Is Seth Rotherham South Africa’s answer to Richard Branson?

Reginald Dwight became Elton John; Marion Morrison became John Wayne; Ilyena Mironoff became Helen Mirren. As for Meryl Streep, well, she stayed Meryl Streep, despite all advice to the contrary.

And then there is William Mellor. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, that’s probably because he’s better known as Seth Rotherham, the Internet entrepreneur who turned a Cape Town mantra – “Work is a sideline, live the holiday” – into a hugely successful blog, and a blog into a lifestyle industry that trades in everything from home furnishing to cut-price charter-jet flights.

Ambitious, restless, driven, and above all, happily in control of his holiday-obsessed life, Seth is a model of how to make it on your own terms.

He chats with Ruda about the Camps Bay scene, the Internet as a money machine, and how he manages to fit a little hard work into his life-life balance.

Transcript:

R: Welcome to another edition of the Change Exchange, and today – this is happening on the internet – we have someone who more or less lives on the internet, he makes his living there – Seth Rotheram, you are so welcome.

S: Thank you for having me, Ruda, great to be here.

R: You were 22 with a marketing degree and you left for London. Was it exciting? Was it frightening?

S: Ja, it was very exciting. I’m an only child and my mother informed me after my degree that I would not be moving into a digs and I should look at exploring outside.

R: Kicked you out of the nest?

S: Basically, ja. And they had the two year working visas then for the UK, so I went with my friend Chuck and we went to London. Although I had a degree in marketing, I also had IT skills, just from being an only child. I had a computer from the age of 6, so I was always taking them apart and making little programs et cetera. So we went there and it happened to be the IT boom – there was no planning there. So I faked it until I made it on my CV and got the jobs…

R: And what was it like being in London at that point in time, on your own, having to make it?

S: It was nuts. I think the biggest thing was the exchange rate, which shocked me. Just having the freedom to do what you want for the first time – I stayed at home, I was very free. I had my own car, had my own little flatlet outside, but to actually be out there and not beholden to anyone was quite a daunting thing, but certainly exciting. And I had a budget and it was all about getting a job in time before the money ran out. And that was exciting, that kind of drives me. That kind-of planning ahead, need to move because that will end. But it was very, very exciting and it was two or three years of fun. The IT boom was weird, they were paying a lot of money for IT skills and they didn’t really know what to do with you. It was a weird thing. Someone needs to make a documentary about it. I would do nothing for days on end and be paid… and then… even now it sounds like a lot. A good £25 an hour. And by the time I left, which was when the bubble burst, the Rand was 20/1, so we were carrying on like rock stars at the same time as having to go to work, but not really doing any work. It was a weird time, but it was really fun and we lived in a digs there and it was cool.

R: Why did you come back? Did you consider staying?

S: Ja, I considered getting the British passport – if you stayed there for four years, but I had already done two and half, three years and I got a little bit… you can get miserable in London. I don’t think I was miserable, but I was definitely like, I think I had done my thing here… it was fun and I would like to get home and see what I can do there. It was also… the internet was starting to get going and I thought that there might be opportunities in that back at home. So I think I extended my visa for another six months, it was two and a half years, and I just said cheers. Chuck, my mate I told you about, stayed for about a decade – he got the passport and everything. But I’m not too fazed about passports because I’m fine with the South African passport, I’m very positive about home, so I came back.

R: And you came back and how did you earn your living here? You started a blog, 2oceansvibe, almost immediately, but surely there wasn’t money in it in the beginning?

S: No, I started 2oceansvibe on this site. There was no intention to kind of make money out of it. I started realising I could make money out of it a little bit later. At the start it was just to kind of vent my own stuff. Just to write about stuff – I never used to do well at writing at school and I think at school you’re always trying to write like a Wilbur Smith or trying to write like these people who you read from – The Lord of the Flies, et cetera – and on 2oceansvibe, I started writing humorously about observations, about things in town or things we had done kind of pointing fingers at that and stirring a little bit. And it was amazing, the response. People used to find it very humorous, I’m a humourous-ish kind-of guy and I really allowed myself to explore that side. I remember writing these long stories and really going over it nine or ten times and making it was funny as I could and people responded to it. And that gave me a kick and it was just a side thing…

R: Sorry, but this was what? 2002-ish? So blogs were…

S: They weren’t around then.

