#89 Turning African potential into jobs that change lives, with Larreth Jimu – Founder of Melsoft Academy

TRANSCRIPT: THE bizval PODCAST
Guest: Larreth Jimu, Founder and CEO, Melsoft Academy
Host: Graham Stephen, CEO and Co-Founder, bizval
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larreth-jimu
Company: https://melsoftacademy.com

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[00:00:00] Graham Stephen: Welcome to the bizval Podcast. At bizval, we are passionate about empowering entrepreneurs the world over to understand and unlock the value in their business. We work with advisers and entrepreneurs to demystify the value creation process when building a business. At bizval, we know how tough it is to grow and run a business, which is exactly why we’ve made valuation simple to understand, accurate, and affordable. Our unique blend of tech and touch ensures that you always receive the best service, authentic human engagement, and data insights to ensure that you build a business that provides you with freedom and choice. In the bizval Podcast, we showcase stories of real entrepreneurs and advisers, sharing lessons and inspiration from their journeys to make your journey just that little bit easier.

[00:00:53] Graham Stephen: Hello and welcome back to the bizval Podcast. This is a show where we sit down with entrepreneurs, operators, and advisers who are building real value out there in the world. I’m Graham Stephen, the CEO and co-founder of bizval, and our mission is simple. We want every business owner to know what their business is worth and what they can do today to make it worth more tomorrow.

[00:01:15] Graham Stephen: Today’s guest has become, in his own words, obsessed with one problem. South Africa has millions of talented young people who cannot find work, and companies that cannot find the skills they need. He has built a business that sits squarely in that gap, training people in software engineering, AI, data, and cybersecurity, and then getting them into jobs. And now he is starting to buy and partner with other education businesses to build something bigger across the continent. Larreth Jimu, founder of Melsoft Academy, welcome to the bizval Podcast.

[00:01:50] Larreth Jimu: Thank you so much, Graham. Such an honour to be here. I’m excited.

[00:01:55] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. Well, Larreth, I’m not going to read out your CV, so why don’t you take a moment just to introduce yourself to our listeners? Who are you and what does Melsoft actually do?

[00:02:08] Larreth Jimu: All right. So I’m the co-founder of Melsoft Academy. We started off as a software development agency focusing on websites, mobile apps, and the like, and unfortunately we just couldn’t find software engineers. We really struggled with finding great talent, and this was in the 2020, 2021 era. So we pivoted into the academy, initially just to solve our own internal problem. But when we saw that it’s a much bigger problem and everyone has the same problem, we made a full pivot into the academy. What we do is we take young people, employed, unemployed, underemployed, and we upskill them in AI, cybersecurity, software engineering, and data science, and then when they’re done, we connect them to employers that are looking for their talent.

[00:03:11] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. We’re going to dive deeper into that a little bit later. But before we do, in terms of the format of the podcast, we’re going to talk a little bit about your background, a little bit about Melsoft and the vision, and some of the learnings along the way. So let’s rewind to the beginning. You’re still a young man, but let’s go back to when you were a young boy. Where did you grow up? What did you see around you in terms of youth unemployment that made this such a personal mission for you? Let’s go back to your upbringing, your household, and what drove this passion that you have.

[00:03:51] Larreth Jimu: Oh, awesome. That’s a very good question. So I’m from Harare, Zimbabwe. That’s where I come from. I did my university in a small town just two hours away from the capital city of Harare. When I finished my degree, I couldn’t get a job, and it was across the board. Everyone around me simply couldn’t get a job. What would frustrate me the most is that I knew what we were capable of as graduates, because I had spent all this time with these really bright, really amazing people, and it really frustrated me that we all couldn’t get a job, not just me. It was almost everyone who couldn’t secure employment.

[00:04:41] Larreth Jimu: Back to my upbringing, I come from a family of entrepreneurs. My mom is one of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs I’ve ever seen. She taught me the value of hard work because, unfortunately, my dad left us when I was still seven years old. So my brother and I were raised by my mom, and without fail every single day she would wake up at 4:00 a.m., go to work, come back, help us prepare for school, and then go back to work, then come back late at night around 8:00 or 9:00 p.m., make food for us and then go to sleep. I have no idea how she managed to do it. She still is, to this day, my true inspiration of hard work and entrepreneurship, and the name Melsoft itself is my mother’s name with soft, for software, at the end. That’s what drives my passion and my work ethic. It’s knowing that there are millions of young Africans just like myself who have the talent, they have the work ethic, but they’re just lacking the opportunity, or someone to give them that first chance that they need.

