#77 From Big Four Partner to Garden Route Founder with Willem Haarhoff Founder of DoughGetters

TRANSCRIPT: THE bizval PODCAST
Guest: Willem Haarhoff, DoughGetters Accounting
Host: Graham Stephen, CEO and Co-Founder, bizval

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[00:00:21] Graham Stephen: Welcome to the bizval Podcast. This is a show where we sit down with entrepreneurs, operators, founders who are quietly building real value out there. I’m Graham Stephen, the CEO and co-founder of bizval. And as our regular listeners will know, our mission is pretty simple. We want every business owner on the planet to know what their business is worth, and more importantly, what they can do to make it worth more.

[00:00:54] Graham Stephen: I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for a while, between storms and overseas travel and all of that, but my guest today is none other than Willem Haarhoff from DoughGetters. He’s got quite a story. He started his career in audit, made partner at a Big Four audit firm, ran massive teams in Lagos in West Africa for more than a decade. And this is what gets really interesting — he decided to come back home to South Africa. Moved to the Garden Route, set up an accounting firm called DoughGetters. Yep, it’s dough like the bread. So Willem, welcome to the show!

[00:01:23] Willem Haarhoff: Thanks, Graham. Thank you for having me, and yeah, I’m looking forward to this afternoon’s chat.

[00:01:29] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. So before we get into the meat of it, we’re going to talk a little bit about your background — you know, why study accounting. As our listeners or viewers can see, you’ve got funky bright orange glasses, not your stereotypical accountant. So why go into accounting? A little bit about your KPMG and West Africa story, and then coming back home. Let’s start at the beginning. Where did you grow up? What was your upbringing like? Were your parents in finance or business somewhere along the line? Yeah, maybe let’s start there.

[00:02:06] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, so as a good old Afrikaans chap, I was brought up fairly conservatively — a good Calvinist upbringing, with that comes a strong work ethic and all of that. So interestingly, I’ve always seen myself as a relatively square person, in the sense that I like things to be in order. Things must be perfect. One of my biggest quirks growing up that I’ll never forget is I could never handle it if my hands were messy. So even if I eat my food, I would use like these two fingers. I suppose it’s fair to accuse me of being a little bit OCD. And so from that perspective, becoming an accountant was probably not too much of a surprise.

[00:02:53] Willem Haarhoff: But there has always been a little bit of a… what shall I say? Off-centre. Rebellious, maybe rebellious is a bit too dramatic, but there’s always been something about me that wanted to go upstream, not always just go with the flow. But yeah, I was born in Durban, we lived there for about three years, and then my family moved up to Gauteng, and I basically grew up in Pretoria. And I think it was in 2002, 2003 that we eventually left for Lagos. But more about that a bit later, I suppose.

[00:03:30] Graham Stephen: You must have been one of, like, three Afrikaans people in Durban. I’m joking, but… when you moved to Pretoria, I’m sure you felt right at home, right?

[00:03:39] Willem Haarhoff: That’s why we left.

[00:03:41] Graham Stephen: Yeah, fantastic. Willem, in those early years, did you have any early influences — at school, any mentors, anyone along that journey that kind of inspired you along the way?

[00:04:00] Willem Haarhoff: I was very fortunate. I only went to one primary school, and I only went to one high school. I know many people have different experiences, and I think that was part of the stability in my early life. That contributed to me wanting to become an accountant. It may seem strange to say it that way, but my father was a bookkeeper and accountant — he worked for government. And my aunt and my uncle were both chartered accountants. So from an early stage, like I said, I always knew that I wanted to work in an office one day. I wanted to get my hands dirty with finances, something to do with finances. So when I left primary school, when I went to high school, it was a no-brainer. I had to do accounting.

[00:04:51] Willem Haarhoff: I had business studies. When I went to grade 10, I had computer science, I had economics, so it was a proper finance-flavoured matric certificate. But I’d say it’s mostly family influences in the early parts of my life that drove me in that direction.

[00:05:14] Graham Stephen: I guess you grew up in a similar era to me — squarely a Gen X. Back in those days, it might be hard for some of our younger listeners to appreciate now, your career choices were kind of like doctor, accountant, lawyer, teacher, nurse, policeman, or engineer. You didn’t have the variety and the choices that you have now. But I think you then went to university, and straight after university, you joined KPMG. That was in the mid-90s. So talk a little bit about that experience, straight out of school. What was articles like for you?

[00:05:59] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, so I always knew that I wanted to become an accountant. It was a big passion of mine, even from grade 8, when I took accounting for the first time. I loved it — everything about it. So it wasn’t difficult for me to decide to go for the BCom Accounting degree. I went to the University of Pretoria, where most good Afrikaans boys from Pretoria go. And pretty much within the first three months of university, I realised that this was going to turn into a disaster, because I was never a good student.

