Pringle Bay weekend…

• Monday, school run, gym, installed Gust at Brampton Wine Studio and The Blue Crane and Butterfly, a beer at Trumpet with the Ramfest guys, Mia went to Judo, steamed veg and tuna, Mia read me a bed time story.

• “Cat hair is lonely people glitter”

• Tuesday, school run, gym – chest day, long Skype meeting, squash vs Werner, washed Mia’s hair – which took the better part of an hour.

• “You must avenge my death Simba.” “Luke, I am your father.” “This is CNN.”

• Wednesday, school run, Cape Town day, Vineyard Hotel meeting with Chris, bank visit, PayU meeting, Invenfin meeting, Mia read me a bed time story.
• Finally managed to open a bank account for Gust. Thanks CIPC for being down the better part of six weeks – and causing an 8 backlog. Insane.
• Some people just don’t like complexity. I guess I don’t mind so much.
• Thursday, school run, gym, weekly Gust dev meeting at The Blue Crane, played photographer at Mia’s school hockey match, Mia scored 2 of her team’s 4 goals, took Mia to art class, we went shopping for shampoo, we were almost late for Mia’s school play – she remembered her words very well (she was the only one who had lines to say).
• Friday, school run, gym, office shopping, KLT meeting, burger at Trumpet with Dawid, got Georg a bottle of Meerlust for his birthday, Brampton, nap – tired after a long week of playing single dad, rainy road trip, fun evening with Georg, Aiden and Camilla.
• Saturday, woke up in Pringle Bay, nice breakfast, nap, watched the rugby at PeriGator with Georg and Camilla, got soaking wet walking back to the house in the rain.. we lost a bag of wood and a pizza in the process, Andrew arrived, AfrikaBurn Decompression party with Luke, Republic – Long St.. the real Cape Town.
• Sunday, woke up at the mayor of TBK’s house, beer and pizza at Bo, nap, watched Redemption – not bad.

Have a fun week, crazy kids.

The start of a whole new week..

• Monday, gym, Naulene fetched Mia, we kinda fixed a Gust banner, first SA Whopper with Werner, Western Cape tech innovation tour demo at the Bandwidth Barn, met Helen Zille, Gust Pay demo, got a photo with her wearing a (blue) Gust NFC wristband, a beer at The Mount Nelson with Werner, photo processing, blogging.

• “Squirrel!” — about a 6sec delay in demoing tag payments.

• “Barnwidth Band” — Werner

• “The most awesome super power would just be to be lucky.” — Elon Musk

• Tuesday, gym, Skype meeting, payment systems lawyers meeting in Technopark, squash against Werner, email scrubbing.
• Gust was featured in a Finweek magazine article.
• Our UK client agreed to start paying for services.
• Wednesday, bit of a blur, afternoon walk around Stellenbosch.
• I added Gust and TrustFabric to a startup ranking site.
• Thursday, Internetix at the CTICC, RTD app meeting, awesome lunch at The Yard with Luke and Werner, Cape Town office (some bad news, again), Founders Club meeting no2 at 5 Flies, a burger at Royale, 169, South China Dim Sum Bar with Michael.
• TrustFabric has ~2000 users now.

• “Chance favours the connected mind.” — Steven Johnson

• “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
• Friday, weekly dev meeting at the Blue Crane, design meeting, Brampton, Mia read me a bed time story.
• 61 active coffee club merchants.
• Looks like it’s going to be a working Rocking the Daisies for us, ~74 days to go.
• 300 FB likes for Gust Pay, go like our page.
• Anton seems to me making progress with his business idea.
• Saturday, got Mia some hockey shoes (soccer boots really) and Hex Bugs, played Top Trumps (car specs playing cards) against Mia, Will’s birthday braai, 12h sleep, babies don’t sleep this well.
• Mia’s new (adult) teeth seem to be coming out.
• Mia seems to have developed a new love for hard boiled egg whites.
• Sunday, Root44 market (crowded, not fun), pajama shopping for Mia, nap, sunset walk around Stellenbosch, a burger at Apres, gelato.
• Why is it so hard to find shorts to buy in winter?

