Affable Shadrack Kubyane, Co-Founder of Coronet Blockchain in South Africa, strikes you as the average man on the street. That impression lasts until this global speaker smiles and talks about the growth of enterprise on the African continent. A chance online encounter with this brilliant mind with a self-effacing disposition clearly shows that Africa really has talents, where it matters.
In this enthralling conversation, Segun Fatuase, Lead, NewsTurf Consult engages Shadrack Kubyane, also known as Africa’s Blockchain Baron, in an encounter that challenges and inspires the aspiring entrepreneur. Enjoy the snippets of the chat from Shadrack’s thoughts and experiences:
The Africa I see by 2030
I see an Africa where African problems are solved in Africa by Africans. We love our western neighbours, but if the recent pandemic is anything to go by, there comes a time whereby the future-proofing priorities of our nations cannot be left in our neighbours’ hands. When calamity hits: self-sustaining economies will be the norm. Let’s leverage the tech for social good mechanisms availed to us, to exceed those AfCFTA priorities.
Early Business experience
Looking back on my upbringing: I was in business long before I realised I was in business. For me, it was all about helping my industrious mom to stay afloat. That’s what mattered. I probably: have not credited my mother enough for the times she threw me into the deep end and expected me to swim. Handling business related tasks that should perhaps not have been expected of an 11 year old.
Mom had an affinity of starting family businesses, that she would then hand over to me, to keep afloat. When your boss is also a mom you care about, deeply, and do not want to disappoint, because you know she already does so much to keep things on track, it changes your posture.
That is how my ‘rodeo’ business took off: as a family responsibility. Some boys grow up looking after cattle: I grew up looking after businesses. Yes, I did occasionally milk my neighbour’s cattle, maybe to stay in touch with that village macho nature, and ground my own mealies, and worked the fields, but my foremost priority was keeping those businesses afloat. A general manager of sorts: from sales, to daily operations. I will forever be grateful for those days. They helped shape the man I would later become, not just the entrepreneur, but the man: the making of the man, was in that coal face. Here’s I am today, scaling those foundations.
Career in Corporate South Africa
When you have been around the bend a couple of times: you get to realise and fully appreciate, that there is not much difference between a dollar and a million dollars. Especially in terms of revenue earnings. Those are merely digits on paper, be it your incentive bonus, project budget or your salary slip. Whilst I learnt business in the village doldrums, it was in corporate that I got the full grasp of the scale. It was in those corporate glass towers, that my appetite and obsession with growth, took off. Why the dollar and the million dollar?
One morning I was just an average employee, within Deloitte rankings, doing mundane stuff., within a communications unit that won a flagship industry account. The next moment, thanks partly to my hard work, commitment to excellence and being in the right place at the right time, I was “borrowed” from the typical operations help out with exploring fresh business development pipelines.
Given a blank page once again, thrust into an environment, that was an unchartered terrain: in terms of the mastery of this account that existed at the nexus of the public and private sectors. I pioneered new deals, that helped build deal pipelines, that shifted the needle upwards. The whole exco, sat up and took note.
From a zero balance sheet position on the project to a 300 million USD market leading position, within 36 months. Being excellent means: the industry, cannot ignore you. Your customers or bosses cannot overlook you. Worrying about the dollars can distract you. Being the best version of you, competing with yourself and beating your own best scores is the ultimate ideal. That’s when I came into my element. Moving from the back row to the front row. Excelling means you would be catapulted out of your comfort zone: into an altitude where top performing industry leaders exist. I was, in this regard: moulded by these high performers, to do and be more. That’s when I left corporate, to go into management consulting, for emerging markets.
It was during this management consulting role, specialising in growing SMEs, within the Pan African space, that I got one of the key accounts on my desk. It evolved itself into our need to start Coronet Blockchain.
The Founding of Coronet Blockchain
We ended up in the blockchain industry, by accident, really. When we were called upon to scale that SME which started in a chaotic taxi rank, where our clients, its founders sold human hair extensions, out of the handbag, living hand- to- mouth, we had no idea it would turn out to be such a game changing moment for us.
We moved that struggling business, out of its chaotic hand- to -mouth environment, into 4 bricks and mortar branches, and shifted its growth from 500 dollars to 2 million USD within 3 years. We employed 40 staff, who did not only get formal employment contracts but were now financially included, as they could now buy cars, houses, etc. Building homes for their parents, became something that was not just the founders but also for the employees as well. Such milestones, as you can imagine, got us a lot of attention. It was as though we were sitting on this magic growth formula that everyone wanted.
Having worked in the business growth space for decades, we knew that we should not respond to what the market asked of us. Which was to simply begin growing more salon businesses, whilst also helping giant retailers to get a slice of the action, in the selling of human hair extensions. We put all these requests on hold, including some, by JSE listed retailers, and delved into an Africa- wide due diligence. Focusing on what the size of the industry was, what the moving parts were and the pain points, what we uncovered was staggering.
So staggering were those supply chain pain points: that instead of following the original traditional route, to grow one business at a time, we found it fitting to fix the industry’s macro problems, to create a growth enabling environment, at scale.
No business can thrive sustainably, whilst bleeding internally, in terms of relying on supply chain frameworks that are not sustainable, reliable or ethical. Such was the challenge uncovered in the human hair space, on the African end, which to an extent, is a global dilemma. Eliminating counterfeits, ensuring ethical sourcing, building a reliable supply chain whilst ensuring the type of transparency that enables the SMEs in this space to attain financial inclusion, in more ways than one.
In this regard, we founded Coronet Blockchain, on the principles of “lifting as you rise”. A solution response to an industry’s cry, rather than another invoice or money making exercise. Look at China, they had to move from an agrarian society that heavily relied on using their hands, to earn a living, in a largely informal economy, towards automation, where most of their economy is powered by manufacturing and of late, technology. If Africa is to attain the growth we all envisage, we cannot continue having a large informal sector, making the baseline foundation of our economies. We must evolve these entities towards the mainstream economy. It was this need: to evolve 500 000 African based salons from hand- to -mouth, towards sustainable mainstream operations, that have a reliable supply chain, at their doorstep, that inspired our founding of Coronet blockchain. As we put finishing touches on our hair industry disruption, we are already seeing other adjacent sectors, knock on our doors, seeking a similar macro level disruption.
The east Africa coffee belt, is one such sector. The West Africa raw cocoa sector, is another, among others. We also have North American interests, seeking to leverage our intimate knowledge of Africa and block chain, to aid the response to Africa’s agricultural value chain, fractures. Africa’s food security is on the line, and we are stepping up to the plate to do something about securing the livelihoods of our smallholder farmers.
***Keep a tab, through this medium, for more details, of the exploits of Coronet, beyond hair, vertical pillars etc.