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What’s your backstory?
I spent 2 years after school in the South African Army, I learned to parachute, it was a great experience. I studied the Woolworths management course after completing the army. I dabbled in many businesses, had a clothing shop, jewelry store and by 24 opened my jewelry wholesale business.
I completed a course in grading cut diamonds and eventually moved on to importing items from the East which has taken me down the road to where I am today. 3 years ago, I met the Inventors of Butterfly cup and have been very involved in launching this worldwide.
Can you tell me the story of your prior successes, challenges, and major responsibilities?
I have for the most part of my career been self-employed, the responsibilities that come with this are enormous, as your staff would expect you to have all the answers. I have been blessed to work with a diverse range of smart passionate people who helped me create and get to where I am today. We have launched or been involved in many ongoing projects and retained our customers. The Butterfly cup project is very exciting, and I am sure the fruits of the hard work put in over the last few years will be very evident.
Can you tell me about a time when you almost gave up, how you felt about that, and what you did instead of giving up?
About 4 years ago I tried to help a friend of mine in his business and helped facilitate the importing and finance of paper products from China. Initially it was going well, but the company had not truthfully told me the extent of the problems the company was facing, and I lost 3.5 million dollars. I was very demotivated, and it took me a few months to accept the loss. After I accepted the loss, it made me more motivated to trade harder and more carefully. The following year I had the best most profitable year of trade to date.
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