[00:06:34] Willem Haarhoff: One of my weaknesses is that I can’t really sit still. And even as I’m sitting here, I’m fidgeting with something in my hands. I’ve always got to do something. So the idea of sitting in class was just too much for me. So I did vacation work in my first winter vacation in my first year at KPMG, and I knew within the first week: I want to start work as soon as possible. I don’t want to waste time.

[00:06:55] Willem Haarhoff: So in the second week, I applied for a job, and in my second year after leaving school, I started working full-time for KPMG. I then continued my studies at UNISA, and that’s where I finished my degree. And I qualified at the end of 1999 — I became a CA.

[00:07:16] Graham Stephen: That’s fascinating, because as you say, most people go and do the university life for four years, sometimes five. But you went, I guess, the less-travelled path in many senses. And for any chartered accountants or professionals listening in — getting it with a four-year degree, then board, then articles is hard enough. So to actually study part-time and pass, I’m guessing your first attempt, maybe second attempt, is no mean achievement. What got you through that? I imagine many late nights? Many cups of coffee, maybe something stronger, who knows?

[00:08:02] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, I mean, Graham, it was very hard. It was probably one of the toughest parts of my life, if I think about it now. Thankfully, at that time of your life, you’re very energetic, and you can afford to go without a lot of sleep. What I didn’t tell you is I also got married about a year before I qualified. My wife and I will now be married 28 years at the end of this year, so it’s been a long ride — a wonderful time, might I add?

[00:08:44] Willem Haarhoff: But yeah, it was tough. It wasn’t easy. And the same thing that you always hear business owners talk about — why do you do it? Because it’s very difficult, and more often than not, it’s not glamorous at all. The answer is usually: you’re very clear about what you want to achieve and why you want to do it. And so I was singularly focused on getting qualified, knowing that that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.

[00:08:58] Willem Haarhoff: But also, when we grew up, we were very limited in terms of options. There wasn’t anything about going overseas for a gap year — that just wasn’t on the table. We were taught from an early age: you have to go to university, there’s no option. Because you’ve got to find a job. So I was very clear. There was something very structured at a tertiary level, in something that I loved to do. And therefore I was able to push through.

[00:09:37] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. So let’s talk a little about those early years at KPMG. You’re ahead of your peer group or cohort group, very young manager, almost being fast-tracked. And then you spent almost 20 years at KPMG, which in today’s world is like a lifetime. But you didn’t just do one job there, right? There were a couple of assignments — your training manager role within KPMG, which is quite an interesting role, and then I guess you were also involved with the Arthur Anderson integration. So maybe just talk a little bit about some of those roles, and what stood out for you.

[00:10:23] Willem Haarhoff: Yes. So starting at KPMG, I was 19 going on 20 when I started my articles, and I must say the first few years were tough. I never really felt like I belonged. Partly because of my own doing — I wasn’t very social. I’m a natural introvert. For me to be social and to go out there and network is a very difficult thing to do. It’s not a skill that I had. So it’s mostly because of my own doing that I struggled to find a sense of belonging.

[00:10:58] Willem Haarhoff: But also, I was singularly focused on getting qualified, so I had no time to spare. I went to work, then I studied, then I wrote the exams. And that was it. So the early years were tough. I didn’t really enjoy my first two years of articles, because I was unqualified, so I didn’t know anything, and therefore I became, effectively, a general hand. You know, making coffee, photocopies, all sorts of things. So I really got lost, I suppose, in the size of the environment. And so I applied for a transfer to KPMG’s owner-managed business division.

[00:11:44] Willem Haarhoff: Because I saw an opportunity to get stuck into the detail, but at the same time also being able to look at a big picture and see a whole process from start to finish. And thankfully, I got that transfer, and I spent a couple of years there, and that’s where I qualified.

[00:12:03] Willem Haarhoff: And then there was an opportunity in our Johannesburg office for me to get involved with human resources — more specifically, capacity building and learning and development. I’ve got a strong sense of adventure, and it just sounded interesting and exciting. And then so after six years, I transferred, got involved with learning and development, and for the first year I did a lot of travel around South Africa. At the time, KPMG was busy merging all of its offices in the country to become a single profit pool.

[00:12:34] Willem Haarhoff: And then the whole Arthur Anderson/Enron saga happened. And because of my proximity to where the training material was developed, I was part of that integration team welcoming our colleagues from Arthur Anderson. So that was an interesting out-of-box experience. And then one morning, out of the blue, unannounced, I arrived at my office, and I saw these four intimidating-looking large Nigerians in suits and ties, asking, “Where’s Willem Haarhoff?” And I thought, oh my goodness, what have I done?

