Matt Brown Show

As entrepreneurs, we are typically working towards something – a vision of some kind – in most cases it is about obtaining more freedom, more status, more success; whatever success looks like to you. And as we pursue success, life has a habit of gifting us experiences and situations that we cannot control. Sometimes these situations are overwhelmingly positive but sometimes they challenge us to become more than what we are as businesses but most importantly, they force us to grow as people. When Joey Evans was told, he would never walk again, the vision and success he had been working towards was seemingly taken away from him in an instant. You know, when your dreams have cost you so much, dreaming a new dream takes great courage. But that’s exactly what he did, and it culminated in Joey completing the Dakar rally, a grueling 8,782 kms or 5,462 miles – a feat that only a handful of South African’s have achieved ever. There are so many powerful lessons here for entrepreneurs, and that is why I am thrilled to s

Howzit guys, so as entrepreneurs and business leaders, being able to unlock growth is a key focus in what we do. Yet, many of us are seemingly stuck in the trenches every day taking grenades, and we don’t get the time or space to work on our businesses so that we can identify the things that truly can 10x our value in the marketplace. For me principles are a great place to start, and one of the principles is the 8020 principle. Now, the 8020 principle is one of the most powerful success secrets in the world — but provided you implement it. Most people have heard of it, few put it into action. So, I reached out to Bob Skinstad in London – Bob is re-energising an age- old principle by sharing a collection of real-life examples from highly successful people of 8020 in action. In this episode, we unpack the meat and the potatoes of how to implement high growth initiatives like the 8020 principle and explore powerful concepts like marginal gains used by the Sky cycling team. Support the show

This is the full version of the LIVE Matt Brown show held in January in Johannesburg. It was the biggest cryptocurrency event ever held in South Africa and I'm proud that the Matt Brown Show is at the forefront of connecting the cryptocurrency community together. This event is sponsored by Centbee (www.centbee.com) and Uprise Markets (www.uprisemarkets.com)This is my 6th back-to-back SOLD OUT crypto live show, and features Luke Martin AKA Venture Coinist - one of the worlds best crypto traders and Ran Neu-Ner, host of #CryptoTrader the first televised cryptocurrency trading show answering your cryptoasset trading questions Support the show

There is an old saying that nothing worth having comes easy and the story of Gareth Leck and Pepe Marais is no different. The idea was to take big agency thinking to the man in the street under a concept called “take away advertising” and a mission to disrupt the advertising space. Today the company Joe Public is South Africa’s largest independent agency with a turnover of R700 million and gross profits in excess of R200 million. But getting to where they are today was no easy feat and it involved an exit to a multinational corporate, the re-purchase of the company, bankruptcy and the rebuilding of the company from the ground up on more than one occasion. This is a classic story of the hardship and realities of entrepreneurship and running a business. Support the show

So, turns out #CryptoJHB was a yet another sold out live show – and I’d like to just say thank you to everyone who has supported my crypto focused events, without your support these events wouldn’t be possible. Twitter was going crazy again on the night – in fact, #CryptoJHB was the #1 trending hashtag on Twitter in South African on the night, this is another first for Matt Brown Media and the first podcast to trend in the #1 position in the history of South African media. I’ve also received a ton of feedback from attendees throw these events more frequently and to go deeper into subjects like Cryptocurrency Trading, Alt Coins & ICO’s, Blockchain/Bitcoin for beginners and mining for bitcoin. Unfortunately, we’ve run out of runway for the 2017 but I’m already underway with the planning for three more events in Cape Town, Johannesburg and for the first time a crypto focused event in Durban. Now, the best way to get notified of new events it to follow me on Twitter using the handle #mattbrownza or to subscri

We all know that sales is the life blood of any business but the ability to make sales doesn’t come naturally to many of us. It’s arguably why many of us hate cold calling so much because when we were young we were told “not to talk to strangers”. The ability to make sales is further impacted when the economy sucks and the market is just not spending money the way it would in a bullish market, so if this is the case, how do you become a rockstar at sales and make a killing even in a flat market? To get the answer I reached out to Mark Keating, he is the CEO of SALESGURU, Africa’s leading sales training company and without question one of the experts on how to make sales. To give you an idea of what Mark can do, when he launched the SALESGURU magazine he had R2 million rand in the bank from magazine subscription sales before they had even printed a single copy of the magazine. How about them apples? Support the show

So, blockchain/bitcoin is seemingly a very hot subject right now in SA. #CryptoCPT was my third sold out live show in a row and this time we explored the inner workings of initial coin offerings (ICO’s) and token sales. The event was sponsored by Bitcoin events, Blockchain Academy, Luno and PwC came to the table and on the night my Twitter feed was going crazy – you can checkout the hashtag #cryptocpt to catch what was being discussed on the night – there was one picture which was retweeted so many times I think it may have been the most retweeted picture of a blockchain panel ever. Your panelists for the event were Sonya Kuhnel, founder of the Blockchain Academy, Simon Dingle, CEO Phantom Design, Werner van Rooyen from Luno, SA’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Paul Mitchell, PwC Fintech and Blockchain Lead and Samer Saab, Head of Product Development for Get Wala. Here we go… Support the show

When Paul Hutton, Joel Stransky and Bruce Arnold launched Pivotal Group in 2012, they did so with a wealth of experience and business relationships on their side. But it was still a start-up. They worked from home and then the SLOW Lounge, and they raised some angel funding, accessed personal capital, significantly reduced monthly income and took out personal loans to make it work. They had a vision, and they were determined to be disruptors. In this episode of the Matt Brown Show, we share the story of how they’ve built what they believe to be the foundations of a successful group of businesses and in only five years. But perhaps most importantly, we unpack the realities of being a team of founders that have to overcome significant challenges unique to Africa and what they have learnt as a management team and about themselves in the process of building Pivotal group to where it is today Support the show

Hey guys, so today I want to talk to you about Toys R Us. In 2012, they were a $12 billion company with a massive retail network of 1600 stores. In September 2017 – that’s just last month – they went bankrupt. In fact, Toys R Us is just 1 of over 300 retail brands have filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in the past 9 months alone. So, how does a $12 billion a year company go bankrupt in just 5 years? Well, there are several factors in play ranging from crippling debt, a consumer which is moving to the online shopping space and perhaps most obvious is a distinct lack of innovation – apart from a fulfillment partnership with Amazon they almost ignored the Internet completely. As the world continues to evolve on a seemingly cyclical basis, stories like this are becoming ever more common place and in my view, it is becoming increasingly harder to find stories of companies that have truly stood the test of time. But one of those companies isn’t a global story – it is in fact a local story – that almost all of us woul

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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