Jan Hugo: Welcome to The Relocated South African, the show for navigating immigration from South Africa for a better future. I’m your host, Jan Hugo from Lagos in Portugal. Check out our website www.therelocatedsouthafrican.com. It contains a lot of useful information and details of all episodes to date. If you want to interact with us or comment on our discussions or even participate in an interview, please contact me on jan@therelocatedsouthafrican.com.

Jan Hugo: Also, if you like our content, why not subscribe on your favourite platform? So today, welcome from Norway, Nicholas Kühne. Welcome, Nicholas.

Nicholas Kühne: Hi, Jan. How are you doing?

Jan Hugo: That’s great to have you. So Nicholas is the founder of Wunderbrand, a brand strategy and design agency started in Cape Town back in 2013. He’s worked with big names like Nando’s. He’s expanded across Africa and beyond, and now calls Norway his home where he also lectures in digital marketing and hosts his own popular podcast, From Startup to Wunderbrand. Nicholas, and I believe today you’ve cracked a million views on your podcast. Welcome and well done. Welcome to the show.

Nicholas Kühne: Thank you. I mean, you know how tough it is to grow a podcast as well. So, you know, you’ve got to celebrate these little numbers. It’s not Joe Rogan numbers yet. And you obviously paid a lot of money to have me on the show. So thank you, thank you.

Nicholas Kühne: Oh yeah, damn. So I must say, interesting point, you’re from Lagos in Portugal and I lived in Lagos, Nigeria for many years as well, which is quite fun.

Jan Hugo: I saw that on your CV on LinkedIn the other day and I saw you on a photo on a bike, some funny bike in Lagos.

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah. It’s called an Okada, and it’s basically what was the main mode of transport for the majority of Nigerians. And I didn’t have a driver during the weekends or at night because the driver had to have a rest, but the company didn’t think I needed to get around during my free times.

Nicholas Kühne: I think it is equivalent of about R2,500. And I bought an old 50, it was a 50 or 80 CC Bajaj with cardboard brakes. It hardly worked. And there’s, I don’t know what it is on the, I’m not a real bike guy, but whatever, as you’re driving it charges the battery. And you had to go a certain speed for the light to shine, otherwise you couldn’t see where you’re going. That was fine when you’re on the roads, but the last 500 metres to our compound, you would do danger diving. And that’s when you needed the lights. And I couldn’t see anything. So you drive through piles of excrement, you drive over a sleeping goat or something, because you couldn’t see because I couldn’t get the revs up high enough. And that’s before I had kids. So now I’m not allowed on any bikes.

Jan Hugo: I was going to say, at least we call it Lagos, to be sure it’s in Portuguese, but it’s not the same. We don’t have the same issues. But it isn’t a scam call, right?

Nicholas Kühne: No.

Jan Hugo: Anyway, well, I always start with just a bit of background. Nicholas, where did you grow up? Go to school and study. And how did you get to live in Norway?

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah. So I’m originally from Bloemfontein, actually. So I was born in Bloem, where some of the best people come from, I’m told. My dad was an Anglican priest, so we moved around a little bit. My sister was born in Welkom, so they moved to Vereeniging, and then we ended back up in Johannesburg. I went to St. Peter’s for primary school, St. Martin’s in the south of Johannesburg for my primary school, and then St. John’s in Houghton for high school. Then I got a cricket and cultural scholarship to go and play cricket and sing in a choir at a fancy English private school or public school.

Nicholas Kühne: Didn’t like England, came back to South Africa and went to RAU, as it was called then, because my mom went to Wits and she said, you can’t go to Wits. So I just went to, and my degree took so long that it was University of Johannesburg by the time I finished. I did my degree in marketing and communications. And I mean, since I left university, but almost like a gypsy sort of travelling from place to place. I had an opportunity to go to Nigeria in 2003 and that was my first sort of sojourn out of South Africa and I became one of the few South Africans with experience in Africa. You know, career-wise in that I was moved around Africa and Asia and places like that as an emerging market specialist focusing specifically on branding, marketing, youth research, and I don’t know if you want me just to jump over to Norway if you want the whole spiel.

Jan Hugo: Whatever. I mean, it sounds really interesting. I must say, I worked at Standard Bank for a short while, and my colleagues always went to Nigeria and they had interesting stories. So I always said, I didn’t want to go to Nigeria.

Nicholas Kühne: Look, I think when being young and single going to Nigeria is great, because if you die, nobody’s, you know, your parents will miss you, but that’s okay. Afterwards when you get a family, then going to Nigeria, they need to pay you enough money to go there. But I went up to Nigeria and I’ve got an abiding love for Nigeria, Nigerian food and the people. Fabulous place. If you can survive the trip from the airport to the mainland. So if you can get over that bridge without dying, the rest of your trip is actually quite, quite fine.

Jan Hugo: That sounds horrific.

Nicholas Kühne: It is. I mean, I’ve seen bodies. I’ve nearly died a couple of times on that bridge. Either trucks about to fall on you or just maniacs driving on that bridge. And the bridge is very wonky. So as you drive, the faster you go, the more wave-like it is. It was a horror. But Victoria Island is fabulous. Yeah. And after that, as I mentioned, I was one of the few folks at that stage in marketing who had experience outside of South Africa up in Africa. So I was seen as an Africa specialist and I joined Nando’s and I helped expand the brand in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, all of the fun countries. And then moved to Cape Town, then joined Interbrand, which was the world’s largest brand agency.

