Shop like an astronaut? China has unveiled Haolong, its new unmanned reusable space shuttle which some say looks like a knock-off of NASA’s retired one 🤭. We can only imagine that’s what happens when you buy a spaceship from Temu.

In this Open Letter:

• The local play: How to unlock R15bn+ in SA learnership budgets.
• SA’s young science guns, GitHub’s billion dev plan & Naspers’ earnings.
• Founder’s secret weapon: From MVP to massive scale in 5 months.
• How good SA is at growing food: The results are in.
• Short on ideas? Share this and get 100+ SA startup ideas.

Together with:

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TRENDING NOW

Solving SA’s Jobs Crisis with 4.8 Million Subsidised Employees

The youth in SA are up against it…

Youth unemployment is at 45.5% – nearly 5 million of SA’s youth (between the ages of 15 and 34) are sitting at home. And while some of them may be hustling it out, they’re not part of the formal economy.

Concerningly, nearly 1 million of them have given up hope of ever finding a job, with unemployment introducing a whole host of other social challenges. 

A solution right in front of us…

Many matriculants aren’t able to study at a university. But when they hit the job market, they’re asked what experience they have – which is obviously none.

I mean, if you say so, Thor…

So they’re caught between a rock and a hard place – which is where learnerships come into play. Together with the qualification component, they can also gain meaningful work experience. 

The government actually has a plan for that

In SA, we have a Skills Development Levy imposed on companies with a salary bill of more than R500k per annum – worked out at 1% of the total amount paid in salaries. This SDL is meant to develop and improve employee skills.

80% of this SDL levy is disbursed via the various Skills Education Training Authorities – SETA’s. 

There are more than 20 SETA’s, each with its own sectors and sub-sectors and comprising a variety of economic activities that are related. So you’d have the BANKSETA for the Banking Sector, the MICTSETA for the Information and Communications Technology sector, the TetaSETA for the Transport sector, and so on…

But here’s the thing…

There’s a nice incentive for employers running learnerships in the form of an annual allowance and a once-off completion allowance, once the learner has completed their learnership.

Depending on the NQF (National Qualification Framework) level of the learnership (matric is level 4, BTW), employers can claim between R40k and R80k per learner per year, and as much as R120k for disabled learners.

That’s between R3’333 and R10’000 per month per learner – not bad for someone who’s getting a qualification and some on-the-job training – not to mention the extra set of hands your company has to get the job done…

What’s more, companies that run learnership programmes can get 6 points towards the 20-point skills development component of their BEE scorecard…

With between 2.4 and 3.5 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs) operating in South Africa, imagine what SA’s youth unemployment rate would look like if each SME took on just one job seeker…

The local player bringing learners, trainers, employers and more together…

But with government processes comes admin and know-how. That’s where the local training management system Inala comes in. They built a platform for connecting and enabling this ecosystem of government programs and the private sector (both training programs and employers):

• The Learner: an unemployed youth from a previously disadvantaged background
• The Host Employer: hosts the learner in the workplace.
• A Training Provider: the organisation that will provide the training.
• The Facilitator: to conduct the training.
• The Workplace Mentor: offers guidance and support in the workplace.
• The Assessor/Moderator: ensures that the learners are actually growing their skills.
• The Funder: funding these learning projects.
• And lastly the Skills Development governing bodies: SETA/QCTO.

The platform has a whole host of features including: 

• The ability to build out your programmes, and track learner attendance, progress and competency to identify learners at risk of dropping off.
• Manage programme facilitators and training scheduling. 
• Manage a digital portfolio of evidence submissions in a paperless environment (good for the actual environment).
• Advanced customised dashboards for reporting and compliance.

We recently chatted to Inala Co-Founder Jason Schwegmann and only 52% of SA’s SMEs are actively claiming back their SDL contributions, leaving billions in unclaimed funds on the table each year. Unreal…

With platforms like Inala, stakeholders in the training industry can scale operations, train more learners, and reduce dropout rates through a centralised platform, bringing key role players together to boost employment opportunities for SA’s youth.

