requires an environment that permits fixation—the antithesis of multitasking—so that you have the ability to, as he puts it, “be quiet and absorb”. And walking into the hushed lounge on the floor below the Miami recording studio is not unlike entering a Zendo. Pleasant people—some plugged into laptops, some bustling about—work in near silence. It appears to be, as Williams describes it, “an extremely well-disciplined environment”, and his preternatural calm trickles down. Shapiro says the i am OTHER

OPENING SPREAD: SUIT, TIE, SHOES: R ALPH LAUREN; SHIRT: LANVIN. SECOND SPREAD: ASTRID STAWIARZ/ GETT Y IMAGES/ GALLO IMAGES. THIRD SPREAD: STEVE GR ANITZ/ GETT Y IMAGES/ GALLO IMAGES/MATTHIAS CLAMER/ GETT Y IMAGES/ GALLO IMAGES

FROM DAWN TILL DUSK

credit for… nothing. “He has every right to an inflated ego, but he’s extra humble,” says Tyson Toussant, co-founder of Bionic Yarn.

“It has to do with the way he was raised. He’s a very amenable Southern gentleman. He calls everyone sir or ma’am. I grew up in Manhattan, and there are friends of mine, you’d think they had invented Twitter. He’s not like that. He’ll treat a doorman and Bill Gates the same way.” The sentiment is genuine, Toussant adds, but also smart.

“If you want people to have your back, you need to appreciate them.”

Craig Shapiro, founder of Collaborative Fund, agrees. Because of Williams’s clear appreciation for his staff, “P really doesn’t get stressed, which allows him to be more productive.” In addition to Kickstarter,

Contemporary artist Daniel Arsham, auctioneer Ashok, French artist Laurent Grasso, Flemish sculptor Johan Creten, Pharrell Williams, gallerist Emmanuel Perrotin, artist Jean-Michel Othoniel and guest attend Williams’s launch of Galerie Perrotin’s new art space with the ‘Girl’ Exhibition on May 26, 2014 in Paris, France.

Galerie Perrotin supports Williams’s Foundation, From One Hand to AnOTHER

BERTR AND RINDOFF PETROFF/ GETT Y IMAGES/ GALLO IMAGES

“OH, I WOULD GO CRAZY WITH AN OFFICE F U L L O F D U D E S,” H E S AYS . “ W H AT A M I G O I N G T O TA L K A B O U T ? F O O T B A L L? I D O N’T K N O W A N Y T H I N G A B O U T S P O R T S.”

team makes it possible for “P to focus on the big picture and thought-provoking ideas.

They fill in the blanks. They prioritise and get shit done.”

That dynamic is clearly working.

Williams’s four-year partnership with Bionic Yarn, which manufactures fabric out of discarded-plastic-bottle fibres, has been profitable for the past year, in part because Williams encouraged the brands he designs for—including Moncler, Timberland, Topshop and Gap—to use the fabric. (Williams, who grew up in an area with a big military presence, is now courting the army to make uniforms.)

“Pharrell’s decisions are emotion-based,” says Toussant. “If he were reading spreadsheets, he wouldn’t have joined our company when he did because it wasn’t close to making money. The ideal of it took a lot of work, but that’s the beauty of visionaries like P, who can see what’s possible. He’s not a celebrity who simply attaches his name to an already thriving franchise.”

Yes, emotions are a big part of Williams’s decision-making process, “but I use my mind just as much,” he says. His “legends”, or role models, include architect Zaha Hadid, with whom he’s collaborating on a prefab house, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour,

and artist Jeff Koons—visionaries who understand instinctively how to protect creativity within a business. “They are 100% decisive,” he says. “Snap, no. Snap, yes. It’s right there with them.” He singles out the apparel companies Supreme, Adidas and Opening Ceremony; the advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy; and London’s Dover Street Market for operating outside established methods for attracting customers. Each is profitable, he believes, because they put “taste first. The aesthetic matches the acumen.”

Shapiro and Toussant each describe a similar process of collaborating with

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Pharrell Williams performs on stage at the 02 Arena on October 9, 2014 in London, England

74 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

Williams: meetings once or twice a month, where big decisions are made; assistants taking it from there, with emails flowing back and forth. Williams recently designed a line of Bionic Yarn snowboarding parkas and coats for Burton. “He doesn’t do the tech specs,” says Toussant, “but he gives very specific direction and references— where a cut line is, how to use a colour, or where to put texture. The executors will give their best interpretation of his notes, and a few drafts will go back and forth until they meet his vision.” How would he describe that vision? “It’s hard to put your finger on,” Toussant says. “P’s interested in so many things, and whatever he’s working on at the time, he brings inspiration from that.” I ask Toussant if Williams is responsive to input from others; he knows what I’m really asking. “You mean, is he open to hearing that he’s wrong?” he asks with a laugh.

“Yeah, definitely.”

Williams invested in Bionic Yarn in part because Rush Limbaugh [conservative American radio talk show host and political commentator] shamed him. In 2007, he and a few other celebrities went to Rio to announce a benefit concert for Live Earth, created to increase environmental awareness. “I’m thinking: Okay, cool, we get to do something sustainable, the ecosystem, blah, blah, and I don’t have to wear Birkenstocks or be seen with trail mix in my hand,” he says. “Limbaugh sees the announcement and immediately identifies me. ‘Here’s a guy who probably has 40 cars and flew down on a private jet. It doesn’t make sense.’ And I’m like: Whoa, why me?

What did I do?”

