When I meet somebody who's been running his own company for 22 years, I expect him to look older than the barman.
Not JJ Milner, who walks through the lively Foundry Bar in Johannesburg with an ease and youthfulness that suggests he owns the place. It turns out he started his own business at the age of 17, so even after two decades of experience, he's only 39.
"I was a nerd," he says, "a library prefect and a keen hobbyist."
His great-grandfather was a co-founder of OK Bazaars, and his father bought an IBM mini-computer for the business, the first model available in the country. Milner was 12 when he started programming it.
"I literally started at the beginning and never looked back. In those days, it was possible to actually know everything because there wasn't that much to know," he says. By the time he went to university to study law, his PC and networking company was employing staff.
Its future direction was decided in 1999 as everyone panicked about the Year 2000 rollover. Customers asked Milner to create replica backup systems in case their own infrastructure caught Y2K fever. "Clients thought the sky was going to fall down. We didn't think there was any cause for alarm, and we didn't subscribe to the notion of clients being charged a fortune to certify their toasters," he remembers.
But clients were delighted by the centrally managed system he designed, because it freed them from being reliant on their own infrastructure. "That's how we started cloud computing. It wasn't a conscious decision to move in a certain direction."
Never about the money
Today Milner believes Global Micro is the country's largest cloud services provider. Yet it still has only 27 staff, with Milner owning 90% of the shares, a partner holding 5%, and 5% divided between the staff, as each employee is a shareholder.
Considering it has existed for so long, I ask why it didn't list or get bought out during the heady dotcom boom.
A deal nearly happened, but Milner was discussing a merger with a company that was itself acquired by Dimension Data. Global Micro could have jumped in too, but he wasn't ready to become part of a far larger entity. "I didn't think it was the right call for us. When Dimension Data was trading at R70 a share, people were telling me I'd made a mistake, but it was never about the money. I wasn't looking to get out, I was looking to grow and have a larger canvas."
In those days, it was possible to actually know everything because there wasn't that much to know.
He prides himself on recognising good and apt technologies before they are ready for prime time, and has a folder of technologies he's tracking. He watches them until the market is ready, the developer is open to partners, the price falls to a realistic level, or they flop and disappear. "With some technologies, we've waited five years to partner with them," he says.
Global Micro has also bought stakes in some companies, with Milner becoming a director to help the business grow. He loves that type of mentoring. "After 21 years in the business, I probably have been doing it longer than most people, so we have a lot we can share," he says. "Some of our resellers are two-man businesses, so we give them the book about how we run our business, how we sign employment agreements, how we recruit and remunerate our staff, and how we manage credit risk."
Father figure
It's not just the youngsters who learn either, he says. "More and more I have CEOs and managers recognising that there is some magic sauce we have to offer, and I spend time with them explaining our business."
Hopefully that mentoring has made Milner a good father figure, because, at the time of our interview, he was about to become a first-time dad. He didn't know if it was a boy or girl, saying there are so few surprises in life that this was one to savour.
I wasn't looking to get out, I was looking to grow and have a larger canvas.
He was single until four years ago. "I was very good at being a bachelor, and it wasn't that I was married to the job," he says. Even now he doesn't expect the baby to limit his movements much, although he says he'll probably have to be less selfish.
Although Global Micro sells cloud services, Milner travels extensively because he prefers to meet partners and vendors face-to-face. "Even with video-conferencing, there's no substitute for getting on a plane and going to visit my counterpart in the US or Europe and building a relationship. People still buy from people, and our strongest relationships are where I have flown to meet them or flown our staff overseas, so we have a direct line to the partners we are working with."
He also travels frequently with his wife. I ask how that's going to change with a child and he looks puzzled. "The baby will travel," he says. "We will probably have to travel with some extra help, but I'm a smart traveller, I travel with hand luggage. I just need to get the wife and baby to do the same and we'll be fine," he grins.
Then I remember to ask about his name, and what JJ stands for. It wasn't meant to stand for anything, he says. His father liked music and wanted to name his son after JJ Cale. But when his parents tried to put JJ on the birth certificate, the registrar insisted they choose two names. So technically he's called John Jason.
His main hobby is watching a lot of TV, and it's so unusual for anyone to admit to that that I'm keen to know what he watches. "I'm hooked on various series, the usual mindless drivel, because it's a good way to switch off," he says.
First published in May issue of Brainstorm magazine.
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