beyond438

I am famous!

Posted by beyond438 on Apr 21, 2008 in Blogging, Entrepreneurship | 0 comments

OK, not really. Elance posted a nice article about the way I use Elance to source service providers for different projects. I recently contracted a design house to develop a new WordPress template for me. You are viewing the end product. What do you think? Here is part of the Elance article:

Meet Carel Bekker, a technology expert, business consultant and Elance buyer, who left a corporate job to start his own strategy consulting firm, Beyond438. Beyond438 helps European and South African companies start business operations in the U.S.   

You can read the rest of the article here.

Top ten web applications I use daily

Posted by beyond438 on Apr 7, 2008 in Technology | 4 comments

More and more I’m migrating desktop (offline) work to the Internet or the Cloud. I’m still not there, but I hope to be using only web apps in a few years. Technologies like Google Gears and Adobe’s AIR will make it possible to take your online (Internet-based) applications offline. Micro Persuasion wrote a great (but technical) article on how to create your own PPNC (Portable Personal Nerve Center). TechCrunch has two interesting articles on bridging Desktop and Web Applications — see part 1 and part 2. In these articles the author also refers to site-specific browser products like Mozilla’s Prism, Bubbles and Fluid for the Mac. These products allow one to encapsulate a web application into a self contained desktop application.  Now for my list of most used web applications.The following is a list of the top ten web applications I use on a daily basis:

1. Gmail: I use Apple’s Mail app as my primary email application, however I read all my email into Gmail as a backup and also in case I don’t have my trusty MacBook Pro with me. I use labels and filters to tag each email with the name of the email account.
2. Google Reader: I use Google Reader as my primary RSS feed reader. If I use FireFox on the Mac I can also view blog posts offline using Google Gears.
3. WordPress: My blogging platform. I think it’s the best.
4. Mint.com: I use Mint for my personal finances. After the initial setup it will categorize your transactions while you sleep — cool! Well, actually you still have to do some re-categorization and renaming, however it gets pretty smart after a month or two.
5. Del.icio.us: I use this funny-name-that-I-always-misspell site to save and manage my bookmarks.
6. Zoho: I started with Zoho CRM, and now use Zoho Creator and Zoho Meeting. Zoho Creator is a great app to quickly develop a simple web application for data capture — EXCEL on steroids. Zoho Meeting is a FREE version of Webex.
7. SiteKreator.com: SiteKreator is one of many online website creation tools. I like SiteKreator because of the low monthly fees, professional themes and great support. I hope you’ll agree that my Beyond438 site looks very professional.
8. Google Docs: Google Docs is not going to replace MS Office or Apple’s iWork anytime some, however it’s very useful to quickly create and share documents.
9. GrandCentral: Google acquired GrandCentral in 2007. Your GrandCentral phone number is positioned as your one phone number for life. It also has very powerful voicemail features.
10. DotMac: I use Apple’s .Mac service to host and manage my personal website. Very easy to use and manage your digital life online.

April 9, 2008 update:

See PCWorld’s list of top nine list of online apps.

This is my list. Do you agree? What do you use?

Most influential South African VC – Roelof Botha

Posted by beyond438 on Mar 30, 2008 in Entrepreneurship, South Africa, Technology, Venture Capital | 0 comments

Roelof Frederik Botha is a partner at Sequoia Capital, one of the most influential VC firms in the world. Sequoia has the highest rating on TheFunded website of 3.9. Here is his bio from the Sequoia website:

Roelof Botha is a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital focusing on services and software investments. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 2003, Roelof served as the Chief Financial Officer of PayPal (EBAY). Earlier, he worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company. Roelof is a certified actuary (Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries), and has a BS in Actuarial Science, Economics, and Statistics from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.                                     

Botha is the grandson of Pik Botha (not to be confused with PW Botha), South Africa’s former minister of foreign affairs. He was born in South Africa and completed his Actuarial Science degree at the University of Cape Town. Botha also graduated with an MBA from the Stanford Business School in 2000. He received 3 MBA awards including the Henry Ford II award for being the top scholar.