[00:05:59] Graham Stephen: That’s actually quite an emotional story, talking about your mom. One of the things is that attitude of hard work. If you believe social media and Instagram and all of that, all you need is a great idea, and if you haven’t become the next Elon Musk in three months and a billionaire you’re doing something wrong. But it always starts with hard work, it starts with skills, and then it starts with actually turning that into something productive. And there’s this African stereotype, people often think of Africa as a place of cheap labour and all of that, but there are incredibly skilled people who often lack the means to connect with the problems that need solving, and ultimately that’s what you’re trying to do in South Africa. And growing up in Zimbabwe at the time, I guess it was hard to get work. You were probably experiencing hyperinflation and all sorts of things, but you didn’t let that get you down, you turned it into a positive. You said, how do I solve this problem? And that’s the heart of every entrepreneur, right? What big problem am I trying to solve? Maybe your mom was the inspiration, but why did you end up saying, “I want to be part of the solution,” rather than, “I’m part of the problem”? What was it in you, in terms of your upbringing and your psyche, that made you a problem solver rather than just, “Hey, woe is me”?

[00:07:44] Larreth Jimu: It goes back to my upbringing again. I mentioned my mom is an entrepreneur. My dad is also an entrepreneur, and also a very inspirational guy who really pushed me to start this business. When I came to South Africa, I came to study IT, because I had studied logistics and supply chain management. I thought, let me study technology, because I always had a passion for computers since I was four or five years old. What then happened was I did try formal employment, Graham. I’ll be honest with you, I did try it. I went into it, I served my time. I don’t look down on it at all, but it just wasn’t for me, because I would have so many ideas. I was firing all these ideas, and keep in mind, at that point I’m 23 years old. I have literally no experience at all. So I would come up with all these ideas and say, “Hey guys, why don’t we do this? Why don’t you try that?” And the hierarchy, the upper management, simply wouldn’t take me seriously because I was young. Who’s going to take a 23-year-old seriously, I guess. So that just drove me to think, okay, all I know in my life is entrepreneurship anyway, so why not just do what I know best?

[00:09:27] Larreth Jimu: The one thing that I really do a lot is study the great entrepreneurs, and all of them say the same thing. If you want to build a big business, it needs to be around a problem, not around your solution. So it was just a case of looking at what the problems were. In our case, we couldn’t find engineers. Then we also saw that the unemployment problem is there, it’s big, and we just thought, why not be the gap behind it? If we can succeed in solving this problem, millions of young Africans will be uplifted. That’s how we started.

[00:10:13] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. I want to dive into something you’ve touched on. As you said earlier, Melsoft didn’t start life as an academy. You started off as an IT business. Can you talk us through that journey from agency to academy? At what point did you realise that actually the academy was the business? We talk about startups pivoting as though it’s an easy thing to do, but take us through that actual thought process. Even with bizval as a business, we’re into our fifth year now and we’ve pivoted a number of times along the way. But talk us through the psychology of actually having to let go of the idea you started off with. What was that aha moment when you thought, “Oh, there’s a business here”? And then, what’s the business model behind Melsoft? It’s easy when you’re an agency, you charge fees, you provide a service. Now it’s a completely different business model. I’d love to go through that thought process and what you went through at the time.

[00:11:26] Larreth Jimu: Excellent question. So yes, at the time of the agency, the agency was doing okay. It was cash flow positive. We could pay our bills. I was free as a 24 or 25-year-old entrepreneur. I was having a great time. Then the academy idea came and we started working on it in parallel with the agency. And you’re right, I had this huge conflict. We needed to pivot, but in the academy we didn’t have any revenue, because our model was study now, pay later, without anyone bankrolling us. As I mentioned, we were just trying to solve the problem of needing skills, so we didn’t want to put a barrier on attracting the right talent.

