Twenty Days in South Africa for the World Cup

Category : Sports, Travel
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Note: I just got back from South Africa two days ago and finally have some time to write up a post and share some pictures.  I’m planning to write this post as an overview and then go into detail in further posts about what we did in each city, plus include a practical guide to the things that I wished I’d known before going.

I left Madison on June 9th with my friends Andy and Katie, not really knowing what to expect.  We had tickets for all three USA matches, plus Spain/Switzerland and an idea of where we wanted to go, but hadn’t booked any accommodation except for the first two nights.  I had read all of the press about South Africa being dangerous and that we shouldn’t drive, but I wasn’t worried.  I figured that if their media is anything like ours, they would really overstate the bad and ignore most of the good.

The trip was unbelievable.  South Africa is an incredibly beautiful country, with varied climates and landscapes.  The people were extremely nice and we never felt threatened the entire time we were there.  If anything, the people, both black and white, were protective of us.  They clearly really liked Americans and everyone we met went out of their way to make sure that we were having fun and staying safe.  Here’s what we did:

We landed in New York on the morning of the 9th and dropped our bags with my friend Chris who works in the city.  He was nice enough to take all of our bags up to his office, even though his co-workers all gave him strange looks.  Andy and Katie had never been to NYC, so although it was rainy, we went all over the city.  We had to catch a flight out of JFK at 1130pm, so we had plenty of time.

We got to the airport to find it packed with soccer fans.  We were flying via Dubai and we were happy to see tons of Americans, Mexicans and South Americans, all dressed in their team’s gear, getting ready to board the flight.  As we were going through security, someone spotted Justin Timberlake going through security and most of the women got really excited.  When we got on the plane, someone asked one of the flight attendants if he was on our flight and she just giggled and said she wasn’t allowed to say.

We got to Dubai after a 12 hour flight.  We flew Emirates and it was a pleasure.  It’s the best airline I’ve ever been on, with fairly large seats, personal LCD screens with 600 channels and front and bottom cameras so you can watch the scenery from the plane.  The food was really good too and we quickly realized that they do Middle Eastern/Indian food much better than western food.

The Dubai airport is massive.  We had a 6 hour layover and got to explore a huge area.  It’s really the crossroads of the world and it was fun to see people from every corner of the globe.  To kill time, we walked around and tried to guess the destination of the flight by looking at the people.  We got pretty good at it after a few hours.  We finally got on our 8 hour flight to Johannesburg (Joburg for the rest of the posts) and arrived at 10am.

We rented a car and got on the move to Rustenburg, about 2 hours northwest of Joburg, where the USA would play England the next day.  It was incredibly strange at first to drive a car on the other side of the road, but I got completely comfortable after two days.  The hardest part were the round-abouts and shifting with my left hand, although the South African drivers were more aggressive than drivers here.  I’ll have more about driving in a later post.

We stayed at a camp in Rustenburg Kloof, which was a beautiful area just north of the “city” of Rustenburg.  I say “city” because there was really only a mall and a few restaurants, all about 10k from the stadium.  We watched the first South Africa match at a bar near our tents and it was an unreal atmosphere.  The South Africans were so excited, so supportive and incredibly happy to have to tournament start.  When South Africa took the early lead, the place went absolutely nuts.  We were too tired to watch Uruguay/France and fell asleep by 7pm.

Lucky's Bar Rustenburg

The next morning, we were woken up by Sky Sports News doing interviews outside of our tent and I got interviewed about whether we had a chance to win.  I pretty much said that we would draw and that we had a better goalkeeper and got to feature on Sky.  We went to a bar called Lucky’s in Bafokeng, about 4k from the stadium.  It was an outdoor bar with tons of English fans.  The atmosphere was electric and only built on the way to the stadium.  Most of the English were really nice, until we scored our equalizer on a howler by Robert Green, then they started to get really angry and a guy in our row tried to fight an older American fan with a neck brace on.  After the draw, which felt like a win, we went back and celebrated at Lucky’s.

