Hailing from Paris, Pays worked as a sales executive at Ferrari, France. While in his home country an interest in marketing sparked within him, one he pursued by learning more about the industry. He continued his marketing education, moved to London for a spell but then his South African wife convinced him her homeland was the place to settle.

“When I first moved to South Africa I faced many challenges as a white foreigner in terms of job opportunity and employment,” he says, “but it actually ended up working in my favour, it pushed me to become an entrepreneur.”

Previous experience at a job where he says he helped grow revenue from thousands to millions and was then only offered a small raise also prompted him to start his own company.

In 2005 he founded Gambling Advertising, a niche advertising agency. “I started the website with R5000 and had made R960 000 in the first month. “It got me thinking that being my own boss was pretty cool,” he laughs. The company created advertising for online casinos. “There was no local market,” he says, “and by 2008 we were the third largest, and growing, specialised ad agency in the world.”

In 2010 he began auction website Smokoo.co.za. “I had no expectations to make millions but in the first month we had 12 000 registrations to the site and I realised there was a local interest in e-commerce, it was definitely another ‘oh wow’ moment,” Pays says.  Within six months Smokoo became the 29th most visited website in South Africa and then expanded to Russia, France, United States, United Kingdom and Germany grossing a revenue of R5.5-million. Pays decided to sell the website at its peak, the entrepreneur within, spurring him on to start something new.

The new venture? Online dating. Pays launched the site Adopt Him in 2011, the site’s focus was on giving women the power to choose, eliminating security risks that are often associated with online dating sites. “This was the first time I was really exposed to the corporate market,” he says, but we had this motto; ‘It doesn’t matter how crazy your idea is, try it because if you don’t try you don’t learn.” The site didn’t really take off so Pays decided to move on. “I also believe that if you lose the passion to do something, stop doing it. That’s what happened with me and Adopt Him.”

That’s when Just Perfect Digital agency was born. Starting out with only four staff members the team, which now stands at 25, generates digital marketing strategies, concepts and products. “We don’t market like any other digital agency,” Pays says. “We set targets with our clients that we have to reach, we take risks for our clients and are willing to put our money where our mouth is.” He says they have processes in place that guarantee success and, according to Pays, their stable of 40 clients are always able to see where their money is going.

Last year, after noticing a gap in the market for a reliable and trustworthy online payment solution, Pays began i-Pay. i-Pay enables e-commerce businesses to provide customers a way to purchase goods without a credit card, with the money landing in their account in seven seconds. The site has become a big focus for Pays and is already moving into international markets.

Pays says Africa is alive with possibility. “When you compare Africa to overseas markets its obvious there is more opportunity here. It’s not like there is no success to be had overseas, it’s not gone, but it’s already there.”

For a man who is at the office from 04:00 to 20:00 every day, his is advice to African entrepreneurs to be disciplined is somewhat predictable, although he also offers to share tips with anyone who contacts him. Another nuggets he shares is: “look at what the competitors are doing and then do it better”. He also advises to make the best of the vast amount of information available, “Google is the greatest tool available, use it!” he says.

For more information, visit www.justperfect.co.za. Alternatively connect with them on Facebook or Twitter.