[00:12:19] Larreth Jimu: But then I went to this event organised by Marco Stavo, and Nick Curios was speaking there. I asked him a question. “Nick, what do you think is the best time to pivot and to let go of a business?” And he said, “Sometimes, Larreth, what you need to do is take all of your ducks, take them to your backyard, choose the one that you want, and shoot the rest.” That was his advice. So I was like, “Okay, fine, as long as you don’t shoot the goose that’s laying the golden egg.” That was the conflict, because this one was laying the golden egg. But we could tell just by interacting with students that the academy, yes of course it’s a for-profit enterprise, but the impact it makes on a young unemployed person who comes to you later saying, “Thank you so much, you changed my life, I’m now earning, I can take care of my mom and dad, I can get married, thank you because of what you did,” that impact really pulled us to say, “Okay, let’s struggle.” And we did struggle. We made that pivot. We struggled throughout the year 2023 until we changed our business model to a tuition-based business model, and then, the rest is history, I guess.

[00:13:52] Graham Stephen: Let’s talk a little about that business model. What sits inside it? Who is the real customer? You’ve got a two-sided market you’re trying to balance, the learner or student, and the potential employer on the other side. How does that business model actually work in practice?

[00:14:15] Larreth Jimu: They work hand in hand. They’re both very important to us. Initially we started off with the tuition model, monthly instalments or upfront payments, and anyone who wants to study can come and study with us. But then we found out that the large reason why 90% of people couldn’t enrol with us was because of finances. You would have someone who’s really capable, really hungry, who has even done some work before, but they just can’t afford it. And when we started speaking to corporates, they also had the issue of, we can’t find talent, and we have this thing called B-BBEE and skills development where we need to invest X amount in upskilling X number of students. So it’s a marriage made in heaven. The corporates fund us and then we upskill the learners. Then when they’re done, they go to that corporate that’s looking for the talent. At the same time, we don’t close the door on those who can’t be funded, because not everyone is eligible.

[00:15:29] Graham Stephen: And I guess your focus is on skills. Obviously graduates and accreditation and all of that is important, but I think you have a line that it’s about better outcomes from the money. So you’re very outcomes focused. Taking a step back, when you looked at the problem you’re trying to solve, corporates are spending a lot of money, and there are a ton of NPOs and all of those things out there. But this is maybe a criticism of the industry and what you’re trying to sell. Where do you think money is being wasted today?

[00:16:06] Larreth Jimu: The problem is that a lot of organisations treat skills development as a compliance exercise. They sit with the B-BBEE consultant and the consultant says, “You guys want to get to level one, you need to spend 2 million on skills development.” And then they spend the money because they just want to be compliant. That’s when you invest in programmes that are not critical skills or skills of the future, but are just good for you to get high compliance. So then the money is wasted, because yes, you train the learner in, let’s say, office administration, for example. But what will happen to that learner after the certificate? No one really asks that question. So I think that’s where a lot of money has been wasted.

[00:16:59] Graham Stephen: Yeah. If I understand correctly, you have a 92% graduate placement rate. I don’t know the stats off hand, but if you look at broader graduate placement rates across South Africa, or even globally, it’s probably less than 50%. Even graduates are battling to find jobs. But how do you define a placement? 92% is impressive, but what does a placement actually mean? Is it a short-term contract, or is it full-time employment? How do you think about that?

[00:17:33] Larreth Jimu: The way we describe Melsoft, I don’t know if you follow football?

[00:17:40] Graham Stephen: Yeah.

[00:17:40] Larreth Jimu: Okay. So I’m a Man United fan, unfortunately.

[00:17:44] Graham Stephen: We’ll have to end the interview there.

[00:17:46] Larreth Jimu: I’m trying. I’m a Michael Carrick guy at the moment. It’s really bad. But there’s a club that I really love and appreciate a lot, which is Dortmund. It has become a launchpad sort of club, where a young player goes there and they know they’re not going to stay there forever, but they know that being at Dortmund will set you up for life. Look at Bellingham and all the guys. We are the same. So what we define as a placement is your first opportunity. It can be an internship, it can be a paid job, it can be a freelance gig where you’re now making some sort of money that you previously wouldn’t make. That’s what we define as a placement, because we believe that with this you should be good for the rest of your life.