Nicholas Kühne: Again, because of my Africa experience, I was back in Nigeria, then came back to South Africa, joined King Pie as marketing manager, one of my great brands and a great place to work. And then I joined MTV as head of marketing for Africa and launched Comedy Central as well while I was there. So quite a lot of international experience working with interesting brands. Then went back to Interbrand as managing director for West Africa. And then I decided now I can do this myself, or better or cheaper. So I started Wunderbrand at that stage and then decided, you know, kids, get married, you know, you do everything, you do everything at once when you start your business as you should. And that business did quite well for quite a few years. We had a big office in Johannesburg. We had international clients. We beat local and international brand agencies. But the sort of security situation was deteriorating in South Africa, you know, and I had a young family, two little kids, a beautiful wife. And there were break-ins and robberies and all sorts of things happening around us. So I decided, you know, let’s, we need to look for somewhere, if I’m travelling so much that we need a slightly safer spot. First opportunity came up in Malaysia. So we moved and, well, we immigrated to Malaysia and we were there for nearly four years. Fabulous place, made tons of friends. That could be a separate discussion on moving to Malaysia. Why to move or why not to move to Malaysia.

Jan Hugo: Were you in KL?

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah, in KL. And the only reason we didn’t stay is because you can’t get permanent residence. And with two kids, you kind of want them to be citizens in some way so they grow up and become citizens of a place and being sort of constantly second-class citizens in a new country without the opportunity of getting a passport or becoming properly Malaysian. I thought long-term this is not really a solution. And how the Norwegian thing came up is a friend of mine who was a creative director at my agency had moved to Norway and said, oh, you must come here. It’s wonderful. This place is brilliant. And I thought, I’ve never met a Norwegian. It sounds very cold. And, you know, we’re relatively happy here in Malaysia. But then Google reached out to me for a role, a regional role in Scandinavia. And I thought, okay, Norway actually doesn’t sound so bad. We’re looking at moving from Malaysia. And we looked at the UK. We looked at Australia. We looked at the US. We looked at Canada. And none of them really excited us that much. We didn’t want to go necessarily and hang out with a whole bunch of South Africans in New Zealand and in Australia. And the UK, I’d lived there. And all the press on the UK, it’s a bit cold, it’s very expensive. So I thought, no, we don’t really want to go to the UK either. And at that stage, the US is also prohibitively expensive.

Nicholas Kühne: Norway, we thought, ooh, that’s going to be extremely expensive. We’ve never been able to afford Norway. But after I went through seven rounds of interviews with Google. And at the same time, the university here in Oslo, I reached out to them and there was a role available for me there as a digital marketing lecturer. So I had the two roles and at the end, the Google role fell through because I didn’t speak Norwegian, which I did tell them right in the beginning. But so I went through the interview process for the university role and got that role. And I moved over first. I was in Norway for three months before my family. I thought, if I can survive the winter, then maybe this can be a place we can stay. And nearly four years later, having not died from the cold or polar bears or icicles murdering you from buildings, we’re still here in Norway.

Jan Hugo: That’s a really interesting journey, especially coming from the heat in KL. I mean, that is stifling. I’ve been there when that kind of fog descends on the place.

Nicholas Kühne: It’s more smog than fog. 32 degrees a year, night and day. So we were actually quite happy to come to a cold country.

Jan Hugo: I can just imagine. And are you guys travelling on South African passports? Do you have a German one?

Nicholas Kühne: No, I’m on a South African passport, the Groen Mamba. But my wife and my kids are on dual South African and Taiwanese passports. So my wife is Taiwanese. Her story is interesting as well. She moved to South Africa when she was seven. So it sounds just like you and me, actually more South African sounding than me.

Jan Hugo: Yeah. They’ve got the Taiwanese passport and the South African passport. Well, that’s really, really interesting. Yeah, that helps. And I mean, you guys will qualify for, as Chantal and Norman said, about five years, then you can become a citizen. Is that right?

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah. So we’ve just got our permanent residence after three years. And if you are employed, haven’t been on the equivalent of the dole or any sort of community assistance here, then yeah, five, six years, you can get your citizenship. If you have not been working, not been paying tax, or there’s been a break in your employment, then it’ll go to the eight years. And I think they’re gonna extend it to 10 years at some stage for some folks. So if you’re a law-abiding, tax-paying person, they’re quite happy to have you.

Jan Hugo: Excellent. And language-wise, Nicholas?

Nicholas Kühne: So when I first got here, I thought, oh, that’s going to be a problem. But honestly, they speak beautiful English here. So you can honestly get by without speaking a word of Norwegian, except, hello, how much is this? And thanks if you wanted to. But obviously, that’s not going to help you get your permanent residence or integrate a bit better. But Oslo is quite cosmopolitan. So there are lots of foreign people here as well. And you can get by for as long as you need without having to speak a word of Norwegian, basically.

Jan Hugo: But at the university, is that not an issue?

Nicholas Kühne: I take my classes all in English.

Jan Hugo: Okay. So that’s not an issue.

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah. So I take it in English. But my Norwegian is at a level now that for the last two years I allow the class to speak to me in Norwegian, but I respond in English because you don’t sound slow and a bit off when you speak halting Norwegian.

Jan Hugo: Okay. Well done. That’s great. And in terms of kind of the biggest adjustment moving to Norway, and let’s take the weather out of it. What’s kind of been for you guys the biggest adjustment?

Nicholas Kühne: You can start with the negatives, which obviously is the social side. We’ve had kids. So wherever you go in Malaysia, South Africa and Nigeria, places like that, the schools are quite a good social hub for meeting friends and people and the kids hang around and the families hang around. That’s quite different here in Norway. So people, for example, drop the kids off at the door and leave. They won’t even necessarily, they won’t come in, they won’t even very often do the pleasantries and that. And the same thing with kids parties and school events and things like that. Because it’s safe here, the kids quite often as they get older just do it by themselves. So you don’t really get to meet the parents and they are quite strict with alcohol here. There are no, you know, when you go to sports events in that, there’s no alcohol. It’s Coca-Cola. It’s coffee and their local soft drinks in that. So there’s no, and there’s no braais and things like that. They’ve got hot dogs and waffles. That seems to be what they subsist on. Yeah. So meeting the kids’ friends has been quite, and the kids’ friends and parents, has been quite tough.

