Investors who assess businesses professionally see enough founders to recognise which ones have genuine direction and which are reacting to whatever opportunity appears next. Venture capitalist Romeo Kumalo, with two decades of operating and investing experience, reduces it to a short set of principles, and the one he returns to most is that being known as someone who keeps their word is ultimately what everything else rests on.
Direction in business is less about having a fixed long-term plan than about having clear criteria for deciding what to pursue and what to decline.
Reputation for keeping your word is the foundation
Every subsequent opportunity, partnership and investment depends on counterparties believing that commitments will be honoured, which makes a reputation for reliability the asset that determines what a founder gets access to over a career rather than only in a single transaction.
Experience across sectors sharpens pattern recognition
Founders and investors who have operated in more than one industry generally assess opportunities better, since they can distinguish what is genuinely specific to a sector from what is a common business pattern appearing in unfamiliar clothing.
Clear criteria matter more than a fixed plan
Business direction is more usefully understood as knowing what a founder will and will not pursue, and why, than as a detailed long-term plan, since plans change constantly while genuine criteria hold and make each decision faster and more consistent.
Long-term relationships outlast individual deals
People encountered in one transaction reappear repeatedly over a career in a market as connected as South African business, which means treating any individual deal as more important than the relationship behind it is generally a poor trade.
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Frequently asked questions
What do experienced investors say matters most in a founder?
A reputation for keeping their word, since every subsequent opportunity, partnership and investment depends on counterparties believing commitments will be honoured.
Does experience across multiple sectors genuinely help?
Yes, it sharpens pattern recognition, allowing a founder or investor to distinguish what is genuinely specific to a sector from a common business pattern appearing in unfamiliar form.
Is having a fixed long-term plan necessary for business direction?
Less necessary than having clear criteria for what to pursue and decline, since plans change constantly while genuine criteria hold and make decisions faster and more consistent.
Why do relationships outlast individual deals?
Because in a connected market the same people reappear repeatedly across a career, which makes prioritising any single transaction over the relationship behind it a poor long-term trade.
How does a founder build the reputation that opens access?
Through accumulated instances of doing what was promised, since the reputation is built transaction by transaction and cannot be established through presentation or intention alone.
Further reading
Originally published in November 2017. Updated September 2026 and rewritten in house voice, keeping the original principles while drawing out the reasoning behind each.