R: So how did you find an audience?

S: It was my friends. 2001, 2002 … no-one except me out of my friends had a digital camera. No one really had e-mail, but they had access to the internet on their parents’ computers, something like that. It was that kind of scene.  So I would make it my job when we go out to take the pictures and stuff and we would go to Caprice in Camps Bay, which was and still is the home of 2oceansvibe, kind of spiritual home, and you’re in a place where you’ve got this beautiful sunset, you’ve got palm trees, fast cars, beautiful people, cocktails – it works. It sells. It’s not hard. If I did have to do the same thing and I was in a dorp somewhere, I don’t think it would be quite as popular.

R: It wouldn’t quite work for Victoria West?

S: No, because if you look at a travel agent’s window – what is it? Palm trees and sunsets and things like that. And that’s what people – it’s like a universal appeal. So I was the one with the camera, so I had the digital content and I had a bit of know-how in terms of writing – it turns out that writing style is more normal now in terms of people talking how they talk. Instead of trying to talk like Wilbur Smith, so ja, I moved in with friends of mine from school – they became Stormers rugby players – so I was in a household with guys who were my age and they were all earning much more. So there was definitely a drive to kind-of catch up and that’s when I got the first job in Cape Town, which was a company that was starting which would rent luxury villas and homes on the Atlantic Seaboard to the Americans and English and Australians et cetera. Now, of course, the local people on the Internet weren’t aware of Google, but the Americans and the English were ahead of the game and they were using Google the whole time, which means it wasn’t hard to rank high up on Google if you make a website and do well if they were searching for Cape Town luxury home, we did well and we learnt about Google Search and it wasn’t hard. Now, if you try to get into the accommodation game in terms of Google Search, it’s hard and it’s a lot of money so that was that. So we started renting out these homes.

R: And in the process you created a whole new personality, because you weren’t born Seth Rotherham?

S: No, that’s true. Ja. I was born William Mellor and I’m still him but what happened there was the homes that you’re renting out, they’re owned by very prominent, upper crust, people who are prominent, people you would know, and then you’re also renting out to the likes of Nicholas Cage or if you take away the stars, there’s still serious kind-of business people and prominent people from England and the rest. So as we discuss now, the content in 2002 on 2oceansvibe, it was just fun for my mates. No-one even knew about it, it was just my friends and their friends maybe. It was building. And it was fun and it was a bit of vloeking here-and-there and the odd compromising photograph here and there and et cetera, nothing scandalous, but I just felt it would be smart to use a different name. There was no intention to turn Seth into a character.

R: And when did you realise there was now this other persona?

S: It was when people started calling me Seth. Now, if someone says Seth I do turn my head, but then I wouldn’t turn my head and call Seth Seth and you look at and “oh ja, it’s me”. So it did take time and the kind of media used that name. So the media heard about blogs – 2oceansvibe was going – so South Africa had the Blog Awards which I would win every year, but mainstream media was still ignoring blogs until they had to write something about it. So they started writing something about blogs, and I was the go-to blog, which was like a self-fulfilling thing, because the mainstream press are talking about 2oceansvibe and Seth, and then it gets bigger and bigger and the readership gets more and more. So I certainly wouldn’t start a blog now. It’s hard work now, if you want to get out there. But then it was just good luck, good timing, really.

R: So Seth became your public persona  for 2oceansvibe and your other business?

S: Ja, I’ve got a few businesses, but no, no, no. In terms of my mainline work, which was the villa rentals and all that, I was still William Mellor, so I had a different name to keep that separate. They wouldn’t want to see this kind of swearing and carrying on, if I go to their house and they’re all smart and meantime I’m gaan-ing aan on the website, they would go like: “Oh, this guys a …” You have to put on a face, I was young then, so you kind-of acting older around these serious people, but then you’re actually having a jol on the side. It’s nice to separate it.

R: So William is the serious part?

S: No, it’s not, actually. It’s actually the same guy! But William – he needs to be a little bit … he’s more real. Seth is still … Seth is … William is kind of shy, like I don’t enjoy crowds, I really am shy. But I kind-of have to play that up for Seth. Like, I don’t do any kind of public events or things these days unless it’s one of my brands, but Seth would. He’d be there with the champagne et cetera, et cetera, and that gets tiring. I’m sure you also had those events and functions and stuff – it’s exhausting stuff. It’s not something that you want to do. It’s fine if you’re 22 or so, but as you get older and they’re expecting you to still be at those, then you’re like, then you say Seth’s actually a character, so settle down. William’s chilling out. So that’s the kind of vibe.