[00:13:08] Willem Haarhoff: Just realising that those were our Arthur Anderson colleagues from Lagos. They heard about us doing this integration project, they had just come on board, and they were looking for somebody to assist them. And so my very first overseas trip was Lagos, Nigeria. And again, my sense of adventure pushed me to go. And I think after six visits over an 18-month period, one day somebody popped a question: “Why don’t you consider a two-year contract in Lagos?” And I said, that will never happen. Never ever.

[00:13:42] Willem Haarhoff: And three months later, my wife and I, and our firstborn child who at the time was seven months old, boarded a plane and went on a two-year contract, which became 11 years.

[00:13:57] Graham Stephen: It’s easy in hindsight — two years became 11. But you know, I mean, there’s some fascinating insights in there. I think you took some early career risks, because you moved out of pure audit into the L&D space, the integration space. But I guess you also got an experience that went beyond just technical accounting and audits. You actually started to learn about business, learn about people, different cultures, different ways of doing things. You didn’t walk out of that experience as your typical three-year cut-and-paste, clock-in qualified CA, right?

[00:14:45] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, look, I mean — you’re going to laugh at me — but I think when I started working at KPMG, that was really the first time I was in the same room with English-speaking people. Let’s just start there for a moment. Growing up in the 80s, there was a lot of that Afrikaans versus English kind of vibe going on. So just starting with KPMG in the first place kind of unshackled me from that baggage. Not to mention, from a South African context, the different cultures and races that we have, which was also an eye-opener for me.

[00:15:25] Willem Haarhoff: And then when I moved to Lagos, Nigeria — we were a thousand people in the firm at the time, and I was one of only three expatriates. What was really great from a personal development perspective was the fact that now the shoe was on the other foot. And I got to experience firsthand what it feels like when I don’t speak the language, and I get into a social setting, and everybody talks a language that I don’t understand. And I’m just invisible in the sense that I’m there, but no one is particularly sensitive to that. Or, you know, you walk into a canteen, and I’m sitting by myself, and nobody shares a table with me. I always have to be the one to go and make myself part of something.

[00:16:13] Graham Stephen: You know, it’s fascinating, because I think everyone has stereotypes, and even people listening in today across the world may have a stereotype of what it’s like in Nigeria or Lagos. I’m also fortunate I’ve had the opportunity to work across the world — from East Africa through to West Africa. I’ve been in Ghana, not in Nigeria, but even between Ghana and Nigeria there are big cultural differences. I had a cousin who worked in Lagos for five years. Can you share a little bit about that experience? The fact that you spent 11 years there must have meant that you really entrenched yourself in the culture.

[00:17:08] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, so look, I think the first thing I’d want to say is: we arrived in Lagos, and we had no friends. That support network that you plug into when you’re in your hometown — with your parents, your friends, your siblings — from one day to the next, it just wasn’t there. Not to mention the difference in culture. West African culture is very different to South African or Southern African culture. Very, very different. So we struggled a lot to settle down. In fact, after the first year, I said to my wife: we made a mistake in coming. And I was actually interviewing with other companies, trying to find a way to get back to South Africa, because we hated it.

[00:18:27] Willem Haarhoff: Long story short, we eventually came to the conclusion that perhaps if we changed our attitude, things might get better. And I’m not saying it that way because of the benefit of hindsight — that’s just how it turned out. But the moment we changed our attitude from seeing ourselves as foreigners in this country, as expatriates constantly looking forward to the next six months when we could travel back home — to, hang on, we live here now. This is our home. We’re going to make our place where we stay feel like home. We’re going to start making local friends.

[00:19:08] Willem Haarhoff: It was a game changer. Literally, from one day to the next, we started to feel more at home. It was all just an attitude and a heart issue that we had to deal with. And when we made that change, all of a sudden we said, hang on, we’ve now wasted two years struggling to get used to this place — we need to spend two more years. And so when the contract came to an end, we asked for an extension. And that just repeated itself a couple of times, because the environment is such that from a business perspective, I can’t think of a better place to develop business acumen than a place like that.

[00:19:45] Willem Haarhoff: Every time the agreement came to an end, we said, I feel like I’ve got so much more to learn, there’s so much more this place has to offer, I’m not yet ready to come home. So that’s really the short end of it.

[00:20:03] Graham Stephen: I mean, I guess it’s that saying — home is where the heart is, or the grass is greenest where you water it. And I think, even in business, it’s around your attitude. How you frame a problem is often more important than the problem itself. That intent and that mindset can drive a very different outcome. You got to that crossroads where you were like, hmm, we can either be miserable and complain, that victim mentality, right? Or we can take ownership of our situation.

[00:21:08] Willem Haarhoff: Well, there’s a strong South African community. We did have our braais every fortnight, so — we make a plan.

[00:21:17] Graham Stephen: Okay, so without going into that whole story now, you then came back to South Africa, sort of 2014. You probably had an almost-teenager on your hands. In 2014, you decided to come back home. What was the trigger?

