BUSINESS DATA SHEET:

1. Company’s website: www.SeaPointInn.co.za
2. Name of the business:  Sea Point Inn
3. Turnover R2 000, 000.00
4. Location: Sea Point – Regent Road
5. Owner(s): Diamond Brigadeiro
6. Industry: Hotel
7. Number of rooms: 24
8. Number of permanent employees: 5

Diamond Brigadeiro is the founder of a successful boutique hotel based in Sea Point (Cape Town – South Africa), namely Sea Point Inn. But even though he is now driving a gigantic Range Rover (branded with his company’s logo) worth well beyond half a million rand, all his wealth was not given to him on a silver platter.

 

The background story

Born Diamantino Da Sylva on 27th of September 1991 in Angola, Diamond was raised on strict values by his father who taught him from a very young age to value hard work, honesty and genuine friendships.  He left Angola in 2010 and started learning how to write and speak English at an international School of English based in Sea Point because Angola is a Portuguese speaking nation. The following year, he then successfully got enrolled at the University of Cape Town, where he started his undergraduate education in Civil Engineering, even though he later on dropped out of University.

However, he was not much of an entrepreneur back then. In fact, ever since he landed in Cape Town, he would spend on average R15 000 per night and found no value whatsoever in either investing money or saving it into a bank account. As a matter of fact, every night he would go clubbing with friends and squander big sums of money by buying drinks to everyone around him, strangers included.

At that particular time of his life, every waking moment of his existence was all about having fun to the maximum.  And his life continued this way because his father was a wealthy man back home who could afford to sustain the lavish lifestyle of his son in Cape Town, South Africa.

 

The financial struggle was the wake-up call

However, Diamond’s lavish lifestyle was abruptly interrupted a few years later when an unprecedented economic crisis hit his country of origin; leaving Angolan students living abroad in a hopeless financial situation as their parents could no longer sustain their expensive way of living. From that point on, there was no more money sent to him from home and the times of squandering tens of thousands of Rands every single night was over.

In March 2015, Diamond reached the bottom, at least financially. In fact, it got to a point that he had to leave his two bedroom apartment in Sea Point with views over the ocean because he could no longer afford the monthly rent in a consistent manner.  He consequently searched for alternative accommodation around the same area, since this was all he knew. After staying at a few friends, he then took a short-term room in a relatively cheap student accommodation for about three months, until he had to leave again for lack of money to pay the rent.

Left without any financial backup at all, by August 2015, Diamond was completely broke and could no longer afford a place of his own. He then found shelter at a fellow Angolan’s place uptown. At that time, his friend was trying to invest in a startup company with the intent to develop a spinoff of that business back in Angola. And this inspired Diamond to start working on his own project.  He then asked Michael C. Fanning, a savvy entrepreneur and good friend of his, who also happened to have started multiple tech-companies in Cape Town to help him build a responsive and user-friendly website for his start-up idea. So, the following month, he had a very simple, but yet quite effective plan, which was to start promoting his company’s website to anyone he happened to be around in a desperate attempt to find someone who would be willing to invest money in his start-up.

In October 2015, Diamond Brigadeiro was permanently living in his car, which he parked at night by the promenade, in Sea Point. And when he was fortunate enough, he would afford a decent bed at a backpacker in Long Street on the rare days he could afford R150 for the night.  Despite everything working against him, Diamond never stopped believing in himself and never allowed his circumstances to determine the way he would lead his life in the future. Determine to turn things around in his chaotic life; he would dedicate himself to go from one meeting to the next, either on foot or hustling rides around town with friends so as to keep the vision alive. At that time, he could no longer afford petrol money for his car and was contemplating selling it in order to invest in his own business.

 

The power of entrepreneurship education

As he spent more time with his friend Michael C. Fanning who provided him with professional business consultancy services on a pro bono basis, it became evident to Michael that Diamond should enroll for PhilTech Business Academy‘s entrepreneurship programme, which he did. And from that moment on, his life was never the same again.

