So . . . about 2 months ago I decided to work something that, at the time, seemed simple enough. A lot of the projects I worked on over the years had one thing in common – building movements behind a single idea.

After working with a few people, being the recipient of a stern talking to from my mentor and attending grueling 12-week business bootcamp. A new startup is ready to be unveiled.

We can venture into dialogue about creating an offer, business models and what it takes to cut it as an entrepreneur.  But we wont. . . . Instead, the one thing that is still missing for most businesses is conversation behind their products.

Introducing WordStart

After the bootcamp, aching everywhere and rethinking things – WordStart came to the fore. This is the newbie, my latest startup, the change.

Drumroll please . . . . WordStart is a word of mouth agency that connects young African influencers with the latest and coolest products to seed word of mouth.

We are now ready unleash this newbie to the world and let people interact with the community, share their ideas and let us know what they want to sample. We all love new things (well most of us), and being the first to talk about them. That’s what WordStart is all about.

Come join us on Facebook and Twitter. And take a look at our video, you may be one of the bright young WordStarters we are looking for. More details will follow next week.

The first thought was to begin this post with – ‘It seems News Café have suddenly become too big their customers’. Then I took a quick glance on Hello Peter, only to realize they’ve become giants and the customers does not matter.

We went to the News Café at the Emperor’s Palace recently after a comedy event, on a month end Saturday evening. Not being a restaurant owner, I would guess the last Saturday of the month would be one of the busiest times. It takes a whole franchise, 15 years of experience in the cocktail bar industry and experienced managers to conclude they need fewer waiters for that time of the month.

We got in, sat ourselves at a table that needed to be cleaned and thought it was temporary. A waitress finally attended to us 20 minutes later – still leaving the table dirty with empty glasses, till we called her back.

Our order

o   A glass of Coke

o   A double tot of Chivas

o   Double Jameson

o   And another soft drink

We then requested her to bring ice on the side.

What she heard

Take 30 minutes with our drinks. And oh, let the ice melt in them almost completely.

The long and short

We sat there for about 3 hours with every round of drinks taking no less than 25 minutes to arrive. The explanation was “the bar is busy this evening”, which the manager echoed after we spoke to him about the problem.

When I read on Hello Peter, it became clear that 54 complaints – in the past year – ranging from robberies to assaults by staff, revealed a different story.

Waiters and managers normally get grief from “fussy customers”.

While sitting there watching tempers flare from all the other tables, something else came to mind.

A flawed system is screwing your staff

Someone, other than me, also reported a similar issue on Hello Peter and it occurred around the same time. Guess what? It was for the same branch. Surprised?

Your system is inefficient when customers have the same problem. People would report the waiter and the manager without considering how the franchise puts this in place.

If you happen to be from News Café, or know someone who knows someone. . . . Please tell them to stop turning away customers in their shorts and go read Hello Peter here. They might get some insights from their customers.

Photo by: Dan Orbit on Flickr