FNB App Academy 2026 EP 6 - Module 2 Part 1

14:04 Hey hey hey. Hey,

15:00 Hey yo, what's popping everybody? Welcome back to the 2026 FM App Academy. I am Kabum. This is a perfect place to get you guys kick started on building those beautiful apps of yours. So, as you're well aware that we are working close by with the Johannesburg business school at the University of Jes incredible 10week course. All right. So, the first five weeks will cover digital skills and entrepreneurship and the second five weeks will cover app development and coding. So last time we completed module one which focused on digital literacy and productivity tools and I hope your assessments went well and you guys are ready for module two which will focus on the entrepreneur mindset and business foundations. So before we head over to Dvon let us take a look at one of the previous graduates of the app academy just to speak about

15:45 the importance of this particular platform. Hi guys, my name is Gavo Malapo all the way from Free State Constant and I'm 21 years old. I've always had a passion for technology from a young age and I believe technology has a power to change people's lives and create opportunity for young people like me and what actually inspired me to join FMA was to grow my was my desire to grow my skills and gain more knowledge in technology. And I also wanted to like challenge myself and learn coding and be part of an environment that actually pushes

16:31 young people to be innovative and creative. My experience was both exciting and challenging. I was exposed to different area of technology and coding which helped me to grow as a person and a future developer. One of the biggest thing that I learned is to be consistent and disciplined. I also learn how important problem solving and teamwork are in communication. I get to communicate with some people um networking and just enjoying how to code. FMV Academy gave me valuable skills and exposure and a confidence to believe in my future in tech. One of my biggest challenge was adapting to some of coding concept

17:16 especially back end development and there were times where I did not have um enough data to watch tutorial videos and I overcame those challenges by staying disciplined practicing regularly and believing in myself even when things are difficult. FMV acade academy is the plug for young people because it give them valuable skills, exposure and actually confidence to believe in their future. I will actually advise young people out there to never doubt themselves and always be curious to learn. I say yes technology is real but growth takes patience hard work and consistency and with FMB academy you can

18:03 do that I see myself as a software developer selftaught one and owning couple of apps one of my important thing I want to do is to like change people's lives and play a part in African history I do have couple of project learning up that I might think in future they might work for me cuz I still have my own challenges. Yeah, that's I would actually like to thank FMV Academy for investing in us young people and also my lovers to support me for our journey.

18:49 >> All right, so awesome stuff. Right now I think it's time for us to get started with our second module on digital skills and entrepreneurship focusing on the entrepreneurial mindset and business foundations. So as before this module will be split into four topics. Now the first topic will cover entrepreneurial mindset which is the growth grit and the eight core attributes. Now the second topic will cover opportunity recognition and value creation. All right. And the third topic will cover business model canvas and lean canvas from idea to model. And the first topic will cover essay business environment and AI as your business co-pilot. So let's get ready for learning and let's give a virtual round of applause for our amazing lecturer Devon Pau.

19:40 Hi everybody and welcome to today's lesson on module two the entrepreneurial mindset. So for today we're going to be covering topics one and two and when I come back we'll be discussing module three sorry topic three and four. So by the end of this module, you'll be able to distinguish between what a fixed and a growth mindset is and apply a growth orientation to the challenges that you experience across or along your entrepreneurial journey. You'll be able to identify the eight core attributes of an entrepreneurial mindset, including what grit, perseverance, and resilience looks like. We'll apply a business model canvas and

20:25 a lean canvas or one of the of each of them um to map and stress test your business idea so that you move from idea generation to executing against that idea. And then lastly, we're going to use AI as a thinking partner as mentioned to refine our value propositions um and identify where these business opportunities lie so that we can target the market effectively. So without any further ado, let's jump into the entrop entrepreneurial mindset. Um and uh what are we going to be learning about the entrepreneurial mindset? We're going to as mentioned distinguish between the two mindsets uh fixed and

21:10 growth and explain which one drives entrepreneurial success and we've got some research that I'm going to unearth that will help you understand why we say it drives entrepreneurial success. Uh we're going to define grit uh and describe its two dimensions perseverance of effort and consistency of interest. uh identify the eight core attributes uh within a South African context and provide some examples uh associated to that. Uh refine failure and I think this is one of the things that you're going to experience along your journey is that you are going to experience failure, you're going to experience rejection. Uh but pulling on these eight core attributes, you will be able to persevere and you'll be able to develop

21:57 the muscle of resilience which we all have. Some of us just exercise it more than others. So, we're going to re reframe failure as a data point rather than an identity. I'm going to repeat that. We're going to reframe failure as a data point rather than your identity using neuroscience and some research evidence that's going to back that. Uh and then lastly, one the last learning outcome is then to conduct a personal mindset self assessment. very quickly we'll do that and identify your strongest and your weakest attributes and then reflect upon that very quickly. All right. So who do I need to become in order to build this mindset before what should I build? Often times we

22:43 think about we we we land on an idea about building a business or uh exploiting an opportunity that we've seen within the market within our communities and the context of uh the our community and we think to ourselves yes I can build that I can sell this product uh I can solve for this need that's in our communities um but we very seldom take time to understand exactly who do I need to become come in order to build a successful business? Who do I need to become in order to uh to to grow and scale a business to something that's more than just an idea, but a sustainable effort that solves for

23:28 actual problems and needs in society. And without us understanding who do we need to become in order to build this that that statistic that you see on screen there that five out of seven businesses small to mediumsiz enterprises fail within their first year really stands out. It's almost a shock to your system. Um uh so we have two mindsets that you could approach that statistic with. The first mindset is entrepreneurship is too risky. Uh the odds are always against us especially looking at five out of seven businesses that fail within the first year and that failure is permanent and personal. That's what a fixed mindset would interpret that statistic as. A growth

