Life Lessons: How to Fail and Win

Alan Knott-Craig

Tafelberg

Review: Karen Watkins

Not to be confused with his dad, the former CEO of Vodacom, this book is a business biography of author and founder of fibertime™ and Project Isizwe following the life of Alan Knott-Craig, tracking his wins and losses, and the lessons learnt along the way for business and life.

As a serial entrepreneur in the telecoms and tech spaces for 13 years, this Stellenbosch entrepreneur has founded, funded or run 21 companies, including Cellfind, iBurst, Mxit and HeroTel. His first book was Don’t Panic compiled to remind South Africans ‘why not to pack for Perth’. In Life Lessons he charts his journey on a cut-throat rollercoaster ride to becoming a successful businessman.

The first third of this book is about his younger life with chapters on bullies, brothers, lemons and lemonade. Having left university in 2000 as a chartered accountant he worked at Deloitte in New York for a short period.

Returning to South Africa in 2003 he founded Cellfind, one of South Africa's first mobile-location-based service providers.

He lost me in the second third of the book which is overloaded with acronyms and names of businesses, raising capital, losing it, the business, his job and his rag.

My attention returned in the third part of the book when he ably described telecoms in third world companies and the need for high speed optical fibre, cellphone towers and radio waves and the pros and cons of trenched fibre over aerial fibre.

The final section, Lessons Learnt is inspirational and necessary for newbie entrepreneurs or those already established.

Knott-Craig successfully balances the craving for success and profit against his mission to connect everyone to the internet.Not to be confused with his dad, the former CEO of Vodacom, this book is a business biography of author and founder of fibertime™ and Project Isizwe following the life of Alan Knott-Craig, tracking his wins and losses, and the lessons learnt along the way for business and life.

As a serial entrepreneur in the telecoms and tech spaces for 13 years, this Stellenbosch entrepreneur has founded, funded or run 21 companies, including Cellfind, iBurst, Mxit and HeroTel.

His first book was Don’t Panic compiled to remind South Africans ‘why not to pack for Perth’.

In Life Lessons he charts his journey on a cut-throat rollercoaster ride to becoming a successful businessman.

The first third of this book is about his younger life with chapters on bullies, brothers, lemons and lemonade. Having left university in 2000 as a chartered accountant he worked at Deloitte in New York for a short period.

Returning to South Africa in 2003, he founded Cellfind, one of South Africa’s first mobile-location-based service providers.

He lost me in the second third of the book which is overloaded with acronyms and names of businesses, raising capital, losing it, the business, his job and his rag.

My attention returned in the third part of the book when he ably described telecoms in Third World companies and the need for high speed optical fibre, cellphone towers and radio waves and the pros and cons of trenched fibre over aerial fibre.

The final section, Lessons Learnt is inspirational and necessary for newbie entrepreneurs or those already established.

Knott-Craig successfully balances the craving for success and profit against his mission to connect everyone to the internet.

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