Pieter de Villiers is the co-founder and CEO of Clickatell, the communications platform that processes over nine billion messages each month and serves five billion users worldwide. But Pieter’s world changed when his co-founder and best friend Danie was diagnosed with leukemia.
We stood under a tree in Stellenbosch, a small town in South Africa. It was 1999. New possibilities opened up in front of me, a beautiful vista of future success, as we took that first step to transform ideas scribbled on napkins into a real business. I hugged Danie du Toit, my best friend since school, as tight as I could. At that moment, I had such a strong sense of our relationship: we weren’t just friends, we weren’t just founders, we were family. Together, we were unstoppable.
I founded Clickatell along with Danie, my twin brother, and another close friend. From the very beginning, the heart of Clickatell was its relationships and our moments of deep connection. Starting a business is a massive endeavor which comes with many obstacles, but I always knew I wasn’t carrying the weight alone.
That’s not to say that there weren’t plenty of difficult times! Those early years were anything but easy. We made mistakes, like signing up for an investor’s performance-based goals which we could barely meet. Missing those goals meant risking everything, including the company. We worked late nights and early mornings, until ‘overtime’ lost all meaning. But what kept us going wasn’t fear or even just ambition — it was love. We believed in each other. We wanted to succeed together.
Then, three years in, everything changed when Danie was diagnosed with leukemia. The news hit us like a freight train. One moment, we were building one of Africa’s most promising tech companies, and the next, I was faced with the harsh reality of potentially losing my co-founder and best friend.
Through all the anguish, I had to show up at the company every day, pretending everything would be all right. I was supposed to be the strong one, the leader who held it all together. I worked tirelessly until visiting hours began. Then I’d cry on my way to the hospital, stop crying to be strong for Danie, cry again in my car on the way home. The brutal thing about watching someone you love suffer from leukemia is that they deteriorate week by week. Danie’s color faded, he lost weight. With every visit, I felt him slipping away.
Around the same time, my wife and I were told we couldn’t have children. My wife embarked on intense hormone treatments and my life splintered again: I was torn between being there for her, showing up for the company, dealing with investors breathing down my neck, and supporting Danie. One night, I said to my wife that I thought we should stop trying to have children until we knew what would happen to Danie. She was so understanding and loving, extending the support I needed.
But I couldn’t put a pin in everything else. It was my responsibility to keep everything going, no matter how hollow that felt. Every morning, I’d walk into the office, and it all felt meaningless. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. People were full of energy, building projects, dedicating themselves to our mission, but all I could think was, “What’s the point?” The success of our company seemed irrelevant compared to the life of my best friend.
Inside, I was falling apart. I felt completely lonely and isolated. On the one hand, I had a successful, growing company, but everything else that I cared about was crumbling.
After months of treatment, false hope, relief, and then relapses, Danie’s prognosis was devastating. One evening, alone with Danie in the hospital room, I finally gave into the inevitable: I broke down and cried. Together, we cried for half an hour. We confessed our fears and guilt. I told him that I’d been afraid that committing so much energy and time to the business had led to his illness.
“It’s not that,” Danie said simply, releasing me from a burden I’d been carrying for a long time. Even as sick as he was, he wouldn’t let me carry the weight of the tragedy alone.
A few weeks after that conversation, Danie passed away. And in a miracle twist, nine months later, my wife and I welcomed our first son into the world — conceived naturally after we had been told we couldn’t have children. Today, my wife and I have three children, defying what doctors said was possible. My middle son’s name is Danie.
The support I received from my team and co-founders after Danie’s passing was profoundly heartening. I learned that people really care and want to help, but you have to let them in. You have to share the burden, cry with them, and allow them to be there for you. That’s what love and trust are really about. I no longer feel the need to pretend to be the strongest man in the room. Real strength comes from sharing your own feelings and accepting help.
Almost twenty years later, Danie’s spirit still lives on in Clickatell’s values. After he passed away, I wrote down everything I admired about him. He was courageous, determined, and a champion. He did the right thing and stood up for others. He was also curious and creative — he was our marketing director, after all! I wanted those values deeply embedded in our business. Danie might be gone but his legacy remains.
When young founders ask me for advice, I always go back to the first and most important decision: who will be your co-founders? It’s not enough to find great colleagues or people whose work you admire. This is a relationship of deep love. It’s the kind of love that makes you willing to die on the battlefield for each other. That was the love that made the four of us create a business together, and it’s the love we continue to honor every day.
