Adapt. Overcome. Improvise.

The U.S. Marines have a mantra: Adapt. Overcome. Improvise.**

This could just as well apply to entrepreneurship. At Heavy Chef, we’ve noticed the need for the ‘Marine Way’ in our weekly rhythms.

When we started our event series in 2018, our central premise was that entrepreneurs can change the world for the better.

We figured we’d run events as a way of getting support for building a learning app.

That was Plan A.

Quickly, the events took off and we were hosting audiences of up to 650/700 people at a single venue.

We pulled in some decent sponsorship and followed the money. Plan B.

In 2019 we focused solely on creating world-class events. Bye-bye learning app. The strategy was to build a cash reserve that would allow us to design the eventual learning management system (LMS).

Then, early in 2020, we were reminded of Iron Mike’s seminal warning:

COVID struck, hard. Our events were decimated and our income dried up.

We had to evolve. We had to adapt, overcome and improvise. Quickly.

The good news was that Heavy Chef had already built up a decent community. We also had supportive partners in Xero, Payfast, xneelo, Workshop17, Backsberg, Sir Fruit, Global Citizen and Whipping The Cat.

The HC team and I proceeded to build a subscription learning portal. Plan C.

In 2020, we created a kickass entrepreneur curriculum and a learning management system.

We also crafted a pretty awesome set of rails for rapid content creation.

Since launching our entrepreneur community platform in 2021, we’ve created over 300 short courses (‘recipes’) and over 3,000 short form learning videos.

Over 2,000 entrepreneurs have signed up to the platform, which - by any measure - is a validation of interest.

The problem we now face? Consistent engagement with the platform.

We’ve seen Pareto’s Law (80-20) manifest over the past two years.

In fact, in our case, it’s a 90-10 rule.

A fraction of the sign-ups on Heavy Chef have been engaging more than once per week. Only 10% of our audience have been watching a full recipe (short course).

We discovered that these statistics are not unusual. It’s consistent with learning platforms around the world.

People sign up in droves to EdX, Coursera, Masterclass and Udemy with great intentions.

Then… life happens.

The collateral damage of our members’ busy schedules is that self-directed learning takes a back seat to clients, cash flow and catastrophes. Not to mention kids, cooking and trying to kick off your shoes after a killer day of work.

Attention is in deficit.

Tony Fadell, creator of Nest, the iPhone and iPod, believes that creating value for your target audience lies in two areas. You can either be a ‘painkiller’ or a ‘vitamin’.

Examples of vitamin-businesses: long-term insurance; Virgin Active; flu vaccine.

Examples of painkiller-businesses: credit cards; Tinder; Panado.

Being a vitamin is hard. You have to convince people of future pain. Then, you gotta change people’s lifestyles in order to prevent something happening in the future (that may not ever happen).

Being a painkiller is easier. You have to acknowledge your customer’s existing pain, then provide a salve.

Fadell urges us, in an attention-deficit world, that we should try pursue the route of the painkiller.

One of the insights the Heavy Chef data has shown is that content on its own is a long-term hard road. Learning content is not a pill many people want to take regularly.

And, if we’re going to empower entrepreneurs to make a difference, we need more members to engage more frequently.

In our case, the stakes are high.

South Africa is inundated with newly unemployed people. These folks are coming to Heavy Chef, curious as to how to build businesses. Our challenge is to serve them. The only way we can serve them properly is if they engage properly.

This has proven difficult. The idea (self-directed learning in bite-sized chunks) has been tricky to bring to reality.

As my friend Andrew said to me recently, “When I need advice on a business problem the last thing I want is ‘more content’.”

We have studied the statistics of behaviour on the learning platform. Recently, my colleagues Louis, Zinhle and Lukhanyo have confirmed that the most powerful learning occurs when it’s in community.

The strongest predictor of entrepreneur success is defined by the frequency and quality of engagement between entrepreneurs.

This means that we need to be engaging not just with the content but with each other.

The pain, in this case, is that we entrepreneurs are walking our journey alone. You may recall our findings a few weeks ago that 68% of SA entreps are solopreneurs. The painkiller in our case is learning in community.

So, what does success for Heavy Chef look like?

The metrics that we set for ourselves are tough.

Success is not about how many members sign up.

Success is not about how successful we are.

Success is about how successful our members are.

Evolution in business is brutal.

Scratch that. ‘Brutal’ implies that there is intent.

Business is mindless.

Business is agnostic.

Business doesn’t care how hard we work.

Business doesn’t care whether we care.

Business only rewards our ability to adapt, overcome and improvise.

Product market fit doesn’t reflect how much effort you’ve put in. It reflects on whether your product fits the needs and desires of your market.

At Heavy Chef, we need to eat our own food. We have to evolve according to the insights above.

We’re continuing to release fresh Entrepreneur Recipes each week. At the same time we’re adding live elements and opportunities to engage.

This week, we’ve added something new. For the first time, we’re offering people the opportunity to attend Live Recipes. This means that as a member you can engage with the Chefs themselves.

This forms part of our mid- to long-term strategy of platform and programmes. Our aim is to focus on entrepreneur hubs around the country. It is in order to foster genuine, supportive learning communities where entrepreneurs can learn from each other.

So, with all this in mind, here are two options for you, today:

Option 1. If you’re interested in participating in Live Recipes, sign up to a Premium Membership here (one month free, cancel anytime)

Option 2. If you’re interested in our big events, meeting other entrepreneurs, investors, media peeps and me n’ the team, sign up to a Free Membership here (free forever).

Live Recipes are free for Premium members.

Live events are free for all members.

Adapt. Overcome. Improvise.

Let’s engage.

Peace -