Nicholas Kühne: And my wife is very social. I’m not as social. I can do podcasts and I speak to new people every day. So and I’ve got my students in class. But I think for some people, it’s quite tough to meet new folks because they are quite, they’re very polite and they’re lovely, but they’re not going to go out of their way to invite you to things or invite you to their houses because generally people have quite small apartments in town. So they’re not going to have 100 people coming over for dinner like you would in South Africa. The social side has been quite a big adjustment. The other adjustment, the positive adjustment, is that the kids can run riot here. So my eldest son is 12. And when he was 10, he was riding his bicycle to school, which is about two kilometres away, by himself in the dark, going to sports events. You know, he’s gone up to Lillehammer, which is where they had the Winter Olympics, by himself on the train to go to bobsleigh and things like that. So it’s just, it’s in the beginning, it’s quite this weird feeling of letting my babies go. And then you see little children, little girls, pigtails and things like that on the train by themselves walking down the road back home. That has been quite a big shift, being able to let go a little bit of that security side. Yeah, so those have been the two major things for me, the socialising and then the security.

Jan Hugo: And there’s not a big South African community. I mean, what I found in every discussion is South Africans gravitate towards other South Africans because it’s easy. But my understanding from the previous guys is that there’s not a huge South African community.

Nicholas Kühne: In the words of my oupa, I am quite lucky. Our university does a lot of online courses as well. So we’ve got tons of South Africans. We are sort of the cheap European labour, if you can put it that way. And in our office, there are probably five South Africans and throughout the rest of the business, maybe another 20, 30, and I know in South Africa, there’s about 50. So there are quite a few South Africans spread around Norway. And I think the majority of them work at our university. They plucked up some of the best guys from, and they’re all from PE. And PE is a strange place. So they’re all interesting folks. So we’ve got a lot of PE expats.

Jan Hugo: Okay, that’s interesting. Well, the interesting point that people made, the other day I had an interview with a lady in Sweden, and she was saying that there are some South Africans, but you don’t necessarily become friends just because they’re South Africans, because they don’t necessarily have the same values, see life the way you do, and therefore, you don’t necessarily become friends with them. So I guess that’s part of immigration.

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah, look, I was quite clear with myself when I moved both to Malaysia and to Norway. We don’t necessarily want to be like… I don’t know if you remember when Rhodesia went kaput and we had a whole bunch of Rhodesians in South Africa and they’d call them the Whenwes. And you could always tell the Rhodesians by the clothes that they wore. You could say, ah, there’s a Rhodesian. So they stood out. They spoke about Rhodesia. And I don’t really want to become one of those as a South African. And I want to become a naturalised Norwegian. And I’ve decided, because I’ve left this marvellous place, South Africa, I don’t want to now think back to it the whole time and prevent that, and I have that as something preventing me from being a Norwegian. It’s obviously more difficult for me as a grown-up versus my kids who speak fluent Norwegian, do all Norwegian things, and for them it’s easier. But I don’t really want to be harking back to South Africa or hanging around South Africans and saying, oh, remember this, remember that. The whole point is to look forward and not be held back by what was, etc. So for me, that’s quite important. But for my wife, she’s not as miserable with South Africa as I am. So she’s still very pro-South Africa and is very happy to have as many South African friends as possible. And it’s an easier social group than trying to bust your way into the Norwegian social set. But she’s doing that as well, which is nice.

Jan Hugo: But that’s very good. Yeah. I had Nic Latouf from the podcast the other day from the Lekker Network. And he said, we’re the only people that call ourselves ex-South Africans. So Irish, and it’s quite true. If you think about it, Irish guys go to America. They’re still Irish. They’re not ex-Irish. When we go to America, we call ourselves ex-South Africans.

Nicholas Kühne: It’s funny you mentioned that because it’s actually something I wanted to discuss with you a little bit because, and it’s this whole thing about, you know, the South African culture. And you asked me before this call about my surname and so on. I’m English, so I’m Manx, so I’ve got from the Isle of Man, I’m English English, I’ve got Austrian blood, German blood, some Portuguese blood and, you know, a mixed proper colonial blend. And, you know, coming to Europe has been quite interesting. You know, I see myself as an Anglo-Saxon because I’ve got the German and the English side. And I kind of feel that the South African experiment was, you know, part of my life and so on and now that’s over. And I don’t, I think you mentioned the Irish and so on. Most of those migrants who go there become the best migrants or the best Americans. And I want to be the best Norwegian. And I think for me, you know, I was even thinking maybe I should, you know, change my surname because the Germans don’t have a good history here in Norway either. And my great uncle was in the Luftwaffe stationed here. So I try not to mention the war. But, you know, if you’re going to make the leap and not go back, you should do it wholeheartedly, I think.

Jan Hugo: I totally agree. You can’t look over your shoulder. Excuse me, Paul Harris in an interview that I did with him said that immigration takes five years out of your life. So if you go back, you put yourself back so far. So it’s better to make the call, take time to make the call, do your due diligence, go, don’t look over your shoulder, because you will find reasons to go back. And a lot of people do that. So, you know, there’s lots of talk of more South Africans now returning from the UK than going to the UK. Maybe that’s the case. I can see why they leave the UK.

Nicholas Kühne: I don’t know of any people who, I know one person who is moving back to Cape Town, but I don’t know anyone who’s voluntarily going back to South Africa. I think, look, South Africa, we’ve got friends, we’ve got family. My mom and dad and sister are still in SA, so there is that link. But once my folks pass away, that’s it. I will never ever set foot in South Africa again. Even in Norway now, I’m sure you love the Portuguese wines, Jan. I mean, the Douro wines, I thought South Africa made the best wines in the world. I still think the Jacques Bruyère, the Bon Courage Cap Classique is the best champagne in the world, so you can’t change my mind on that. But the Portuguese wines, fabulous. I still don’t understand the French wines, but there’s other stuff out there in the world that you get to discover once you leave SA. So it’s not like you’re having a worse-off time.