R: So when you started with Seth, did you foresee that this would become a parallel personality?

S: You know, it’s a very hard question, because you kind-of do something and you don’t spend a moment having a good think, I wonder if any of this will happen? It happens so quickly and you don’t even know if it’s happening – you kind of go with it and you might laugh to yourself – it will be funny if this grows into this. I don’t think it’s something that you’re like, right, I’ve made a decision now and that person has to become famous. It just kind-of like that will be funny. And it does. Then you get your first e-mail from someone who says how much is it for an article on the site. And you think this is interesting. I remember the first one was a restaurant, and I just said R1000 – and then it was a lot of money. And they were like fine, and I was like “oooh”. This is interesting!

R: I should have said five!

S: Exactly. And then I left it and I didn’t jump ship then, I didn’t focus on it then. Until I was earning decent money at the same time – the nice thing about 2oceansvibe and the extramural things I do on the side is when you’ve got something on the internet that is purely on the internet, you can actually moonlight. You can have your job here, and you can at night, you can write some stories and stuff. Or you can have a good weekend and you can write ten stories and you can time those to come out during the week, which I used to do. A story a day. And then people would think I was writing every day, meantime I was just – I nailed it on the weekend.

R: So I don’t want to out you, but you’re not living your slogan, I’m sorry. Your slogan says what?

S: Work is a sideline. Live the holiday.

R: You don’t do that? You work bloody hard.

S: People say that to me and I am used to answering it. I just need to check my answer again. Basically you’re right and you’re wrong. You’re right in terms of my diary’s quite busy, but you’re wrong in terms of I’m doing exactly what I want to do. I actually enjoy writing. I enjoy the businesses I have, the exciting stuff like the Neighbourhood App,  it’s called Our Hood. And I’m literally – I’m like a child. I can’t sleep at night – it’s so exciting. So I don’t think you can call that work. The typical definition of work, in terms of being a sideline, is people are thinking about those 9-5 jobs where they’re not happy. That is work. The other stuff is not. So work’s a sideline, live the holiday … It means doing … I think it means doing things on your terms. I don’t do meetings. I just kind of structured my life in that way. And I do meetings if I think it’s necessary, but these days people need a meeting for the smallest things. It’s ridiculous. Or you mail someone and they phone you – it’s weird. Like I mailed you. Mail me back.  It’s all a little bit mixed up, and I’ve tried to make all these systems to make my life easy. My phone will ring like once a day, if you’re lucky. And it will be a bank and I won’t answer it and that’s that. And it goes to voicemail and it says my voicemail is off, please don’t leave a message. Please text me. So I’ve got all these little rules and systems so that I can live the holiday. I mean, not living the holiday is if your phone’s ringing. Even if you don’t have a job…

R: To respond to other people’s input all the time?

S: Exactly. If you’re like a billionaire and you’re doing nothing in the day, but you’re stopping everything you’re doing the whole time because your phone’s ringing, you’re not really that chilled out. Really. I mean, Ruda, how can people just phone at a time that suits them? Hey? It’s not on, and that’s a habit from pre-text and pre-Email days. It’s a nasty habit. It’s rude. I mean, how do you know I’m available now? Sorry, I get very heated about that.

R: Tell me about Our Hood?

S: Our Hood?

R: Where did it start? What do you want to do?

S: It’s a business I started with a friend of mine – his name is Bruce Goode. We were first involved in a project called Name Your Hood, which is a company we founded to give identity to certain corners of the country which don’t have names. For example Gardens City Bowl. It’s a big name.  Meantime, the top of Kloof Street is a neighbourhood. And the bottom of Kloof Street is a neighbourhood – it’s even got a butcher, a baker, a barber… So that was all about naming these little neighbourhoods and we also landed a government tender to use our system to rename all the Gugulethu streets, because they were still called NY1, NY2 – Native Yard. NY1. This was 2013. We used our system and that was all fun and stuff. And from there myself and Bruce realised there is an opportunity for, you know, you’ve got Facebook for your friends, but there’s no Facebook for your neighbourhood. People will write on Facebook, my, I’ve got a… Does anyone know a someone who can walk my dog in Pinetown? I’m in Cape Town. It’s not based on area or neighbourhoods, so we made this app, Our Hood, it’s an app and a website – you have to be verified that you live in the neighbourhood to join it. And people are discussing everything from lost dogs to crime, to sharing a drill to everything.