During the entrepreneurship programme at PhilTech Business Academy, Diamond acquired the following business skills, which are all critical tools for success as a new start-up founder:

• How to write down the long-term vision, goals and objectives of the company
• How to set measurable goals to write a bankable business plan
• How to write a pitch deck which is appealing to investors to secure seed funding
• How to do a business presentation in front of potential partners, clients and venture capitalists
• How to design and develop a working Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
• How to design and implement a successful digital marketing strategy

Upon graduation of PhilTech Business Academy’s entrepreneurship programme, Diamond was finally educated, empowered and equipped to start and maintain a successful company. However, the key of his entrepreneurial success in the early days was the fact that even though he successfully graduated the programme, he nonetheless retain professional business consultancy services from one of PhilTech Business Academy’s business mentors.

After countless sleepless nights and busy days, Diamond managed to secure a business meeting with a wealthy man from Angola who was on holidays in Cape Town.  In spite of his lack of track record in business, he was confident enough to deliver a presentation of his website and services to his prospective investor at the hotel he was staying at the V&A Water Front. Against all odds, his miraculous presentation and the attractiveness of his website helped him secure an instant R700, 000.00 first round of investment, which he received at once within a few days following his bold business pitch.

 

The rise of a successful young African entrepreneur

From that point on, Diamond’s business idea had been funded, even though it was not incorporated yet as a private company and mostly only existed through its few days old website. With no prior experience as an entrepreneur, he realized quite early that money alone would never make him a successful business owner. So, he reached out to the only successful entrepreneur he personally knew; Michael C Fanning. By leveraging their friendship, he managed to get valuable business mentorship sessions with him, which eventually culminated into the implementation of practical business insights that helped him take the company to the next level, in a relatively short amount of time. And all of this, thanks to his enrolment in PhilTech Business Academy’s entrepreneurship programme.

By December 2016, Diamond’s one-year-old company generated a million rand turnover and he could finally get himself an apartment back in Sea Point with a stunning view onto the beach. At that time, his girlfriend Isabelle was helping him run the company remotely from Germany by handling all the bookings made online through booking.com. Even though they are no longer a couple today, he will always remember her unconditional support to help him build a successful Cape Town based business, all the way from Germany thanks to the power of technology. Each time she was on study break, she would fly all the way down to South Africa from Germany to help Diamond run the business facility in Cape Town. As a matter of fact, Diamond travelled to Germany for the very first time soon after he turned his company into a success to meet his Isabelle’s parents.

 

The lesson

In compendium, Diamond’s entrepreneurial journey is a real life experience that gives any aspiring entrepreneur a taste of how financial struggle and emotional hopelessness can be turned into a fuel to fast track business success. Entrepreneurship is all about defying the odds and transcending the norms to create new possibilities that add social, environmental and economic value to a particular nation. Also, Diamond had so limited resources that he had to become extremely ‘creative’ with the little that he still had left. And sometimes, what entrepreneurs have left when they go bankrupt is not financial resources but rather human capital. In his case, Diamond’s most valuable human capital in his darkest hour was savvy tech-entrepreneur Michael C. Fanning, whom he could get critical business tools from, such as a responsive website, for instance.

As an aspiring entrepreneur, you must ask yourself this question at all times: what do I have left right now to make things happen? And most importantly, do not box your answer. Remember, what you have left could be an encouraging and supportive girlfriend, a good friend who has done what you are dreaming of achieving or a simply a website to help you pitch your idea to prospective investors. What you have left is always all that you need to go further.

Consequently, if you do not have the seed funding (money) now to invest in your vision, it may simply mean that what you truly need is to refine your plan and broaden your network. After all, money neither create nor own itself, people do. So, learn to connect with people with money and soon enough, you will be connecting with their money in the form of investments in exchange for value. So, another question you may want to ask yourself is; does my start-up currently provide enough value to customers and investors?

However, it is important to know beforehand that people with money (angel investors) do not invest into empty hats because they know it takes money to raise even more money. Therefore, learn from Diamond; invest in simple but crucial assets such as a great looking website, a business plan or even just a well written pitch deck. The truth is those assets help demonstrate your personal involvement and belief in your own company, which is all major stakeholders want to see in the founding team of any start-up.

Unless you believe in your own dream enough to invest your own hard-earned money in it, nobody else will, period. And the ability to always remember to be your own investor each time you start off a company could make all the difference between quickly seizing an opportunity to get seed capital or missing out on scaling your business.