The way people have reacted to this post has said a lot about them

@Wogan – love your work dude – some of your suggestions are bloody good and if SC doesn’t take them on board someone else should

It takes huge guts to write a post like this and just as much to leave a comment on this post, so to everyone who has stood up, stated their point and left their name, I respect you. To the others, stop being scared, stand up and state your opinion.

I think SC has made a monumental failure here. The single biggest thing in international finance and ecommerce has landed in SA, and it looks as if SiliconCape did absolutely nothing to bring it to CT.

All I’ve read in these comments are excuses. Yes, FNB is headquartered in JHB, but it also has offices in CT. Yes, maybe the launch team on FNB’s side didn’t have time to consider CT as a venue, but then isn’t that sort of lobbying exactly what SC is supposed to do? To bring high-profile events, companies and attention to Cape Town?

I disagree that most people in CT don’t know what PayPal is, but even if you take that view, then HELLO, isn’t this event PERFECT for this purpose, then? For the very Awareness, Promotion and Branding that SC has at the top of its objectives?

They should have fought tooth and nail for this, and when they failed, should have taken the next best option, set up an event anyway, live stream the conference and create a Twitter stream to post questions back to JHB, maybe all sponsored by Mweb’s new uncapped adsl. OR F*CK*NG SOMETHING!

And then there are more excuses from SiliconCape. Yes, you have dayjobs, yes, this is costing you extra, yes, you have to work late, but guess what? Founding this was YOUR choice, YOU’VE made these promises, and now YOU have to deliver. SC can’t rely on people suddenly and automatically seeing CT as the venue of choice, just because we have an Initiative and a Website and Funding – SC needs to FIGHT for it, and you’ve already lost the first battle.

This could have been an immense profile-raiser, and an excellent feather to add to the victory cap, but instead, all we have now is the taste of failure, and blog posts and comments like this one.

SC, you really need to choose your game. If you’re not going to do battle with the corporates like FNB on behalf of us entrepreneurs, then why do you exist? To marshal funding? To what end? How is what you’re doing actually going to improve our “local IP entrepreneurial community”?

Have you gone hunting for undiscovered talent? Have you started iniatives like coding for bounties, design/concept competitions, an entrepreneur-specific social network, subsidizing adsl and mobiles for developing communities, a local job-exchange network, forums and helpcenters for upstart bloggers? Or do you wait for other people to start it first? In that case why do you even exist?

If you’re purely a VC funding network, then say so. And find other people who actually care about fostering local IP, are willing to fight the battles that need to be fought, to actually get in the frigging trenches with the uninspired and create some interest, and people that don’t make excuses when they fail, but simply try harder to succeed.

And this is why I couldn’t care less for the initiative at this point – mostly because it hasn’t taken any. 6 months, 2294 members, and we’re still waiting.

~ Wogan

Thanks for your comment; Don’t worry, I will get the information the minute it’s available, regardless of whether I attend or not :)

I believe that the sceptical and suspicious South African public will start using the web more( which is getting cheaper) for shopping – for buying and selling).

The Silicon issue is something else – deal with that another day.

Please go to Jo’burg and find out what the PayPal/FNB issue is all about. Like Richard I also want to know all the ins and outs and I know you’ll find out all the things we want to know.

Totally understand what you’re saying; I still reckon it was the general buzz on blogs and twitter that fueled crowdfund :)

Look, I’m not saying that anything should be done for free, time is money, I understand that just as much as you or any other business person does, what I’m saying is that I don’t think that should be the focus, which it seems to be at the moment – I am not just speaking personally here, I have asked a huge number of people who also follow Silicon Cape. What I want to start seeing is how it’s going to help all of us – By “us”, I am not referring to the circle-jerking crowd, but rather the average person who uses the Internet as a means of entrepreneurship. Naturally, SC, raised a lot of attention and awareness about Cape Town, and obviously South Africa, which I think is wonderful, but the hype died down dead quickly and people detached and that’s why I raised the whole PayPal situation, because that’s something that’s going to get people of South Africa onto a new level and it would have been the perfect opportunity for SC to not only create even more awareness, but I feel it would have help with their money situation to some degree.

As I’ve said, I am not against SC, I would be an idiot to be against such as initiative, I just think that the focus is slightly off what is best for the community in general, and I’m hoping that the new steering committee is going to change this, and I’m confident that they will :)

Business model aside (because it was never really given a chance I think because it was before its time), the thing which killed it was a regulatory environment which did not and probably still doesn’t support social, angel and venture cap lending in SA.

Two short years later those changes are now being investigated by people with vested interests. Whether they are the SC community, SAVCA, entrepreneurs like Eve etc. changes are being made.

Ditto around things like PayPal where enough people are making a noise about it.

Potentially 500000 investors, innovators etc can read about her because there is to coin that cheesy phrase: “an enabling environment”. She had maybe R300k before it hit the mainstream media. Hers won’t be the last fund of this nature and every innovator, wanna be techie etc is going to be given a chance to get their business idea off the ground.

On the money issue – why are we berating people for being passionate about starting businesses that are going to (hopefully) make money?

Would you be as passionate or put as much effort into your blogs if you weren’t making anything out of them? You add value to a community and make some dosh out of it.

I’m passionate about my businesses but it is easier to be passionate when there is money coming in.

I’m pretty sure that all the investors who are promoting SC as an initiative are equally passionate about seeing a viable start-up culture in South Africa established. They might make a few bucks if decent investments come through.

What’s a global failure rate for start-up tech investments? Call it 75%? So saying that the investors are in it for the money seems a bit harsh??

Whether you like it or not: “freaking money/investments/capital/venture” are tied in with the passion, the job creation, the technology and innovation that SC and its members are trying to promote.