It made Williams think that if he had been better educated about sustainability, or more passionate about it, or had an organisation committed to it, he could have fought back. Not long after, opportunity knocked; a friend introduced him to Toussant. “I realised that, yeah, it checked the box of getting involved,” says Williams.

“But I really do love the technology.”

Growing up, Williams had no interest in how the world was presented to him, as hard rules or lines. As long as he can remember, he’s wanted to blur them. The few times he had a boss, including a stint at

GUS STEWART / GETT Y IMAGES/ GALLO IMAGES

SECRETS OF THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE

McDonald’s when he was a teenager, “I got fired—every time. I had good managers, I was just lazy.” It wasn’t laziness so much as boredom, and his fuel is enthusiasm.

Williams describes himself as a visual person, a kind of intelligence that isn’t celebrated in most schools. “The school system isn’t spending a lot of time looking for specific potential. We are bred to be worker bees; to grow up, get married, have a kid, drive a Volvo, do our taxes, invest in something, find a hobby,” says the man who did finally marry Helen Lasichanh—his girlfriend of five years and the mother of his son, Rocket—in October 2013. “I spent a lot of time in school not paying attention.”

Luckily, someone couldn’t help noticing him: Teddy Riley, the Grammy-winning R&B producer, serendipitously opened a recording studio near Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach, in 1991. Riley happened to catch a pre-Neptunes performance by Williams and Hugo at their high school

talent show and signed them when they graduated. Before long, they were producing as well. Williams, in turn, has mentored countless young artists. He asks them—and anyone he collaborates with—two questions: “What do you want?” and “What haven’t you done?” Capabilities come into play, of course, but his chief mission, he says, is “actualising potential”. There is no failure, “only lessons”.

And, as with everything he does, he puts their creativity first. Williams remains deeply affected by the implosion of the music business. “It’s the only industry where the artists have historically been considered to be at the bottom of the totem pole they built,” he says. “And when lawyers started running the labels, you saw the best groups and producers get dropped or turned away.

But that’s true of any art-dependent company run by venture capitalists who don’t respect the content, who put their money behind accountants, not creatives.” His various collaborations—with UJAM, YouTube,

Quarterly Co. and now Rap Genius—are all about empowering and protecting artists.

“We never go backward. That’s the plight of the human species, but also our privilege.

So, as always, a new equation will emerge, and that will be led by the artists and likely powered by them as well.”

Williams used to believe in luck, but not anymore. “I’d say, ‘Me? Really? Okay, cool!’

But then when I looked over my shoulder, I could see that there was a clear path.

Someone might say that Teddy Riley building his studio five minutes from my high school was luck. I mean, why leave New York and go there? But I don’t see that now.”

For Williams, there is always judgment and choice. “Existence is all mathematics, and I see it as me listening to the math that is right in front of me. There’s a key for every door,” he adds, “and if you can’t find it, you can make one. That’s always an option.” loop@fastcompany.com

SHALL WE DANCE?

INFEC T IOUS H A PPINESS A group of five Cape Town filmmakers were so inspired by the music video for Pharrell Williams’s hit song, “Happy”, from the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack, that they created their very own fantastic Cape Town version.

Staying true to the original video, dubbed

the world’s first 24-hour music video, the local team took on and nailed the challenge to make their video in just one day. With no budget.

Starting at 6 a.m. on Muizenberg Beach and wrapping at 10 p.m. in Long Street, the crew captured dancers and the general public dancing to “Happy” all

over Cape Town. The result was an infectious good mood.

“We are the most amazing city in the world! I think it was important for us to showcase the Mother City’s diversity and beautiful people. We all love the song and the message it portrays, and I think the video

helps unite our city.

“It gave us an opportunity to showcase our talents and the city,” said video producer Nicki Priem in an interview with a local television channel.

The Happy Cape Town remake can be viewed on Vimeo: vimeo. com/90325052.

VIDEO CREDITS

Directors: Shamiel Soni & Tannan Woods Producer: Nicki Priem Photography director: Roscoe Vercueil Editor: Stephen du Plessis Inspired by Pharrell Williams “Happy” written and produced by Pharrell Williams

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Next

MY WAY

LIQUID TA L E N T Soweto Gold is capturing an increasingly important target market that has not yet taken to craft beer in a big way: the aspiring black middle-class

By Jessica Hubbard

Ndumiso Madlala’s passionate quest for the truly superior lager has taken him around the world. After pursuing an undergraduate degree (BSc in Chemical Engineering) in his native province of KwaZulu-Natal, he studied and worked in both London and the Netherlands (where he tested revolutionary beerfiltering technology as a junior engineer) before he was snapped up by local brewing giant, SABMiller, to work eventually as a process engineer.

Despite being undoubtedly destined for success within the legendary brewery, Madlala had his eye on South Africa’s burgeoning microbrewery industry, which has been doubling in size year-on-year as the country satisfies its curiosity for quirky and flavourful craft beers. He quickly recognised there was an opportunity to capture an increasingly important target market that has not yet taken to craft beer in a big way: the aspiring black middle-class.

His strategy? Create something that not only tastes amazing, but which also satisfies this customer’s deepseated need to feel connected to his or her roots and humble beginnings. With this idea in mind, Madlala left SABMiller in September 2013 to co-found the MadMead Brewing Co.—South Africa’s first and only black majority-owned microbrewery. In April 2014, it also became the first and only township-based microbrewery, according to Madlala, occupying a 82 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

Ndumiso M. Madlala

GALLO IMAGES/ THE TIMES / DANIEL BORN

is co-founder and director of MadMead Brewing Co., SA’s first and only black majority-owned microbrewery

sprawling space in the heart of Soweto.