We’re watching this space…

CHECK THIS OUT

From MVP to Scale in 5 Months

Remember in June this year when we told you about LeaseSurance, the startup that’s making rental deposits a thing of the past? 

They’re now an SA Startup of the Year finalist.

But here’s the part you didn’t know: Just a few months before we wrote about them, the product was basically still an MVP – good enough to get some initial validation, but nowhere near ready for scale.

And scale is what they needed… in PropTech, margins are low, so you need high volume and fast, but you also need to trim admin and operational costs down to the bone.

So founder Paul Schaefer did something not every SA founder knows about…

The new way to build in SA

Instead of doing the obvious: Getting a dev agency on board or (eek!) trying to build a team internally, Paul opted to get a crew of engineering devs on the job…

He went to Octoco (which stands for outsourced CTO) and, as the name suggests, it’s your next step up from your average developers – a distinction we don’t make readily enough here in SA, but Paul knew that if he wanted to build an actual business fast, engineers were the way to go.

From March to July this year, Octoco rebuilt LeaseSurance from the ground up, enabling real-time data integration, streamlined claims automation, and seamless user and transaction management – see the full details of the project here.

The special forces of SA Tech

Within 5 months, LeaseSurance was streamlined, operations optimised enough that Paul could see a route to profitability and – most importantly – it was set up so that Paul and his team could focus on one thing: scaling.

“The results are immediately visible,” Paul explains. “We’re servicing existing clients faster and onboarding new ones with ease. Our ability to handle client portfolio growth has significantly improved, all while maintaining financial viability.”

Serious about ensuring your greatest chance of success?

Get Octoco in your corner

IN SHORT

Some tech titbits to enjoy…

🇿🇦 Young Science Guns. Two Grade 11 South African scientists will fly the flag at this year’s İzmir International Innovation Science Energy Engineering Fair (IISEEF) taking place in Turkey from the 30th of November to the 3rd of December. The two projects they’ll be showcasing set out to enhance our understanding of exercise physiology and present a viable alternative for sealing wounds respectively.

🛒 Soaring e-commerce. The tide is turning for ecommerce in SA according to new data from Absa. The average value of e-commerce transactions has increased from R350 to R430 from the start of 2023 to Q3 in 2024, while the average value of physical store transactions has dropped from R350 to R340 over the same period.

🤖 DevBots. GitHub’s CEO Thomas Dohmke has shared that the integration of AI tools into the collaborative development platforms toolset will help it grow its user base from 100 million to a billion (human) software developers over the next 10 years.

💸 MVC. SA’s most valuable company, Naspers, is expecting strong results for the 1st half of the 2025 financial year. The expected strong headline earnings per share jump of between 87.2% and 84% is attributed to the growth and enhanced profitability of its e-commerce operations and equity-accounted investments, especially Tencent.

🎯 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with easy-apply R5M business funding from Lula, next-level authority building with Stream and loads more vital startup tools & services.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

In the last few days alone, in our online community, we…

• Discussed the Checkers Sixty60 driver controversy and speculated about SA’s true unemployment levels.
• Discovered that HubSpot offers significant discounts to startups 😮.
• Shared a list of 26 startups that YC thinks the world really needs right now.
• Delved at tech to solve government efficiency concerns VS long pay cycles in that space.
• Got our invites for Friday’s product masterclass 🚀.
• Discussed Norway’s questionable startup taxes and how this can dampen innovation.
• Helped Enrco find a solution for blocking unwanted WhatsApp calls.

Thinking about joining The Open Collab?

• Supercharge your network in the SA startup landscape — get that introduction, get that customer, or meet that partner.
• Get feedback on your products, services and/or offers from others who have built and are building their own products right now.
• Join all our online and in-person events for free!
• Exclusive 1-on-1 sessions with startup consultants.