24:16 mindset however interprets that same statistic as a solvable problem. that what are the five businesses that fail with fail five of the seven businesses do that fail within the first year what do they what do they do uh and how do I learn from what they've done so that I become part of the two out of the seven that succeed within the first year um so a growth mindset sees this as a solvable problem um as what the businesses that survive have that those that have failed don't have or lack and how do I build more of what those two businesses have, right? So, let's reframe failure as as not just

25:02 a data point uh sorry, not just your as as how you see your identity. Let's let's reframe failure as a data point from which you can learn from. Um the view you adopt the view you adopt of yourself rather profoundly affects the way you lead your life. As we've seen on the previous slide that if we interpret that five out of seven statistic as our identity we'll see it as way too risky to even embark on the first step of entrepreneurship. Uh uh so adopting a growth mindset really helps us lead our life, lead our businesses more effectively, more

25:48 purposefully. It can determine whether you you become a person that you want to that you want to be um or whether you can also accomplish the goals and desires that you set for yourself. So applying to the South African uh context, uh growth growth mindset seems to be the one of the biggest predictors um of business success regardless of your gender, regardless of your age, or regardless of your background. And there's some research that that that supports that claim. Um and that you'll find in your learner guide. You'll find on the learning management system as well as a further reading item. You can dive into the actual body of research um in your own time. But let that sink in

26:35 that regardless of your age, your gender or your background, growth mindset is the one predictor of success in comparison to any of those other variables. So, let's pause here. Uh, take a listen to these videos and when I see you again, we'll recap on what that looks like and we'll dive into the the mechanics of uh a fixed mindset as well as a growth mindset in your journey to becoming the business leader that you want to become. There are two types of mindset. There is a fixed mindset and there is a growth mindset. Most people fail in that process. Because most people live in the fixed mindset. The fixed mindset is this is who I am. This is what I know. This

27:22 is what I'm capable of. This is what I'm good at and this is where I'm going to stay. The growth mindset, it says this is where I am now. This is what I'm good at now. But I recognize that if I go through a particular process, I can grow myself and become a better person. You need to learn to be uncomfortable. You need to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And you need to be in a space where you allow yourself to be challenged but more importantly in a space where you are willing to be uncomfortable and grow. >> Many times in entrepreneurship people say what are the secrets to success. I share two things. Imagine these because they're going to happen. One, be prepared for a lot of rejection. Whether people close the door in your face or tell you it's never

28:08 going to happen, you can't do it, you're too old, you don't have the education, you don't have what it takes, somebody else did it. Don't listen to them. Don't let it affect you. The second thing is that your service or your product must be the highest quality you can possibly make it because you don't want to be in the selling business. You want a product or a service so good that you're in the reorder business, not the selling business. Someone wants to talk about, they want to reorder, they want it to be part of their lives, or it's so good, they want to tell their people about it. So, I think the core message that both of these videos uh illustrate or or talk

28:54 about is that ideas are cheap. Anyone can come up with an idea. Um but it's in the execution of that idea where value lies, where funding lies, where opportunities are validated. And that's a a core distinction between these fixed and growth mindset. In a fixed mindset, you often sit with the idea and you think to yourself, why can't person X or person Y buy into this? Why aren't people purchasing what I'm trying to sell? Whereas a growth mindset seeks out ways upon which they can learn from what other people have done and what you've currently doing to ensure that you grow your business. Right? So a fixed mindset and I'd like you to

29:41 reflect on these two columns of text that's on screen and you can read a lot faster than I can talk. So, as I'm narrating or talking about the the fixed and growth mindset, I want you to think to yourself where which mindset do I often find myself in? Which which mindset which column do I often times find myself spending a lot of time in? In a fixed mindset, we believe that our attributes or our abilities are fixed. um that we either have something or we don't have the ability to do something. It sort of cast in cast an iron in our in our minds that I'm able to do this or I'm not able to do this. I'm able to play hockey or I'm not able to play

30:27 hockey as opposed to I can play hockey but you know it's a it's I've got this fear about you know coming in for the tackle on the wrong side so therefore I don't learn how to approach it from the other side um of of the player. Uh the second bit there is like I avoid challenges to protect a self-image that I've already created about myself or a self-image that others have told me that a divine this is who you are. This is what I believe that you are able to do. This is your lot in life. We avoid challenging that that perception that we've built about ourselves based on what we've told ourselves or based on what others have told us. We give up often when obstacles arise.

31:13 We don't embrace a new challenge. Um, and we ignore feedback and criticism. And I arguably arguably believe that feedback and criticism is the breakfast of champions, so to speak. I believe that it's important that we we open our our ears to what other people are hearing when we talk, observing when we behave. um and telling us when we we fault or when we succeed. A fixed mindset ignores all of those measures of feedback and criticism, positive or negative, and instead we frame this picture about ourselves that we are not business people and that

31:58 we can't become business people because I was never a business person. A growth mindset on the other hand says that our abilities can be developed through effort and perseverance or persistence. We can embrace challenges as opportunities to grow, opportunities to improve, opportunities to be better. Uh we persist through setbacks and we learn from criticism and apply the feedback that we've received that either others have told us or that we've seen from ourselves. oftentimes something that I do which I use as feedback for myself is I record myself having a conversation about you know endeavoring to pitch to a new client or