The next morning, we started the 6 hour drive to Durban, without a place to stay.  Our plan was to start calling places from the road, but most of the places were booked up because Germany was playing Australia that night.  We asked a few places if they had any recommendations and one place sent us to Florette, a woman who rents out rooms in her amazing house.  We ended up staying there for five nights and it was one of the best decisions of our trip.  I’ll go into more detail in my Durban post, but I went to the Germany/Australia match after buying a ticket on the street for half price and the Durban Stadium was the most beautiful stadium I’ve ever been to.  Germany killed Australia, but the highlight was talking with a South African, Jordan, who sat next to me for the entire match.  He was extremely nice, bought me a soda and a pie and then offered to give me a South Africa Jersey for free.  He wouldn’t let me pay for anything.

Jordan and me in front of Moses Mabhida Stadium, Durban

After we explored Durban for a few days, we had tickets for Spain/Switzerland and my friend from the previous game met me outside with the promised South Africa shirt.  The Spain match was one of the best games of the tournament.  Everyone thought that Spain would roll, but the Swiss were organized and countered well.  When the Swiss scored, they stadium was largely silent.  Everyone was shocked.

Golden Gate National Park

After Durban, we drove back up to Joburg ahead of USA/Slovenia.  We drove through Golden Gate National Park and it was absolutely beautiful.  We were staying in Pretoria since it was cheaper and safer and stayed at a hostel.  The next morning, we drove down to Joburg to see the match at Ellis Park.  We got there really early and went to Radium Bar, which was the bar picked by the American Outlaws as the place to be.  It didn’t disappoint.  Katie got on NBC getting her face painted and the place was LOUD.  We sung just about every American soccer song we could think of and then walked to the game.  As always, the South Africans were huge USA fans.

Katie with South African Kids Going to USA/Slovenia

We went down 2-0 early, but we felt that we could score.  In the 2nd half, Donovan scored a great goal and then we got another one in the 84th minute.  I got huge bruises on the backs of my legs from celebrating so much in the stands.  We were sitting next to three little South African kids and they were really getting into it.  We scored again, capping the biggest comeback in USA history, but the referee decided he’d seen a foul.  He got sent home for his poor decision.  It was still a great day, even though we should have won.

After the match, we went back to Pretoria and watched the England/Algeria match at Eastwoods, right across from Loftus Versveld, the stadium in Pretoria with two Americans we had met in the bar in Joburg.  We were rooting for the 0-0 draw that happened and were just about the only people supporting Algeria, as the rest were English fans.

The next day, we drove 4 hours through the mountains to get to Madikwe Nature Reserve, where we had a 4 day Safari at a place called The Bush House. Other than the soccer games, the safari was the highlight of the trip.  We saw all of the big 5, minus a leopard, a lion eating a wildebeest, a cheetah and tons more.  We were driven around by a trained guide and it was awesome.

Lion in Madikwe Wildlife Reserve

Lion Cubs

After our safari, we drove back to Pretoria for the USA/Algeria match, which was a must win match.  We didn’t have a place to stay again, but ended up right across the street from the stadium.  I’ll go into more detail again later, but FIFA and Match really screwed up here.  We got accommodation because FIFA bought up all of the rooms at cheap rates, then tried to resell them at 4-5x prices and failed.  The place gave us a room for a good price because they were empty, although FIFA paid for the nights.

On match day, we went to some bars and were completely surprised by how many Algerians there were.  They were everywhere and wanted pictures with us.  Most were really nice, but a few were a bit angry with Americans.  We had ANOTHER fair goal disallowed on a blown call and the atmosphere was incredible.  People stood the entire match singing, chanting and blowing their vuvuzelas.  We had chance after chance and finally put one home in the 91st minute to send us through.  I don’t remember the next 10 minutes because everyone was celebrating so hard.  Andy and I got on TV right after the match and everyone stayed in the stadium celebrating for the next 30 mins, then went outside to sing and dance some more.  Katie got a ride on a police horse in exchange for her American flag and the party went on most of the night. Those 4 hours and that one moment were incredible.  Those moments are what make soccer the best sport in the world and now clearly top the list of the best sporting events I’ve ever been to.

