#14 - Interview with an Entrepreneur - Paul Simon

Paul Simon joins us on the podcast for a look at what a day in the life of an Entrepreneur is like. Enrolling in a Clothing Production Management course at Cape Technicon, Paul completed 1 of the 3 years before working at GAP in the UK. Returning to South Africa he completed a fashion marketing course through IMM. While under fire at a family dinner, Paul formed the idea for YDE which he implemented with great success for 10 years before selling the business to Truworths in 2005. Founder of Über Flavour and now serial entrepreneur, Paul is introducing a new retail concept in the form of a department store based on the YDE model. We take a look at Paul’s impressive career to date.
“I don’t really believe that any 18 year old is absolutely positive about the direction that they are going to take in their life.”

“Being an entrepreneur is a personality trait. I don’t believe that you can teach somebody to be an entrepreneur. Effectively it is something that you are born with. If you are an extravert and an optimist then you possess some of the key personality traits of an entrepreneur.”

“You don’t have to be good at everything. My dad said my boy if you doing these kinds of numbers then you can afford to pay someone to tell you what it says on that balance sheet.”

“Experiential retail - creating an experience for the customer, people would come to the store regardless of whether they were going to buy something or not.”

“What would make me go to a store to buy a white t -shirt ? The answer is something else that happens in that store, other types of experiences.”

“I feel like so many people have just paid lip service to entrepreneurship in South Africa, they haven’t actually provided platforms for it to happen, and that is really what I envisage doing.”

“I challenge anyone to walk around any shopping centre, and tell me about something that was exciting in there.”

“Nothing was a waste of time, I learnt valuable lessons. I do see many people quit too soon.”

“The idea is not the valuable part, actually taking it and making it happen, that part is the difficult part.”

“There are millions of people out there with millions of ideas, there are only a handful that can take it from an idea and actually birth it.”

“I’ve seen people with great ideas just not give themselves sufficient runway to make it happen.”

“Try out as many industries as you can on your weekend job. The way to expedite finding out what you want to do is to have as many experiences as you can.”