Jan Hugo: Yeah, we haven’t been back in five years. We left in October 2020. So we haven’t been back and we haven’t got anything on the horizon to go back, you know, because there’s so much else to explore at this stage and it’s expensive and so forth. So yeah, I mean, I’m like you. And apart from the wines being good, they’re cheap as well.

Nicholas Kühne: Well, I mean, Norway, nothing is cheap here.

Jan Hugo: I was there in 1995. Funny, in Oslo and Lillehammer, we were looking at the lottery at that time. And the funniest thing was going out with business guys. And they got absolutely rat-faced every time because the company paid. They couldn’t afford alcohol themselves. So it was so funny. And then we found out what it costs. So it is expensive, I believe.

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah. So what people do here is they have pre-drinks. So you’ll get half shitfaced at home and then you go out and buy one or two beers at the restaurant. So there’s a specific term for it. I can’t remember it in Norwegian, but yeah, that’s it, it’s ridiculous.

Jan Hugo: So I mean, just thinking about your move there, and I laughed when Norman and Chantal van Wyk told the story about the cat disappearing at the airport. I mean, that is so funny. Do you guys have any funny stories when you moved across, especially from Malaysia?

Nicholas Kühne: Well, we came from Malaysia with no warm clothes at all, nothing. And one of the things that you realise in Norway, it’s a lot like Cape Town. You just got to be prepared for the weather. Again, as my oupa said, there’s no bad weather in Cape Town. It’s just the weather. So you’ve just got to prepare for it. So you’ve always got to have a jacket. The weather forecast and that are pretty good. And what you learn is how important wool is. Wool underpants, wool t-shirts, just everything, everything is wool. And in terms of what we brought over, we brought an entire, we had an entire container of our goodies that we were going to bring here. And then we looked at, saw the sizes of the flats. So my wife went back to Malaysia, emptied half of the container and got rid of half of the container.

Nicholas Kühne: And also when you move to a new country, you don’t know what appliances work or what equipment and what things are going to be useful for you here. Obviously, clothing here is also very expensive. And if you consider, you know, coming from Malaysia, which is in the East, so everything is cheap as chips and in South Africa as well. So what we did, which I’d recommend to anyone moving to Norway, and it’ll be difficult for the middle-class South Africans to do this, but you’ve got to go to the equivalent of the hospice shop. So it’s called Fretex, which is the Salvation Army. And let me just tell you, the Salvation Army here is not your mother’s Salvation Army. This is, you can get all of the name brands and everything you can dream of second-hand at the Fretex or at the charity shops here. And they are big businesses because in Norway, people aren’t very extravagant in terms of brands, but they pay particular attention on the quality of the clothes that they wear. So as soon as that t-shirt has got one crease in it, out it goes to the second-hand shop. As soon as your shoes are not glittering white anymore, off they go to the second-hand shop. So we bought our cups and saucers and all of the things that we needed from these second-hand shops and the charity shops. I’ve got young boys, so the rate they go through clothes as well, it’s been fantastic. Not everyone likes thinking about that, but coming to Norway, where things are so expensive, that’s a really good way just to figure out what outfits and what types of clothes you need. Go check out the charity shops, and you can try out things before you have to pay full price at the main shops.

Jan Hugo: That’s excellent advice, and I normally ask advice towards the end of the interview, but we’ll get to that. Just put a pin in this container story. I mean, we’ve been victims of that. We went to France with a 40-foot container and all our stuff is now donated to a South African couple, a young couple that lived there. It’s just, as you say, the houses are so small. You arrive with these big couches, they go nowhere. And when we came to Portugal, you buy a house with furniture in it. So we literally kept a couple of beds and that’s it. The rest of the stuff was here. And as you exchange, you also have charity shops and you donate stuff and you buy new stuff. So yeah, a lot of people make that mistake and travel. I’ve heard it so many times, people pack containers and the best advice probably is just think what’s precious to you. Don’t try and recreate what you had in South Africa.

Nicholas Kühne: Absolutely, yeah, because the setup is completely different in whatever country you’re going to. And it’s not that expensive. It’s actually cheaper setting up in a new country. If you had sold all that crap back in SA, you would have been able to use that money to go and buy the one or two bits that you needed in the new place. And especially if you’re not necessarily moving directly into a house that you own, like I say, I mean, we’re renting in Norway. So half the furniture that is already in here and all of the equipment and all the TVs and things like that. So half the stuff you’ve got is going to be superfluous anyway. Definitely rather sell the stuff. These countries have everything that you need. And after you get through the initial shock of prices, it’s not so bad.

Jan Hugo: Yeah, especially if you start earning in the hard currency. I totally agree with you. Just in terms of doing business, you know, you’ve still got Wunderbrand and so you lecture and you do business. Are you still working actively in the emerging markets or have you moved more to Europe now?

Nicholas Kühne: My specialisation is emerging markets. But to be honest, my two major clients are in Switzerland and in Nigeria. So I’ve got sort of spanning those markets. The Swiss clients in that, because our team is in South Africa, so the cost is cheaper than the Europeans. So that works. And the Nigerian client just because of years of experience and knowledge in that particular area. So yeah, the reason I also moved to Norway is it’s very difficult working in India, working in Nigeria, working in Ghana, working in Sri Lanka. It’s a young man’s game. And I’m a bit younger than you. But man, it’s tiring and you’ve got to be extremely passionate about those markets. And a little bit of that passion for emerging markets has sort of dwindled.

Jan Hugo: Disappointing. Disappointing. I think, you know, as you say, once you’ve got a family, it gets more and more difficult to spend that much time on the road and be away from family on weekends and that kind of thing. So I totally understand that. So how did you decide to start a podcast?

Nicholas Kühne: Well, because I love money. And I heard podcasting is a great way to earn lots of bucks.