“When you look at the origins of successful black middle-class people who live in the suburbs of Gauteng, many of them actually come from Soweto,” explains Madlala. “So we are providing them with a ‘sip from home’ by offering a premium product that can compete with other ‘aspirational’ drinks”.

This product was aptly named ‘Soweto Gold’—reflecting the craft beer’s authentic township credentials as well as its ambition to provide a superior drinking experience.

The Soweto Gold Superior Lager is slightly sweet and fruity with a low bitterness which, Madlala explains, is part of his strategy to attract female drinkers. “Traditionally, in our culture, a woman who drinks beer is looked down upon and is seen as inferior—and we want to change that perception.”

He points out that the brewing of beer is an ancient African craft performed by the female members of the family—and MadMead Brewery Co. intends to revive the age-old tradition by training only female master brewers.

Training and recruiting staff with the right talent and expertise remains one of Madlala’s biggest challenges, with the intention of growing from their tight-knit team of three to a staff of 50-strong by November.

Yet, the charismatic entrepreneur points out that this is also one of the most rewarding parts of his job as ‘chief beer officer’.

“It is exciting to know that I’m contributing to the government’s main goal of cutting down on unemployment,” he adds. “When I drive through Soweto every morning to get here, it is very saddening to see young, idle people in the streets.”

With his liquid talent and genuine love of the business of brewing, Madlala is already playing his part in the country’s transformation—one artfully made craft beer at a time.

Next

THE GRE AT INNOVATION FRONTIER

Create the experience customers want D E S I G N T H I N K I N G CA N B E U S E D TO I M P R OV E T H E L I V E S O F M I L L I O N S O F C O N S U M E R S AT T H E B OT TO M O F T H E ECONOMIC PYRAMID

Anyone who has ever walked up a mountain or through a park will know that often the official path is ignored, as walkers (aka users) find an easier or shorter route to their destination—creating their own rogue walkway to suit their particular needs.

Leaving aside the issue that this is not so great for soil erosion, the point to make is that in designing a product or a service, it is important to stay as close to the user experience as possible—otherwise they are likely to do their own thing, and either find another service that does work for them, or undermine the value of yours.

How to do this? Staying close to the customer, the end-user, and understanding what he or she wants is a crucial part of the design-thinking approach to business.

Once upon a time, most people thought design and business were two very different things: fashion and architecture vs commerce. Today, some of the world’s most successful and fastest growing companies are design-led, and ‘design thinking’ is the cool new kid on the block in Silicon Valley.

Take Airbnb, for example. The company—which in just seven years has taken the international hospitality industry by storm with its innovative online platform that allows people to list, discover and book unique accommodation around the world—has two designers at its helm. CEO Brian Chesky and his co-founder and chief product officer Joe Gebbia are both graduates of the Rhode Island School of Design.

Staying close to the customer experience is one of the key factors of their success. A recent article in Fast Company US tells how Chesky and his team think about 84 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

THROUGH DESIGN THINKING, SOCIAL CHALLENGES SUCH AS EDUCATION, ENERGY, AND ACCESS TO CLEAN WATER MAY BE COUNTERED.

Walter Baets

Airbnb as “being more than just a place to find a room”, and take an explicitly empathetic approach to each “emotional moment” of the customer’s experience.

This helps them to be responsive and to consistently tweak the service they offer. For example, when they identified that much of the Airbnb experience happens on the go, they upgraded their mobile products accordingly.

Of course, design thinking is more than just keeping close to your customer. As a philosophy—an approach— it invites you to think more integratively about business; or, as one of my colleagues has put it, to “think in 3D”, because design thinking is essentially about the intersection between three dimensions: business/economics, technology/science and people/ society. For a business to have economic value, it must also have a use for people.

Design thinking is inherently disruptive, entrepreneurial, insanely optimistic and creative. It is not afraid to try and fail and it knows no boundaries.

Or to put it another way: the opportunities for innovation occur at every level of an organisation and often—as with Google—in the creative coupling of unexpected elements (it was by combining search engine wizardry with advertising opportunities that the company hit the jackpot).

This same spirit can and must be embraced at the bottom of the pyramid. Through design thinking, social challenges such as education, energy, and access to clean water may be countered.

This was one of the stated aims of the Cape Town World Design Capital (WDC) initiative, which comes to an end in December. Programme director Richard Perez has said that employing design thinking to resolve the city’s entrenched problems such as segregation and unemployment was one of the key aspects of the WDC— marking it out from other world design capitals that have had a more conventional focus on design.

Did it work? It may be too soon to tell. At the very least, Perez hopes design thinking may drip-feed through WDC projects and change the way the city approaches issues in the future.

In the same way that Airbnb is setting an example of the value of design in business, so too can cities and other social-purpose organisations draw inspiration from the WDC. By keeping the end-user in mind and thinking more integratively about how things work, it is possible to create the experience customers want— the paths people choose to walk on.

Walter Baets is the director of the UCT Graduate School of Business and holds the Allan Gray Chair in Values-Based Leadership at the school.

Formerly a professor of Complexity, Knowledge and Innovation and associate dean for Innovation and Social Responsibility at Euromed Management—School of Management and Business, he is passionate about building a business school for ‘business that matters’.

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PROTOTYPE

Next

SAFER CROSSING

Could a bold new street-design proposal help prevent pedestrian deaths?

By Adele Peters

1

Crossing the street can kill you, even in the most pedestrian-friendly cities.

