Meet Louis-Neil Korsten: the 26-year-old South African entrepreneur who founded an EdTech startup that can certify your non-fictional reading
Have you ever thought about certifying the knowledge you get from reading a book? Can you imagine reading something non-fictional, and being recognised by it? Well, turns out it’s possible. Louis-Neil Korsten and Warren Janisch are the co-founders of the app that allows you to do so: Bookt.
By validating the knowledge acquired by reading non-fiction books, the EdTech startup is establishing a new, acknowledged form of education, providing this unique way of improving oneself.
Here at Edventures, we want to create a world where no idea is inhibited. Our mission is to empower those ideas through entrepreneurship education and guidance. Because of that, we want to tell inspiring stories of young entrepreneurs, to help promote even more youth entrepreneurship. So, we reached out to Louis-Neil to chat with him and get to know a bit more about his entrepreneurship journey.
Who’s Louis-Neil?
Louis-Neil Korsten is a 26-year-old entrepreneur, born and raised in Pretoria, South Africa. Between the years 2010 and 2014, he attended Pretoria Boys High School, and after graduating school, completed not one, but three different degrees.
Louis has a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Pretoria, and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Information Technology from the North-West University.
His entrepreneurship journey started at the beginning of his BSc when he had a private tutoring company with a friend. That was his first contact working with education, and that was when he started to understand better how the system worked, what were the benefits of it, and the change he could make through education itself.
Being passionate about learning, he says he probably read more books than hours spent at university. Because of that, at the end of his BSc, he had the idea for Bookt, so he called his friend and previous business partner, Warren Janisch, and together they started building it.
So what is it like being a young entrepreneur in South Africa?
Louis-Neil Korsten: The challenges I face are similar to many others entrepreneurs face around the world, so I’m sure there are similarities but there are also very big differences.
The main difference, specifically talking about South Africa, is that we are not a first-world country, so we’re not like the US, we’re not like most of Europe in terms of how things operate and how startups are viewed there. Especially Tech startups. It is not that mainstream, so it’s not a big thing here, we don’t have a Silicon Valley. I suppose Cape Town is the closest equivalent, but at the end of the day, that’s not nearly the same as any of the first-world countries.
So the first issue we run into is, most times, awareness. Awareness that there is a different route than just: going to High School, going to University, getting a 9–5 job and then retiring. So a lot fewer people have the aspirations of entrepreneurship because it’s something that it’s not very common in the country.
That’s the first, the second I would say is that we have something here in South Africa, called Load Shedding, so anything between 2 to 6 hours a day, we don’t have electricity. So we have to build these tech startups without electricity for a big part of the day. That presents a unique challenge in its own sense, that I think many others entrepreneurs around the world don’t necessarily face.
Then I think the main challenge is access to capital, and this relates to the old third-world country versus the first-world problem I mentioned before. So, we don’t have the same access to capital as the US or UK markets, for example. We’ve got no shortage of good ideas, I’ve spoken to many people with brilliant ideas who can’t get funded because South African investors are not as progressive — I would say — so they don’t operate on the same level as the US or European investors, where they are far more willing to take a risk, South Africa has a very risk-averse culture.
And if you look outside of the country towards the US or UK investors, as a South African, obviously they are very concerned: “Is my money safe in South Africa? What’s going to happen to it? Are South African people as capable as the ones from the UK, for example?”
So finding investors here is quite difficult, but looking outside of South Africa is also tricky, because of the perception that international people have about the country.
So how did you try to overcome those challenges and struggles?
Louis-Neil Korsten: Of course the Load Shedding one is very difficult to overcome, when there’s no electricity, there’s no electricity, so we work in the gaps that there are.
But a big thing I learned on this journey is that it doesn’t matter in which industry you are, it doesn’t matter if it’s outside of Tech, but if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, you constantly need to educate yourself, so constantly expand your horizons and thoughts processes as much as possible.
You need to be constantly reading, meeting new people, taking online courses, doing this or doing that. And the more you educate yourself the more things fall into place. I found that the more knowledgeable I am about various investment structures or financing vehicles, the easier is to raise money. Investors naturally feel more comfortable if the founder knows what he/she is talking about, and not only in that part of the business, but all parts of it. If I can outline solid strategies, of growth or marketing, whatever it may be, not only to investors but to a potential partner, that really does make the ease of business a lot easier. People feel more comfortable, and it’s easier to move forward.
So for me, the biggest way to overcome most challenges is through education. Through broadening your knowledge base, and then mostly through resilience. If you’re resilient enough and you are willing to learn, then you can overcome pretty much, 99% of the challenges that entrepreneurs face.
If you needed to give a piece of advice to someone that is starting today, what would you say to them?
Louis-Neil Korsten: I think the first thing I would suggest is: that your equity is your most prized possession! Look after it, don’t give equity away very early on cheaply, because you may believe what someone tells you.
You should look after it as much as possible. Because in the medium to long term you’re going to look back and be very disappointed that you gave away, 15% to an extremely early investor, for example.
So that’s a big piece of advice that I would give, look after your early equity, don’t just hand it out willingly to advisors and investors because you may believe that’s your only option. And secondly, make sure you understand the market you are targeting. That’s extremely important.
And what if you were starting from zero today, would you do anything differently? How would you act?
Louis-Neil Korsten: I’ve been quite lucky in how we’ve grown, we identified the market very early on, we’ve ‘attacked’ it and we were right. But many times people are wrong, and if we were wrong we would’ve invested a lot of time and resources into testing the market only to find out our product isn’t right for it.
So if I were starting today I would build the leanest version of the product that I could and push it out to the market — the absolutely leanest version — and then test that. Test, test, test. I would not spend any more resources than I had to on a product before I got validation from the market.
So that’s the biggest thing for me, even if it means building a landing page, and selling a future product, and seeing what feedback you get, what people are saying, that’s incredibly important, and I think many entrepreneurs — me included — spend a lot of time and resource on a product because we believe the market wants it, and if you’re right, you’re very lucky, but if you’re wrong…
So if I were starting again I would definitely test it on a smaller scale before committing to such an extent. Start small, get that MVP out, iterate until you find something that works in the market, and then commit everything you have and don’t look back. You need to back yourself 100% when you have what you believe is right.
If you are just getting started…
At Edventures, we always emphasise the importance of keep moving forward. Just like Louis-Neil mentions, there are ways for you to test your idea without having to register a full-blown business. Ideation, sketch and talk to your potential customers and users. That way you can always update your idea and progress toward that point where people want to pay for your service or product. You don’t have to be exceptional or have everything figured out to get started.
This interview is a part of our Young Founder series, which aims to highlight and promote young entrepreneurs across the globe pursuing their dreams and ideas, and to share their stories and insights with other young and budding entrepreneurs.
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