R: How does one turn something like that which sounds like a brilliant idea – how do you monetise it? How do you make money out of it? How do you turn it into a business?

S: Well the thing we’ve done is we’ve also included sections like Local Deals and a Lifestyle section. And we also see it as maybe a new way of presenting online shopping to people, because a lot of people are scared of shopping online – certainly on their phone. So we’ve got a lifestyle section, and you don’t have to go into that if you don’t want to, but we have a section inside Lifestyle called Home Convenience, right? And if you can just categorise things in a neat and tidy way, you go your home and garden, or pool and garden, baby – you’re in your house. You’re in a safe app and you know all your neighbours are your real neighbours and you just go ‘baby’, and ‘nappies’. We can kind of plug die app into various online websites, from maybe the likes of Woolworths or Takealot et cetera, and if you can kind of plug them in in a very smart way, it might introduce online shopping in a more safe environment.

R: It sounds as if you just move forward with whatever is in front of you and you kind of follow it? It doesn’t sound as if there’s a fixed business plan for the next five years.

S: No, you’re right about that. And that’s like we said earlier on.

R: And that’s part of the live the holiday? You follow what you enjoy?

S: Ja, you kind of… you don’t realise that you’re doing things. You try them out, like … I wrote a book now, called Work is a sideline, Live the holiday. And the book is kind of … I was looking for cane furniture for our home, so my wife and I were keen on genuine cane furniture. And you go to these outdoor shops and there’s that lifetime warrantee thirty, forty grand set and I’m like I will not like this thing for the rest of my life. I don’t need a warrantee – I just want normal kind-of cane. And there’s this guy on the side of the road selling this Malawian cane and I said: “How much is this stuff” and we chatted and I bought and I said to him: “Are you on the internet?” and he said no and I said cool. So I use the same system every time I try things out – I made this website in a very quick way, put a photograph of the cane on, and it’s completely exploded, right. And I made a book, step by step, showing exactly what I did so that you can do the same. If you have an idea and if you do my entire thing I say in my book, you will spend no more than R250 on setting this whole thing up, and the point is when you try those things out and they fail, you tell no-one. No-one knows you’ve lost R250 – that’s why I think you’re saying there’s no plan. There is no plan! You try it out, it fails. And the thing is never to bet the house on it all. Never to put all your eggs in one … If it fails, carry on. If it works, ‘look what I’ve done, you’re so clever’. If you have a method that won’t take a long time … It took me a weekend to make the cane website and it’s just flying. It’s just lucky.

R: And Get Jet? Is that what you call it?

S: Get Jet. Ja, that as well. It’s not too labour intensive. I got the idea – because my folks live in France –  they used to live in Australia. It’s a lot nicer now – no offence to Australia, it’s just far. And France – the Riviera – the South of France – it’s not the end of the world. And they live in Provence, so you take the car and you go down to Saint Tropez,  you don’t want to spend too much time there with R200 coffees. And you go past Niece Airport – it’s obviously like a car park of jets. And I just started reading in the mags there, the FT weekend – I don’t know if you read it? Best weekend read. So you know the magazine that you love, called Hard to spend it. It’s just these double page Cartier ads et cetera. And there’s those ads that you would have seen, Victor – it’s got this big jet and these guys are climbing out of a jet but they’re on Times Square, and I just think Victor and I go to the website and they’re clearly spending a lot of money – there’s clearly a market for them there, certainly. And they market empty leg jet flights. So if you charge for a jet from Cape Town to Jo’burg, the jet’s not here and it has to get to you first. There’s no-one inside the jet then, so the charter companies don’t mind making a bit of bucks on that flight, because they’re not going to make it anyway. So you can offer that leg – so you offer that leg at half of what it would have normally cost, or less even, like a third.

R: Is there a market in South Africa?