Jan Hugo: That costs money. It’s like golf.

Nicholas Kühne: Because of my lecturing in marketing, what I try and do with the podcast is align it to my curriculum that I’m teaching my students as well. So when you’re talking social media, I speak to social media experts. I’m talking about email, I speak to an email expert. And this does two things. It gives me good content. And number two, keeps me ahead of what’s going on in these various markets because there’s so much going on in the marketing and branding world that it’s impossible for one person to really stay up to date. So the reason I started it is my whole reason behind starting Wunderbrand as a company was when I was at the large international brand agency, we had a lot of companies come to us from these emerging markets saying, oh, we really would like to build a brand. And the fees would be $200,000 at that stage. And these smaller guys couldn’t afford it. And I thought, let me start Wunderbrand to help these emerging market guys get the brand help that they need. And From Startup to Wunderbrand is really about giving entrepreneurs, startups, and students the tools of the trade to be able to build their business correctly, their marketing engine correctly from the get-go by listening to people who know what they’re talking about. We speak to, we talk about medium and small businesses, not, we don’t talk about Tesla, we don’t talk about Facebook, we don’t talk about all of these mega brands and how they built their brands because you can just go and read the Harvard Business Review on that. We talk about the guys who are making, you know, $100,000 a year, $500,000, $10 million a year. So not the mega, mega businesses. And how did these guys use marketing, brand, email, website optimisation, etc., to build their brands and their business? So it really is functional marketing for people who are actually going to do the marketing themselves or have a small team. And yeah, as you mentioned, we’ve just hit over a million views. It took two years to get to a million downloads and two years and one month to get to 1.2 million. So, you know, I’ll give you some, that should give you some heart because it does, you know, it does grow quite quickly after a certain point, but it’s not very quick. Yeah. And you get to meet fabulous people.

Jan Hugo: It’s like sitting at the pub talking to interesting people and then spilling their guts on how they do things. So it’s fantastic.

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah. And I, you know, my wife says our social life has gone to bits because I say, well, I meet people every day. New people. I had five interviews last week. So I’m having a lekker time, you know.

Jan Hugo: Exactly. But no, it’s very interesting. One of the things that really fascinates me, and maybe slightly off the topic, but is, you know, I mean, podcast has kind of taken over from radio. But I get the sense that Joe Rogan, you mentioned Joe Rogan. He’s got, I don’t know, three million followers or whatever. Every episode’s about three million. He makes a lot of money out of it. And those episodes can run up to two, three hours. It works for me because I ride my bike and I listen to that. But I had an interesting experience. I had a 38-second clip from an episode the other day where it was a guy who teaches Afrikaans in America at a university. And we took a clip that was 38 seconds where he was talking about a time when he was in Holland and he faked the Dutch accent. It was actually a funny story.

Nicholas Kühne: I heard that story. It was great. And that episode is what got me onto you.

Jan Hugo: Okay, excellent. But you know that thing on TikTok, and I’m not a big TikTok person, it’s still going. It’s got 380,000 views already and daily more than a hundred comments. So I’m starting to think there must be something about shorter content. I don’t know if AI is maybe going to take us there where they summarise a podcast into a shorter podcast. I don’t know. I love it. I really enjoy it, but it’s just made me think about the length of what you do.

Nicholas Kühne: Well, I’ll put my marketing hat on now. You’ve got the customer journeys. You’ve got to take people from, you know, awareness. So I didn’t know about your podcast before I saw that, but I didn’t listen to, and then it sent me on to your, to listen to the full episode, and then I listened to some other episodes of yours. So that can’t be, you can’t just do the shorts because that’s not going to, you need the content, good content in order to do the shorts. And you’ll most probably find that the amount of people going from those 300,000 people that viewed on TikTok, not very many of them are going to convert to your podcast. So the different channels, your choice of the channel is important as well. From the Instagram channel, that’s where I think I saw again on your Instagram channel. So that’s where I clicked on your links and on the links I found you. And then I went to the website, I checked out the website and then I reached out to you. So each of those channels has a function in terms of driving either listenerships or getting people to subscribe. Or to getting people on your show or to some stage getting people saying if I’m a relocation expert or if I’m Bidvest, so one of these guys doing, or if I’m a smart wealth planner I should chat to Jan and get them, and a sponsor show, books, look at the views that is getting. So you’ve got the vanity metrics on TikTok that you can say look how many people are gonna see your ad or see your little logo. And that’s something that you can use as a driver for, you know, for getting sponsorships or getting bigger names onto your show. So yeah, you’re just going to continue learning as you go through this and you’re going to make some dumb mistakes and spend more money on crap that you don’t need like me. But just keep it nice and simple and have good conversations.

Jan Hugo: You must know that I’m an introvert accountant. It’s an introvert accountant that was a helicopter pilot, not the things that you need to be a good communicator. But anyway, we’re learning as we go along. I’m just finding it a fascinating journey and a fascinating thing to do. And in terms of your podcast, who was the most interesting person that you interviewed?

Nicholas Kühne: So there’s a mix of interesting versus useful. The most interesting guy wasn’t necessarily the most useful, but I think the best chap that I spoke to is a guy called John Keithan Coyle. And he speaks about a very important subject, which I’m sure you’d understand. And I’d recommend that any person stuck in their career or stuck in a specific place in their life listens to. And it’s all about not fixing your weaknesses. So it’s not marketing related necessarily, but he was an Olympic silver, Olympic speed skater. And he was just talking about he had natural skills in one particular area. And because he was deficient in one particular area like his aerobic reconditioning or something, the coaches just focused on that to try and improve that. And it meant that his overall fitness and his whatever special juice he had running through his body wasn’t utilised properly anymore. And he dropped out of the team and he did terribly. As soon as he just focused on his specific strengths and his focus areas, he beat the national records, got silver in the Olympics, etc. But what he was talking about is the importance of focusing on your strengths, not your weaknesses. And everyone says, oh, for example, you’re an accountant and a helicopter pilot. I’m sure people in your life have said, okay, you’re not great at painting or creativity, you must be a bit more creative. Then you’d be a kak creative and you’d be a half-assed accountant as well versus just being very good at your one particular area. There are lots of other people who can go and do that. And it also means you’re wasting your time on things that you shouldn’t be focusing your attention on. Focus on your strengths and don’t listen to people who say you need to work on your weaknesses. Obviously, if you’ve got a drinking problem, work on that. But in terms of your personality and in terms of your work in that, if there’s an area that you’re good at, don’t try and be half-assed at something else. You know, diabolically focus on the areas that you’re good at. And a lot of people find it difficult because they want to please everyone.

