Fireside: Sandras Phiri at Pranary
An in-depth fireside conversation with Sandras Phiri (CEO of Pranary) on building The Duchess — manufacturing, fundraising, and the messy reality of growing a beverage brand out of South Africa.
Sandras Phiri, CEO of Pranary, runs one of the more substantive founder-development programmes in South Africa. In October 2022 we sat down for a fireside-format conversation about building The Duchess.
Sandras is an interviewer who pushes for specifics. We didn’t spend much time on the brand origin story (though it came up). We spent the bulk of the hour on three things:
Beverage manufacturing reality. Why we co-pack with Chill Beverages International in Stellenbosch rather than running our own line. The economics of contract manufacturing for an early-stage brand. When you should bring it in-house (mostly: never, until you absolutely have to).
Fundraising from where we were. I walked through the ZX Ventures round in 2019 and previewed the RMB co-investment that would close in December 2021. The thing I emphasised — and that Sandras pushed me on — was picking the investor. We turned down faster money to wait for the right partner. “We have not concluded any funding deal so far, as we believe that finding the right visionary partner is crucial.” That patience cost us 18 months of available capital. It earned us the right cap table.
Navigating growth in a competitive industry. The non-alcoholic spirits category went from “no one’s doing it” in 2016 to “everyone’s doing it” by 2022. Walking through how you defend a position when bigger brands enter your category is a useful framing for any founder running a category-creation play.
The Pranary audience is the right one for the conversation — operating founders, mostly second-time, mostly South African. If you’re building something and want a good cohort of peer founders to learn alongside, their programmes are worth a look: Pranary.