[00:21:39] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, so if it was up to my colleagues at the time, we would probably still have been there today, and we actually had no reason to come back — we wanted to stay. But my daughter then was becoming a teenager, and we needed to find a school for her. Unfortunately at the time, there wasn’t a high school that we were interested in. And so the alternative was to send her to boarding school, and I wasn’t ready to do that.

[00:22:11] Willem Haarhoff: Secondly, we also started missing our parents. Both my wife and I are fortunate that all our parents are still alive. And we always dreaded receiving that phone call in the middle of the night that we’d have to rush back home because someone wasn’t there anymore. So that was always at the back of our minds. And we could see our parents growing old, so we decided, no, it’s a good time to come back. Eleven years is a good innings.

[00:22:47] Willem Haarhoff: And sometimes I’ve got mixed feelings, because there’s not a week that goes by that I do not think of Nigeria with fond memories. A big portion of our lives happened there. A lot of my professional development came from Nigeria, so I will always, until the day I go to my grave, speak positively about Nigeria and the experiences we’ve had there.

[00:23:11] Willem Haarhoff: So yeah, we came back. At the time, there wasn’t any opportunity for me to come back within KPMG, and so that was also the end of my career there. I then had some time to reflect and say, well, what’s the next move? And so for about a few months, I did try to do some freelancing. It was interesting, it wasn’t that exciting, and it wasn’t too successful either.

[00:23:46] Willem Haarhoff: And then I had an opportunity to work with a German-based firm who had an office in Joburg and wanted to open new offices in West and East Africa. So the timing of our return coincided with them wanting to embark on that project, and that took another two years out of my life, with lots of travel — if it wasn’t to Germany, it was to Ireland, or to the UK, or to West and East Africa. So that was an exciting time as well.

[00:24:14] Graham Stephen: It sounds like a transitionary period. And I’ll get back to that. I’m just struck by the parallels with my background, because I didn’t move to Lagos, but I moved from Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg around the same time you were in Lagos, and in 2014 or 2013 we moved down to Cape Town. So we were kind of operating in Joburg and Lagos in terms of that energy — in some ways, probably quite similar, especially in that time period.

[00:24:46] Graham Stephen: You’ve now stepped away from KPMG. A lot of people struggle with this — they’re behind a big brand, whether it’s a Big Four audit firm, a bank, a Goldman Sachs, or whatever. And now you’ve stepped away from the big firm entity. Did that affect you in any way, or were you just ready to move on?

[00:25:08] Willem Haarhoff: It was no doubt a sobering moment for me. I underestimated the kind of support that you have at your fingertips when you work in a big firm like that. I mean, you underestimate the amount of money it takes to maintain a machine like that — risk management, marketing, sales, performance management, people management, finance. All you need to do is go and execute. So I think in terms of going on my own and starting my own business, that was the single biggest thing that I realised I missed — the importance of having proper support behind you if you want to grow a business.

[00:25:55] Willem Haarhoff: And building a new business from the ground up — that’s why it’s so difficult. To put that stuff in place doesn’t happen overnight.

[00:26:01] Graham Stephen: Yeah, and as you say, it’s not just a case of booking a business-class air ticket from Nigeria to Joburg. Those decisions become big decisions now. So let’s move from there. You’ve moved into consulting work for this German company. Tell us about the moment that DoughGetters was born — and why an accounting firm with a name that sounds more like a bakery.

[00:26:29] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, so when I was with the German firm, that’s really when I realised I’d come to the end of my audit experience. At the time, I’d been in audit for about 18 years, excluding the two-year out-of-box experience with learning and development. And because my role was to start new practices, I discovered my entrepreneurial side. I never saw myself as an entrepreneur. My upbringing just wasn’t — it wasn’t an option. My mom worked for government, my dad worked for government. I was going to work for someone — that’s how I’d been conditioned my whole life. I never in my wildest dreams ever thought that I would start something on my own.

[00:27:15] Willem Haarhoff: So that Pandora’s box was opened during my two-year period with the German firm. And that’s when I realised: hang on, this is exciting. This speaks to my sense of adventure. And we came to the end of the project, and I was given the option to go back into audit.

[00:27:35] Willem Haarhoff: And the moment my boss at the time said I must go back into audit — that’s when the penny dropped, and I said, no, there’s no way I’m going to go back into audit. And bless all the people who are auditors today, we need you. Without you, the economy of South Africa will not operate. But I think I’ve had my innings and contributed my fair share. So I went back to them and said: why don’t you allow me to open a new office in Pretoria? There’s a massive German community. I’ll just trade under your name, pay whatever royalty is needed, and you don’t have to pay my salary. Because now I had the confidence to do something on my own. Unfortunately we couldn’t agree, and then I said, well, I’m going to do it anyway, with or without you. And that was kind of the trigger — that was middle of 2016.

