Failure leads to online success for Mitchell's Plain trio

Cape Town - The failure of an online directory led to a discovery of the "hidden secrets of Mitchell's Plain", which in turn inspired three young men to launch the first successful Cape Flats online store.

The Mitchell's Plain Online Store's success lies in communication, determination and unwavering commitment of its founding partners. Andre Williams, 26, Marshall Petersen, 26 and Angelo Fortuin, 29, all from the Mitchell's Plain area, told Fin24 they re-purposed the concept of the now defunct Mitchell's Plain online directory with a mere R50 capital. Petersen, who started the online directory with other members not part of the current trio, said the directory focused on advertising to local businesses in the area, to help them go digital.

"This endeavor didn't work as expected and we lost more money relative to what we made in cash," Petersen explained.

"This left us in a situation where we had to look at the numbers and ask ourselves if this was a good idea. Unfortunately, when we realised how far we have sunk in terms of cash, it was too late and we had a mere R50 in the bank account," said Petersen.

Fin24 found out more:

How did the concept come about? 

Petersen: Although local businesses were reluctant to sign up at a cost for the directory, we definitely got lots of organic clicks and impressions, which often led to incoming phone calls. It also led us to all the hidden secrets of Mitchell's Plain. We had to sell something to somebody if we wanted to keep going, but we hardly had money. With a mere R50 in the directory's bank account we decided to approach manufacturers to allow us to purchase one product, even though the minimum purchases and the first time purchases were well in the thousands (R500 to R2 000).

I doubt it was the R50 that started the business, as many people have access to a R50, but it was certainly the resourcefulness and determination, or should I say desperation, that started Mitchell's Plain Online Store. We did not get any funding from anybody. We had to re-invest the cash to slowly grow the business, its stock capital and into marketing of the products we sold.

We got the idea that we can sell products to residents instead of businesses. Our first sale came from a free Gumtree ad and on the same day we delivered the item to the customer within our community. The third sale was a sale of R6 500+ and we used the profits from that sale to fund ourselves out of bankruptcy.

We all recognised the fact that our community lacked an online presence and we felt that we could provide this service.

How has the public response been?

Petersen: The community has supported us in good ways. As our statistics show, local residents prefer to shop via our WhatsApp contact instead of the website. It will take some time to get them to shop online and have their products delivered the same day to their doors but we are very optimistic that the community will come on board with full force.

Williams: We are not yet where we want to be as a business as we haven’t fully penetrated the Mitchell's Plain market but we have been experiencing growth. At first, the online store was meant to service our community. When we initially advertised through Gumtree, we received orders from outside of Mitchell’s Plain and outside of the province as well. To us this was surprising and exciting because we realised that we could be much more than just an online store for our community.

The challenge has been getting people to know about us and what we do. Many people from Mitchell’s Plain are not used to shopping online, so it has been necessary for us to help them and educate them in this regard. But once showing people how simple and convenient it is, and also the fact that they can trust us, they are responding well. We have formed good relationships with our customers.

How accessible is it to the general public?

Petersen: Mitchell's Plain Online Store started as a community goal, or at least the concept was a local one. We wanted to give residents of Mitchell's Plain amazing customer service to the products that they would generally need from time to time. Therefore, after time we invested in a website...  and I have educated myself in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which makes it very simple to search our products online via Google or any other search engine. To our surprise, we got sales from other neighbouring communities, whether it be an affluent or impoverished area. Few months thereafter, sales started to come from many remote and rural places, which was great but posed many shipping problems, but we managed to overcome these challenges.

Fortuin:  Any device that is able to either view our website or use WhatsApp or send/receive email or make/receive calls allows for accessibility.

Lessons learnt from running a business as a partnership?

Petersen: Many. Initially, we were a team of six that started the Mitchell's Plain Online Store concept. However, due to circumstances, three of them resigned as we never got paid for most of 2015. The rest have shown how committed, determined and passionate they are - by how we show up every day, not just physically, but giving it their all to move the business forward and make it sustainable.