SA’s only dedicated tech startup and scale-up founder community.

Join The Open Collab

HAPPENING SOON

Upcoming Events

22 November 2024 — Product Masterclass — Online: Part 3: The tools, frameworks and habits of exceptional product teams with SA product legend Roger Norton — join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

29 November 2024 — Sales Masterclass — Online: Part 3: Keep your B2B sales pipeline filled with this Masterclass session with sales expert, Sebastian Chapman — join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

6 December 2024 — AMA with Alan Knott-Craig: After our LinkedIn Live with Alan, you voted to an Ask Me Anything session — join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

View all our upcoming events here.

WHAT YOU SAID

Home-grown greens…

We asked if you had ever tried growing your own veggies, and at least we all tried…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 😅 Yeh, no that didn’t go so well. (47%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍅 Of course, you should see my 2-pound tomatoes! (25%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🥗 Why on Earth would I? The Spar is like, right there. (10%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍃 Oh I’ve grown a LOT – just not the edible kind. (12%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😮 Oops, just remembered I forgot to water mine, since Covid! (6%)

Your 2 cents…

That’s awesome, Jason! 🌱 Even tiny pepper plants are a win. Replanting can be tricky — maybe AgriLogiq needs to expand into backyard SOS kits! 🚜

Wow, you’re doing great, Sakhile! 🌿

Thanks so much, Lara! That’s high praise, and we’re honoured to make the cut. 😊

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Money sense? Yes, Donald Trump named Elon Musk part of his administration. Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are going to head up the new US department of DOGE (Department Of Government Efficiency), and they have one goal: to reduce wasteful government spending.

Lucky Americans; just imagine if we could get that in SA… 🇿🇦

In this Open Letter:

• Fertile soil: New SA tech helps farmers increase crop yield by 50%+.
• Jozi’s R90M space dome, OpenAI’s helper bot & SA’s Google Boost.
• Early Black Friday: Win a year’s worth of free KYC for your startup.
• What needs real-time data visualisation: The results are in.
• Short on ideas? Share this and get 100+ SA startup ideas.

Together with:

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TRENDING NOW

Helping Farmers Put 50% More on Your Plate

Since that one guy decided enough with the hunting and the gathering, and started farming 12’000 years ago, it’s been a tough gig…

At the mercy of drought on the one end of the weather, and flooding, hail and frost on the other, weather patterns have always played a significant part in the success, or failure, of a farm.

In recent years, however, there has been more extreme weather, more frequently, and with more intensity.

‍

How we gonna feed all these people?

There are nearly 8.2 billion of us on planet Earth (including the 10 astronauts in space right now), and we’re set to add just under 2 billion people by 2050, requiring a 60% increase in food production…

But that’s not all. The world’s arable farmland is decreasing with at least 100 million hectares of healthy and productive land lost each year to urbanisation, degrading soil and soil erosion, pollution, deforestation, and desertification to name but a few.

Some areas are already experiencing food insecurity with nearly 240 million people in 48 countries experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity.

In essence, our food requirement is up (and rising), and arable land is down, meaning farmers need to produce double the amount of food with half the land…

And while we’re not at post-apocalyptic levels (just yet), it’s important to figure out some innovative solutions to help farms offset the effects of extreme weather, and maximise their crop yields…

Helping farmers produce more with less…

Local AgriTech AgriLogiq focuses on smart farming solutions for protected cultivation that reduce resource needs and increase crop yield. 

Protected cultivation offers ways for farmers to control the impact of the weather on crops growing under anything from shade netting to polytunnels, and inside warehouses. This allows for protection against fungal growth, plant diseases, and pests and an increase in yield by as much as 50%.

But the thing with this is it changes the environment under the covers, introducing a whole host of new variables the farmer has to cater for – it needs to be constantly managed. Temperature and humidity changes, light is impacted, and air and soil composition changes. 