[00:28:22] Willem Haarhoff: And I started the journey. It was a little bit stop-start. I had no clients, nothing. And I connected with one of my old school friends who’s also a chartered accountant, but whose career went a completely different route. He’s a lot more creative than me, and so we played word games. And we came up with the name DoughGetters. The idea behind it was: I did not want to have something attached to me as a person. I knew from very early on that whatever I’m building needs to be independent of me, so that it can live and breathe on its own and grow into the future and outlive me.

[00:29:06] Willem Haarhoff: So that was kind of the start — why we went with a different name. And I suppose I really had a strong sense that I wanted something very unique, catchy, something that would help us from a marketing and sales perspective.

[00:29:16] Graham Stephen: I love that story. And I can relate to it. I think when we grew up, part of the reason I didn’t start bizval much earlier was that mindset. When we grew up, you became an entrepreneur if you weren’t good enough to get a job. That was very much the era we grew up in. I think there were a lot of potential entrepreneurs in those days who just didn’t want to take the risk, because it was seen as being somehow uncool. Nowadays, if you’re not an entrepreneur, then there’s something wrong with you, so to speak.

[00:30:08] Graham Stephen: So I can relate to that. But now you’ve started DoughGetters. Tell us a little bit about what you’re building. It’s not just an ordinary accounting firm. I mean, you’ve got some serious recognition along the way. I think you were the Xero emerging firm of the year, two years running, if I remember correctly, or Partner of the Year, which was a first. But tell us about DoughGetters — what makes you different? What are you trying to achieve with your clients?

[00:30:46] Willem Haarhoff: Well, I wish we could say we can compete with them, because we would have been a lot bigger than we are today. But yeah, look, I’ve already told you about my time at KPMG when I was in the owner-managed business division. Already there, I discovered something about being involved with small businesses. The reality, working with a big firm and in Nigeria, I was basically auditing listed companies — I would always be in the board of directors or the audit committee meetings. And you see the big picture, and you’ve got an army of people doing the work. And it’s very big. You don’t really always feel like you make an impact. You make an impact, but it feels very, very small. You’re like a small fish in a big pond.

[00:31:38] Willem Haarhoff: And one of the things with DoughGetters was to get me that front-row seat — with how 80% of our economy is driven. And I consider that to be a very high place of privilege. You get to meet people from different backgrounds, different cultures, different worldviews, and each of them has a different way in which they approach their business. We get to see it, we get to experience it.

[00:32:11] Willem Haarhoff: And we get to influence it in one way or another. So for me, that was always a driving force. When we started DoughGetters, we wanted to position ourselves — and we still see ourselves that way — almost like a superhero to our clients. Actually, the reverse — the clients are the superheroes. If you look at the Batman-Robin analogy, the client is Batman, we are Robin. We support them. And that’s what was important for us. We know how difficult it is to be in business, because we’re doing it ourselves.

[00:32:45] Willem Haarhoff: And to share that experience with other business owners is just a privilege. So when it comes to values, we are definitely a people-centric organisation. The dignity of human beings, irrespective of their background, their race, their culture, their religion — that’s top priority for us. We don’t treat people with respect and dignity because they’re nice to us. We treat people with respect and dignity because they deserve it as human beings. Period.

[00:33:21] Willem Haarhoff: And I think the other things that are important to us are open and honest communication, authenticity. Just to be a responsible human being — whether it’s in the way you treat other human beings, whether it’s the way you treat creation, whether it’s the way you care about your work or not. Those are all things that are important for us.

[00:33:43] Graham Stephen: Yeah, I mean, I want to draw on a couple of things when you talk about those values and people. And just to our listeners, DoughGetters is a partner of bizval’s. I think we had just met about a week or two prior, discussing whether we’d work and partner together, and I happened to be driving down with my family from Cape Town to the Eastern Cape. And George, which we’ll get into for a second, is a little town along the way. And I said to Willem: rather than do a Zoom call, I’m driving down with my family, let’s just grab a coffee. I think the roads were busy, there were roadblocks, and you were hustling to get to a family get-together up the road in Wilderness. But you took the time.

[00:34:31] Graham Stephen: I think we were almost an hour late, yet you said: listen, I’m going to be a bit late for the family gathering. And we met for five to ten minutes in person. I share that story because I think that’s an example of values that you live. You could have just said, listen, Graham, it’s not going to work out, we can meet some other time. But those small things stick with people. I remember that story.

[00:35:09] Graham Stephen: And then the other thing — there’s no “accounting” in your name. It’s not DoughGetters Accounting or DoughGetters Bookkeeping. And I think that’s an important point. A lot of accountants are quite happy just doing tax, VAT, payroll — the compliance leg of the work. There’s nothing wrong with that. But that is probably 80% of smaller accounting firms. You’re different. Has it been quite hard positioning yourselves in that way? And what are some of the benefits of being seen as a business partner, rather than a compliance accountant?