Are pedestrian crossings part of the problem? A firm called Ogrydziak Prillinger Architects is trying to reduce accidents by rethinking how people get from one side of the street to the other. The company, which is based in San Francisco (where an average of three pedestrians are hit by cars every

KERB EXTENSIONS

The design starts with ‘bulbouts’, which make pavements bulge into the street and pedestrians more visible.

Since ­putting pedestrians closer to traffic is riskier, the extensions have high ridges for more protection. The ridges also work as planters. “It becomes a kind of occupiable public space,” says Prillinger.

3 2

HYBRID ZONE

Safety interventions sometimes go unnoticed, so the ­architects wanted a design that’s impossible to miss. A bold hatch pattern covers parts of both the pavement and street, creating a ’hybrid zone’ that alerts drivers. “We’re questioning who the street belongs to and making that question very visible and prominent,” says Prillinger “We didn’t want a strict dichotomy between street and [pavement].”

86 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

day), has come up with a network of pedestrian lanes and planters that blur the usual boundaries ­between walkers and drivers. Its ­radical idea: Blending the street and pavement may actually save lives. “We saw the street as a kind of undiscovered public place,” says co-founder, Zoe ­Prillinger.

“We wanted to challenge the conventional expectation that the [street] belongs to vehicles and the [pavement] belongs to pedestrians.”

Here’s how the concept—for which we’ve created our own rendering— would work.

CORNER BENCHES

These seating spaces protect pedestrians as they step into the street.

They also provide a new space for community gardens, which encourages local ownership of the streetscape.

4

CENTRAL PLANTERS

The plan isn’t just about safety. Prillinger hopes the pedestrian crossings will connect to each other visually and help create a “network of green” that “stitches everything together and pulls nature into the streets.”

Illustration by Sinelab

Next

WIDE SCOPE

THE PHOTO ECONOMY The hottest startups have one thing in common: our faces.

From Facebook to Facetune, here’s what the future looks like

By Sarah Kessler Photographs by Jimmy Marble

Clock Staples, about R160

Face time:

Umbrella ArtsCow, R480

Eric André, of Cartoon Network’s The Eric André Show, with all the likeness that R1 600 can buy.

Shirt SeeMe, R290

Pillows PillowMob, R330

88 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

Mug Shutterfly, R160

Lollipops Designer Lollipop, R240 for 6

GUTTER CREDIT TK

You may think of Facebook as a com­munity, a news feed, or even a force for change, but it’s really something far simpler: a photography company. Facebook processes more than 350 mil­lion photos every day, far more than Kodak or Polaroid ever developed in 24 hours. Photos drive most of its engage­ment and advertising. And despite the dreary fate of those one-time photo giants, calling something ‘a photo com­pany’ now is hardly an insult.

Of the approximately 50 tech startups of the past decade to be valued at more than $1 billion (in excess of R11 billion), at least nine—Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Dropbox, Pinterest, Airbnb, Snapchat, Instagram and

Tumblr—have photos at the core of their businesses. We are in a photo economy.

It was a natural progression. Digital cameras made photography an instant experience, the iPhone put a great camera in everyone’s pocket, and social networks turned images into mass communication. It turns out that we re­ally, really like sharing our snapshots.

It also turns out that advertisers get this.

In the last couple of years, they have transformed their online businesses by moving ads from the wasteland of on­line banners into the photos in our social feeds—to great annoyance, perhaps, but also to great effect.

Last November, for example, Insta­gram launched a program allowing brands to insert sponsored photos into users’ feeds. Engagement on nonsponsored photos from the same brands has increased, with some brands seeing a 50%-70% increase in likes in the days following an ad. That means users saw an ad and then actually went hunting for more. Taco Bell increased its follower count on Instagram by 45% during the period when it promoted its new breakfast menu with images of people enjoying waffle tacos. Last March, Instagram made a re­ported $40-million (R448.1-million) advertising deal with the marketing giant, Omnicom.

Facebook saw this coming. Its con­viction led it to acquire Instagram for $1 billion (R11.2 billion) and the messaging service WhatsApp (which couriers about 700 million photos every day) for $19 billion (R212.7 billion). It even offered $3 billion (R33.5 billion) for ephemeral-photo app Snapchat, although Snapchat rebuffed its offer.

Almost every piece of data suggests that Facebook is on the right track. Marketing company, HubSpot, ran an analysis and found that Facebook photos generated 104% more comments than text-based updates. Another analysis, this one by social media ana­lytics firm, Socialbakers, found that 90% of the most engaged-with posts on Facebook were photos.

Photography is now a crowded mar­ket, with entrepreneurs trying every­thing from niche social networks to printing your face on a pillow. But if cur­rent trends are any indication, the big money will shift to three categories

Shoppable photos may be the holy grail of business opportunities—an e-commerce

engine for anyone who gets it right.

of S’s (and ‘selfie’ isn’t one)—storytelling, shopping and storage.

Photography’s storytelling potential, with the quick pics of Instagram and Snapchat, is in its early stages. The app Storehouse is a step toward something more, enabling long and beautiful vi­sual essays. Digg creator and venture capitalist Kevin Rose, meanwhile, recently unveiled a new app called Tiiny. It displays photos only as thumbnails in a grid, and they disappear after a day, which he’s betting will encourage people to post photos more often than they do in other apps.

But, of course, we’ll always take more photos than we post. That’s where stor­age comes in. Photos are one reason why, at the end of August, Dropbox increased storage capacity to one terabyte for $10 (about R111) a month—competing against Google Drive, Box and others to be the contin­ued home of your excess vacation pho­tos. And in May, former

Apple executive Tim Bucher debuted a $299 (R3 345) device called Lyve Home, which collects and stores all the photos and videos across your devices and makes them easily ac­cessible. But storage is a double-edged sword, as startups such as Everpix (see next page) discovered: hosting costs can out­run revenue, a battle all photo-based firms must contend with.

