I never planned on being a book publisher. I never planned on writing 10 books. And I definitely didn’t plan on building a BookTech company. Yet here we are
When I first thought about writing a book, I stumbled on a post by James Altucher — my favourite blogger and author at the time (still is). He said it was perfectly fine to write a book that’s only 20-something pages long. This must have been around 2012 in one of his viral posts.
Or maybe the idea for a book came from the article of his. I don’t quite remember. But I do remember this: his book 40 Alternatives to College is only 52 pages long.
Here’s where everything really starts.
In 2012, after a string of failed entrepreneurial attempts, I had moved back home. I must have been stressed and depressed, although I don’t think I had those words for what I was feeling then.
Earlier that year, I had written an article called Great Brand Components. While working on it, I realised I never really used business plans — they were too long, too static, too impractical for daily work.
I suddenly saw the article for what it really was: a framework for how to think about and run a business. I reworked it, and it became the EBC Business Model, which eventually became my book Forget the Business Plan — Use This Short Model. The core idea was simple: Product × Marketing × Distribution = Cash Flow.
If you’re not generating cash flow, one of those three is broken.
Thank you, James, for planting the idea. My book ended up being 54 pages — short enough that I thought, James does short books, so maybe I can do one too.
Before that book, I had actually reached out to James in hopes of bringing him to South Africa for a speaking event. His team sent me a quote — thousands of dollars. I promised I would have the money by a certain date.
I had never seen that kind of money. I went around trying to find sponsors.
I failed. Sorry, James.
This was 2012.
Since then, I’ve written hundreds of proposals, several books, and become a publisher who pioneered and angel-invested in two genres — diary chronicles and ubuntu stoicism. And now, we’re raising a seed round for VentureBooks OS.
VentureBooks OS combines hyper-fast manuscript acquisition, AI-powered publishing, and scalable BookTech infrastructure into one platform that can monetize creativity globally. It will power our own IP imprint, and any publisher — from startup presses to established houses — beginning in Africa.
The idea began when we discovered 1,000+ high-traction manuscripts and asked ourselves:
How do we publish these faster, cheaper, and smarter — and transform them into global IP assets?
Because of that first book James inspired, we’ve uncovered countless publishing opportunities and possible solutions. But funding them from my own pocket has always been the bottleneck.
VentureBooks OS is the solution.
The plan is to scale to 10,000 of our own titles, plus thousands more from other publishers. The platform will integrate AI into everything from contract management to licensing books for film and other adaptations.
In short: We’re building the operating system for book publishing — starting in Africa, designed to scale worldwide.