32:44 or sell a product. I record myself in the mirror and I look at myself thereafter and I think to myself these things I need to improve. I need to change the body language. I need to change the way I use my hands in conversations. I need to change the pace of my discussion uh so that I keep people engaged as opposed to lose people because I might have spoken too fast. Um so a growth mindset says I'm always in the process of becoming a better business individual or a better business person. So I hope you took time to to sit and reflect upon which column describes you most. And as we navigate through these topics uh the four topics that we're

33:30 going to be discussing discussing I want you to recognize and understand that no one is purely fixed or purely growth. Most people are more growth oriented in some areas or more fixed in some other areas and that's okay. Uh I want you to notice that uh as mentioned which column you find yourself in and recognize that you're not purely just isolated to one that you can meander between one and the other. Um, and as you build your business, it's important that we build a level of awareness around I'm operating in the fixed mindset now and maybe I need to get out of that state of operation very quickly or I need to get out of that

34:17 state of operation whenever I'm working with one particular client with a team member or so forth or when I'm building a technology uh a product um and recognize that I need to move into a growth mindset so that I'm able to lead your lead myself, lead my business and lead my team more effectively. And the truth is this that we are always in the state of becoming. It's physiological. It's not just psychological. Uh if you think of it from a physiological point of view, when you were born, you were in the state of becoming a toddler, a kid, a early teen or pre-teen, a

35:02 teenager, an adult, early adult. Um you're always in the state of becoming someone physiologically. And the same is true for our mindset, right? that our mindset is always in the state of becoming. So the founder of the the term uh growth mindset her name is Dr. Carol Dwick um and she found that people with a fixed mindset show no measurable growth uh sorry not growth but show no measurable brain activity whenever they are reviewing mistakes whether the mistake is catastrophic or whether the mistake is very small and I like to think of a brain that has very little brain activity as uh if you

35:49 think of a jar if we take this this cup that's sitting next to me uh or in front of me rather. And uh if the the cup had a snail inside of it, if I shake the cup with the snail inside of it, uh the snail might cling onto the glass or the porcelain rather. Um or putting the the cup down, the snail might move very slowly around. And I think to myself that no brain activity generally feels like that. If I were to, you know, look inside of an active brain and and and observe its behavior, no measurable brain activity oftenimes look like you can't see the changes, right? Um even though we are moving from one client to the next, you know, our

36:36 fingers coding on a laptop and so forth, we are moving at a a particular speed, but with a fixed mindset, it's often times the opposite. And there's some Dr. Carol Dick has identified a lot of research that supports this claim that people with a fixed mindset um show no measure measurable brain activity when review mistakes. On the contrast to that though, a growth mindset shows significant processing activity. I like to think of you know marbles in the same cup and we might want to sort of close off the top of the cup, right? Or put it in a jar, marbles in a jar and we shake the jar. I think that when learning from failure, learning from challenges and mistakes that you make

37:23 with a growth mindset and if you shake that jar with all those marbles inside of it, you see them firing from one side of the jar to the next. And I like to think of that illustration when I see uh the research around a growth mindset, learning from mistakes, and you've seen the the the brain firing its neurons from one side of the jaw to the next just in the same way that marbles would do, right? Um and in that way you can recognize now that these two mindsets are not just something intangible but you have to recognize that your brain operates at a particular level when you function in a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset.

38:10 So Dr. Carol Dwick and there's another short video here which we'll pause in a few seconds but she talks about these two concepts of perseverance and of perseverance of effort and uh consistency of interest. Let's take a quick listen to how she describes grit and the importance of grit when unpacking these two concepts and I'll come back to you and we'll flesh it out slightly more. One characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success and it wasn't social intelligence. It wasn't good looks, physical health, and it wasn't IQ. It was grit. Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having

38:56 stamina. Brit is sticking with your future day in day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years and working really hard to make that future a reality. So there we can see as Carol Dwick is talking about uh grit uh and these passion and perseverance traits um that she emphasizes that perseverance beats passion for sustaining a business. every single time. Grit matters more even when we have underrepresented groups in South Africa that are are building organizations and building businesses whether registered or not registered. Perseverance as we've seen uh

39:44 uh is about continuing to work hard despite setbacks and obstacles and uh plateaus of business. often times in the season of an organization, you'll go through growth cycles. Um, and this plateau is often times you find yourself in a comfortable state where you're not attracting new clients or selling more or less, but you're selling the same volume from the previous month and you know, if you take a three-month view of your your sales volume, sales hasn't really picked up or hasn't really dropped. So, you're plateauing, right? Um, and that's often times that's a dangerous place to be in. But perseverance of effort says that I'm going to push through that season of plateau so that I resell and start moving into a growth state of my

40:30 business once again. Right? Um, and perseverance of effort is referred to as this discipline dimension where regardless of whether I'm selling less or selling more, I'm going to continue and persevere through that season. Consistency of effort is about maintaining focus on the same long-term goal rather than switching when the excitement regarding that goal fades. And often times I find myself in this position where I'm excited about a particular piece of work that I'm doing with a client and it might span across three to six months. Um and during that time another client might come around with a equally as exciting project and

41:18 because I'm excited by planning maybe that um you know I lose my focus and the consistency of interest along the journey of a particular piece of work builds trust within your clients um not just to ensure that the you deliver that project across the course of those six months effectively but that there's repeat business that comes alongside that. Um so trust is a byproduct of you persevering through effort but also through being consistent in the amount of interest that you display across multiple different projects. So we can see perseverance is a strong driver of entrepreneurial action more than just having passion. Passion often starts a business. It

42:04 displays a high level of excitement and interest in a particular piece of work. Um, but perseverance is the muscle that sustains that effort over time. That sustains that effort more than just through exciting seasons or plateauing seasons or seasons of challenge and obstacle and low growth. And for South African entrepreneurs, I feel that specifically grit is more strongly related to self-employment, freelancing or risktakers, women and younger individuals. It's a more important attribute um than groups that are over represented in formal environments rather than in township environments. I want you to take a lot of focus upon that there that