Have a fun week, crazy kids.

Kalk Bay outing, last weekend of the school holidays…

• Monday, gym, mostly some just-in-time CRM system updates to start activating Gust Coffee Club merchants, salad at Col’caccio with Mia, gelato, we played some Cargo Bot.
• Mia asked why keyboard layouts are not alphabetical. I explained keyboard layouts to Mia. She thinks I’m a bit strange after I told her I remap my keys.
• Mia seems to be producing 2-3 artworks a day at the moment.
• Tuesday, gym.. 45Kg bicep curls, dropped Mia at her mom’s, Cape Town office, MIH demo, fetched new post office box keys, got some new squash rackets, walked around in shorts with squash rackets and got some beers at The Jolly Rodger, ribs at Apres with Werner.
• Seems the Coetzenburg outdoor pool will be open again on 1 Sept. Might have to get my Underwater Hockey game on again.

• “Yesterday’s weirdness is tomorrow’s reason why.” — Hunter S. Thompson.

• Werner suggested I should get a date before his wedding. 5 Month deadline.
• Wednesday, Cape Town day, had a BOS ice tea at BOS HQ, omelette, bank, office, lunch with Ellie at Knead – Wembley Square, bank visit in Stellenbosch, Van Der Stel Squash club, found the Maties squash club (again), calamari at Decameron with Jaco Joubert.. who I had not seen in a few years, a drink at Stomme Jonge, gelato.
• The new beta Mxit iOS client is looking good.

• “Was daar ‘n beseering in die A span?” — Werner, about Mxit’s A and B team culture.

• Mia really is awesome.

• “You see, there are two kinds of people in this world, the workers and the hustlers. The hustlers never work and the workers never hustle and you my friend, are a worker.” — Dough, Cocktail.

• Thursday, gym, weekly Gust dev meeting at Blue Crane, a haircut at the new Old Barber Shop.. great haircut for R80, first squash game in about two years… Werner and I joined the Maties club, inbox scrubbing.
• 15 active Coffee Club merchants so far, 800 coffees.

• “Broken gets fixed, but shitty lasts forever.”

• Gust was features in the July FHM magazine.
• Friday, skipped gym (squash reasons), office space shopping, Woordfees meeting at Gino’s, Gusted a 514 at Simply Asia, red latte and chat about LUX with Natie at Melissa’s, fetched Mia and Francis, Audi visit, Brampton while Mia and Francis went to Col’cacios with Anjela.

• “SnapScam” — Pieter

• 30 active merchants, 1700 coffees.
• Saturday, made scrambled eggs for Mia and Francis, spent some time around the house, Naulene arranged for Francis to be fetched.. 3 hours late – her reason: “I’m was having a massage.”, Mia and I drove to St James along the Muizenberg coastal road – beautiful, Sonnekus Guest House – nice, a walk around Kalk Bay with Mia and Georg, watched a seal doing tricks for fish, hake and calamari at Lucky Fish, a drink at Cape to Cuba – a place that prides themselves on making Mojito’s but does not have limes, we managed to finish a magnum of bubbly while watching the rugby back at the guest house.
• Naulene’s usual tricks: being late, not communicating and not caring what impact it has on anybody else’s day… It’s Not About The Nail

• “The revolution is not an apple that falls when it’s ripe – you have to make it fall.” — Che Guevara.

• Sunday, woke up in St James, sunny winters day, breakfast at the guest house, found myself an authentic Bolivian Alpaca sweater, Mia got three finger puppets (seems she’s not into hippie clothing so much), chocolate croissants at Olypia cafe, Liquorice ice cream at The Ice Cafe, Kings Craft beer at the Brass Bell, Danger beach (St James), Empire Cafe, almost drove over some fool who ran across the road – that moment after when all you can think about is the admin and paperwork the ABS just saved you, Mia watched Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark again while I had a long phone chat with Anton about his new business idea, photo processing.
• Got a few nice photos in Kalk Bay. Need to take my camera out more often – or go places that make me want to take my camera out.
• Whenever Naulene complains about Mia watching too many movies I think.. well, Ernst watched too many movies and he turned out okay.