And then there are shoppable photos.

This may be the holy grail of business opportunities, an e-commerce engine for the likes of Pinterest, Tumblr, Facebook— and anyone else who gets it right. Many startups have tried. But so far, none have succeeded.

Alex Koblenz, for instance, wanted to buy a black sweater that he saw Jay Z wearing, but he couldn’t identify it. So he launched a startup, Pradux, to turn photos into clickable catalogues. The next time he saw a celebrity wearing

NOVEMBER 2014 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 89

Next

Wide Scope

ARE THESE APPS WINNERS OR ... ?

TWO INVESTORS IN PHOTO DARLINGS WEIGH IN ON NEW APPS some­thing great, he wanted to just click a photo and buy it.

Others have shared Koblenz’s dream. A company called Pixazza set out to make objects in celebrity images shop­pable; it later changed its name to Luminate and outfitted images with more general ads (and was acquired by Yahoo in September). Stipple, which at launch helped brands tag their merchandise in celebrity photos, pivoted to make web tools and then shut down in April.

What happened? Many things.

Tag­ging millions of photos requires an au­tomated image tool, which can’t account for context. “You might have a photo of a man dressed in a nice suit, down on one knee in the street,” explains Luminate founder Jim Everingham, “but he might be depressed and looking at an accident.”

No brand wants to hawk a wedding ring on an image of a car crash.

Even if tagging software is perfected, there are still barriers to turning celebrities into stores.

Katherine Heigl sued Duane Reade for $6 million (R67.1 million) after the pharmacy tweeted a photo of her carry­ing its shopping bags. (They settled.) “If people clicked on her jeans to buy them, should she be paid an affiliate market­ing fee? Probably,” says Peter Minnium, head of brand initiatives at the Interac­tive Advertising Bureau.

New startups keep seeking solu­tions to all this. Spring is like an Insta­gram in which brands post shoppable photos. TheTake turns select movie stills into virtual catalogues. And Pradux—well, Koblenz had to refine his initial vision. His startup now asks people to post “products you see on TV and in the world”, which others can buy. He hopes celebrities will sign up, too, to do the same thing. He’s still wait­ing on Jay Z. 90 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

Frontback (Free) Instagram-like network with a twist: Every photo is a split screen, showing something photographed and a selfie of the photographer.

SnapDash (Free) Charades with a camera: The app suggests funny poses (“You’re a sabre-tooth tiger that’s frozen in ice!”).

Facetune (R36.99 from iTunes App Store) A photo editor for selfies: Clean up those blemishes and yellow teeth!

Jeremy Liew Lightspeed Venture Partners, which invested in Snapchat

Josh Elman Greylock Partners, which invested in Instagram

“To be successful, it needs to be super-successful. It can’t be just a little successful, because it’s trying to build a social net­work. It’s not interesting if only three of your 100 friends are on it.”

“It changes the nature of the photo. But does a network of new photographs become a deep community? It might feel deeper if you could engage with the photographers.”

“They were smart to integrate it into platforms and not try to be the platform themselves.

You can probably monetise it without having to displace winners like Snapchat.”

“If this model works, and hun­d reds of millions of people constantly share experiences, then everyone could do some­ thing with, say, a can of Coke— brands would pay for that.”

“Everybody has taken a selfie and thought, ‘Man, I look ugly.’

The widespreadness of the problem it’s trying to solve contributes to why it has been popular.”

“They’re making money today, which is great. But turning a photo editor into something larger is a real challenge. If it’s a network, is it just of people who edited their photos?”

Photo Fail!

Wayne Fan, co-founder of nowdead Everpix, explains why it’s hard out there for an app

“Everpix set out to organise photos, but to the consumer that’s like selling them a filing cabinet. We can say, ‘This is the best filing cabinet there is.’ But it’s still a f***ing file cabinet. So the pitch became, ‘We have this entire archive, and we can tell your whole life story back to you.’

“We had about 55 000 users, and 12% subscribed. But each user uploaded, on average, 7 000 photos.

It cost us $30 000 [R335 800] a month to host them, which made it hard to keep growing quickly. We were a tiny startup getting 1.5 million photos a day!

“We got meetings with top VC [venture capital] firms, but some just said: ‘We don’t think photos can be a billion-dollar business.’

“I didn’t want to build a billion-dollar business.

I wanted to build a product people would pay for and to be profitable. But in Silicon Valley, unless you hit a million users first, that’s just not the model.

“We were in talks with Path [a social networkingenabled, photo-sharing and messaging service for mobile devices] about an acquisition. The deal fell through, and we ran out of money last November,” says Fan.

FACTS F A C T S YO U M AY N O T K N O W A B O U T S O U T H A F R I C A

DID YOU KNOW THAT SA BOASTS NUMEROUS INNOVATIONS? EVEN MORE INTERESTING IS THAT ONE OF THESE INVENTIONS IS THE ONLY SOUTH AFRICAN PRODUCT TO HAVE BEEN USED ON A RANGER MOON MISSION. HERE ARE 10 TOP SOUTH AFRICAN CREATIONS:

OIL FROM COAL—SASOL (SOUTH AFRICAN SYNTHETIC OIL LIQUID)

Sasol was the first company to develop the method of refining coal to make oil. During the 1950s, the world placed many trade embargoes on South Africa to try to weaken the apartheid government. This meant the country had a limited supply of foreign resources such as crude oil, and so there was a need to find alternate means of getting oil. Sasol engineers built on coal-to-liquid technology that had been developed by German chemists, perfecting the coal-refining technique.