That’s where AgriLogiq’s solution, which comprises hardware and software, offers: 

• Automation controllers for precise climate control
• Agricultural sensors to pick up rainfall, Co2 levels, soil probes and more
• Data analytics to provide farmers with data to help create optimal growing environments, improve plant health, and enable data-driven decision-making
• Automated irrigation, mechanical drive, and greenhouse automation components
• All accessible remotely, so farmers can monitor and control their systems from anywhere in the world. 

More green for your capital

AgriLogiq is helping its customers reduce their capital expenditure by 52% and save as much as 86% on operating expenses.

In one instance, AgriLogiq was able to turn a Green Pepper farm in Mpumalanga from a 35% YoY crop loss to a zero loss and a 50% increase in crop yield.  

But what’s really interesting is that AgriLogiq is allowing farmers to farm produce in regions they previously weren't able to be farmed. 

Building solutions to help farmers maximise their crop yield, making a play for sustainable farming solutions, and helping secure food for our people; we can't help but watch this space…

CHECK THIS OUT

Save R100k+ in Anti-Fraud Monitoring

One of the most insidious risks FinTechs, PropTechs, Marketplaces, FreightTech, LegalTech and a whole host of GamingTech ventures face is money laundering- and terrorism fraud…

Because South Africa is a major target – we lose over R1.1 trillion in illicit financial flows every year and hundreds of illegal millions more is estimated to flow through SA, which is exactly why SA is on the greylist (remember that?).

We’ve warned about this before – last year one of our most-read posts was on the risk this poses to both corporate SA and new ventures.

It’s important to protect your company. To recap:

• You need to do sanction list screening as part of your KYC on every potential new client BEFORE entering into a business relationship with them.
• The penalties are severe: This year, the SARB fined Grindrod Bank R10M for non-compliance.

And you can bet they’re going to be doubly attentive now that SA’s Jan 2025 greylist deadline is approaching.

Get 1 year of free sanction screening this Black Friday*

Local sanction screening provider ZenDetect knows how painful it is for a new or scaling venture to take on additional KYC costs…

That’s why they’re giving away 1 year of continuous sanction screening (monitoring) worth over R100k+ (depending on your database size) for free, gratis and mahala this Black Friday, so you can stay compliant AND keep your pricing competitive.

To qualify, simply hit the button below and engage ZenDetect sanction screening and monitoring right now…

Save R100k+ Zendetect

IN SHORT

Some lekke facts to gooi around the watercooler…

🇿🇦 Google Boost. Google has announced the 2024 cohort of SA startups to participate in the Google for Start-ups Accelerator Africa: Black Founders programme. They include online marketplace Aveade, on-demand delivery platform Breaze Delivery, Mapha Logistics a BusOps digital tools provider, Swagshack an online street fashion service, e-commerce and fintech platform Vuleka, and Wisi-Oi a video-based resell fashion reselling platform.

📽️ Dome mind if I do. The Johannesburg Planetarium has received a facelift to the tune of a R90 million ‘digital dome’ thanks to The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and Anglo American. The largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere - the dome will offer a 360° immersive experience via its state-of-the-art- projection system.

🤖 Helper Bot. OpenAi is getting ready to launch ‘Operator’ in January. ‘Operator’ is OpenAi’s latest AI that can use your computer to perform certain tasks on your behalf like booking travel tickets or writing code. Hmmm. What could go wrong?

👷‍♂️ Big Data. Big Expansion. SA’s largest data centre operator Teraco has received R8 million in funding to build a new data centre. The 40MW critical power load expansion will be completed in 2026, bringing the company’s Islando Campus in Ekurhuleni’s total critical power load capacity to 110MW.

😎 Domain Plays. Local e-commerce player Bash was quick to pounce on the exit of Zando and snapped up the Zando domains. Old Zando customers (and those heading to the site) will now instead be redirected to Bash.