Katie on Police Horse

We stayed with a family near the stadium and left early the next morning for Cape Town.  We had assumed before the World Cup that the US was likely to finish 2nd in the group and play in Bloemfontein, which would have been a drive from Cape Town, but since we won the group, we played up north again in Rustenburg.  I went to an Internet cafe to check out flights and told myself that if I could go for under $500, I had to do it.  Luckily, I found a flight for $180, a car for $60, a place to stay for $40 and a match ticket for $150, so I had to go.

We climbed Cape Town’s iconic Table Mountain, watched the two matches that day and then I drove to the airport for what I hoped would be an unreal 30 hours.  Besides for the final result, the day didn’t disappoint.  I met two Americans in the airport who were planning to do the same thing as me, so we traveled together.  We slept in the airport, rented a car, drove to Rustenburg, went to Lucky’s again and hung out with Americans and some really nice Brits.  The match was electric again.  When the media here says that Africa is behind Ghana, it’s an understatement.  Everyone except the Americans were cheering for Ghana, hard.  It was a fun match and I thought we would pull it out, but it was not to be.  We went back to Lucky’s and partied with the South Africans.

From the Top of Table Mountain, Cape Town

The next morning, I drove back to the airport and was back in Cape Town with Andy and Katie by 1pm.  We took a drive around the Cape, stopping at beaches, towns and mountains, before stopping in an English pub to watch England get destroyed by Germany.  We saw one of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen from the top of a mountain, overlooking the Cape and then went back to Cape Town to watch Mexico/Argentina.

The next day, we drove to Stellenbosch and the towns around it, about 30 minutes outside Cape Town to tour the winelands.  It was a beautiful day and a great way to relax.  The vineyards were all set in incredible locations, many surrounded by mountains and rolling hills.  We did tasting at 3 different places, then went into Stellenbosch to explore for dinner/games.  We got back to Cape Town and prepared to leave the next morning for our last day.

It was raining the entire day on the 29th, so we drove around and explored Cape Town and had a great meal in the Cape Malay section of town.  We got to the airport at 4pm and were back in Madison on the 30th at 10pm.  It was an exhausting two day trip via Dubai and NYC again, but completely worth it.

Overall, the World Cup and South Africa were amazing.  The soccer was great, the people were incredibly nice, were were safe the entire time and it cost about what we expected.  I’ll likely come back to South Africa sometime in the future and will for sure be in Brazil in 2014!

This post was sort of a rambling overview, but I’ll get into more details about each city, the soccer and South Africa in general over the next week or so.  I hope you enjoy reading!

Andy, Katie and me at USA/Slovenia, Ellis Park

Square Could be The Next Paypal

Category : Entrepreneurship
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Square has the potential to be a game changer.  It allows anyone with an iPhone to accept credit cards.  The founders, who previously founded Twitter, realized that while just about everyone has credit cards, only 2% of credit card holders had the ability to accept them.  From their site:

Square changes all that.  All you have to do is download their app, give them your social security number and a bank account number and you can process credit cards.  If you want to get a lower fee, you can request that they send you a free credit card reader, which you plug into your headphone jack.  From their site:

In February 2009, Jim McKelvey wasn’t able to sell a piece of his glass art because he couldn’t accept a credit card as payment. Even though a majority of payments has moved to plastic cards, accepting payments from cards is still difficult, requiring long applications, expensive hardware, and an overly complex experience. Square was born a few days later right next to the old San Francisco US Mint.

I’ve downloaded the app and played around with it and it’s about as easy to use as it could possibly be.  Just like paypal, you always know what you have to do to accept payments.  Imagine being able to settle debts and split bills at restaurants right on your phone.  Or maybe accept a utility bill from your roommate who never has cash and doesn’t like to write checks.  Or imagine a street vendor selling food or tshirts.  Square opens up completely new markets and lowers the friction between buyers and sellers.

There are drawbacks.  First, many people do not trust vendors who use their personal mobile phones to accept credit cards.  People are worried about being scammed.  I wouldn’t be too worried about being scammed, since if you challenge credit card purchases, your credit card company refunds you and goes after the seller.  From my understanding you won’t have any liability, but that does not stop the trust factor from being an issue.