Coal is first turned into gas and then converted into liquid oil. The first coal refinery was built in 1955 in the Free State, in a town that ultimately was named Sasolburg. Today, Sasol produces 40% of South Africa’s fuel, using the coal-refining technique.

PRATLEY® PUTTY—GEORGE “MONTY” PRATLEY

Epoxy putty was invented by the South African adhesive company, Pratley.

South African inventor George Pratley developed Pratley® Putty to secure electrical components into electrical cable boxes. He soon realised the wide range of potential uses for the product. Pratley® Putty is the only South African product to go to the moon and was used on the 1965 Ranger moon mission. Today, Pratley® Putty is still extensively used in both consumer and industrial repairs.

RETINAL CRYOPROBE— SELIG PERCY AMOILS

The retinal cryoprobe is a hyper-cooled probe used for cataract surgery.

The hyper-cooling effect destroys diseases on the surface of the probe, thus eliminating the possibility of it infecting the eye during surgery. In 1994, Selig Amoils operated on former South African president Nelson Mandela to remove a cataract from his left eye. In 2006, Amoils was awarded the Silver Order of Mapungubwe for his innovation.

SPEED GUN—HENRI JOHNSON The speed gun accurately measures the speed and direction of projectiles such as bullets or balls. Henri Johnson trained in engineering, with a special interest in radar and sonar technology. He used these skills to invent the speed gun. He founded the local company, Electronic Development House, under which he released his inventions. The speed gun was first used in cricket but, with a few adjustments, it was also applied to tennis and golf. Some models are designed for the military to use in measuring ballistic weapon fire.

THE DOLOS—ERIC MOWBRAY MERRIFIELD

Dolosse are heavy, irregularly shaped concrete structures that lock together and are placed on the shoreline to act as a breakwater and to prevent waves from eroding harbour walls. Their porous design dissipates rather than blocks the force of waves, and they form a stronger barrier over time as the waves hit them and lock them together more tightly. They were developed in East London by a harbour engineer, Eric Merrifield, although his colleague Aubrey Kruger claims to have thought of the original design. Merrifield received two awards for his invention: the Shell Design Award and the Gold Medal from the Associated Scientific and Technical Societies of South Africa.

Dolosse are cheap and effective and are now used on coastlines all over the world.

92 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

WIN!

Two lucky readers will each win a copy of the recently published book, WTF—What The Fact (MapStudio), which has over 100 useful facts everyone wants to know about South Africa and the world.

Answer this simple question: Which South African invention/product was used on a Ranger moon mission?

Email taryn@ insightspublishing.co.za with the answer as well as your name, address and contact details before 28 November 2014

EVENTS U P C O M I N G E V E N T S FA S T C O M PA N Y W I L L B E AT T E N D I N G

ORACLE DAY 2014: DIGITAL DISRUPTION 4 November Gallagher Estate, Johannesburg www.oracle.com/za Trends such as cloud, mobile, social and big data are converging to disrupt old business models and drive global change.

Only by embracing this change will organisations be able to get ahead in the digital economy. Get unique insights into the biggest technology trends, straight from enterprise information-technology experts.

BIG DATA ANALYTICS AFRICA SUMMIT 5 to 7 November Education Campus at Wits University, Johannesburg events.cornerstoneci.co.za Big data is more than just mediaspeak.

Its ability to correctly and specifically excerpt information needed at any opportune time is of immeasurable monetary worth. This is indeed every chief information officer’s greatest challenge.

Information is expensive, and technology continues to reduce the cost of creating, capturing, managing and storing data. But what is the stimulus behind this current ignition within the digital sphere? Big data leverages computational dynamism to process briskly insurmountable amounts of data to make it easily accessible to people in real time. Not only are senior management executives engaging with the idea of big data analytics, but the majority of businesses are aware of the huge competitive advantages the technology brings as well as the security benefits. This is a core part of IT transformation—a process with which South African businesses are well under way.

AFRICACOM 11 to 13 November Cape Town International Convention Centre africa.comworldseries.com The 17th annual conference will cover a host of new topics affecting companies in Africa’s digital market. Experience strategic content from more than 300 business supremos and digital gurus representing the entire communications ecosystem across Africa and beyond.

Discover a record-breaking 375+ exhibitors showcasing their solutions and services, as well as a host of new features from the AfricaCom Village, Google Big Data & Cloud Developer Zone, Entrepreneur Incubator Hub to the highly popular AfricaCom MasterClass Theatre. AfricaCom, part of the Com World Series, is your essential destination for networking, learning and business development.

LTE AFRICA 2014 11 to 13 November Cape Town International Convention Centre africa.lteconference.com Due to the unprecedented success of the launch LTE Africa 2013 event and substantial growth in LTE (long-term evolution) deployment in Africa, the 2014 event will be co-located with AfricaCom, the leading telecommunications expo in Africa, taking place in November in Cape Town. The second annual event is guaranteed to bring together the entire LTE ecosystem in order to discuss and debate a wide range of key issues including monetising LTE, managing traffic, optimising backhaul, timedivision LTE, spectrum management, building radio-access and core networks, among many others.