🎯 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with the best in business strategy with Metavolve, investment, offshoring and startup legal insights with Dommisse Attorneys and 12 more vital startup tools & services.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

In the last few days alone, in our online community, we…

• Made sure that Jesse and Jo had a lot of friends and support at last night’s startup mixer.
• Celebrated with Richard as he secured funding, found a niche to exploit and changed the game in 3 (tough but oh-so-worth-it) weeks.
• Got Bobby a potential local client, wink wink.
• Gawked at Tyler’s legal-docs assistant proto — and waiting eagerly to test it out… 🤩.
• Sourced Gustav about 3’500 Mailchimp alternative options.
• Learnt what’s in Danei’s “secret pink juice” and got her and Elijah to commit to driving across the country for a happy sale.
• Locked in loads of Startup of the Year votes for our fam.

Thinking about joining The Open Collab?

• Supercharge your network in the SA startup landscape — get that introduction, get that customer, or meet that partner.
• Get feedback on your products, services and/or offers from others who have built and are building their own products right now.
• Join all our online and in-person events for free!
• Exclusive 1-on-1 sessions with startup consultants.

SA’s only dedicated tech startup and scale-up founder community.

Join The Open Collab

HAPPENING SOON

Upcoming Events

Join us this Friday for the second in a 3-part series with The Open Collab exclusive on B2B Sales Series. Want to learn what it’s about? Watch the video on IG below…

Instagram post by @theopenletterza

22 November 2024 — Product Masterclass — Online: Part 3: The tools, frameworks and habits of exceptional product teams — join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

29 November 2024 — Sales Masterclass — Online: Part 3: Keep your B2B sales pipeline filled with this Masterclass session with sales expert, Sebastian Chapman — Join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

6 December 2024 — AMA with Alan Knott-Craig: After our LinkedIn Live with Allan, you voted to an Ask Me Anything session — Join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

View all our upcoming events here.

WHAT YOU SAID

Food for thought…

We asked what you need real-time report visualisations on, and investments need more eyes…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍽️ What’s in my fridge at home. (14%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ❤️ My spouse's mood levels so I know when to wash dishes or take them for dinner. (17%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎮 My ‘Diablo 4’ player rank in relation to Elon. (9%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📈 When to buy/sell my stocks/currencies/crypto of choice. (51%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🛒 The value of specific Checkers Mini Shop collectables to lock in the best swaps. (9%)

Your 2 cents…

Ha, K, now that's some real-time reporting we could use too! 🥶📊

Love that, Nollie! Adapting old-school ways to modern tools is where the magic happens. 🚀📈

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Best in SA? Startup Club has made its 44 finalists public for SA Startup of the Year. There are quite a few Open Letter family members there. You can now vote for your friends and favourites — voting is open until Friday.

In this Open Letter:

• SA’s latest R1bn exit: The startup that makes businesses smarter.
• 5M Mzansi hotspots, Woolies’ Dash(ing) results & SA slacking off.
• Go with a bang: Fill your B2B sales pipeline for 2025.
• Which games you like to play: The results are in.
• Lonely building your startup? Join The Open Collab and get support.

Together with:

Did someone forward you this email? Join {{active_subscriber_count}} South Africans reading The Open Letter by signing up here.

TRENDING NOW

Helping Business Make Better Decisions (Faster)

— Insights from the startup that lead to SA’s latest R1bn+ exit

Having your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in your business is mega important…

For many businesses, keeping finances up to date is mostly a compliance thing. But what if your financials could empower you to make better business decisions quickly?

A major pain for many founders is that management accounts normally only tell part of the story, and what’s more, not everyone in leadership has a background in finance. 

The data guiding your business's decisions…

Companies have anywhere between 5 and 20+ data sources meant to inform decisions, dictate next steps, and determine if business objectives have been met…

Pretty simple, right?

Not so much.

Seems like in this rich world of data at every turn, businesses have developed a brand new thing to be worried about: data fatigue…

And it’s a real thing. 