Jan Hugo: Yeah, it’s similar, that guy who wrote Atomic Habits. He was on Diary of a CEO the other day. And, you know, again, I’ve got the book and that unbelievable focus that he’s talking about, but also don’t write yourself off. Yeah. He said he uses the word show up. You know, if you don’t have time to train for an hour, go and train for half an hour, but show up and that’s, I guess it ties into what your guest said.

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah, it’s a fascinating world, this podcast, it’s just there’s so many, you know, and the content matters. So it’s really good to have good people. And the majority of my guests were fantastic. There were some ones which are awful, and they would say, that’s a great question, the whole time. And those kill you. And those who you give a question to, and they just give you a one-sentence answer, and then you’re left waiting, is there more? So as you start going through more interviews, you’ll see the importance of being able to have conversations and a little bit of backwards and forwards between the host and the guest. If it’s just the guest jabbering on for the entire show or not showing any interest in the host, it also gets a little bit dull.

Jan Hugo: No, I totally agree with you. And there’s so many issues today. This is the other question I kind of had in terms of South Africans. I mean, if you look at South Africans abroad, I kind of have a sense that we are a successful people because we’re extremely driven. We come from diverse backgrounds with lots of issues and we arrive overseas and South Africans generally work hard. Do you agree with that sentiment?

Nicholas Kühne: South Africans typically, in all areas that I’ve seen overseas, put in the extra effort. I don’t know if it’s because we’re trying to make up for something, so we try and show people we’re worth it, because I’ll just give an example in Nigeria. There was a caste system in Nigeria of consultants. There were the Americans who were paid the most, then there were the English who were paid almost the same, then there were the South Africans, then there were the Indians, then there were the locals. So there was a caste system even in the European side, from Americans, British and Australians, and then South Africans. So we kind of are at a slight disadvantage when we go overseas. We are seen in, I think, in a different light to the Brits and the Americans. And I think we, like Avis, we try harder to show up these guys that we’re just as good as you and we can do as good a job if not better, you lot. And there is a Calvinist work ethic in South Africa, so the majority of us, whether we like it or not, we’ve got that Calvinist mindset of working hard, doing what you’re told and just, you know, getting things done. And that I think is the big thing that South Africans have got an advantage on, is just getting things done, not complaining. If things don’t work, you’re going to find a way to make it work. And because we’ve had to deal with so many different cultures and so on in South Africa, we’re quite good at being chameleons and changing to the needs of those particular cultures or areas that we’re in. And we can talk to, you know, we can talk to African people, we can talk to Asian people, we can talk to American people. We know, we’ve watched all their TV programmes and we’ve lived amongst all of these different peoples. We are quite well adapted to move into new countries and do well.

Jan Hugo: Yeah, I guess, you know, the reason why I ask that is, again, this Lekker Network that the guys have started and seems to be going places and they have a lot of case studies of people. And a lot of them are really newly established South Africans who live overseas and need help on something. And it’s just a matter of connecting, connecting, connecting. And they seem to have a lot of success. But for me, it’s got a lot to do with the drive and determination of South Africans to succeed. And this interview that was on Monday with this guy who is a filmmaker in America, somebody in this movie that he made, maybe you’ve seen it, it’s called The Journey Home. It’s on Amazon. It’s really worth a watch where he made with kids in America and their family and just adapting and talking about immigration. But somebody said, now that I live outside South Africa, I feel more South African than ever before, which is quite an interesting way of looking at it. But I kind of almost think there’s merit in it because here we’re just South Africans there.

Nicholas Kühne: In South Africa, there’s so many other politics and things involved in defining who you are. Interesting you bring that up because I have always stood out in every country that I’ve been in. So in South Africa, you’ll know we were the minority in South Africa. So you can spot a white South African. When I lived in Nigeria, I was often the only white person I would see for weeks at a time. When I lived in Malaysia, not millions of white folks there. Being in Sri Lanka, India, etc. I’d always been this very, like a thumb sticking out. And being in Norway, I’m just a regular person. Nobody looks at me, unfortunately, a second time. And it’s been very, on the positive side, it’s been great. I don’t stand out. But on the other side, oh, no, I don’t stand out. And there is a little bit of that feeling, but I’m quite comfortable here because there’s no expectations. Nobody looks at you in a strange way here in Norway because they all look pretty similar, okay? Maybe more blonde and more beautiful and skinnier. But from that South African perspective and thinking, feeling more South African being out of the country, I suppose it depends what community you’re in, what kind of work you’re doing, what country you go to. When I was in Malaysia, I was a South African living in Malaysia. So it was very obvious that I wasn’t an Australian or an American, etc. So and we had, and we were the South Africans in our international group and we had braaivleis and pap and things and had braai’s and so on. But in Norway, we’re just regular people and we do regular, regular people things. I think that’s an important thing to focus on. If you want to be different, you can celebrate your differences in certain countries that you go to. And perhaps in maybe in America, they sort of want you to melt into the pot there. But I suppose people are starting to get more tribal in terms of saying, well, I’m this American, whereas in Norway, you’re just a Norwegian.

Jan Hugo: So they speak to everyone in Norwegian first. And then if you speak something else, they’ll speak to you in English, but they assume you’re a Norwegian. And I quite like that.

