#ThrowbackPOD: Alan Knott-Craig Jr in 2016, riding waves of setbacks and success
From inheriting a famous surname to losing Africa's largest social network, Alan Knott-Craig Jr pivoted to revolutionising rural and township internet access.
Listen in as Alan Knott-Craig Jr, son of Alan Sr, the pioneering co-founder and first CEO of Vodacom, one of South Africa's leading mobile network operators, and later the feisty CEO of challenger telco Cell C—takes us through a transformative career moment that set the stage for his future ventures.
Episode overview
This early 2016 conversation finds Alan Knott-Craig Jr in a moment of trademark forthrightness. Fresh from his tenure as CEO of Mxit, once Africa's largest social network with over 50 million registered users, he was already building Project Isizwe, a non-profit bringing free public Wi-Fi to South African townships, while laying the groundwork for HeroTel—reportedly the country's largest fixed wireless internet service provider.
His journey would later lead to founding FiberTime, his current venture bringing pay-as-you-go fibre internet to townships through an innovative voucher-based model—an offering in a growing field of players serving South Africa's underserved communities.
Critical points
- The fascinating disconnect between Knott-Craig Jr's prominent surname and admittedly privileged middle-class roots—his father never held Vodacom shares and put him through government schools
- His journey from dutiful son following paternal direction until 25 to forging his own entrepreneurial path
- His honest characterisation of Project Isizwe's non-profit work as "sincerely selfish"
What we know now
Viewed from 2025, this conversation foreshadowed key developments in Knott-Craig Jr's trajectory:
- The evolution from running Africa's largest social network to pioneering township internet connectivity models
- His transition through various ventures: from Project Isizwe's free township Wi-Fi network to HeroTel's rural broadband expansion, and now FiberTime's pay-as-you-go township fibre model
- The emergence of his distinctive voice on entrepreneurship, particularly evident in his strongly-opinionated social posts and entrepreneurship books.
Questions we're pondering
- Could Mxit, with over 50 million registered users at its peak, have dominated African mobile social networking if it had doubled down on being a dating platform instead of taking WhatsApp head-on?
- After writing several books about entrepreneurship over the last decade, has Knott-Craig Jr fully embraced vulnerability in "Life Lessons: How to fail and win" (June 2024)?
- Will FiberTime's pay-as-you-go model or some derivative of it—no contracts, just vouchers for 24 hours of uncapped 100Mbps—prove to be the key that unlocks true digital inclusion in South African townships?