Elon Musk, then CEO of Paypal, hired Botha in 2001 and 7 months before Paypal’s IPO he became its CFO. After Paypal’s acquisition by eBay for a cool $1.5bn he joined Sequoia Capital. According to the Mercury News Botha is one of a few VCs to turn its first deal into a billion dollar deal. That’s exactly what Botha did with Sequoia’s small investment in YouTube in 2006. The following SiliconBeat Q&A with Botha provides insight regarding YouTube before the Google acquisition.Botha is #22 on the 2008 Forbes Midas List, moving up one position from 2007. The Midas List chronicles the top deal makers in the world. He is also listed as one of the PayPal Mafia in a 2007 Fortune article.

 Here is Kara Swisher’s July 2007 interview with Botha at the Sequioa’s offices on Sand Hill Road: 

Botha is involved in the following Sequoia investments:

• Gene Security Network,
• Insider Pages – local business reviews,
• Jawbone – cool bluetooth headset,
• Joost – free online TV,
• Mahalo – handcrafted search (I tried a Roelof Botha search and got this — very cool),
• Meebo – online IM site,
• Searchme.com, – visual search, a la, Apple’s Coverflow,
• ThinkCash, – Short term loans,
• TokBox, – web-based video chat,
• Xceive – Single chip RF-to-baseband transceivers (mmm not I know exactly what they do),
• Xoom, international money transfer service and PayPal competitor, 
• Adbrite – online internet ad market place, 
• Luxim, 
• Green Dot Financial Services, and 
• Zappos.com – online shoe store.

Not a lot is known about Botha’s personal life. He is married and has two sons aged 2 and 5 years old. He likes to play chess. Here is his LinkedIn profile.

Little-known facts about South Africa

Posted by beyond438 on Mar 18, 2008 in Life, South Africa | 0 comments

Juluka is a monthly magazine published in the US and according to its editors: a magazine embracing South Africa and her people. Btw, Juluka is a Zulu word and it means, “sweat”. It is also the name of a well-known South African band led by Johnny Clegg.In the March 2008 on Juluka magazine is a list of interesting and little-known facts about South Africa. Here is a partial list:

• The only street is the world to house 2 Nobel Peace Prize winners is in Soweto. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu both have houses in Vilakazi Street in Soweto. 
• South Africa is the 2nd largest exporter of fruit.
• South Africa generates 2/3 of Africa’s electricity and has the cheapest electricity in the world.
• GM South Africa will be the only manufacturing site outside of the US to build the Hummer H3.

Do you know any other interesting facts about South Africa?

What do you want to be remembered for?

Posted by beyond438 on Mar 11, 2008 in Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Life | 0 comments

I’m sure that you’ve noticed by now that I am a big fan of Guy Kawasaki. I really like his practical, let’s get it done attitude. His Art of the Start book is one of the best business books around.Read it!The last chapter of Guy’s book is on being a Mensch or “What do you want to be remembered for?” You can find a Guy’s post on this here and Joe McCarthy’s counter point here. Guy also contributes to Entrepreneur Magazine and in the March 2008 edition he writes about the same topic.Here are his 5 ways:

• Help people who cannot help you. A mensch helps people who cannot ever return the favor. He doesn’t care if the recipient is rich, famous, or powerful. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t help rich, famous, or powerful people (indeed, they may need the most help), but you shouldn’t help only rich, famous, and powerful people.
• Help without the expectation of return. A mensch helps people without the expectation of return–at least in this life. What’s the payoff? Not that there has to be a payoff, but the payoff is the pure satisfaction of helping others. Nothing more, nothing less.
• Help many people. Menschdom is a numbers game: you should help many people, so you don’t hide your generosity under a bushel. (Of course, not even a mensch can help everyone. To try to do so would mean failing to help anyone.)
• Do the right thing the right way. A mensch always does the right thing the right way. She would never cop an attitude like, “We’re not as bad as Enron.” There is a bright, clear line between right and wrong, and a mensch never crosses that line.
• Pay back society. A mensch realizes that he’s blessed. For example, entrepreneurs are blessed with vision and passion plus the ability to recruit, raise money, and change the world. These blessings come with the obligation to pay back society. The baseline is that we owe something to society–we’re not a doing a favor by paying back society.

It’s the end of your life…what do you want to be remembered for?[amtap book:isbn=1591840562]