42:50 perseverance is that one strong driver that uh entrepreneurs leverage to drive business success. So let's take a look at the core eight skills and core eight attributes. um that are not fixed traits, right? The first is opportunity recognition and these are often times seen as you know we can look around us and identify these unmet opportunities right that often times others overlook and they think to themselves rather that this is not something that I want to get involved in it's not a business idea that I ever saw myself uh building um

43:41 but it's opportunity Community recognition is an opportunity is an entrepreneurial trait that we use to scan the environment and identify where an unmet needs or an unmet need lies and not necessarily taking advantage of that need but just seeing the opportunity seeing the need and recognizing that it's a problem that can be fulfilled. The second is innovation and creativity. And this is about adapting solutions to new contexts. So you might see that a payment solution in the formal sector might be working very well within that

44:26 environment. Maybe we off at the Mabon precinct down in central Janisburg and uh we're having a good time on Saturday afternoon and with some friends and we pay for a beverage or we pay for a meal or something of interest and we don't use cash but we use a electronic payment solution and we think to ourselves back home, back in my suburb, back in my community, back in my the context within which the the the the business environment which I serve. This need this solution is something that can definitely solve for a painoint that exists in uh a new context and uh you bring that solution into you

45:13 adapt that solution from the formal sector to an informal sector or from the informal sector to the formal sector. uh innovation and creativity works both ways because you are adapting a solution from one context to the next. The third is around risk tolerance assessing and taking calculated risks. Right? This is not about taking a risk that you blindly just embark on because you believe and you're excited by the opportunity, but you're evaluating the risk and you're determining whether this is something that has the ability to thrive within the context of the business environment or whether the risk

45:59 is just too great and there's a high opportunity of failure within the environment. and maybe the the conditions of the environment are not just suited for that type of risk. Right? Fourth is proactivity and initiative shaping opportunities and not just waiting for them to happen. I often times look at the likes of initiative when I see this trait that am I taking the initiative? Am I being proactive to shape an opportunity that might be available to me that might be available to you? uh as opposed to just sitting back and waiting for this opportunity to be shaped by someone else for you to take advantage of. Instead, you are leading the charge and you are leading the you you're being

46:46 maverick in taking the the initiative to solve for that particular opportunity. The fifth uh attribute or disposition is around resilience and adaptability. We've already spoken quite a bit about resilience uh when discussing growth mindset. Uh what's important about resilience and adaptability within South African environment is that we adjust our strategy against the conditions of the market that change so aggressively. All right. Number six, resourcefulness is efficiently using what you have available to yourself. And I think later during the course of these topics as we

47:32 discuss artificial intelligence we are seeing that there are a lot of openweight artificial intelligence applications that are extremely cheap that are essentially free in most cases um that we're able to leverage uh to equalize the barrier to entry in certain markets in certain conditions in certain communities. Um and it's important that you are you leverage the resourcefulness of yourself um to efficiently use what is available as an entrepreneur. The seventh attribute is growth orientation. To continuously learn, to continuously improve, to continuously listen to

48:17 feedback and take criticism both negatively and positively. and identify that as as a data point around how you can continuously learn, how you can grow and how you can be a better business leader, how you can be a better person and how you continuously become the individual that you're looking to be uh that your business needs you to be that the market needs you to be rather. And then lastly, arguably one of the most important uh attributes and skills is vision and purpose. We don't start businesses because we purely just see this opportunity that can be solved for. We start businesses because we have a vision and because we have a purpose that we believe that transcends your own capability. Uh so in crafting a vision and a purpose

49:05 and a value proposition for your business, we set clear objectives and a compelling mission so that when people realize that you're not just selling a clothing item, but you are clothing a community that you are clothing a a a a context of the people that don't have uh and providing a need to solve for that gap that purpose becomes something that transcends just what what you sell but it becomes a mission that uh people come around and people support and people grow amongst. Often times we look around us and we see someone that has already built something and we think I I can't

49:50 do that. Why should I build that? What's important is that there's nothing new under the sun. your vision and your purpose and your mission differentiate differentiates you from anyone else and that's why it's important that we we we build a vision and a purpose for our business. So earlier in the topic we spoke about failure as a data point as opposed to who you are or your identity. So if failure is uh a data point it can be useful right one every business has failed at something. It might not be a failure but it has

50:37 failed at an endeavor in order to achieve the mission that it has crafted for itself or the along the journey of executing against its vision and against its purpose. Every business has failed at some point in time along that those train tracks. What's important is that they start. It's important that you start. And that's arguably the the single biggest category of entrepreneurship that leads to business success or business failure. The second point around recognizing that data around failure can be useful is that most the most commonly causes of

51:23 small to mediumsiz enterprise failure is unprofitability or lack of finance or lack of funding. Uh the gap from between your expertise or expertise gaps u skills gaps all of these are addressable. All of these can be solved for all of these matters around unprofitability or lack of revenue, lack of lack of funding or lack of finance and access to finance, uh a lack of skills and expertise. They are all gaps that can be closed. lack of f for instance if we dive into through this data point um if we look at

52:11 businesses at the moment that are unregistered meaning that they have not registered their business with subc um these organizations these enterprises struggle to get finance because banks look for registered entities that have a legal tax reference number in order to you know process financing funding applications against their business value proposition. Solving for a lack of finance and bank loans and so forth means that we register on sipsy that takes us very little in order to if not free to in order to create that registration u skills gaps the market for talent and accessing talent today especially if you