Have a fun week, crazy kids.

My birthday week…

• Monday, gym, office space shopping, sunny winters day breakfast at Open Kitchen, Gust Pay v1.2.1 was released, some TrustFabric registration process testing.

• “Nobody makes better tea than you.” — from a card Mia made me.

• We started working on Gust Deluxe. We’re also working on an update to Gust Finder.
• Note to self: 4 months to 700k deadline.
• Started the week with 6 new sales people, ended the week with 4. About 300 leads loaded, about 7 deals closed (in one afternoon). Looks like we may have found the recipe. This has to work, remember.
• Tuesday, gym, Cape Town office, new Gust sales staff training day, launched our new CRM system, meeting with the guys from Seed Experiences, burger in a bowl at Da Vinci’s in Gardens with Werner, got our new mail server working.
• There are now ~17 people working on Gust. 9 in Cape Town. 8 in Stellenbosch.
• Turns out most entrepreneurs suck at personal admin.
• Wednesday, early morning creative writing (press release), Cape Town office, a beer at Hudsons in Green Point with Werner, Heavy Chef, Jazz night and Chilli Con Carne at Piano Bar with Dan and Paula.
• The drive to Cape Town has become fairly productive – I usually get at least one document written on the way.
• Werner suggested I should move to Cape Town, I’d do much better at the dating game.
• Thursday, my birthday, more PR, gym, weekly Gust dev meeting at The Blue Crane, a walk around Stellenbosch with Alan, birthday cheese cake at Open Kitchen with Werner, Janette and Mia, Mia and I watched Titan AE, burger at Apres.
• PR for the week: Bandwidth Blog, Gadget, VentureBurn.
• Thanks for all the birthday wishes and presents. 92 Facebook wall happy birthday wishes this year.
• Why are we still signing credit card slips? I think EMV PIN auth has been required since 2004, almost ten years and this (culture) has not changed.
• Friday, gym.. legs day, some creative writing, Mia went to go watch Despicable Me 2 with Anjela, Brampton, birthday braai at my place with Mia, Andrew, Georg, Paul, Werner, Janette, Jan, Adele, Luke and Dirk.
• Mia gave me a great gift: A book called “Me and My Dad”.
• Mia made my birthday very special. Thanks Mia.
• Looks like Andrew will be working in China from late August.
• We’re so innovative that the app we’re submitting as “most innovative” in the app of the year awards is about to go in a whole new direction.
• Saturday, up early, cleaned up the house a bit, 9:15 movie.. watched Despicable Me 2 with Mia.. very good, watched the rugby with Georg at Jan Kats, watched Matilda again, nap, steak at Casparus with Georg and Mia, gelato, watched When Harry Met Sally again.. great movie.
• Seems Pricess Leia was in When Harry Met Sally.
• Sunday, got Mia some jeans and jerseys, Oxtail at Barrique (Vredenheim) with Mia, sunset walk around Stellenbosch, photo processing.
• Mia is now 132.5cm, 32kg, not 97th percentile anymore – closer to 93rd.
• Sundays… they never feel very productive, but if I skip a Sunday of general admin, things always feel a bit more chaotic. Running to stand still. Laundry, photo processing, backups, OS updates, battery charging (iPads, iPods, cameras, phones, toothbrushes), phone notes, calendar, todo list and blog update.
• The more I think about it the less I think it’s a good idea building a business to sell it. Rather build a business you want to keep running.
• The last two weeks have been very busy. Pretty much on par with the days we used to run four companies. Getting there is all the fun, but I think a break is in order towards the end of July.

Have a fun week, crazy kids.