What I have learnt from this partnership is that your individual weaknesses should be the strength of another team member. In other words, your geniuses should be complementary to what the business requires.

Williams: The most notable lesson would be that we should be effective and efficient in our communication.

Fortuin: Communication needs be efficient, open, and respectful. Different points of view are essential to better understand what decisions need to be made, what factors need to be considered and the actual/potential shortfalls/benefits.

What has made your partnership successful? 

Petersen: Team spirit! The team spirit has made it the success it is today. If we win, we celebrate it, when we fail, we fail together and try to ask ourselves what went wrong and how we can avoid it next time around.

Williams: One of the reasons why we're still in business and continue to work hard to make it a success is because we are doing what we love. So as we started growing we regularly speak and speak openly about what our personal goals are and what we enjoy doing. Within a business, there are many functions and many things that need to be done that each of us handle or are responsible for, departments that interest us.

We also have an equal partnership and no one partner towers or dictates which direction the business goes and grows into - we strategise about where we want to go as a business. We looked at each one's vision for the business and devised a shared vision and direction for the business.

We work as a team and provide support to each other when that is required. During the last two weeks I needed leave as I am also a student and my partners continued running the business without me and allowed me the time to do what I needed to do. We all have various responsibilities so we respect that and have each others' backs, so to say.

Fortuin:  For me it was open Communication, especially regarding differences of opinions and understandings; shared commitment; and understanding of our own visions and how it can be interwoven into the business’ vision.

What values do you live by and how crucial are these when it comes to forming partnerships?

Petersen: My values generally comes from working towards something very worthwhile and being as determined as ever. Never giving up may sound as a cliché from every other business book on personal development, but I believe that hard-headed people may have the tenacity that is required to start something, allowing for possibility of failure or success. If you fail, you just start again, perhaps something new, perhaps the same thing in a different way. Therefore, having these values one has to associate with people that are made from the same fibre as you. That never-giving-up-attitude and that is why we are a team of three (currently) trying to build a business that is independent from the founders but run and managed by local residents of Mitchell's Plain.

Williams: I have the belief that anything is possible and there is no reason why I cannot achieve what someone like Steve Jobs did. So I feel like that was crucial for me, being able to work so well with my fellow team members. I felt that this is possible; this idea and dream that we have. Therefore we are still together and continue working hard to be successful as a team.

Fairness, commitment, passion, optimism, objectivity are also some of the values I feel helped make the partnership work.

Fortuin: Honesty, commitment, reliability, patience, empathy are all crucial values for any partnership.

(Mitchells Plain members at an open streets market. Picture: supplied.)

Who or what motivates you as a person?

Petersen: There are many entrepreneurs that inspire me on a daily basis. From Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg. But someone that really inspires me, is a local, serial entrepreneur called Andrew William Smith, who have made it very relatable on how small he started in South Africa and now has 12 businesses. There are others, like Ryan Blair and Kevin O’Leary.

Williams: As a person my biggest motivator would be my family. Like many other people my family has experienced hardship and many setbacks, so I feed off from the frustration from the hard times I’ve experienced and that fuels me to want to make a success of myself and change my situation. I would like my family (parents and siblings) to live comfortably and have the best there is and that's my motivation.

My personal heroes are also people like Nelson Mandela, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. I continually try to listen or read up about them and how they changed the world and apply it to my own life and business.

Fortuin: What motivates me? Contributing to the positivity that exists within my community and the spirit, confidence, empathy, and passion found in so many people that I have encountered, many of whom I am honoured to have personal relationships with. People I have not met: Wangari Maathai, Bell Hooks, Emma Goldman, Jacque Fresco, to mention a few.

What did you learn the hard way?

Petersen: The toughest lesson for me was not having access to mentors and business people who are already successful to nurture and hone my skills. Often we have many ideas, but we are left with the conundrum of what ideas are viable and feasible at the same time, given the constraints that we have. Since we are "employees" working in the business, we often do not have an outside lens to look from, making this very difficult to move the business in the desired direction while saving money and time.