S: There are jets going back and forth to Jo’burg et cetera, and there are loads of them going to the game farms – your Bushmanskloof, Mala Mala et cetera. But the thing that I realise – I kind of looked at it all and I realised it won’t cost too much to set this up. All you need is to get in there with the charter companies and I went to Jo’burg and I met with them and they’re all cool guys, and I was doing my pilot’s license too at the time. I think that also got me excited … And I just realised it’s not going to cost too much to set up this website. It’s a little bit more larney than the cane site, so I paid a guy not too much money at all to have a simple thing. All you need is a listing and the beautiful pics of the jets, right? It’s very easy. And the charter companies can load up their own listings or they can send me the listings, and my staff at 2oceansvibe load them up. And the site’s there. And then it’s not too hard to advertise it either, because the press love that kind of thing. Cheap jets – they love it. So the exposure was good and it gets used a lot in terms of traffic and there’s a booking now and then. But the point is, the bookings, the commission is nice cash. It’s not like it has to happen every day – it’s nice if it does, but if you don’t land a booking, there’s zero expense, monthly. So that’s what kind of draws me to these kinds of things. How much work is actually required? Like the cane – my assistant at 2oceansvibe, Chelsea, she texts every cane order to the cane guy. He does everything else. He brings it into the country, he paints it up, delivers it, everything. All we do is we deal with the orders. She does.

R: So you’re the marketing arm, almost?

S: Ja, and you kind of mention on 2oceansvibe – it doesn’t need to be mentioned that much. If you search for cane furniture in Cape Town it’s number one, due to my knowledge of how these searches work. And the website is called canefurniturecapetown.co.za and you learn that having the search phrase in the name helps.

R: Ja. I won’t ask you about future plans and all of that because I’m sure you don’t know yet.

S: No, future plans I can say one thing, and it’s my wife wants to open a cafe in town called something like Cafe du Cap, and it will be a very small food side, very basic menu like an omelette here and there, Frenchy style food, and then selling some kaftans and some French home ware, antique-y stuff. Sort of Palm France if you can imagine ferns with a Labrador there and some French music going on. Something like that.

R: Where did you meet her?

S: Sam I met many years ago in my teens. We had a crew of mates and there were some guys and some girls, and the one girl in our crew, her name is Lindsey. Lindsey’s younger sister was and is Sam. So Sam wasn’t in our group, but she would always appear now and then as a kind of kept an eye on that. She wasn’t too much younger, a year or two younger than Lindsey and still is. And then eventually just eight years ago she was in Cape Town and she was working at Woolworths and she really bloomed. And then…

R: And then you said, ‘Sjoe, you grew up!’

S: Well my friend actually gave me a call and he said – because we all went out and we ran into Sam and Lindsey and we went out and had a jol and she caught a lift home with my friend. And I got a call that night and he said: ‘Just a heads up, I don’t know if you’re interested, but I kind of got the feeling that Sam might be’. And I was like: ‘Okay, that’s a good heads up.’ So I called her up and we had a date at my flat. I invited her to watch rugby at my house and made her lunch and then ja. Ever since then.

R: And what is it that makes it work?

S: I think the cool thing about Sam is I think the team aspect is great. Because we really do see ourselves as a unit. Especially now that we’ve had a baby girl. It’s kind of even more … She really is … A lot of people say this about their wives and they might not mean it and be divorced the next year, but she genuinely is my best friend and we really … We tease each other a lot and there definitely is mutual understanding of us being a unit. And we also – we dream a lot together. We’re always talking about our dreams and our goals. To get a little farm here, to get a plane et cetera. All these dreams that make you want to find ways to achieve that dream. And it’s not really ‘I need to do that to get that’, but I think just talking about it. Some of those books say if you imagine it. But it is kind of like that in a less serious way. It’s just talking about your stuff and it’s nice to … I think you learn a lot about each other if you’re talking about the dreams. And I go ‘Really? I don’t really like it that way and it needs to be like this’ and they go okay cool and compromise and stuff. And accept that’s a great idea, let’s nail that down. And we talk about our dreams not like they’re a dream. We’re quite sure about when that dream comes true, by then we’ll be living here or doing that. Just like a manifestation, I guess, in a less kind of cheesy way.

R: You don’t have to walk around it,  that’s the way it is. And the new baby girl?