52:57 look at the likes of LinkedIn or freelance job portals like fiverr and freelance.com and so forth we can close those skill gaps very quickly we can hire expertise these on a freelance basis very quickly and efficiently in order to address those skill gaps that you might have. Um and then we can see those are just two examples around how we can close these gaps and ultimately I want to say that they are not the fact that there are are gaps and lack or unprofitability it doesn't mean that that's inevitable it means that those gaps are closable. Then lastly the most effective learning comes from reflection on failure systematically and not avoiding it. And what I want to give

53:44 you as part of that data point is how do I use learning from failure as an opportunity to do something differently not just about your business but about yourself as well. And I want to give you this this framework. It's a four-step framework identified by an individual by the name of Cobb uh K L O B. you there's an extra additional uh learning resource within the learning management system. You can take some time to to go through that. But this model is known as an experiential learning model or an experiential learning framework and it uh includes four steps. The first is about an event. something has

54:31 happened. Uh you got rejected by a client or your proposal did not go as planned and you uh lost a client, you didn't get a renewal or something of that nature. Just something took place. So we categorize that as an event. That's the first data point essentially along this journey of identifying how to learn from failure. Something happened. The second dimension or second step within this uh process is then to recognize how did that event make you feel and what did I do when that event took place. So

55:19 if you stay with me on this this idea, let's say I submitted a proposal for uh a new client around them onboarding my technology, subscribing to my service that would be distributed across their entire organization if it's a B2B customer. Um and uh they they said they're going to go with someone that's a bit more established in the market. um and that's got a bit more support behind them in terms of how they manage the application. Um how did that make you feel? Maybe you felt rejected. Maybe you felt that, you know, I'm just not cut out for this. Um and maybe thereafter you went home or

56:07 you went back to your office and that evening you sat down and you sort of spiraled into a state of depression. and you thought to yourself, "This is just absolutely not going to work. I don't know if I'm cut out for this." Um, and that's okay. What's important is you recognize how that made you feel and what you did. We are not in the state of changing that behavior just yet, right? We are in the within these first two steps. We are in the mindset that recognizes what is taking place. An event took place. We got rejected by a client. We've got some reasons as far as why that rejection took place. The second step is then how

56:52 did that make you feel? Did you feel depressed? Did you feel worried? Do you feel anxious? Um and what did you do? Did you cower into a corner or did you prepare yourself to do something else? The third step is what did you notice about yourself before you made the pitch, while you were making the pitch and after the pitch was made or after you received the feedback? What happened before, during, and after that event? Sorry, what did you notice about yourself before, during, and after that event? And then lastly, this is where we start to exercise the muscle of the growth mindset. It's what could I do differently

57:39 whenever this event reoccurs? And I can guarantee you that you're going to experience more more experiences or events of rejection. Um, you're going to experience more opportunities where you're going to make pitches. So you need to recognize what you do before you present your business and present yourself to the client uh or to a bank or to the investor. What did you do to yourself before? How did you prepare for that engagement? How did you ensure that you put your best foot forward during your your your your pitch or your your your interview? Um what did you not about notice about yourself during were you nervous? Were you anxious? Um what happened to

58:25 yourself physiologically and you know psychologically? What can you do during those experiences when you feel nervous? What can you do in order to calm your nerves? Um and then after the event, right? How do you ensure that you interpret the feedback that either the client or the investor or the funer uh how do you ensure that after having that conversation that you use that feedback as fuel for your growth as opposed to fuel that fixes your mindset around this is just not I'm not cut out for this right there in lies the difference the

59:10 segregation um between that fix and growth mindset coming through again. How do we use that feedback to learn and grow from the data as opposed to this is just my lot in life. So I've got a an example that I want to take you through around how uh Tandi a fashion retailer um thought about herself as not just she was never a business person right um and this was reinforced every time uh a customer negotiated her price point down uh or a competitor undercut her. And one of the biggest challenges about entrepreneurship is pricing your product. Um because especially if you

59:57 are a soloreneur uh meaning that it's just you yourself and yourself. Uh how do you often times attaching a price point to a product is attaching a price point to yourself. Um it's very difficult to separate the two especially when you are selling. Uh so it's important to recognize that attach value to yourself and attach value to your product so that you identify what the right price point is. And you'll find that you pitch the same product at one price point to one client and a different a completely different price point to another client until you get to a point where you've identified where your product price market fit is. And that's

1:00:45 where you'll start sort of developing confidence uh in positioning that price point to the market. Right? So continuing with Tandi, when loading intensified in 2021, uh most competitors, most of her competitors slowed down. However, she built a financial understanding that by by attending these free CEDA workshops and we'll dive into CEDA as an entity a little later on in the one of the one of the following topics. Um through attending these workshops, she raised her prices uh and positioned herself as a premium reliable so service.

1:01:30 um and invested in a solar setup um in order to ensure that while her competitors slowed down because they didn't have access to uh electricity during a very sort of troublesome time in in our context back in 2021 that um she now used the funding that she received from CEDA in order to purchase an a piece of technology that helped her maintain her product development. and through that created scare leveraged the scarcity that exist existed in her community in order to position her product as a premium service and doubled her revenue between 2022 and 2024.