Data fatigue occurs when a business or individual has too much data or doesn't know what to focus on and is overwhelmed by the complexity or sheer volume of data a business collects, processes, analyses, or reports on.

And when the data quality is poor it has all sorts of ramifications on decision-making, reputational risk, and missed opportunity – not to mention the 10 to 30% of revenue spent on handling data quality issues.

Eina…

What’s more, in a recent survey of 1’300 finance and accounting C-suite and senior leaders across North America, Europe, Aus, and Singapore, 40% of CFOs reported they do not completely trust their organisation’s financial data. And ONLY 2% expressed complete confidence… 

Simply put, we have too much data that makes us go, “So what?”

The local player turning your financial data into pretty pictures (and actionable insights)

When Vangelis Kyriazis was building his accounting firm in JHB back in 2016, he wanted to offer his clients reports that made sense rather than reports showing profits and loss and a balance sheet.

To do this, they went to great lengths to build their clients’ very time-consuming Excel documents with rich graphs and insights. Clients loved it, but it wasn’t scaling well.

But turns out this was the start of Syft Analytics, an interactive & collaborative financial reporting tool providing businesses with insights into their accounting data to help them make better decisions.

8 years after launch, and this isn’t just a local business anymore. Syft has managed to sign up more than 100’000 businesses from more than 80 countries and that’s when Xero took note and purchased Syft for a whopping $70 million in September this year. 

What’s it do?

Syft integrates with Xero and others to extract data and make it simpler for a non-accountant business owner to understand using visualisations and summaries which can be presented in either pre-built report templates or fully customisable reports that provide real-time financial analysis catered to your specific business needs.

And if we consider that the human brain processes images 60’000 times faster than text, generating business reports and insights into cool-looking, insightful visuals is a no-brainer…

But the product really flexes when it provides businesses with forward-looking projections & forecasts, combining data from other 3rd party non-financial data sources like your CRM, and Google Analytics, etc.

As with most SaaS products these days, AI gave it a real boost. Users can ask AI how to improve certain things, and because Syft has access to more data like the underlying transactional data and data from other sources it helps the AI better answer those questions.

And Syft’s comprehensive visual dashboards are live and fully interactive, so even Beryll in HR can take a look without messing anything up – no offence, Beryll…

Businesses aren't going anywhere soon and reporting and visualisation tools will become ever more important in staying competitive. But if anything, the team at Syft have proven once again that SA can build tech that scales well across the world.

We’re watching this space.

CHECK THIS OUT

Start Building Your B2B Sales Pipeline for 2025

The key to closing more B2B sales is building authority and trust.

When Forrester Research found earlier in 2024 that B2B buyers are twice as likely to recommend companies they trust, their chief analyst Ian Bruce said it’s because they’re buying on behalf of the organisation, so they want to be double and triple sure you can deliver.

The New York Times goes a step further to say that Edelman and LinkedIn data shows that 54% of companies make purchasing decisions based on your thought leadership content.

Why?

• When you reach out, it helps if they already know you (ice cold sucks).
• It reinforces their trust and belief that you have authority in the space.

And, of course, it’s not easy: It takes time, dedication and consistency to build, but here’s how you can start…

Step 1: Establish trust & authority with content creation

Develop a content engine of consistent, rapidly written, high-quality content that’s on-brand, positions your product and speaks to customers’ pain points.

Step 2: Disseminate content online

Through social media with highly authoritative, efficient and automated ghostwriting for founders and execs.

Step 3: Engage in targeted outreach

Using tools like Apollo, reach out strategically to engaged targets who’ve come to know you already through your content and build high-quality leads for your funnel.

Stream has launched a 6-month, fully automated authority and trust pipeline for B2B SaaS founders and executives who know they have a product-market fit and are looking to solidify their positions in their space.

