I’ve spent the past 30 years doing something I genuinely enjoy: turning ideas into businesses, developing innovative technologies, and introducing products into international markets.
Has it always worked?
Absolutely not.
I’ve experienced successes, failures, difficult decisions, financial pressures, and more unexpected challenges than I care to remember.
I’ve learned that building a business is rarely as straightforward as business books would have you believe.
And after three decades, I’m still at it.
A Career Without Borders
Born in South Africa, I’ve spent much of my professional life working across different countries, cultures, and industries.
Over the years, I’ve been involved in launching more than twenty products across a hundred and sixteen countries, primarily in medical technology, biotechnology, and healthcare.
My work has taken me from developing international distribution networks to leading companies, negotiating partnerships, introducing new technologies, and navigating the challenges of bringing innovative products to market.
Most recently, I was CEO of Motion Informatics, a medical technology company developing advanced technologies for neurological rehabilitation.
But my career has never been limited to one company, one technology, or even one discipline.
Business, Academia, and Curiosity
Alongside my business career, I earned a PhD in international law and authored a book examining the use of force in international law and the Middle East conflict.
You might wonder what international law has to do with entrepreneurship.
More than you might think.
Both involve understanding people, competing interests, complex systems, negotiations, and decisions made under uncertainty.
My academic background has influenced how I approach business, particularly international negotiations, strategic thinking, and understanding the political and cultural environments in which companies operate.
I’ve always believed that curiosity shouldn’t be restricted to your profession.
Developeneurship: More Than Having a Good Idea
Over the years, I’ve developed an approach to business that I call Developeneurship.
For me, entrepreneurship isn’t simply about identifying an opportunity or inventing something new.
It’s about what happens afterwards.
Can you develop the product?
Can you find customers?
Can you enter unfamiliar markets?
Can you raise the money required to keep going?
And perhaps most importantly, can you survive long enough to build a sustainable business?
I’ve seen excellent technologies fail commercially, and relatively ordinary products become successful businesses.
The difference often has very little to do with the technology itself.
What Thirty Years Have Taught Me
One of the more interesting questions I’ve asked myself recently is “I’ve been an entrepreneur for thirty years.
Why am I not a millionaire or a billionaire?”
It’s a serious question, although I can certainly see the humour in it.
After three decades of building businesses, taking risks, and working internationally, you might expect financial success to be the obvious measure of achievement.
But entrepreneurship is more complicated than that.
There are successes that don’t translate into personal wealth, failures that teach you more than successes, and opportunities that look extraordinary until reality intervenes.
I’ve made good decisions and bad ones.
I’ve trusted the right people and occasionally the wrong ones.
I’ve pursued opportunities that worked and others that consumed far more time and money than anticipated.
Would I do everything the same way again?
Definitely not.
Would I choose to be an entrepreneur again?
Without hesitation.
Sharing the Experience
At this stage of my career, I’ve decided to share more of what I’ve experienced and learned.
Not as a business guru, not as someone promising a formula for success, simply as an entrepreneur who has spent thirty years in the real world of business and is still actively involved in building companies.
Through my videos, articles, and discussions, I’ll explore entrepreneurship, MedTech innovation, international business, leadership, and the realities of developing and commercialising new technologies.
I’ll talk about the successes, but also the failures, frustrations, mistakes, and questions that entrepreneurs don’t always discuss publicly.
And occasionally, I’ll venture beyond business into subjects that interest me, including international law and world affairs.
I don’t expect everyone to agree with my perspectives.
In fact, I hope they don’t.
Interesting discussions rarely happen when everyone agrees.
Synergen MedTech
Synergen MedTech brings together my experience in entrepreneurship, international business development, and medical technology commercialisation.
Through Synergen, I work with entrepreneurs, startups, and established companies seeking to develop technologies, enter new markets, and build sustainable international businesses.
My approach is based on practical experience rather than theoretical formulas.
I believe that good advice comes not only from knowing what works, but also from understanding what doesn’t.
After thirty years, I’m still building, still questioning, and still learning.
And I have no intention of stopping.