This is sad news for Mxit. The real story, however, should be the wasteful expenditure that the company has incurred over the last year. Some examples.

1. They retrenched about 10 people when Knott-Craig took over. In less than three months he replaced them with a bunch of overpaid special project managers who they bundled into some kind of innovation team (all non-tech people). These guys produced nothing of value, were paid fat salaries and in the end must have cost them more than the people they retrenched.
2. It is a known fact that the company values form over substance. Read Knott-Craig’s blog post to that effect here: http://alanknottcraig.wordpress.com/the-importance-of-form-over-substance/ . This is at it’s truest form when you visit them in their ivory tower in Stellenbosch. Mxit occupies the most expensive office space in Stellenbosch. Really? For a ‘start up’. More importantly, for a company that was losing around 1 – 2 million a month, is this really necessary. Do you really need a Barista and some coffee machine flown in from Italy (this is exaggeration: I do not know the origins of the machine. All I know that it is massive, shiny and a paid employee works behind it.) Almost every person I have met within the last year at Mxit sports a new Apple Macbook Pro and a Apple Thunderbolt on their desk. Really? That is around R30 000 worth of computers? There is an entire studio in Mxit where every person has this set-up. Then of course there is the grand finale, Mxit spend more than a million rand on a staff party last year April. A million rand.

3. They keep talking about innovation. I was told in a meeting not long after the acquisition (I also worked with the pre-Knott Craig people) that the iPhone App would be reworked immediately because it sucks. It has been a full year. Apple have managed to launch a new phone and a new operating system. They still havent cracked it. Mxit still looks terrible on a smart phone. I also dont understand what they expect people to accomplish on their new API but as this is not my field I will stay quiet …. what is my field however is finance. The Mxit Wallet (I am sure the name has changed again by the time I write this) changes ona weekly basis. One day Moola is gone, then it is back (currently its Moola+) and then it changes again. They honestly look like they have no idea what they are doing. If they are: they are terrible at communicating it.

4. What is up with their adsales team not sitting in the same building as them? Was there some messy divorce? I once had two meetings – one at Shinka and one at WOA. In the Shinka meeting I was told they could rewrite the code and push my message in anywhere. Afterwards Mxit told me ‘we don’t see advertising as an important revenue stream’. Huh. In any case, WOA should stop preaching about the evils of advertising when their platform has more ad’s on it than any other social network.

I like Alan. I find him an honest, good man. But Mxit is a mess. To see such an iconic SA brand go down in flames will be devastating. How do they fix it? Who knows. I fear, unfortunately, that people can and will probably add some more points to my essay above …. I personally hope Mxit gets out of this rut.

The video conferencing facilities in the Andmar WOA office cost 800k. Never used. Some WOA startups were canned and people fired for a quarter of that. I will not ever appoint AKC nor FS to run a business.

Herman probably wakes up every day, makes some coffee, and then just bursts out laughing at his luck. Just as MXit was going downhill wihtout brakes, along comes this bean counter that wants to buy a tech company so he can play startup theatre and feed the rediculous t-shirted tech star image his ego demanded. And to think, AKCJ seems to think he strong armed Heunis into a deal (according to his book).