It’s an honour to speak with you today. Why don’t you give us some details about you and your story. How did you get to where you are today?
9 months ago I published ‘The Journey to becoming Paid in Full – A Practical Thought Process for Anyone to Crush 2022’. But little did I know how this little ebook would set me on an upward trajectory. Initially, I wrote it as a mere collection of my personal thoughts and experiences from the past couple of months (2021). It was a result of the most important things I have read, internalised, and failed at. So, in my mind, I was writing for others – not myself. In hindsight, it became clear that it was all about me.
Interestingly, Marc Andreessen’s blog post about not following your passion played a big part in shaping my perspective – “…Instead, at work, seek to contribute. Find the hottest, most vibrant part of the economy you can and figure out how you can contribute best and most. Make yourself of value to the people around you, to your customers and coworkers, and try to increase that value every day.”
From this perspective, it was important not to let my biases stand in the way of my objectivity, because if I got hung up on my views of how things “should” be, I’d miss out on learning how they really are. The key is to fail, learn and improve quickly. More importantly, my entrepreneurial success is based on the following quote by Naval Ravikant: “You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity – a piece of a business – to gain your financial freedom.”
I’m sure building to this point has not come easily. What challenges have you had to overcome along the way?
Here’s what I’ve learnt in the past few months:
- A great organisation has both great people and a great culture
- Great people have both great character and great capabilities
- Great cultures bring problems and disagreements to the surface and solve them well, and they love imagining and building great things that haven’t been built before.
Projects that get progressively better over time have both. In our case Funti3R, we do that by recruiting great people manually. Yet, nothing is more difficult than to get the culture and people right. For that reason, it pays for us to spell out our values clearly and to operate by them consistently.
Building is fun when you have the right things in place. It saves everyone time and increases your chances of success.
In fact, I’m seeing better results this time around as I’m building Funti3r Media and other digital products.
Other lessons:
“The risk is in your product, not in the market or the customer. The customer will pay if your product gets big enough. Product risk — Can I build it? Can I grow it? Will they keep using it? Market risk — Do they want it? Will they pay? Are there enough of them? You don’t want to overlook one or the other.”
In practice, Funti3R is definitely a product risk. The market has been proven over the past couple of years so I don’t have to worry on this front.
Alpha: Learning about a customer and their problems works better as a quick and casual chat than a long, formal meeting.
This thinking led me to adopt 15-minute meetings. I don’t do longer meetings unless I REALLY have to.
Let’s talk about the work you do. What do you specialise in and why should someone work with you over the competition?
I created The Wiz Effect to bring together freelancers, creators, consultants, and solopreneurs to develop a “value-based” approach in selling and pricing our services, so that we can stop undercharging with hourly billing, and start value pricing and charge what we’re worth.
In addition, my personal brand has to do with creating helpful user experience frameworks for onboarding first-time executives, business owners, and brands into Web3. I teach the next generation of founders and creators earn a fair share of their work by creating and owning digital assets.
You can pre-order my new course here.
Through my 1:1 consulting/coaching, my goal is to help people understand the impacts, challenges and opportunities of Web3 technologies aka digital assets on their businesses and personal brands, and develop the toolkit to accelerate their company’s and craft in the next phase of the Internet.
You can book a free intro call with me here.
For example, one client had this to say about me: “Wisani is a passionate and dedicated market strategist in the Web3 DAO space. He has broad market knowledge and experience, a serious and businesslike approach to his work and a pleasant personality to work with. His work at Mpowa has been instrumental in assisting us with our NFT light paper marketing and launch efforts. I am happy to recommend him.” Ryan Lavelle, Mpowa Ltd
Through Funti3r Media, we aim to tap into not only our education in the space but also our experience in order to create a community of people that are growing, learning, and building together in the crypto world. Ultimately, we want to:
- Equip women and youth with the necessary tools and skills for a career in blockchain.
- Equip participants to work on hands-on projects and build important critical thinking skills with real-world problems and solutions.
In conclusion, people should work with me based on my expertise and service delivery. I’ve front run the web3 and NFT industry in SA and have built a solid network, plus proof of work that validates my specialised skill.
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here.
What is your best piece of advice for young entrepreneurs wanting to build a business?
What you think is attainable is just a function of what you know at the moment. Unfortunately, most people tend to rule out a goal because they think it is unattainable. For example, it’s not really about hard work. You can work in a restaurant eighty hours a week, and you’re not going to get rich. Getting rich is about knowing what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it. It is much more about understanding than purely hard work.
In fact, it is a fundamental law of nature that by following your intellectual curiosity more than whatever is “hot” right now, and your curiosity leads you to a place where society eventually wants to go, you’ll become successful.
Here, the take-home message is that successful people are those who can go above themselves to see things objectively and manage those things to shape change. They optimise for the whole. So, the challenge of how to make money is to therefore figure out what products/services society wants but does not know how to get, and then cultivate the character, capability, and curiosity to deliver whatever that thing is, at scale.
Speaking of success, what does the word mean to you?
Success means FREEDOM to me! I’m successful when I own my time, I don’t have to answer to a boss, I don’t have to be in places I don’t want to be in/at, I can sleep and wake up when I want, and most importantly, work on things I love with the people I really like. Ultimately, it comes down to the following:
- Owning my outcomes.
- Making my decisions well.
- And, having an “internal locus of control.”
Interestingly, successful people are those who can go above themselves to see things objectively and manage those things to shape change. They optimise for the whole. So, the challenge of how to make money is to therefore figure out what products/services society wants but does not know how to get, and then cultivate the character, capability and curiosity to deliver whatever that thing is, at scale.
The fact that all successful people operate by principles that help them be successful is really intriguing. They did certain things that enabled them to come by what they had and in most cases continue to practice the same principles to increase their success at those things which they choose.
Once I figure this out, I’ll be a success!
What is the greatest piece of advice you’ve been given?
Don’t follow your passion – Marc Andreessen
- “Don’t follow your passion. Seriously. Don’t follow your passion. Your passion is likely more dumb and useless than anything else. Your passion should be your hobby, not your work. Do it in your spare time.
Instead, at work, seek to contribute. Find the hottest, most vibrant part of the economy you can and figure out how you can contribute best and most. Make yourself of value to the people around you, to your customers and coworkers, and try to increase that value every day.”
- Great people have great outcomes. You just have to be patient. You just have to give them a long enough timescale. It never happens in the timescale you want or they want, but it does happen.
You have to become the best at what you do and refine what you do until this is true. As you do this, opportunity will seek you out and as luck would have it, your destiny will be fulfilled.
The trick is to enjoy it and keep doing it over and over again. Don’t keep count no matter what, because you have to do hard things, like having laser focus and patience, to create your own meaning in life.
- “Getting rich is about knowing what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it. It is much more about understanding than pure hard work.”
Finally, how can people connect with you if they want to learn more?
Through The Wiz Effect, we’re helping the next generation of founders and creators earn a fair share of their work by creating and owning digital assets – You get what you put in.
P.S Whenever you’re ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:
- Join my free Monetisation Strategy for Creators workshop here.
- Prepare yourself and your business for Web3, NFTs and Blockchain with 1:1 coaching here.
- Promote your brand to 1,000+ subscribers by sponsoring my newsletter here.
- Follow me on Linkedin for more monetisation frameworks, digital assets education, and community-building systems.
- Pre-Order Monetizing Attention
Join me in reshaping how we earn and grow our income by leveraging code and media!