The second problem are the credit card fees.  Square charges 2.5% when you use the card reader (card present transactions) and 3.5% when you just type in the credit card number.  These fees seem really high.  I use traditional credit card processors and their fees have been 1.5%-2%.  I know that when I sell big ticket items, I shy away from PayPal because the fees eat up any money I make.  Square needs to figure out a way to lower it’s fees and get buyers to be more trusting, or find a place where people are willing to pay those fees out of convenience like PayPal did with eBay.

For now, I probably won’t use Square very often, but I can see times I would use it.  I’m really interested to see how the general population reacts to Square as it becomes more mainstream.  I think it’ll be a tough road, but ultimately, accepting credit cards on a mobile device will be the way of the future, unless we just eliminate the credit card completely and just use our phones to make purchases like they do in Japan.

What do you think?  Will Square take off?  Will you use it?  Are the fees too high?

World Cup 2010 Preview and Predictions

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I’m on my way to South Africa for the World Cup right now with my friends Andy and Katie.  This morning, we flew out of Milwaukee to New York and will be exploring the city for the day.  Late tonight, we fly out of NYC and head to Dubai, where we catch a plane to South Africa.  We’ve got tickets for USA vs. England, USA vs. Slovenia, USA vs. Algeria and Spain vs. Switzerland and we hope to be able to catch Brazil vs. Ivory Coast and Cameroon vs. Netherlands.

We’re going to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Rustanberg, Durban and hopefully Kruger National Park for a safari and we’re all excited.  It’s my first trip to Africa and I’m hoping its as amazing as World Cup 2006 in Germany was.  I’m confident that the South Africans will pull off a great tournament, just like the Germans did in 2006.

I’m not really sure what to expect out of the US squad.  I think the US got a fairly easy group compared to what they could have gotten, but there are not easy teams in this tournament, save North Korea.  I’m thinking the US will advance and most likely lose to Germany in the round of 16.  I’m looking for Landon Donovan to continue to build on his breakout performance in the 2009 Confederations Cup and his loan stint at Everton and really show that he is a world class player.  Clint Dempsey will continue to shine out on the left flank like he has for Fulham.

With Charlie Davies not fully recovering from a deadly car crash, the US is really thin at forwards.  Luckily, three previously unheralded forwards seem to be hitting their stride right at the right time.  Look for big things from Hurcluez Gomez and Jozy Altidore.  The most improved player from qualifying til now seems to be Jose Francisco Torres.  I think he can have a breakout performance at the World Cup, attracting attention from clubs in the best leagues in Europe.

The biggest problem for the US is at the back.  Tim Howard is a world class goal keeper, but the defense in front of him looks shaky.  Oguchi Onyewu looks amazing in 2009, but suffered a knee injury in qualifying.  He doesn’t seem fully recovered.  Green Bay’s own Jay Demerit looks solid as the other center back, but the outside backs will have trouble with fast players like England’s Aaron Lennon and Wayne Rooney.

The African sides look to be really strong this year.  Ivory Coast looks really good, but they have a really hard group.  Cameroon and Ghana looked solid, but both are suffering from injuries and the hosts, South Africa have a decent squad that will be boosted by the home support.

So who’s going to win it all?  I’d love to see Spain win it all, but I don’t see it happening.  I think they’ll make a deep run, only to come up short.  Argentina is an easy pick since they have arguably the best player in the world in Lionel Messi.  As Arsenal’s coach said after getting lit up for 4 goals, Messi is “like a video game player.”  Ultimately I can’t see Argentina taking it because they have a moron for a coach in Diego Maradona.  England, Germany, Portugal, France and other traditional powers look to be weak, but you never know when a team will catch fire, like Germany and France in 2006.  I’m going to go with the safe pick and choose Brazil, even though they left Ronaldhino at home.

I can’t wait to be in South Africa and hope to write a few posts during my down time, but I can’t guarantee anything.  I have 2 posts scheduled to post while I’m gone, but any new posts I write in South Africa will be about South Africa.  I’ll be back on June 30th!

Capital Entrepreneurs: How To Start A Founders Meet Up Group In Your City

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I’ve been involved in the startup community in Madison for about 6 years now, but had a hard time fitting into the networking scene, especially as a college student who was also running a business.  Most of the entrepreneurship and networking events in Madison were either overrun by service providers trying to sell you something, cost too much for what they provided or were at bad times or locations.  The signal vs. noise ratio at most of these events was pretty poor.  At some of the other events, I’d be the youngest person by 3o years.

