Tech Ace of the Week: Herman Heunis – The Founder of Africa’s Biggest Social Network

Tech Person of the Week: Inside the Story of Africa’s Mark Zuckerberg, Herman Heunis

Meet Africa’s Mark Zuckerberg, Herman Heunis

Herman Heunis is the man who concocted South African social media site, MXit which was at one-point Africa’s most subscribed-to social media platform.

Heunis was born in Namibia, he experienced childhood in a rural area where his parents ran a sheep farm, however Heunis was pulled in to innovation at his youthful age. He moved to South Africa where he went to Stellenbosch University in 1977 and started his vocation in computer programming 3 years after.

In 1990, Heunis started his first organization, an ICT consultancy firm. After which he started another data and communication organization that spent significant time in programming development; Swist Group Technologies in 1998. His entrepreneurial spirit in the long run drove him to make MXit in 2005.

Breakthrough

Heunis’ instant messaging app took a quick hold inside the youth of South Africa. By 2013, MXit had a bigger client base in South Africa than Facebook, with 45 million enlisted clients in the nation. This client base was developing by 60,000 new enlisted individuals for every day, and 750 million day by day messages were being sent over the MXit network.

MXit brags in excess of 43 million enrolled clients of its free mobile instant messaging and online networking services in 128 nations, with new enlistments being timed up at a rate of 60,000 every day. It has been supported by the Department of Basic Education for widescale arithmetic direction, the Indonesian government for disaster relief and the US State Department to advance the visit of President Obama to Africa.

Selling of MXit in 2011

At the height of MXit’s prominence, Heunis chose to offer the organization. Stepping aside from his CEO position toward the end of 2011, Heunis finished the offer of his organization in 2012 to Alan Knott-Craig Jr. The choice was clearly a troublesome one to make as Heunis stated, “Selling a company that you have started is traumatic. Fact of the matter was, I was extremely tired and burned out, and staying on as CEO was not in the interest of the company.”

Knott-Craig Jr’s company, World of Avatar, did not develop MXit as Heunis might have hoped to see. In fact, in 2015 MXit was shut down, and Heunis expressed his disappointment on Twitter. Heunis tweeted that he regretted being excessively worn out, making it impossible to proceed in charge in 2011, yet that he really trusts that MXit had “all the ingredients to become a major success story.”

What type business is Herman Heunis is into now?

Since leaving from MXit, Heunis has stayed away from the limelight, and dedicated himself completely to different leisure activities including endurance bicycle races, for example, the Absa Cape Epic.

Quotes and Lessons for Herman Heunis

• “For me the desire to start my own business was probably fuelled by the desire to create something new and to be in charge of my own destiny.”
• “I think many entrepreneurs are creative creatures and are driven by the need to create something different.”
• “As a matter of fact, too many to count. I think every new venture has to overcome obstacles and tenacity is one of the keywords. Most entrepreneurs expect problems and challenges and have back-up plans ready when things go wrong, but in some cases the unexpected happens and it can have disastrous consequences. Successful entrepreneurs will continually get up and start again and tackle the problem, maybe with a new plan or strategy.”
• “You are the captain of your ship.”
• “If you are unhappy, you are in charge of that – change it or stay unhappy. It may be cruel, but so is nature.”

Lessons from Herman Heunis’ story

• Be innovative
• Tackle issues head-on
• Hard work pays,
• Take charge of your life
• Know when to quit