1:02:16 If she had a fixed mindset, she would have just stuck and said, "This is just everybody else is going through this year. I'm this is just what we have to deal with and I can't change because this is what everybody else is doing. Uh so I'm not alone in the in the journey. But her growth mindset says I'm going to look around, identify what's taking place. Um and I'm going to become a business person by exploiting the market conditions to ensure that I can grow at a rate that my competitors cannot grow at. So Tand's story shows that a growth mindset plus grit plus resilience combined into a real business outcome during a very troublesome time in her

1:03:02 business journey. And as you read through this here, as you listen to me, I want you to reflect, oh, which of the eight attributes has Tandi used in demonstrated through this scenario? and what experience helped her gain um an advantage or a head start against her fixed belief. And as you reflect on that, I want you to take away these four points around this first topic. A growth mindset is the strongest predictor of interior of entrepreneurial success in South Africa in the South African environment regardless of age, gender or background.

1:03:47 I think that's such a big predictor of entrepreneurial success that regardless of who you are, where you come from, by leveraging a growth mindset, you're able to overcome. Grit has two dimensions. perseverance of effort and consistency of interest and perseverance beats passion. That excitement is going to come and it's going to fade. But leveraging grit will help you will see you through that season of excitement or of the lull of rejection along your entrepreneurial journey. Um, I didn't mention this earlier, but along your entrepreneurship journey, you will not just experience rejection, but you'll experience loneliness.

1:04:33 Building your community will help you develop a muscle of grit because while in your community of entrepreneurs, one might be in a season of loneliness or or rejection, another might be in a season of success. and landing one or two clients or three or four clients who consistently on a very mature growth path. By working together and sharing that community, you are able to overcome the season of lullness or rejection and loneliness. Um but it takes a community to build grit. Uh there are eight core attributes that are learnable skills. They are not

1:05:18 unsolvable. They're not fixed traits and they are anchored by a growth mindset. And then lastly, failure is data. It is not your identity. There are two questions that I'd like you to ask yourself when you're reflecting on data uh on failure rather as a data point. What did failure teach me? And why did I fail? And if you can answer those two questions using that framework around the experience experiential learning model, you'll be able to identify what those events taught me. What did how I thought about us myself teach me? And uh why did I fail? What happened before, during, and after the failure that I can learn about how I

1:06:04 can improve next time. So, as we move over to topic two, I want you to pause and reflect. Which column of the fixed or growth mindset table describes you more often when things go wrong and think of specific examples, right? Don't just try and uh think about this in your your your head. Write it down. It's important that we we we in a digital world, it's really important that we continue to write because it activates the brain and it activates the as mentioned earlier the sort of the marbles within the jar that help your brain activity to fire from one side of the brain to the next. Uh writing activates those neural pathways

1:06:51 and neural patterns. Secondly, I want you to think of the eight entrepreneurial attributes. which two are your strengths and which two need development and just identify two within each of those different domains. which are your strengths and which are your areas of development and uh focus on trying to improve the one and you know developing the other and then lastly think of business failure maybe think of a business failure rather maybe it's a previous business that you embarked on over the course of your life thus far um or maybe it's someone you know that has failed at business um what what was the data that they generated And how can you learn from those failure

1:07:37 moments? Right. When you come back, we're going to dive into the second topic around opportunity recognition and value creation. Welcome back from your your break where you've reflected upon those questions. We are going to dive into topic two of this module opportunity recognition and value creation. Most businesses start with an idea and I think I might have echoed that sentiment when we start topic one that most businesses start with an idea. Uh and often times those ideas are novel and those ideas are things that have sat with us for a while and we've built up the courage or circumstances have just

1:08:24 uh sort of worked together in order for you to now embark on delivering against that idea. Uh but I want to challenge that the best businesses start with a problem that they want to solve for not an idea. And today, what we're going to do as we dive into topic two is to learn to see the difference between generating an idea that you believe is something that could be solvable through a commercial entity. Um, or seeing a problem, identifying a problem that is solvable. And through leveraging your growth mindset that we learned about in topic one, we're able to then solve for that

1:09:13 problem that serves our communities, that serves a business environment or particular context. Um, so I want you to recognize this one this one distinction that ideas are cheap to come by. Everybody's got an idea, but opportunities are validated. And I'm going to show you how we can convert or first and foremost how we're going to distinguish between those two and then how we can validate our opportunities and what we can use to identify that area of validation. So in this topic, we are going to distinguish between a business idea and a genuine business opportunity. apply problem first thinking

1:10:01 and four opportunity recognition tools. I'm going to identify and show you what those look like. I want you to describe South Africa's innovation gap and how this gap creates structural opportunity for entrepreneurs. We're going to define a value proposition or define what a value propos proposition is and articulate at least five uh different types of value uh a business can offer. And then lastly uh we're going to construct a clear customer- centered value statement for your business. I'm going to show you how to get going with that then. So this is somewhat of a practical topic. Um

1:10:47 because entrepreneurship is about doing things. I'm going to walk you through in a very sort of paced manner uh to show you exactly how you can achieve these learning objectives by the time we end this topic. Okay. So let's start with this question. Does anyone actually build or does anyone actually want what you built? I want you to actually allow that to sink in. Does anybody want the idea that you've thought about? And maybe you've not only just thought about the idea and had this idea that spanned with you for some time, but you actually built a product and converted

1:11:32 that idea into a product and started to sell it. Um, and then you started to experience some rejection. you started to experience some some lull in the endeavor of building and scaling out the business um and generating revenue. Have you ever asked yourself the question, did anyone actually want what you've built? CB Insights consistently finds that no market need is the common or among rather the top reasons why startups fail globally. that startups build these ideas that they believe that the market needs, that industry needs, that the corporates need. Um, but then they fail. And that's not because there's a lack of capital.