MAMMOTH BIG DATA IN ACTION 17 & 18 November Cape Town International Convention Centre mammothbi.co.za Go big! Mammoth BI’s focus is to build the South African business-intelligence (BI) community by providing discussions to myth-bust conventional ideas of big data, and wanting to create and harvest a local community understanding in BI. Over two days, there will be conference talks and workshops designed to introduce you to a new understanding and practice of BI and experience the value of a shared-interest community.

RETAIL CONGRESS AFRICA 2014 18 & 19 November Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg www.worldretailcongressafrica.com The Retail Congress Africa 2014 (part of the World Retail Congress Series) is the only platform to discuss the future of the pan-African retail industry. The congress launched in 2013 and, as the first of its kind on the continent, brought together more than 250 of the most senior retail executives operating in the region, as well as international leaders.

The unprecedented support and presence from international and regional retailers such as Woolworths, Pick n Pay, Massmart, Coca-Cola, Google, Choppies, Nakumatt, Zando, Jumia and many others at the first edition was integral to the atmosphere of networking and learning at the congress.

Speakers at the 2014 edition will include retail industry experts from, among others, L’Oréal, MasterCard, Tiger Brands, Groupon, McDonald’s and Brand Africa.

NOVEMBER 2014 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 93

BYTES BOEING AND SAA TO MAKE JET FUEL FROM TOBACCO PLANT

South African Airways is partnering with United States aerospace giant, Boeing, and Amsterdam-based SkyNRG to make sustainable aviation biofuel from a new type of tobacco plant, in a pioneering project that could make aviation more environmentally friendly while advancing rural development in southern Africa. “It’s an honour for Boeing to work with South African Airways on a pioneering project to make sustainable jet fuel from an energy-rich tobacco plant,” said J. Miguel Santos, Boeing’s managing director for Africa. “South Africa is leading efforts to commercialise a valuable new source of biofuel that can further reduce aviation’s environmental footprint and advance the region’s economy.” SkyNRG is expanding production of the hybrid plant, named Solaris, as an energy crop that farmers could grow instead of traditional tobacco. “Test farming of the plants, which are effectively nicotine-free, is under way in South Africa, with biofuel production expected from large and small farms in the next few years,” the companies said. Initially, oil from the plant’s seeds will be converted into jet fuel. In coming years, Boeing expects emerging technologies to increase South Africa’s aviation biofuel production from the rest of the plant.

T H E N E W R E A D I N G M AC H I N E An app that gives audio read-back of printed text has been widely regarded as a game changer. The app is the result of a four-decade-long relationship between the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and Ray Kurzweil, a highly regarded artificialintelligence scientist and senior Google employee.

K-NFB Reading Technology Inc. and Sensotec NV, a Belgium-based company, led the technical development of the app. The KNFB Reader for iOS was demonstrated by Kurzweil on stage at the NFB’s annual convention and noted that it could replace a “sighted adviser”. The app takes advantage of new pattern-recognition and imageprocessing technology as well as new smartphone hardware, allowing users to adjust or tilt the camera, and read printed materials out loud.

People with refreshable Braille displays can now take pictures of print documents and display them in Braille instantaneously, according to NFB spokesperson, Chris Danielsen. It is programmed to recognise different languages and can scan PowerPoint slides from up to 7.6 metres away. Blind users hailed the KNFB Reader, saying it will enable a new level of engagement in everyday life, from reading menus in restaurants to browsing handouts in the classroom. One early adopter said on Twitter that he had used the app to read his polling card when casting a vote in the Scottish independence referendum. The iOS version is available from the iTunes App Store for R1 199.99. The app will be available on Android in the coming months.

94 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

W E S T E R N C A P E O N T R A C K A S A F R I C A N ‘ S I L I C O N VA L L E Y ’ South Africa’s Western Cape province is establishing a reputation as Africa’s version of Silicon Valley for its easy access to technology and lower business start-up costs, according to the 2012 Sanlam/Business Partners Entrepreneur of the Year winner, Stuart Forrest. Forrest is the owner of Triggerfish Animation Studios, which produced Adventures in Zambezia, and won last year’s Entrepreneur of the Year title in the category: Innovator of the Year. The Sanlam/Business Partners competition recognises entrepreneurial spirit and excellence, and was established in 2010. “Due to the city’s entrepreneurial activity, Cape Town has seen an influx of IT [information technology] and tech startups,” said the spokesperson for the Entrepreneur of the Year competition, Kobus Engelbrecht, in a statement. “By attracting the best entrepreneurs, technical brains and foreign direct investment, Cape Town is quickly becoming a local ‘Silicon Valley’.” Vinny Lingham and Justin Stanford’s launch of the Silicon Cape Initiative in 2009 also contributed to the region’s reputation as a technology hub, Engelbrecht said. Silicon Cape is a high-tech innovation hub to attract top technical entrepreneurs.

“Initiatives such as this will generate seeds for a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem in Cape Town and positively contribute toward economic growth and development within South Africa,” he said. Creating a South African version of the Californian Silicon Valley will also encourage young talent to stay in the country, Engelbrecht added, citing PayPal co-founder Elon Musk as an example of a South African who left the country and established his business in Silicon Valley.

FA ST C OMPA N Y S A TA K ES A LOOK AT T HE INNOVAT I V E NE W IDE A S A ND P R ODUCTS C UR R E N T LY M A K ING WAV ES IN S OU T H A F RIC A A ND A B R OA D

RACING TO CAPE TOWN IN SOLAR-POWERED CARS

Budding engineers from universities in South Africa and overseas were involved in a race to Cape Town which tested their skill in designing solar-powered vehicles.

Participants in the Sasol Solar Challenge 2014, including the winning Nuon Solar Team from the Netherlands, were judged not on speed but by how efficiently their vehicles used energy, said event organiser and director, Winstone Jordaan.