Nicholas Kühne: Yes, exactly.

Jan Hugo: Well, so the sceptic in me would say that when the Springboks start losing, maybe we won’t feel so South African because it’s been very easy the last few years, you know, to walk around bree bors, but because nobody here gives two hoots about rugby.

Nicholas Kühne: There are a couple of rugby teams with some old South African players in it and Australians and Brits in that. And there is a little bit of cricket, but yeah, I just have to go to the sports pubs by myself and hopefully there’s some rugby on which there generally isn’t. But yeah, I look at the highlights and very proud of the South Africans.

Jan Hugo: Thinking again about business, doing business in Norway, having a business there versus South Africa, I mean, it must be very different given the laws and the stuff that’s currently in South Africa. Does that affect you with your people that you still have in South Africa?

Nicholas Kühne: So I don’t do any business in Norway. So I keep it quite a nice clean split. Next year, I’m going to be closing down the South African business and relocating all of it to Norway because the tax and the financial side is something that I need to keep organised. But for now, it’s okay operating out of South Africa. But when we get citizenship and so on, everything must be in Norway. I want all my businesses here, pay all my tax here and keep things simple. I was thinking, oh, maybe I could open a business in Estonia and do it. You can’t do anything. You can’t avoid SARS. You can’t avoid the Norwegian tax system. They’re very good. Trying to keep everything as structured and simple as possible. And again, I think in South Africa we get a little bit sour about spending, paying so much tax because you get nothing for it. But I am very happy to give the Norwegian government my tax money because I see it. I see it in my kids. I see it in the schools. I see it all over. So take my money while I’ve still got kids. So I’m very happy and they support us very well, that we pay half tax in November. We get all sorts of benefits and so on. So I’m not, you know, I’m getting advantages out of the system and I’m very happy to be paying my portion. And in terms of the business, when it starts, we’re on a growth drive for next year. So as it starts ramping up again, that tax money will be going to the Norwegians, not to Luthuli House.

Jan Hugo: Yeah. Now, the Palestinian problem, I think that was the last question you can answer. And the Pope. Catholics.

Nicholas Kühne: Please not.

Jan Hugo: I was speaking to my brother earlier and he said, he said they were playing bowls today in South Africa. And I said, aren’t you working? He said, yeah, there’s Dingaansdag. And I said, oh my word, I’m giving away my age. I’ll probably get shot. Oh my goodness. I’ll get shot for that, but anyway.

Nicholas Kühne: That’s a wonderful one. My dad also said it’s Tsafendas Day, but anyway, yeah, that’s odd. Yeah, I remember he shot Verwoerd. Oh my word. Now I’m giving away my age.

Jan Hugo: And Nicholas, you were talking about sports. Have you taken up snow sports living in Norway?

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah, so let me tell you, the first thing, I’ll move away from sports for two seconds. Okay. We were talking about sort of getting to Norway. The first thing that I did when I got into Oslo is I joined a big fancy choir, because I sang in the Johannesburg Symphony Choir, I sang in the RAU Choir, I sang in St. Stithians Choir, I sang in the Cathedral Choir. I’ve been singing since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and I wasn’t able to keep a regular schedule. And I thought what better way to meet locals, learn the language and sing than join the choir. So I’ve been singing in the choir and just like a good old South African, you know, I’ve already been singing solos and things like that. So taking the locals on. And that’s been a fantastic way to learn the culture. We sing at a big church here for the Christenings and baptisms. So you get to see the whole Lutheran services and things like that. So that’s been one of my great joys. And we sing the Bach’s Christmas Oratorio every year. We’re singing Mozart’s Requiem next year. We’ve sung all sorts of wonderful big oratorio pieces. So that’s my great joy, is singing. And this place loves singing. Wonderful choirs, wonderful orchestras, great cultural scene. So that for me has been just fantastic.

Jan Hugo: So which choir are you a member of now?

Nicholas Kühne: It’s the Cæciliaforeningen, and it’s the oldest oratorio choir in Norway.

Jan Hugo: Cæcilia, like we spell Cecilia, ladies’ name?

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah, but it’s got the funny AE. So I’ll send you the details.

Jan Hugo: Okay, you please do. We’ll put it in the show notes. Oh, great. You must be on YouTube.

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah, I’ve got one or two little bits which I can put up. But for example, we sang a piece that was last sung in 1890. So it was the first time it’s been sung in 100 years, a Norwegian composer. A wonderful little piece called The Prodigal Son, or Den fortapte sønn by Catharinus Elling. But yeah, so the choir stuff, I love it.

Jan Hugo: Okay, you don’t need to do sport.

Nicholas Kühne: Well, I do. So on the sport side, I do something called Langrenn, which is the cross-country skiing. So I’m terrible at it. I’ve broken one of those, what’s on the Strava? Poles. I’ve landed on my ass a whole bunch of times, knocked myself nearly out, but that’s good fun. And I do that with my son. And he is, my cunning plan is we’re working at getting him into the Winter Olympics for South Africa as a cross-country skier because he’s phenomenally talented and there’s one other South African doing competitive cross-country skiing and he lives here in Norway as well and he said he’s very happy to chat to my son and help him along there as well.

Jan Hugo: That’s fantastic. I’m focusing more on my kids’ sports at the moment.

Nicholas Kühne: And they do bobsleigh down at Lillehammer, they think the same as the Winter Olympics. They do ice skating at a giant rink, outdoor ice rink over here. This is a sports paradise for kids. So my sons play baseball and my eldest will hopefully play for the national team at some stage as well.

Jan Hugo: So instead of cricket, who’s playing baseball? Man, that’s fantastic. It’s so good to hear you guys have really completely adapted. But thinking back, I always have to ask this question. Is there anything you regret about your journey to where you are today?