[00:35:59] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, I think today, where the industry is going, it’s a very easy question to answer, and I think most accountants today will agree. You cannot build the future of your practice on bookkeeping, accounting, and tax compliance. Obviously, we had to start there. But from the beginning, like I said, we get to enjoy a front-row seat in seeing how business is done.

[00:36:28] Willem Haarhoff: So the bookkeeping and accounting and tax is a nice thing to do. I find great pleasure in doing that. But for me, it’s 10 times better to have an interaction with a client and hear them say the words, “Thank you so much, you’ve helped me move the business forward.” Or to hear them say: “I trust you with my business, I trust you with my life.” Or even to get the phone call where a client says: “I want to send my child to this high school, but I’m not sure if it’s the best school.” And you realise: the business owner trusts me to that extent that they don’t want to make any decision unless they’ve checked it with me. That’s credibility.

[00:37:21] Willem Haarhoff: So I think it’s important for every accountant out there to not see yourself as just an accountant. It’s more a case of positioning yourself for the future — as a long-term business partner of your clients, because that’s who you are.

[00:37:43] Graham Stephen: Yeah, and it’s about creating value. You’re selling trust. And I guess those are the things that AI can’t replace. There’s something that you speak about a lot, Willem — the importance of empowering others and building. You have a bit of a franchise model that you’re building out with DoughGetters, and I know you’re also passionate about empowering other accountants and people to start their own practice. Maybe just talk a little bit about the thinking behind that.

[00:38:20] Willem Haarhoff: Yes, thank you for that. So when I started DoughGetters, I reached a point where I had to scale. I either had to hire people — and at that stage, it meant I would have had to go to the bank and take out a loan to carry someone’s salary for the first couple of months. Or I thought: hang on, I’ve just come from a 20-year experience with a large international franchise. If I can replicate some of the thinking behind it and lean into that experience — if I can convince other people to walk a road with me and buy a franchise, why not? And so that was really the genesis of this journey.

[00:39:07] Willem Haarhoff: It would be disingenuous of me to say that was the plan from day one. It wasn’t. It was just at the point where I needed to scale. That was what came to mind, and I made a decision to do it that way. And yeah, we’ve been fortunate that we were able to build up a modest franchise network. We are hungry to grow that network even more.

[00:39:29] Willem Haarhoff: And I go back to the experience I felt when I left KPMG. It was a very lonely, cold, and dark place in the sense that I had no support. I didn’t know how to sell, I didn’t know anything about marketing. If I had a difficult question, who am I going to ask? No other accountant will give me the answer, because I’m their competition. And so the problem we want to solve for: we know that there are many people out there who want to have their own accounting practices, but they’re either not willing to take the risk, or they don’t want to be alone, or they don’t know where to start. And those are all things that we can solve. And you need capital sometimes to do it, and we’ve got access to capital that we can deploy to help an accountant build a business.

[00:40:18] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. You know, there’s no point in building value only to hoard it in your own barn. At the end of the day, it’s about sharing, it’s about growing an ecosystem. You’re not competing with the accounting firm next door. If you’ve got a healthy ecosystem, everybody benefits.

[00:41:08] Graham Stephen: Willem, I want to just cover two more sections before we do a quick rapid fire. And I think we’re going to have to get you back on again, because there’s just so much to talk about. But the one thing I did want to talk about — so you did a few moves in your life. KZN to Pretoria, then to probably the most bustling, largest city in Africa in Lagos, back to South Africa, and then you decided to move to George. Talk about what are some of the motivations behind that, and also some of the challenges and advantages of building your business out of George.

[00:42:03] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. When we came back from Nigeria, we went back to Pretoria, which is where I lived most of my life at the time. And I always wanted to move to the coast. We were actually looking at Umhlanga at one stage. And then Cape Town became the flavour of the month — I was looking at Yzerfontein on the West Coast. And then one day, my wife and I drove down to George for a wedding. As we got to the top of the Outeniqua Pass and we looked down, we stopped, looked at each other, and said: no, we’re going to move here.

[00:42:41] Willem Haarhoff: What made it easier is my grandparents used to live here, so I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the place. And my cousin and her husband also live here, so I’ve got some family. And yeah, it was just that was the decision we took. It was also timed very well, because we had just started DoughGetters for the first time. We had no clients — basically starting with a zero base, and I had some savings left. We needed to stretch the money as far as we could. So at the time, it was a lot cheaper to come and live in George than in Pretoria.

[00:43:20] Graham Stephen: Not so much anymore.

[00:43:22] Willem Haarhoff: But anyway, we’re over that bump in the beginning of the journey. And I suppose the other aspect of it is, when we started DoughGetters, we were deliberate in making it a remote-working business. So what better way to test the model than live in a place like George? And you get to enjoy the beauty of this area.