Also taking part were the Anadolu Solar team from Turkey (second place); teams from the universities of Johannesburg, Wits, KwaZulu-Natal (third place), North West (fourth place) and Tshwane; and the Maragon Private School’s Solar Eagles from Pretoria. Teams from the Islamic Azad University of Qazvin in Iran, Manipal Institute of Technology in India, Dokuz Eylül University in Turkey, and Deutsche Schule Johannesburg withdrew due to technical difficulties. The challenge is held every two years, in collaboration with Motorsport South Africa and the international automobile association, FIA. Jordaan said the objectives were to improve the quality of engineers by providing a practical project through which they could pit their skills against the best in the world, and to inspire the youth to become engineers. “We’re trying to stimulate young minds, to get them to say: ‘Man, is that what engineering does? I want to do that’.”

SOLAR WI-FI LAMPS TO CONNECT RURAL AREAS

South African-based technology company, Net1 Mobile Solutions, is preparing to roll out the Sun-e-light, a solar-powered lamp that also functions as a mobile-phone charger and a Wi-Fi hotspot, as part of a corporate social responsibility project aimed at opening up the digital world to people in rural areas.

Chief marketing officer José Carlos Da Silva Soares, in a recent interview with SouthAfrica.info , said the concept of the Sun-e-light had evolved as the company looked into ways of providing connectivity to rural communities not linked to the electricity grid. “We began talks with a production company in China which specialises in producing simple yet innovative products to produce a prototype [of the Sun-e-light] for us, which has now been refined and tested over a period of two years,” Soares said.

The result is a lamp with a 3G-enabled modem which acts as a wireless router that can be accessed via Wi-Fi and potentially even Bluetooth. Soares said the lamp, which takes eight hours to charge and provides a battery life of up to 16 hours, will be rolled out to communities “in most need of solar lighting and connectivity”.

NOVEMBER 2014 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A 95

Design begins at home

YO U C A N R ED E S I G N YO U R SURROUNDINGS, BUT B E T T ER L I V I N G S TA R T S W I T H S EL F - D I S COV ER Y

In the beginning, I didn’t have a choice. I lived in the home provided by my mother. There was beautiful revolutionary art on the walls, cast-iron cookware on the stove, and milk crates everywhere, because milk crates are like stem cells for furniture. It served me well, but loving the home you grow up in is similar to loving the nation you’re born in: You don’t know anything else.

I vividly remember those crates because, after I left the nest for college, that brand of utility defined my personal design aesthetic for those four years. And the 10 after that.

My desk was a door on cinder blocks. I rarely hung any art.

I used furniture ‘liberated’ from college. Then I cut the tether to any home and lived nomadically for 18 months, crashing with friends, subletting, hotelling. Airbnb’ing.

96 FASTCOMPANY.CO.Z A NOVEMBER 2014

Baratunde Thurston

When I was ready to return to the land of the leased, I wanted my living space to be more than a storage unit for my body and possessions. I was ready to make a real home. But first I had to figure out who I was.

I had been inspired by a few of the pit stops on my residentially flexible housing circuit, and I had ideas about how I wanted my home to make me feel: Warm.

Grounded. Well-Internetted.

My friends had no shortage of advice for how I could achieve my goals. “Never use overhead lighting,” insisted one dogmatic pal. “Read this book on design,” offered a couple. “It teaches you everything you need to know.”

My own stabs at online research weren’t much better: “For rooms with low ceilings, paint the ceiling dark so it disappears,” advised one article, while another made the opposite case with the same certitude.

Then Pinterest happened to me. I’ve suffered various forms of Internet addiction over the years, but those previously explored rabbit holes were baby aspirin compared with a simple search for ‘bedroom nook’ on the visual scrapbooker.

Overwhelmed, I realised that I needed professional help. I needed a designer.

From our first conversation, I found it easy to pour out my dreams, limitations and fears.

(Perhaps because both her parents were psychologists.

Or maybe because her name was Faith.) She took all that

confessional material, ran it through her design-thinking mind, and when she came back with a Pinterest board of her own, I nearly jumped for joy.

We looked at pins together, and I swiped through them like Tinder dating matches.

(PinTinderist—make it happen, Internet.) “Yes. No. Oh, hell, no!

Hmm. Wait, what is that?” Faith would put a pattern in front of me, and I would say, “Nope. It reminds me of disease.” She would file that away.

Our collaboration went beyond the visual. We talked about my heavy travel and work schedule and my desire to host gatherings frequently. I told her what I loved best about my previous homes and shared what intrigued me about Airbnb’s, in which I had considered squatting.

I had seen lots of photos of what a ‘well-designed’ home looked like, but I wasn’t looking for some distant idea deemed great by tastemakers. While Faith scoured retailers and craigslist, tested paints and colour palettes, and haggled with shippers and movers, I understood that my goals went beyond aesthetics.

I needed to first see who I was and then translate that into the language of space, paint and far fewer milk crates. The process worked. I love coming home and having folks over.

A friend’s mother visited recently and, upon walking into the living room, screamed: “Wow, Baratunde! You’re grown up!”

Mission accomplished.

Baratunde Thurston is the author of The New York Times best-seller How to Be Black and CEO and co-founder of Cultivated Wit, a creative agency that combines the powers of humour, design and technology.

Illustration by Stanley Chow

Celine Grouard

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60% OF THE JOBS AVAILABLE 10 YEARS FROM NOW HAVEN’T BEEN * INVENTED YET.

2024

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