Jan Grobler has either directly or indirectly created 10 000 jobs and he is not done with forming a lasting legacy. The author can call on various titles in an attempt to describe this serial entrepreneur: Advocate, Founder, Franchisor and Project manager, yet no label can fully embody his unique skill set, experience, and entrepreneurial spirit.
As a highly enthusiastic observer of business leadership traits in others, I noticed Jan’s’ strong willed and passionate intent to create more businesses, ignite exponential growth within them, and ultimately deliver numerous job opportunities to South-Africans, from the onset of the interview.
As an advocate and MBA graduate Jan had a solid academic foundation that served him well on his entrepreneurial journey. “Working back” the bursary he had from Sanlam he values the learning he received from older and wiser entrepreneurs that he had established trusts for. He learnt to be a good listener and increase his emotional intelligence by making mental notes when the older entrepreneurs imparted some of their wisdom and experience and then taking action on the accumulated learnings.
The value of being a “Global Citizen”
Jan is a global citizen and has “back packed in 46 countries” accumulating cultural and business learnings as he travelled. He shared an example of waitresses in a South-American country “doubling up” as secretaries offering additional services such as fax and the recording of minutes of meetings thereby adding more dimensions, services, and income streams to a coffee shop operation.
The words rolled of his tongue with enthusiasm as he described how modern times has provided multi-dimensional opportunities for an entrepreneur such as being in your office in Centurion, South-Africa, purchasing products online from China , and then selling online to purchasers in Italy. Jan sees the future of franchising in South Africa as moving more and more towards “mobile outlets”. He has extensively researched the international “mobile franchising market” and is very excited about the possibilities for growth in South-Africa with regards to this market segment.
He is one of the founders of Fit chef and is currently developing the franchise system “Cafe2go”(Mainly a mobile concept) of which there are currently twenty five outlets. On his entrepreneurial journey Jan has developed eighteen brands of which he was a cofounder and as a contracted project manager he has assisted in facilitating the exponential growth of hundreds more companies.
Channels and revenue streams
As the aroma and taste of another Cafe2go Cappuccino held my attention Jan elaborated on four more revolutionary franchising concepts that he is co-developing. He said that success in business is highly dependant upon doing things better than others and offering a unique service and product.
Jan pointed out that he sees himself as a “channel creator” and it was clear to the author that through his vast experience and entrepreneurial acumen he has a high vantage point from which to see opportunities for the creation various funding models, sales channels and revenue streams, that combined causes exponential business growth.
This entrepreneur is very proud of his first start-up company of which he is still the CEO called Curator. Curator was started to, and still does assist entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, whether it be through growth interventions or for example raising capital or franchising the business.
Jan has never stopped learning whether it be from learnings accumulated from engaging other entrepreneurs or knowledge obtained from books. More importantly he continues to apply this learning in helping businesses to grow and create more and more jobs. Jan is building a legacy that any entrepreneur can be proud of. It is the authors’ sincere hope that young South-African entrepreneurs will learn from wiser business men such as Jan and co-create a vibrant and legacy driven entrepreneurial environment in our country.