Nicholas Kühne: Do you know what? I honestly don’t think about it. And as a Christian, I’m very grateful. Every day I wake up and say, thank you, Jesus. And I do my prayers with my kids at night. And we say, thank you, Jesus, for a wonderful day. And what is nice about today? So if I had to think about all the kak things and the dumb things that I’ve done over the years, it would be a never-ending story. I think if I had to think back, I should have made this move to Europe much longer ago. When I’d finished, I should have stayed in the UK or, you know, in 2000. Oh gosh, no, ’99. I should have stayed overseas from that point, but I, you know, came back very rah-rah South Africa and then all sorts of things sort of happened from that point.

Jan Hugo: So, I mean, on that point, I can say that if a young Nicholas or a young family member would come to you for advice to say, what should I do? You would say just go earlier, but go.

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah. The thing is, I was very homesick because England was kak in terms of being cold and the food. And it was really nice, but I was homesick. I missed the Kruger Park. I missed the sun. I missed my parents. And I wasn’t very adventurous in those days. And I was, yeah, I was just homesick and not adventurous. And now that I’ve gotten older, less homesick, also less adventurous, but I think at that stage, I didn’t think I had anything to offer Europe. I didn’t think I was going to be good enough for the US market, etc. And thinking back now, all the talents that I have now, I had everything that I have going now that I could have done earlier on. So I think for anyone who thinks they’re not good enough or don’t have the potential, you’re going to be like that in the country that you are in anyway. So go and do that somewhere else if you want to.

Jan Hugo: That’s absolutely, that’s awesome advice. I agree with you. I think we sometimes underestimate our own potential, you know, and I think you’re absolutely right. That’s amazing. I don’t know, that’s been such a lekker conversation. Do you have any other advice, anything else you would like to add before we finish up?

Nicholas Kühne: I really suggest to people, anyone who likes exercise or outdoor sports, things like that, consider Norway. Norway is the most fab, it is a, this place is like a play-play land. It is ridiculous. Everything works. People are nice. Everything, everything is nice here. So it’s expensive. When you first get here, your mind goes, ah, how much for a cup of coffee? And then you’re like, oh, I love this coffee. I didn’t need all those flavours before. And yeah, for anyone thinking of having a family or anyone who’s got young kids, get yourself to Norway. Do a lot of planning beforehand. Obviously, make sure you’ve got a job before you come here. It’s tough to get a job if you just arrive here. That won’t happen. So you’ve got to do your planning in that beforehand. But if you can, it fits into the South African culture. If you’re Afrikaans, you will love this place, for example. It’s the same culture, literally is Afrikaans culture, just a little bit more liberal. But I would suggest consider Norway, Sweden, Finland. I’ve got my best friend from school lives in Finland and they are having a whale of a time. So consider Scandinavia. It’s not as cold and as expensive as you think it might be.

Jan Hugo: Well, that sounds awesome. I’d love to. We’re definitely going to come and visit. So now we know two people in Norway. In fact, we know three because one of our cycling friends from France is from Norway.

Nicholas Kühne: Come, come. Come past. We’re happy, you know, happy to meet South Africans and socialise.

Jan Hugo: So just one last question. We spoke about the Groen Mamba. Do you find that restrictive in terms of travelling? Because my kids live in Ireland, and they will talk about, my daughter’s just naturalised as an Irish citizen, but just saying that their South African friends are really battling to get visas to travel to Schengen countries and so on. Are you having the same issues?

Nicholas Kühne: No, we’re permanent residents here. So we’re running off the Norwegian sort of visa. So we don’t need a Schengen visa to travel throughout Europe. For getting to the UK, we’ve still got to jump through all those hoops. And when I went to Taiwan, for example, they quadruple-checked my passport and had all sorts of funny things, because the Iranians were getting passports out of the South African, you know, Home Affairs and that. And luckily my wife and my kids are on the Taiwanese passport. So they can go anywhere basically in the world with that passport. So yeah, right now travel in Europe with the Norwegian, without Norwegian documentation, it hasn’t been a problem at all.

Jan Hugo: Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Where can people learn more about your business?

Nicholas Kühne: Yeah. Well, if they want to know about branding and marketing or need work done, they can go to my business website, which is Wunderbrand.com. That’s W-U-N-D-E-R-B-R-A-N-D.com. If they want to know about my podcast, they can just go to Kühne.no, that’s K-U-H-N-E.no or find me anywhere basically, From Startup to Wunderbrand.

Jan Hugo: From Startup to Wunderbrand. That’s the podcast and you’re quite active on LinkedIn as well. Yep. Awesomeness, man. Thanks so much. And we’ll put all that stuff in the show notes. But thank you so much for joining me tonight and reaching out. My word, it’s been an interesting discussion. I really love learning about your journey in Norway. My word, it sounds like a lekker place. So I must come and visit.

Nicholas Kühne: This is such a lekker place. I honestly can’t tell you. Every day I wake up and go, dankie Vader, because it is so lovely. And yeah, but you must make the trip to Portugal as well. My wife loves Porto and Lisbon, and I haven’t been. After drinking all this nice Portuguese wine here in Norway, definitely need to come and do some wine tasting.

Jan Hugo: Absolutely. And I mean, even the wines in the Algarve are getting quite well known now. So we’ve got kind of three wine regions, you know, Algarve and Alentejo and then the Douro Valley. Douro, of course, is the best. That Douro is fantastic. I love it. It’s so beautiful. I mean, I always say, people say, South Africa is the most beautiful country. I say it’s beautiful, but there are other places as well. Just come and check the beauty that we have. So it’s awesome. Cheers, thank you so much.

Nicholas Kühne: Thank you.

Jan Hugo: If you enjoyed my discussion with Nicholas and would like to hear more about the experiences of South Africans who have left South Africa, why not subscribe on your favourite platform. And if you would like to share your own story, contact me on jan@therelocatedsouthafrican.com. Until next time.

This transcript was generated with the assistance of AI technology and has been reviewed for accuracy.