[00:18:39] Graham Stephen: I love that, because part of the challenge nowadays is that paradox, entry-level positions require three years of experience, and where do you get the experience? So it’s actually about giving somebody a foot in the door, giving them an opportunity to get that experience and then prove themselves. It’s not a handout. And I think that definition is important, because once you’ve been given that opportunity, it’s up to you, ultimately. So I love that it passes that accountability beautifully.

[00:19:10] Graham Stephen: I want to move on a little bit and talk about value creation. At bizval we put a valuation hat on, we work with businesses around creating value, and it’s one of the questions I ask every founder we interview. Where does the value in Melsoft actually sit? Is it the accreditation of the programmes? Is it the employer relationships? Is it the operating system you developed, or the placement record? Or is it a combination of these? If somebody was going to come and buy Melsoft as an acquirer, what are the things that make you stand out or make you valuable to them?

[00:19:55] Larreth Jimu: It’s a combination of everything that you mentioned. We’ve basically built a system that can take a cold stranger and turn them into a software engineer. It’s a system that starts off in advertising, converting that lead into a client, then onboarding them, training them, upskilling them, and then placing them. Everything is run in a system. And it’s the same for the B2B system as well. It takes an absolute stranger into getting to know about Melsoft, meeting Melsoft, and then funding maybe 10, 15, 20 learners with Melsoft. So we’ve built the full spectrum of the business so that it doesn’t even need my daily involvement at all. Hence why now I’m exploring things like acquisitions and other things.

[00:20:55] Graham Stephen: Yeah. I was going to say you’ve built it as a system, and one of the questions I was going to ask is how much of the business will carry on if you decide to go to Bali for two weeks on Monday. When we value businesses it’s a question we ask the founders: what happens if you take a three-week vacation? I think that’s so important. A lot of entrepreneurs think it’s just about the hustle and it’s all about them, and you’ve built a business that isn’t dependent on you, which then allows you to play a role in expanding reach and influence and telling the story.

[00:21:29] Graham Stephen: I guess that moves on to the next question. You’ve built Melsoft into this academy having a great impact, it’s profitable, all those things, but now you’re looking to acquire and partner and grow the reach beyond South Africa into other African countries. When you’re looking at other businesses on this acquisition trail, what are you looking for? What makes a prospective business worth buying, and what makes you walk away?

[00:22:04] Larreth Jimu: Great question. Let me just go back a little bit. In terms of our vision and our road map, we had to reverse engineer a lot of things at the beginning of the year. We sat down and asked, where do we want to be? How can we make the most amount of impact that we possibly can? That led us to the conclusion that we need to be a listed company. That way we can attract so much institutional capital and invest in as many young people as possible. For us to get there, acquisitions became the only way, or maybe the fastest way, that we could get there.

[00:22:55] Larreth Jimu: So we look for businesses that are profitable, businesses that have good recurring revenue and good margins, where the owners are not needed to run the business anymore. Businesses that have accreditations within the sectors that we want to operate in, specifically technology, the trades, and finance, anything that is an in-demand skill that needs young people. Those are the businesses we’re looking for. And in terms of the businesses we walk away from, Graham, you would know this. It’s the business owner or founder who thinks that their business is worth $100 million when it’s actually worth five. Those are the businesses we walk away from, because as much as we want to do deals and grow aggressively, we have to do it in a responsible way. Valuation is the biggest reason why we walk away from targets.

[00:23:58] Graham Stephen: Yeah. And being grounded in that, valuation is about a willing buyer and a willing seller, and you’ve got to be able to meet in the middle. If one party is massively aggrieved and the other is getting a massive deal, invariably it falls apart. That’s the whole point of valuation, getting to a point where both buyer and seller are each a little bit unhappy, usually. That’s usually where the best deals happen.

[00:24:29] Graham Stephen: Larreth, I want to drill down quickly on the employers. Walk me through it from the employer side. If I’m an HR or learning and development head, or a CEO in charge of a skills development budget, and I’ve got a B-BBEE scorecard. I use that word because I think your mindset is that it’s not just a compliance tick-box. Yes, corporates need that, but what do you actually do for them? What do they get to show their board a year later? It’s not just about moving from a B-BBEE level four to a level two on the scorecard. What do you deliver for them? Why do they keep coming back to you?