[00:43:45] Graham Stephen: And again, it’s easy to look back now in 2026 and say that. But 10 years ago, pre-COVID, remote working wasn’t ubiquitous — it was the exception rather than the norm. And I guess that’s probably helped you. You learned lessons that people don’t even know are there to be learned for modern builders. So you were a pioneer in that space, and I guess it probably makes you a lot more resilient today when things change and AI is coming. You’ve kind of walked a path of going against the grain throughout your life.

[00:44:27] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, I suppose, with age, one tends to become less intimidated by difficulty.

[00:44:36] Graham Stephen: This is out of the script, but you’ve touched on it a few times — you’ve been married almost 28 years now. One of the things that often fascinates me is, you know, you’re the front of DoughGetters, but you’ve had support along those 28 years all the way. If you don’t mind, just share a little bit about how important it’s been to have a spouse who’s been supportive of that journey.

[00:45:10] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, without a doubt, unreserved — if it wasn’t for her, there wouldn’t have been a DoughGetters. That’s just all there is to it. Coincidentally, as we speak, my wife is visiting our oldest daughter who lives in Portugal. She’s away for a month, so I’ve got the two youngest kids with me, and I’ve just again discovered that single parents — this is a big shout out to single parents out there — you all deserve a special place in heaven.

[00:45:39] Willem Haarhoff: But no, it’s tough. If I think back on all the dark times, all the difficult times, if it wasn’t for my wife, there wouldn’t have been a Willem, there wouldn’t have been a DoughGetters. It’s as simple as that.

[00:45:53] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. And I say it the other way around as well — having a supportive spouse when you’re building a business is probably one of the biggest advantages or superpowers. Believe you me, there are dark times when you’re going to make payroll, and you’re wondering about the next rent cheque.

[00:46:13] Graham Stephen: In the last section, and I’ll be brief on this — we obviously connect over valuation. I know it’s a matter that’s dear to your heart. People are building businesses, not just to pay the bills at the end of the month. Hopefully we’re building something that matters, something of value. And we often find with smaller businesses, sometimes they don’t think about valuation until it’s too late. They just assume they’re going to sell their business. But maybe just share a couple of thoughts in terms of why you think valuation is important for all business owners — not just listed companies — and maybe one or two things you wish business owners would understand more about valuation and value.

[00:47:05] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, no, thanks for that. I think I would start by saying that the majority of the small businesses we encounter don’t have a business. Simply because they’ve set it up and created it in a way that serves them. And effectively, they just work for someone else, but in a different form. They can never go on holiday. They can never afford to retire, because the moment they stop, the income flow stops. And that, perhaps, is the biggest travesty of justice, if I can use those terms in such a dramatic fashion. For any business owner, because it’s so difficult to do it — to have to think about the prospect of exiting your business that you’ve worked so hard for, with no value — it’s a tragedy.

[00:47:57] Willem Haarhoff: So for me, the best indicator of whether you are building something is if you have a valuation. And not just once upon a time you did a valuation — you have regular valuations. You know, it’s like in the accounting world, I always say to my clients when I try to explain the concept of a balance sheet — I say to them, it’s like when you measure your children’s height on the doorpost over time. Every time you make that pencil mark, it’s like a balance sheet. At that point in time, that was what your business looked like.

[00:48:29] Willem Haarhoff: And so the success of your business, you measure over time by looking at successive balance sheets. And you cannot do that without having a valuation hand in glove with it, to say: this is your valuation, this is what we think your business is worth today.

[00:48:49] Graham Stephen: If I can just add there for a second — when you look at listed businesses, nobody remembers what profit Capitec made two years ago. If you said to the board of Capitec, or investors in Capitec — any listed business — what the share price is today, that’s what drives businesses and investments. That’s what creates the value. It’s the share price. And a valuation is nothing more than a share price for unlisted businesses, ultimately, right? So you know, I just wanted to chip that in.

[00:49:09] Graham Stephen: But let’s talk about what are the couple of things you think business owners should know about valuation. It’s something they should do regularly. Are you building something that’s outside of yourself? A couple of other nuggets that you’ve experienced.

[00:49:29] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, maybe just to think about it this way. When I was working at KPMG, I never thought for a moment that this that lives inside of me — my skills, my capabilities — if I use it in a certain way and harness it to create more wealth, that’s something of value. So if I can harness that in a way, and package it, or put it together in something that’s outside of me, that can keep on moving forward independent of me, I can create value out of nothing, so to speak.

[00:49:59] Willem Haarhoff: And in many cases, small businesses are like that. You know, you’ve got the owner who’s taken a risk, who’s willing to put it out there, they’re successful — and now just find a way to create that separation between the company and the owner, so that what was inside of them can be replicated. And now they’ve got something of value. I can’t think of a better way to think about it than that.