There really wasn’t a good, free, entrepreneurship organization that was limited to founders.  To fill the gap, I founded Capital Entrepreneurs, an invite only meet up for founders of startups.  We meet up once per month at a bar in Madison, grab drinks and talk about our businesses, ideas and how we’re moving forward.

Here’s some Capital Entrepreneurs stats from the last year:

Best of all, it’s been something that we all look forward to each month.  It’s lonely starting a startup.  In the early stages, you might only see one other person (your cofounder) each day for months at a time.  Founders groups like CE help create a scene and allow you to commiserate with others in your situation.  You also get “coworkers” and if you’re lucky like we are in Madison, most of the startups will be located close together to facilitate lunches and happy hours.

The awesome thing is that it’s been really easy to get Capital Entrepreneurs started and it’s been incredibly successful, moreseo than I ever envisioned back in May 2009.  If your city doesn’t have a good founders group, I’m here to give you the steps to take to replicate the success that we’ve had with Capital Entrepreneurs.

Your startup group should have the following characteristics:

  1. Exclusive to Founders – No attorneys, accountants, people searching for jobs, consultants etc.  These are all nice people, but do not belong in an entrepreneurship group.
  2. Private Email List – People like to keep their emails private.  Use BCC to send out invites
  3. Open to new members – You’ll never grow if you exclude startups
  4. Free – Do not charge admission
  5. Website – Create a website and post updates
  6. 1-2 people should control it – If there’s more, it gets too complex
  7. Sponsors – After you’ve been going for awhile, you’ll find that attorneys, accountants and others will want to be invited.  We started offering sponsorships where service providers can attend one meeting per year as long as they do not try to sell their services.

Step 1

Survey the existing startup groups in your city and try them all out.  There are 6-7 entrepreneur and young professional groups here in Madison.  All are valuable, but none provided exactly what we wanted to do with Capital Entrepreneurs

Step 2

Reach out to your network.  I emailed all of the founders that I had gotten to know, about 15 of them, and asked if they were interested in a meet up specifically for founders.  I got a good response and moved forward.

Step 3

Set up a wordpress site.  I bought the Capital Entrepreneurs domain name and installed wordpress.  I created a members page that includes everyone’s logos and a 2 sentence description of their business.  The home page is a feed of press that our member companies gets and we have a contact form so that new businesses, press and other can get in contact with us.  We later added a resources page that lists some service provider sponsors to advertise to our members, along with a list of helpful articles and resources that came from Entrepreneur 101.

Step 4

Find a location.  We’ve been fortunate that we’ve had a regular meeting location.  The great guys at Brocach let us have a private room upstairs, give us free appetizers and run us a tab for drinks.  I called 5-6 bars in town to find the one with the best deal and you can too.  Try to find a place that will not charge you fees.

Step 5

Pick dates and time that people will be able to come to.  We’ve picked Wednesdays or Thursdays from 7-9pm, as we are a somewhat younger crowd and most of the people walk to the events.  Pick a time that works for your members and your city.

Step 6

Send invitation.  Shoot emails to all of the people who’ve expressed interest and tell them that they should forward the email on to any other startup founders.  Make sure that everyone understands that it is for founders, not service providers like attorneys, accountants or for people searching for jobs.

Step 7

At the first meeting, make sure to introduce everyone so that everyone is comfortable.  Explain that this will be a monthly event and that it is for founders.  Keep it casual and then schedule the next monthly meeting at the end of the event.

Overall

Overall, you want to create a place where founders can come to meet up, exchange ideas, get to know each other, without the burden of talking with service providers are those handing out resumes.  Once you get a group together, make sure to keep emails private and set up a twitter handle and website where you can post updates about group members.

If you follow these steps, you’ll likely be able to replicate what we’ve done in Madison.  I think cities of just about any size can benefit from founders groups.  Even if the groups are small, they can be fun, easy ways to connect with your fellow entrepreneurs.  If you’d like help starting a founders group in your city, please feel free to contact me.

Are there good startup groups in your city?  Have you started one?  Would you go to one if there was one in your city?