[00:25:17] Larreth Jimu: The way we approach the conversation, and the reason people keep coming back to us, is that we don’t look at the business from one function. We don’t just say, “Okay, we’re speaking to transformation, let’s talk about getting your B-BBEE to the next level.” We involve all the stakeholders. Typically it’s transformation, then we bring in the CIO or the CTO or whoever is in charge of technology, then we bring in human resources as well as learning and development. We sit everyone in one room. I thought that this is how decisions are made in most organisations, but no, it’s mostly silo-based. By involving everyone, we create a solution that every single function benefits from. Things like our learning methods, our gamification, and our student support are just the add-ons. The most important thing is bringing everyone in strategically, then creating a solution that is customised to that organisation, instead of just giving them PDFs and PowerPoints and saying, “Here you go, you’re now compliant,” when you haven’t fixed your skills issue.

[00:26:38] Graham Stephen: So you spend time actually understanding who the stakeholders are and what their real problem is. It’s not just that you walk out with a certificate and an accreditation, it’s really working with those employers.

[00:26:52] Graham Stephen: I want to move on a little bit to some of the lessons along the way, and a bit about you. You speak about the importance of collaboration and having the right people in your corner. You’ve surrounded yourself with some serious people along the way, from your mother, Mel, or Melanie, I’m guessing, I’m extending her full name, and even your dad, who was also an entrepreneur. Who are some of the influences you’ve had in your life, both as you’ve been building Melsoft and now as you go about acquiring? Just one or two or three people, even if you don’t want to mention them by name. Who have they been and why have they been so important in this journey?

[00:27:36] Larreth Jimu: I’ve had three mentors who have completely transformed my life. My first mentor was Dan Pena, a Scottish, British, American entrepreneur. He does a lot of acquisitions, the QLA playbook. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it, but he’s the one who really started kicking my butt, telling me to dream as big as you can. You can do it, do this, do that. So Dan Pena was my first mentor. He was the first person who opened my eyes.

[00:28:09] Larreth Jimu: My second mentor was Chris Hillard, another American entrepreneur. He has done more than 200 transactions in M&A. He’s got all the battle scars to prove it. He’s listed companies, he’s done everything. I sit with him once every single month. I tell him all the problems I’m facing, personal issues as well, and he’s there to help me.

[00:28:29] Larreth Jimu: And then the last person is the chairman of my board, Clive. I would say he has had the most impact on me because we communicate regularly, weekly. We chat every single day on SMS. He coaches me on how to sell and on how to handle relationships with my team. He’s very blunt as well, which is what I love about Clive. He says it exactly how he thinks, which helps me, because I would always rather you hurt me with the truth than flatter me with a lie. So I owe Melsoft’s growth to those three mentors, because without them I wouldn’t have been able to do anything that I’m doing now.

[00:29:17] Graham Stephen: Yeah, it is so important, and it’s a breadth of different people as well. We do a lot of work in the US, and you can say what you like about the US, they know how to dream big and think big and think about scale. Often as Africans and South Africans we sometimes think too small. So that’s super important. And again, somebody like Clive, who’s been in the trenches, knows the South African market and the context. As you said, being blunt is sometimes what’s needed. I’m also fortunate, my co-founder has spent 40 years building businesses, over 40 businesses, and sometimes he’ll just call it out. He’ll say, “Graham, you’re thinking about this in the wrong way and this is why.” Anybody else you might take offence to, but he says it in a way that gives you a kick up the backside, and you think, okay, let me move forward rather than wallow in my own self-pity. So I think that is so important, and every entrepreneur needs a mentor, somebody who holds them to account and gives them experience and training along the way.