S: Francesca, ja. She’s amazing. She’s … What’s today? She’s eight weeks … She was born end of Jan, she’s eight weeks old. Ja, she’s amazing.

R: Can you remember the moment you saw her for the first time?

S: I do, she had just … Sam had a normal gynae appointment and we were told that this baby needs to be born in an hour and a half’s time. So that was the moment, actually, because if you’d expect the baby to be born then, you build it up as it comes nearer and nearer.

R: It’s a theoretical concept.

S: Exactly. And I think that moment – even more so than seeing the baby – just being told it’s coming now … I just started crying immediately … Like when you see your child, It was like ‘Oh my god, you must be joking. When you say it needs to be born soon, do you mean on the weekend?” And she said: “No, like in an hour and a half.” So that was quite a vibe. And then Sam obviously had to have a ceasar and the baby came out… Ja. The gynae asked us just before, she said to Sam: “What do you think it will be?” And Sam said: “Boy”. Because we never knew, and she said: “And you?” And I said: “A boy.” And she said: “Bang! It’s a girl!” And I mean it doesn’t matter, of course, as long as the baby is healthy. It was amazing to kind of see this thing and to watch it operate. The first six weeks as you probably know, there’s not really much going on, but now that we’re in week eight or nine, it’s amazing seeing a … Now you’re seeing new things every day. The baby actually starts to track you walking across the room. It’s amazing how those little things mean so much, and I had my birthday last week and it was my first birthday as a dad, and it was quite weird. That’s also quite a thing. It’s almost like your first birthday in a way – it’s kind of your first birthday with this thing in your life. It’s like a brand new chapter. It’s not like a new job – it’s a new chapter. And it’s amazing just to watch her and you have to worry about her and she’s still there in the morning – she doesn’t have an instruction manual. But ja…

R: A friend of mine had her first baby at 23 and she said to me: “You know, you can’t put it in the cupboard.”

S: You can’t! It’s true. It makes such a noise, there’s no way that you could, but ja. The green pasty foods are quite powerful, but ja, she’s amazing. It’s nice to have … Do you know what I like? It really gives you purpose. So the rest of it you start little businesses and you do things and you go on holiday and you do all the stuff. And then you do it again and then you drink and you get a hangover and you do … it’s just all … It gets quite boring. That’s why when Sam arrived in my life, it was at the perfect time. I just turned 30 – it’s not linked to age, but I just happened to … At 30 … I was over it. I was done with the jolling and the partying. I was bored. I was like – I need more and Sam came. It was perfect;  it was perfect timing for me. And then Francesca or Frankie came along now too where it’s like – I just need a little bit more, because all the rest is kind of ticking over. And you’re achieving little dreams here and there and it’s all set. But you need a little bit more. So we got a Labrador first. Just to get in the groove.

R: And your home? Where do you live and how did you choose it?

S: We live in Camps Bay. I moved straight to Camps Bay when I came back. Oh no, sorry, I moved into the suburbs with the rugger buggers when I came back from London, and then I worked in Camps Bay. So I had that view from when I came back and then we moved into a flat in Camps Bay with Sam, so I had that view every single day… And it’s … Like … The flat was tiny, but the view … It doesn’t matter that it’s tiny. And I just knew that we needed that. So we found a place in Camps Bay and the house is … Ja, it’s got that view and it’s a … Because my parents moved to France, I had a lot of their old family furniture, like beautiful pieces of furniture and Sam’s father passed away a while ago, and he also had this very eclectic furniture. Very like, you know, the odd animal print chair or like a beautiful roller desk and it just all fit in perfectly. And I think ja, the reason why we like the house is it’s just all of our … Like … Stuff. It really is home and Sam has an amazing eye. It’s just the house is so fresh and light and it’s fun. We lie to people to avoid going to things, just to stay at home. A lot of people would want to get out the house, but we try our best to stay at home, because we really are in absolute heaven there and we got music going and a fire going and it’s our absolute best, really, it’s the dog, the baby, music, ja, it’s cool.

R: Thank you so much for telling us about you, and all the very best. I’m sure there are going to be many more ideas and many more schemes.

S: Well we’ll see how it goes. If ever get an idea, please shout.

R: Good luck.

S: Thank you very much, Ruda.

 


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