[00:50:25] Graham Stephen: It’s like building your kids, right? When they leave home, you hope they can go and live independently.

[00:50:31] Willem Haarhoff: Yes, exactly. And I mean, the best indicator of that is the valuation. So for us, it’s important to let our clients know about that and say, hey — do you know what your business is worth? Can we do a valuation for you?

[00:50:58] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. Well, we’re almost out of time, but I’m going to end with two things. We’re going to quickly do what we call our rapid-fire section. These are just a few quick questions. First thing that comes to mind. And then I’m going to ask you to end off with one piece of advice to any business owner or anyone listening in.

Rapid Fire

[00:51:22] Graham Stephen: Mountain or ocean?
[00:51:22] Willem Haarhoff: Mountain.

[00:51:24] Graham Stephen: Okay, well, you’re in George, so you’ve got the mountain on the left and the ocean on the right — you’ve got both. Best book you’ve read in the last 12 months?
[00:51:34] Willem Haarhoff: 1984 by George Orwell.

[00:51:38] Graham Stephen: Sure, and there’s a lot of what’s written there that is scarily predictive of what’s going on in the world at the moment.
[00:51:43] Willem Haarhoff: 100%.

[00:51:45] Graham Stephen: Coffee or tea?
[00:51:47] Willem Haarhoff: Coffee.

[00:52:00] Graham Stephen: One app that you can’t live without?
[00:52:00] Willem Haarhoff: My Google Authenticator.

[00:52:04] Graham Stephen: A city that you’d most like to revisit?
[00:52:09] Willem Haarhoff: Tokyo.

[00:52:12] Graham Stephen: Any person, living or dead, that you would like to have dinner with?
[00:52:19] Willem Haarhoff: Young Titus from the Bible. He was left on the island of Crete, which was a very decadent place at the time, and he was meant to bring morality into a very deep and dark place. That would have been an interesting dinner.

[00:52:37] Graham Stephen: Wow, fascinating. And then the best business decision you’ve ever made?
[00:52:42] Willem Haarhoff: To start one.

[00:52:45] Graham Stephen: Start one. Get going. It’s like the Nike logo — just do it.

[00:52:50] Graham Stephen: For those listening in, if you haven’t read Phil Knight’s book, Shoe Dog — I mean, it’s an incredible book. Just in terms of resilience and getting started, and how a brand which is kind of ubiquitous nowadays started out of the back of a boot, basically.

[00:53:10] Graham Stephen: Which leads us to the second last question. Trail running shoes — you call yourself a mountain goat, so what shoes do you wear?
[00:53:19] Willem Haarhoff: Ultra.

[00:53:21] Graham Stephen: I’ve never heard of that make, but I’ll take your word for it.

[00:53:26] Graham Stephen: And last — what does success look like for you in five years’ time?
[00:53:33] Willem Haarhoff: Being able to go to bed every single night, to be peaceful. And to have family around me.

[00:53:39] Graham Stephen: I absolutely love that. I mean, I think we get so lost in this notion that bigger is better. There’s a community that I’m part of, and I mention them often, called Small Giants, which is based out of the US. It’s about building great businesses, not necessarily big businesses. And I think it espouses those kinds of values. Can you sleep peacefully at night? Are you making a difference?

[00:54:02] Willem Haarhoff: 100%.

[00:54:03] Graham Stephen: Before we wrap, just one last piece of advice that you would like to give to anyone listening in today.

[00:54:11] Willem Haarhoff: Yeah, I think it would be to back yourself, and to be authentic. I think a lot of the trouble, personally, that I have experienced in my life is because I wasn’t authentic. And I thought I could do everything myself — I’m bulletproof, and the reality is that I’m not. I’m just one beggar showing other beggars where to get food. And yeah, but you’ve got to back yourself, be willing to make mistakes, and when you make mistakes, that’s okay. Just dust yourself off and move on. Try again.

[00:54:48] Graham Stephen: Absolutely love that. Willem, it’s been an absolute pleasure having you on the show, and I know we had a few false starts trying to get the schedule right, but I think this is definitely going to land as one of our favourite episodes for the year. I certainly hope so. And I just want to express our appreciation for you being so generous with your story. I’m sure there are probably a hundred other stories behind this, but I think there’s some really practical advice and lessons in today’s show.

[00:55:05] Graham Stephen: So to any of our listeners, if you want to find out more about DoughGetters, head to doughgetters.co.za, or you can connect with Willem on LinkedIn. And if you’re listening to the podcast, get hold of us — we’ll connect you with Willem. And if you want to know what your business is worth, you can either contact Willem, or you can get hold of us directly at bizvalglobal.com. Thanks for joining us today, and we hope to see you again soon. Willem, thanks for being here.

[00:55:37] Willem Haarhoff: Thanks, Graham. What a pleasure. Thank you.

[00:55:40] Graham Stephen: Cheers, thank you.

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