‘I messed it up’: Alan Knott-Craig opens up about Mxit’s downfall

Former Mxit CEO Alan Knott-Craig has opened up about the mistakes that contributed to the downfall of one of South Africa’s pioneering social networking platforms.

Launched in South Africa in 2005, Mxit was an early mobile instant messaging service that allowed users to communicate over GPRS, 3G and mobile internet at a fraction of the cost of traditional SMS messages.

Before WhatsApp and BBM, Mxit was the leading app in South Africa in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

The platform was compatible with thousands of basic feature phones and early smartphones, making it hugely popular among young South Africans.

At its peak, millions of users accessed Mxit daily, but the platform struggled to maintain its relevance as the mobile technology landscape evolved.

After experiencing a decline from 2013, Mxit eventually shut down in 2016.

WhatsApp pushed Mxit out

Reflecting on the platform’s demise in a post on Instagram, Knott-Craig, who served as CEO for a year after it was acquired in 2011, admitted that he made several mistakes while leading the company.

“I was the CEO of Mxit for a year. Mxit was South Africa’s biggest social network; it was amazing, millions of people used it every single day. A lot of people ask me what happened to it,” he said.

“Well, I messed it up, to be honest. We bought it in 2011 and then I proceeded to make a whole lot of mistakes. I got the strategy wrong. We decided to compete with WhatsApp. We should never have competed with WhatsApp, never compete with big companies. We were probably more of a dating app than a social messaging app.”

Knott-Craig also acknowledged that Mxit failed to adapt its user experience as consumers moved from feature phones to smartphones.

He said the company also struggled with its business model, contributing to the challenges it faced.

“We didn’t migrate our experience from feature phones to smartphones. That wasn’t great, and I got my business model wrong. Eventually, my partners lost patience with me and they fired me,” he added.

After just a year at the helm, Knott-Craig was removed from his position. Mxit continued operating for a few more years before eventually disappearing from the social media landscape.