MBA 021: ANALYSIS – Founder of Radioraps RIKUS DE BEER started by sending WhatsApp voice notes to friends

Entertainment brand that started out with WhatsApp voice notes

Rikus de Beer also known as Jonathan is the founder of Radioraps an entertainment brand that allows him to create wealth through entertainment.

We analyse how Rikus is creating a successful brand in a small segmented market.

The journey as a business owner.

Rikus started out with a dream of becoming a professional rugby player and broke his back within the first year of attending university which changed his whole perspective on approaching the academic side of attending university. He thought he had to now do the conventional route of getting a degree, start working, get 2 dogs and children.

His first job starting out as a sales representative for John Deer clothing and then moving into being a financial advisor.

At age 26 he developed a rare disease from a random virus which landed him in the intensive care unit in hospital for 6 weeks where he almost died. It resulted in him asking different questions about life and what he wants to achieve.

Started research around tyre recycling and build a business plan around it without having a lot of experience or capital. He approached investors who invested and left him with an equity stake in the business. During the operation of this business he was more relaxed and happier to an extend.

He was on a Whatsapp group with some of the Springbok rugby players whereby he started picking fun at them in regards with how they played on the weekend.

He always loved making people laugh and when he grew up he wanted to either do stand up comedy or make movies.

The biggest challenge in starting the business and how was it handled?

He was still working when starting the business so creating content and cashflow was his biggest challenge. He formed a joint partnership to help with his video creation and publishing.

How does the company work?

Value Proposition

Radioraps started out with Jonathan the persona for now but want to ultimately create a brand that is geared at a specific type of humour that appeals to a very targeted market segment. This will allow them to create advertisements that people would actually like to watch and create more engagement.

Customer Segmentation

The customer segment is fixed for now on South-African and afrikaans speaking people but they are planning on expanding to the english market and going international with some of the movies.

Marketing Channels

The focus is very much on social media but for certain products like movies they will need to to some traditional marketing like billboards and magazine brands.

Revenue Streams

Income streams includeds the following:

Strategic advertising
DVD sales of the shows
The movie - only due for release later the year.
Ticket sales for live performances
80% on the income comes from live performances with advertising and DVD sales making up the rest.

Cost Structure

Creating the videos is the biggest cost element currently.

The movie creation was a big investment.

Key Resources

He does not employ people full time but tend to do joint ventures for each of the different income streams by means of profit sharing. The right people supporting him and making the right connections enabled him to expand his brand.

Key Activities

Content wise it is a constant activity but there is no formal structure in terms regular activities.

Skill set to emulate his business model

Constant content creation is key and it should be relevant to your audience with the focus on leveraging technology.