[00:30:37] Graham Stephen: Let’s talk a little bit about some of the lessons along the way. You spoke about the brutal honesty that Clive often gives you, some of the things he told you that maybe you don’t want to hear. We have a saying in our business: when we’re doing valuations we have to be independent, and we often tell our clients what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. Everyone wants to know they’ve built a billion-dollar unicorn, but if it’s worth nothing, or worth a million rand, you’ve got to tell them. But tell us about some of the painful lessons you’ve had along the way. You look back now and you think, “Oh, that was obvious.” What are some of the learnings, things you got wrong where you thought, if I’d done that differently we could have avoided a lot of pain? Maybe share one or two of those battle scars.

[00:31:36] Larreth Jimu: Oh, which one do I pick out of all those? I have 3,000 scars inside my body and on my skin as well. Okay, so there was a time when the entire business nearly collapsed, when I stepped out too soon and brought in another high-level executive who had 20 years of experience in education. On the CV he looked amazing. He was the dream hire, as you would say. But it was just not the right time, because at that stage the business itself was made up of 12 people between 19 and 23 years old.

[00:32:25] Larreth Jimu: Going back to my Dortmund analogy, I love working with young people. I get the most out of young people. I get them to dream big. I get them to think nothing is impossible. I give them freedom to take risks, make mistakes and all that. So I can manage it, I can build a big business, and I’m doing it now with young people. But unfortunately the new executive couldn’t. So we nearly collapsed because we were just bleeding cash. He couldn’t work with the young people. And I had to be humble enough, because I had actually moved to the UAE, I had to be humble enough to pack my suitcase and come back. I had sold everything and I had to come back and start again from scratch. So the lesson there was that patience is a virtue. As much as we want to build big businesses, sometimes you just have to wait and allow time to do its thing instead of trying to rush to grow. That’s something I’m really strong about now. Patience.

[00:33:36] Graham Stephen: That’s such an important lesson. In this day of social media, everybody thinks that if you’re not a billionaire by the time you’re 23, somehow you’ve failed. Actually, building solid foundations and waiting for the right time matters. Sometimes when you try to rush the process is when things break. There are times when you need to make quick decisions, but that wisdom is where mentors come in, right? Because they’ve been there, they’ve got the battle scars, and they can guide you along the way. And I guess the one thing you did do is you made that decision at the time you hired him with the best information and the best intention, but you also recognised when it was a mistake, not because he was a bad person, and then had to humble yourself to dive back in. So that process of learning is absolutely critical. I love the way that you expressed that story.

[00:34:40] Larreth Jimu: I want to echo something you just said there on decisiveness, because I think it’s very important. If you’ve read Think and Grow Rich, throughout the entire book he never really tells you what the secret really is. Because I think what he’s trying to do is get you to come up with your own secret to success. And I think decisiveness is one of those. You’ve got to make a decision. A lot of young people analyse, they analyse, they spreadsheet this, they test, they do all these things, but then they don’t actually take decisive action and they remain stuck. So yeah, I just wanted to echo that.

[00:35:13] Graham Stephen: Yeah, I agree with that. Being an entrepreneur is about making decisions with imprecise information. I once worked in a corporate and one of the people there said to me, “Graham, it’s not about doing good things. It’s about making sure that when the bad things happen, the blame doesn’t stick to you.” That’s the problem with a lot of corporates. They don’t encourage people to make decisions, they encourage people to provide information. I think that’s a fundamental thing about entrepreneurship: make those decisions. It’s okay to make a mistake, but learn from that mistake and grow from it.

[00:35:52] Graham Stephen: And maybe we’ll end with that before we go into our rapid fire section. If we’re talking to a prospective entrepreneur, or somebody going through the academy, if you could sit down with every single founder or aspiring founder listening to this episode, what is one thing you wish you could tell them that nobody told you when you started?

[00:36:20] Larreth Jimu: It would be dream big. Because guess what, my friend? If you have a goal of making, let’s say, $100,000 a year, and that’s your goal, it will take you the same amount of effort, the same amount of pain, and the same amount of stress as someone who’s trying to make $10 billion a year. The work is the same. The only thing that limits us, I mean, just look at it. Those guys who have built big businesses, billion-dollar businesses, what is their IQ score? Those people are not 100 times smarter than us. They don’t have 24 more hours in a day. The only difference is that they dream bigger. That’s it. I wish more young people would just dream big. Nothing is impossible. Everything can be done. If you want to list your business, so many entrepreneurs have listed their businesses. So many people have built unicorns, so why not you?

