Mark Kaminsky

If your business depends on you, you don’t own a business – you have a job. And it’s the worst job in the world, because you’re working for a lunatic!” Michael E. Gerber.

I have always been fascinated with running my own business. To control my own destiny and dream while pursuing my passion and purpose. The problem though, like most entrepreneurs, we are all a bit extreme, or in Michael Gerber’s words, a lunatic.

But it’s about connecting the dots… the journey has to start somewhere.

I spent my first 13 years in business working in the corporate world, but quickly became frustrated with its apathy.

This fueled my passion to be an entrepreneur and take control of my destiny. So, after spending a few years at Sony, I started my own distributor business of Sony and other electronic products. Over the next several years this grew into an audio-visual company specializing in servicing many blue-chip companies throughout South Africa.

My real passion lies in inspiring people to do what inspires them and ignite possibility. During this time, I started a training business called Maximum Impact.

For the past 17 years I have worked as an entrepreneur, following a journey that sometimes ended in failure, and sometimes success. But as Michel Jordan said, “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

As long as I have failed forward, I counted it as a win.

In 2014, my brothers and I formed FitChef, a disruptive health food company. Together we built a business from the ground up as we successfully created a brand that dominates the online healthy frozen food industry, as we scaled the business rapidly throughout South Africa.

Connecting the dots as I look back, it has never been about arriving at the destination of owning a business. It has always been about the journey of discovering the boundaries of what is possible, and inspiring others to do more. The journey taught me the most valuable lesson – none of us is as good as all of us.

Teamwork makes the dream work. And that is why being part of The Alternative Board is a privilege every business owner must experience.