1:12:19 These startups have built products. It's not bad timing. Nobody just wanted it badly enough to pay for it. I'm going to repeat myself there. Nobody wanted it badly enough for them to pay for it. And in South Africa, it's it's it's no different. Many businesses are solutions looking for problems rather than problems that found their solution. Uh the antidote here is that we need to learn to see opportunity before we build. But how do we do that? Right. Um, what we need to do is I'm going to walk you through how we can

1:13:06 formulate our problem. How we can identify that an idea might be something novel. Um, but if that idea really has a certain level of validation to it, how do we then convert that idea from just something that was novel into an opportunity? Because that is definitely possible, right? And one thing that can help us and we touch I touched on it briefly in topic one is that we've got an equalizer that is available to us for today which is artificial intelligence or generative artificial intelligence specifically speaking large language models are trained on an enormous amount of data right if you think of

1:13:53 uh Google search and a chat GBT uh dialogue box. They look very similar, right? Google search essentially searches the world's information and surfaces that information in a search engine uh format, right? So, it ranks, you know, various websites and information and at the moment it surfaces AI mode where it also summarizes some information. But those are two different mechanisms that are being used, right? There are two different technologies at play. When we look at the AI mode, it is a retrieval of data of information. This information that it's trained on, it's retrieving

1:14:40 the text. Um, and through its machine learning algorithm, so I'm getting a little bit technical today, but we spoke about it being slightly more practical. um it's leveraging the machine learning algorithm in order to predict which word goes after the previous one uh within the context of the prompt, the context of the question that you're framing. And that's why it's very important that you be very deliberate and specific within your prompt so that you put some guard rails, right? You give it certain context within which it can formulate that output or that answer for you. So when you type the question, the model is not necessarily thinking the way humans do. It's predicting.

1:15:28 And what's important about converting an idea into an opportunity? You can ask it to predict multiple different outcomes. So how do we develop a deep understanding of a problem? by leveraging art generative artificial intelligence. Maybe it's Google's Gemini, CH GPT, Claude, or if you're in the Microsoft stack, it might be Copilot. How do we use these large language models with generative AI applications in order to develop a deep understanding of the problem that you've identified and the idea that you want to convert into an opportunity. If generative AI is trained on the

1:16:14 world's data, let's ask it to predict a different outcome in a different community, a cashrung community, a cash flush community, a private sector, public sector, um a low growth economy. You can add all these variables into a large language model and ask it to predict how you build an opportunity based on this idea that can help you ultimately lead to a sale. So, I've got another video to show you. Uh and this video is going to help you develop the mechanics around how you can convert

1:16:59 this idea that you believe in wholeheartedly that you're building your v business vision, your business purpose and your business mission upon. How we can convert this idea into an opportunity and ultimately those opportunities lead to sales multiple different environments, multiple different communities and contexts, private and public sector and so forth. So let's take an opportunity to watch this video and when we come back I'll debrief it and we'll take it from there. One of the things as an entrepreneur that we need to be able to distinguish between is what we call an idea and an opportunity.

1:17:45 Now, this might sound like just semantics because they're seem pretty similar and to this point, we've talked a little about ideas and how they are sort of the starting point into this entrepreneurial venture and we know that they are critically important. Um, but we need to think through the fact that there are distinguishable or noticeable differences between both an idea and an opportunity. And so, they don't carry the same weight. Um, so what we're going to talk about in this video is how to distinguish uh between the two and how to determine really if you have an opportunity that could be worth pursuing. I'm going to give you a short very simple framework uh to at least kind of have a litmus test as to whether or not your idea might be more of an opportunity. So starting with an idea,

1:18:30 we can see on the left hand side denoted by this light bulb here uh is an idea is simply a belief of how something should work. Um there is uh no profit uh generated from this. It is simply in the early stages. We merely have a belief about how something might work and how we might be able to potentially get something into a market. But ideas in themselves are not actually all that valuable. And the reason for that is is you can't sell ideas. You can't patent them. They can't be commercialized uh just yet. But ideas are the pathway to how we get to ultimately the opportunity. So we know that they're important for that reason. But beyond that, they don't have a whole lot of significance here. Uh and so what we

1:19:16 want to be able to do is we want to have a very simple way of testing our ideas to seeing if they're actually opportunities because in the idea phase, things don't have a great deal of viability. And so the last thing we want to do is to waste a lot of time on ideas. We want to quickly be able to vet them to figure out if they're actually opportunities. So a quick way if you wanted to determine if something could be more of an opportunity and just a short simple framework is you want to ask yourself really three questions truthfully. Uh you want to know uh if there is a market for your idea. And by a market, what I mean is there is there actually people who will pay for

1:20:03 your solution. Do people have the problem that you believe that they have? Unless there are people that are out there that are going to be willing to part with their hard-earned money, there is not a market for this particular idea, an opportunity does not exist. Right? We need customers to be able to not only validate that there is a problem and our solution is a suitable way to address that problem. But we also need them to be able to earn revenue to make this a viable business unless there is a market for our idea. Uh there is no opportunity here unfortunately. Now, ways to test this, of course, uh can include trying to sell a particular product, but can also include things like engaging in customer discovery where we're uh going out and talking to potential customers, people

1:20:50 that we believe have a problem and that our solution might remedy and interacting with them and and kind of uh gathering information to see if our assumptions are essentially true. Those could be ways to kind of unlock the next step, if you will, and then we can move on to potentially developing minimum viable products and doing a little bit more thorough testing before we're at the point where we're actually operating a business. But a simple question is, are there people out there that would pay for a solution that we have? Now, the next component here besides a market is uh do we have the money? Depending upon the idea that you're pursuing, uh it might be more capital intensive than others. If it's a service