Williams: Firstly, I’d say it's hard work and the work never stops. As an entrepreneur it’s all up to you to get things done. If you don’t do it, it could mean an unhappy customer, a tarnished reputation and the end of our business. There are so many things that need to be handled on a daily basis so the number one thing you realise is that the words 9 to 5 do not exist.

As an entrepreneur you need to really make sacrifices and persevere. The idea of having your own business and making a success of it sounds very glamorous but it is not at all the case. In the beginning we did not take anything for salaries from the business as all funds needed to be reinvested in the business. However, we needed to persevere through those times. We are now in a position where we can draw a salary but we still make sacrifices here and there for the benefit of the business. The business is like our child and needs to be nurtured so we always need to put the business first.

We’ve also learnt that we can’t do everything. As an online store we have huge goals and want to be able to compete with other online businesses. We started out with a wide range of products but needed to scale down to handle what we could and now that we have the systems in place we were able to expand again. We also had to focus on what we feel we do best and highlight that to our customers.

Fortuin: The formation of an idea, although sometimes quite challenging, is far outweighed by the amount of effort required to have it envisioned and sustained. I've also found that it was and still is at times very difficult to calculate the full extent of some risks – and if/when the return on investment falls very short, then the moral and determination of the team will determine how quickly (if at all) you’ll be able bounce back.

Marshall Petersen with two prospective customers at the DStv Mitchell's Plain Festival at Westridge Gardens, Mitchell's Plain. (Pic: Supplied.)

What life or business advice did you received that you've implemented in your life?

Petersen: There are many. A profound advice that I read was "When you are young, work to learn, not to earn" by Robert T Kiyosaki and one of my favourites is "You’ve got nothing to lose, but everything to gain", which was written by Ryan Blair. At this point in my life, this is the advice that I live by.

Williams: Be true to myself, give it everything I’ve got and be fearless. These would be my personal rules I live by and apply to the business.

Fortuin: Live in such a way that contributes to the upliftment and enrichment of all.

What can you count as success in your business?

Petersen: The successes have been small but evident. The fact that we are able to sell throughout South Africa from a living room is definitely one. We have managed to grow the customer base, and thus have managed to pay ourselves a small daily rate of R100. Soon we will have our new website that is much more advanced than the current one. We will also be moving to an office space quite soon. We plan to add groceries to our line of products and definitely starting to be more strategic about the business, but by doing so we need employees who can do the daily operations of the business.

Williams: I’d say we’ve come a long way from where we first started. In terms of sales we had very little thereof and now we are at a point where we have regular customers. We experienced days where we had no emails or enquiries, but now our phones are ringing and there are always enquiries, orders and sales coming through.

We have now also made it to every province in the country and have even received orders from Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Zambia. We have not been able to fulfil them yet but we are working on getting to a point where we can.

We also have 15 suppliers listed and offer our customers three various delivery options. It started out and it should also be mentioned that we did not have the trust of our customers so we had a lot of our sales done by cash on delivery. These days, cash on delivery sales are very rare and people trust us a bit more to pay.

How important is family support?

Petersen: The support of family plays a big role. It’s very easy to give up when the support of one’s family is not there. My parents are extremely supportive. Currently, I still live under their roof, we operate from the lounge of my home and never have they said we should move, find jobs or pay rent. Their support cannot be quantified and I believe the best reward is seeing that we are succeeding and growing.

Williams: As a business owner you experience many highs, but many lows as well. Getting encouragement and knowing that your family supports your dream keeps you going. I am still under my parents' roof and being an entrepreneur is risky as you may fail horribly or succeed. My family has allowed me the freedom to pursue my dreams and passion irrespective of the outcome financially. Without this freedom I don’t think any of this would have been possible because when I needed go to them for personal assistance financially they did not mind at all.

Fortuin: Support from family (whether it be biological or chosen) is almost always paramount to contributing to all-round development and their encouragement and understanding is critical to your success.

The Mitchell's Plain Online Store's co-founders currently all live in the area. Williams was born and bred in Beacon Valley, Petersen moved to Rocklands when he was a year old and Fortuin lives in the Westridge area after he moved there about 20 years ago.

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