Andile Khumalo built an eleven-year career as a shareholder and COO at MSG Afrika Group before leaving in 2018 to found KhumaloCo, an investment firm focused on technology, media and financial services, alongside I Am An Entrepreneur, the national programme he started in 2013 to support small business growth. His experience points to seven lessons that hold up regardless of the economic cycle: know your numbers cold, build relationships before you need them, treat mentorship as a two-way exchange, don’t confuse busy with productive, price for value not just cost, protect your own time as a resource, and be willing to exit a business or a role when it has stopped teaching you anything.
Who is Andile Khumalo?
A chartered accountant who started his career at Deloitte before moving into investment banking at Investec, Khumalo joined MSG Afrika Group in 2007 and spent 11 years there as a shareholder and chief operating officer before exiting in 2018. He founded I Am An Entrepreneur in 2013 to help entrepreneurs grow existing businesses, and now runs KhumaloCo, an investment firm with interests across technology, media, telecommunications, financial services and venture capital.
1. Know your numbers cold
Khumalo’s background as a chartered accountant shows up repeatedly in his advice to entrepreneurs: know your margins, your cost of acquiring a customer, and your monthly burn rate without having to check a spreadsheet first. An entrepreneur who cannot answer basic financial questions about their own business on the spot is not yet in control of it.
2. Build relationships before you need them
The relationships that open doors, whether to funding, a mentor or a major client, are rarely built in the moment you need them. They come from consistent, genuine engagement with your industry and network over years, not from a single networking event attended right before a funding round.
3. Treat mentorship as a two-way exchange
A mentee who only takes advice without offering anything back, even just candid feedback or introductions of their own, tends to get less useful mentorship over time. Approaching a mentor relationship as a genuine exchange, not a one-way service, produces better long-term outcomes for both sides.
4. Busy is not the same as productive
Long hours spent on low-value tasks are not a substitute for focused work on the few decisions that actually move a business forward, such as pricing, key hires and which markets to pursue. Entrepreneurs should regularly ask whether their time is going to the highest-value work in the business, not just whether they are working hard.
5. Price for the value you deliver, not just your costs
Pricing based only on covering costs plus a small margin leaves money on the table if the value delivered to the customer is genuinely higher than the cost to produce it. Understanding what a solution is actually worth to a customer, not just what it costs you to make, is a skill worth developing deliberately.
6. Protect your own time as a resource
An entrepreneur’s time is one of the business’s scarcest resources, and saying yes to every meeting, favour or opportunity dilutes focus on the work that actually grows the business. Being deliberate about what earns a place on your calendar is a discipline, not a luxury.
7. Know when to exit
Khumalo’s own decision to leave MSG Afrika after 11 years to start something new reflects a broader principle: staying in a role or a business past the point where it is still teaching you something or growing in value is a cost, even if it feels safer than leaving.
Why leaving MSG Afrika after 11 years is worth studying, not just admiring
Staying somewhere for over a decade before leaving is not, on its own, a lesson. What matters is the underlying decision process: Khumalo built genuine equity, seniority and a track record inside MSG Afrika before starting something new, rather than leaving early out of impatience or leaving too late out of comfort. Entrepreneurs weighing whether to leave a stable role, or a stable part of their own business, to pursue something new should apply the same test: have you extracted the learning, capital and relationships available where you are, and is what comes next a genuine step forward rather than simply a change for its own sake?
Applying “know your numbers” beyond the obvious
For a chartered accountant like Khumalo, knowing the numbers extends past having accurate financial statements to understanding what specific numbers actually drive the business, such as the cost of acquiring a customer through each channel, the lifetime value of a repeat customer compared to a first-time buyer, and which product or service line carries the real margin once all costs are properly allocated. Many small business owners can produce an income statement but cannot answer these more specific questions about their own business, which limits how precisely they can decide where to invest their next rand of marketing spend or their own time.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Andile Khumalo?
Andile Khumalo is a South African chartered accountant, investor and entrepreneur, founder of KhumaloCo and I Am An Entrepreneur, and a former shareholder and COO of MSG Afrika Group.
What is I Am An Entrepreneur?
It is a national programme Khumalo founded in 2013 to support the growth of existing small and medium businesses in South Africa.
What is KhumaloCo?
KhumaloCo is Khumalo’s investment firm, with interests spanning technology, media, telecommunications, financial services and venture capital.
What is the most important lesson for a small business owner from Khumalo’s career?
Knowing your own numbers in detail, rather than relying on gut feel, is a recurring theme in his advice to entrepreneurs.
Where can I find support for growing an existing small business in South Africa?
The Small Enterprise Development and Finance Agency offers both financial and non-financial support, alongside private initiatives such as I Am An Entrepreneur.
What is the difference between I Am An Entrepreneur and KhumaloCo?
I Am An Entrepreneur is a support programme for growing existing small businesses, while KhumaloCo is Khumalo’s own investment firm, focused on backing ventures rather than running a support programme.
For small business support programmes, see the Small Enterprise Development and Finance Agency (Sedfa).
Originally published in August 2018. Updated September 2026 to reflect Andile Khumalo’s departure from MSG Afrika Group and his current work at KhumaloCo, and to reframe the piece away from a single 2018 conference appearance. Confirm current details of his ventures directly before citing them.