1:21:35 related idea, there's a possibility you might be able to simply just bootstrap it and utilize your existing resources and maybe some other funds that you have at your disposal. Uh but if you're thinking about developing a manufacturing company, then you're going to need some pretty deep pockets or access to those that have deep pockets to be able to fund uh not only facility requirements and upgrades and equipment and inventory and all those types of things. So if you potentially have a market for it or believe that you do, the next piece is the money. If you don't think there's going to be a possibility for you to be able to acquire the resources that you need to at the very least test your assumptions, it's going to be really hard to justify moving forward with that idea. The last

1:22:21 piece is what we call management. And by management, no, I don't mean if you have managerial experience, although that could be helpful if you're building a team. Uh what I do mean is do you have the skills, the knowledge, the abilities or maybe even the connections and network that would assist you in being able to kind of build on this opportunity here. So if you're looking at getting involved in the restaurant industry and maybe opening up your own restaurant, uh do you have restaurant experience? Maybe you worked for a restaurant before. Maybe you were a general manager of a restaurant working underneath someone else and acquiring uh some additional skills. Those are the types of things that would be helpful, right? If you're developing uh an application of some

1:23:07 kind, it would be helpful to know how to write some type of code. Um those are the things that are really important. So, what you want to think about in being able to distinguishing is this really just an idea and and really we have a lot of ideas, right? Some of them are okay, some of them are bad, and and some turn out to be great. But if you want to quickly measure whether or not the idea that you have in your possession is in fact an opportunity, try looking at or asking yourselves these three questions. Ask yourself, is there a market for it? Are there people willing to pay? Can I acquire the resources needed to be able to get this thing off the ground? and do I have some of the skills or the connections, the network to be able to also unlock some doors and to move on and be able to start this business. Obviously, if this

1:23:53 management piece, you can always look at possible co-founders and people that have complimentary skill sets that you might not have access to. But ultimately, what I want to press upon you is we have many many ideas uh about potential problems and products and services and things like that. And what we want to do is have a very simple framework for being able to quickly determine whether or not those ideas have potential value and might be potential opportunity because it doesn't do us any benefit to spend time on something that is always going to be in the idea phase and doesn't have any long-term uh implications for our business.

1:24:38 Welcome back. A very insightful video around converting your idea and opportunity into opportunities and leading that ultimately leading to multiple different sales. So summarizing that video, there's a critical distinction that we need to take stock of that we have ideas which are something that you think of. Maybe it's raw material that's not really a finished product yet. It's it's a diamond that's rough around the edges that you need to refine further. Um, and ideas can come from anywhere. Can come from anyone. It can come from any interaction. The difference between an idea and opportunity is that an opportunity has four threats.

1:25:25 It's specific. It's a felt problem that people experience regularly. And I think the operative word there is experience. Right? A problem is something that people experience within a per particular frequency. And often times it's they experience that on a daily basis or it might be weekly or it might be monthly. uh there's a viable market that is suffering from this problem and enough people are experiencing it. Right? Once again that word experience comes through again. Uh the third tren is that you have or can build the capability to deliver it. Uh it might be that you need to pull on

1:26:12 if there's an experience or capability or skill gap that you might have. Once again, you remember we spoke about this in topic one that you can, you know, seek the the the skills in a platform like Fiverr, like freelance.com or any of those gig economy platforms. Um, so you might not have the capability, but you can hire the capability to build it for you. People are willing to spend money on it in order to solve the problem, right? There's enough of a frustration that people have built up around this problem that they experience on a regular basis that they're willing to spend money on someone that's willing to solve for that problem. And then lastly, you can build that problem. You can build that capability. Right?

1:27:01 So there are four tools for opportunity recognition. One, we need to develop this problem first thinking, not ideas based thinking or idea first thinking. All right? So, what annoys my community most about the problem? Um, what workound are people usually doing or taking and is there a hidden c a hidden opportunity that that exists in and amongst that? The second tool that you can use in order to develop this opportunity based thinking is around observation and empathy mapping. And you might think

1:27:47 that this sounds very like design thinking. You might you see the word empathy mapping and you think I need to put a a map of some sorts together. It's a lot simpler than that, right? Observation and empathy mapping simply means having conversations with people at the most simplistic level. It's walking among amongst your targeted market environment. Um it's talking to potential customers and it's watching people watching what they do. It's not asking what they want. And often times we lean very quickly to that because that is like I I want to deliver. I want to build. I want to create. Uh but slowing down helps us observe

1:28:32 what people do and engage in conversation with them to ask them like how does that make you feel? Because if you're solving for that feeling, they they being they feel like they're being heard and that you build a connection between your product, your business, yourself. and the problem and the end user or the the purchaser, the consumer, you're building a connection, an emotive connection that does not make them want to go anywhere else, that makes them want to come back and repeat business or repeat make repeat purchases from you. A third way in order to take advantage

1:29:19 of an opportunity is to identify any trends. So scrolling across social media and identifying these trends that might take place or that are taking place and within that trend there's a opportunity for solving the problem that might cause the trend or that is coming about as a result of the trend. So if you think of social media at the moment um and there's a lot of doom scrolling going on and people are looking for mental health opportunities or mental health mechanisms in order to improve their screen time, manage their screen time, not just for themselves but for their their kids as well. Um in order to really take a mental health approach to their their their life and the way in

1:30:05 which they live their life. Um the problem that comes alongside social media today is that we spend too much time. So we develop cognitive debt uh which slows our ability to think critically and essentially we don't do don't do anything new. Um trend spotting in that is to identify how you can help facilitate mental health uh support mechanisms to communities that maybe schools uh an education regime in a school around how to what safe and healthy digital practices for social media in a you know primary school or in a high school. Um it's just

1:30:52 one of those ideas. buy now pay latest

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