[00:37:23] Graham Stephen: It reminds me of a quote. It’s one of my favourite quotes. It was attributed to Mark Twain, but I don’t think he actually said it. It says, 20 years from now, you won’t regret the things that you did. You’ll regret the things you didn’t do. So cut away the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour, explore, dream, discover. It’s that mindset of expansiveness, and I think that’s such a powerful thing that we can take with us. That’s not being naive. That’s just saying, we’re all here, we all have skills, we can make a difference. Dream big and take other people along with you for that ride.

[00:38:02] Graham Stephen: So, Larreth, we do what I call a rapid fire. It’s just a few quick questions, and before we wrap up and close, I’ll give you an opportunity to give your contact details so people can reach out to you. This is just to hear a little more about the man or woman we’re interviewing. Some fun questions. Don’t overthink them. First thing that comes to mind. Are you ready for it?

[00:38:23] Larreth Jimu: Cool. Let’s go.

Rapid Fire

[00:38:29] Graham Stephen: The one skill that every young South African and global citizen should learn in the next two years?
[00:38:36] Larreth Jimu: AI. Learn how to use it. Everything AI. Learn it.

[00:38:50] Graham Stephen: AI. Is it a net job creator or a job destroyer in South Africa?
[00:38:50] Larreth Jimu: Net job creator, because it’s going to enable a lot more entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs create jobs. So forget about all the fearmongers. Turn it into an advantage.

[00:39:05] Graham Stephen: Would you rather go to a boot camp or do a degree?
[00:39:14] Larreth Jimu: Boot camp, because it saves you time, it saves you money, and it gets you the same outcome that the degree would get you.
[00:39:20] Graham Stephen: I guess unless you want to become a neurosurgeon, then you need the degree.
[00:39:24] Larreth Jimu: Absolutely.

[00:39:26] Graham Stephen: The best hire you ever made, by role, not by name?
[00:39:36] Larreth Jimu: A head of operations, because my brain was exploding.
[00:39:41] Graham Stephen: I hear you on that. I’m a dreamer, a big-picture thinker, but I get bored of the doing. When it becomes routine, I need somebody else to do that better than I can. Just ask my wife when it comes to wiping the kitchen counter.

[00:40:00] Graham Stephen: One book every founder should read?
[00:40:04] Larreth Jimu: The Bible. It has everything you need, really. The Bible, for me.
[00:40:10] Graham Stephen: Fantastic.

[00:40:12] Graham Stephen: On a Monday morning, what is the first number you check?
[00:40:18] Larreth Jimu: I don’t have an answer for that.
[00:40:20] Graham Stephen: Imagine!
[00:40:20] Larreth Jimu: Hey, that’s the honest truth.
[00:40:22] Graham Stephen: Your head of operations does that for you.
[00:40:25] Larreth Jimu: Yeah. My brain is everywhere. So I don’t know. It changes.
[00:40:32] Graham Stephen: That’s the dreamer in you.

[00:40:34] Graham Stephen: Last question. Finish this sentence. A skills programme has worked when the beneficiary or the student of that programme’s…
[00:40:45] Larreth Jimu: …life has completely changed economically.
[00:40:50] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. Economic benefit. So many people sugarcoat that. At the end of the day, is your economic circumstance improving? You can get that right, the politics falls away, everything else falls away. That’s a useful measure, right?

[00:41:03] Graham Stephen: Larreth, I think this was a really phenomenal conversation. If anybody wants to reach out to you or find you, what is the best way to get in touch?

[00:41:18] Larreth Jimu: The best way would be to email me at lar@melsoft.io. I read every single email that I get. Alternatively, you can follow me on LinkedIn, because I share a lot of my stories there and we can connect there as well.

[00:41:34] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. Larreth Jimu, we really appreciate your time and your honesty. And to the listeners, if you want to reach out to Larreth, he has given his details, or connect with us and we can connect you with him. If you’re a business owner who has never had your business independently valued, you know where to reach us. Thanks for joining the show and we’ll see you soon. Thanks, Larreth.

[00:41:56] Larreth Jimu: Thank you so much.

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