Get My Automated Pipeline Now

IN SHORT

The latest SA and tech gossip…

🤳 Connecting Mzansi. A local consortium of Internet Service Providers called JUMP launched its WayaMore WiFi network which is on a mission to build 5 million hotspots around SA and have a fully operational network by 2030.

🌍 Funding Africa. Visa is investing in 4 African Startups that graduated from its Africa Fintech Accelerator programme. The startups include: Oze, a business banking platform from Ghana, Orda, a restaurant technology startup from Nigeria, WorkPay, an HR and payroll management firm, and OkHi an AI-powered address verification service, both from Kenya.

🏖️ World Champion Slackers? Turns out we’re not such hard workers after all… According to data from the International Labour Organisation, SA ranked 79th in terms of average weekly hours (42.6 hours), percentage of the population working excessive hours (17%), and only produces 21 International dollars (Int$) per hour, 7 times lower than winners Luxembourg.

🛵 Dashing Results. Woolworths has seen some great performances across various business divisions for the 18-week period ending on 3 November 2024 with a 54.4% sales growth for its Woolies Dash on-demand food delivery service leading the charge.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with next-level lead finding with Apollo, your own CTO for remarkable tech builds with Octoco and 12 more vital startup tools & services.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

In the last few days alone, in our online community, we…

• Discussed how to get going with a SaaS product with zero funding.
• Attended another stellar product masterclass with Roger Norton.
• Supported each other in the SA Startup Awards.
• Celebrated BTC all-time highs 🤑.
• Celebrated some success after the sales masterclass.
• Helped Sebastian find an online payment solution.
• Delved into WhatsApp-based commerce solutions for SA.

Thinking about joining The Open Collab?

• Supercharge your network in the SA startup landscape — get that introduction, get that customer, or meet that partner.
• Get feedback on your products, services and/or offers from others who have built and are building their own products right now.
• Join all our online and in-person events for free!
• Exclusive 1-on-1 sessions with startup consultants.

SA’s only dedicated tech startup and scale-up founder community.

Join The Open Collab

HAPPENING SOON

Upcoming Events

14 November 2024 — TechSafari is coming to Cape Town! Join Caleb and team for a memorable night at Yoco to talk all things Tech and Startup in Africa. Get tickets here. Use OL20% code to get a sweet 20% off!

14 November 2024 — OCFO is hosting their 2024 Founder’s Conference with over 200 entrepreneurs and investors present. Get your tickets here.

12-14 November 2024 — Cape Town: Africa Tech Festival: Including AI Summit and so many tech must-sees — remember you can get a limited free pass, or get access to everything by applying for a startup pass early.

15 November 2024 — Sales Masterclass: Part 2: How to spot opportunities to increase conversion rates — Join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

6 December 2024 — AMA with Alan Knott-Craig: After our LinkedIn Live with Allan, you voted to an Ask Me Anything session — Join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

View all our upcoming events here.

WHAT YOU SAID

Game on…

We asked about your go-to game, and, as expected, SA’s not that into mobile gaming…

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧱 Puzzle games (30%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎰 Casino games (10%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏌️‍♂️ Sports games (3%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🔫 Battle Royale games like PUBG and Fortnite (5%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🙅‍♀️ I don't play mobile games (52%)

Your 2 cents…

Classic, DJK. Nothing like getting into desktop games 🎮.

Smart move, M. All the fun, none of the risk 🃏.

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Clean air? When a group of Norwegians built a reactor to soak up CO2 from the air, a US startup’s Estonian deep-tech founder answered with these weird light towers that do the same thing plus then convert the CO2 into fuel. Great to see the green race going.

In this Open Letter:

• Game on: Enabling new ways to build in this $300bn industry.
• Home Affairs Premium, Wooden Spaceships & chuck all your cards.
• Growth unlocked: How they funded their next expansion phase.
• The future of last-mile deliveries in SA: The results are in.
• Lonely building your startup? Join SA’s only tech founder community.

Together with:

Did someone forward you this email? Join South Africans reading The Open Letter by signing up here.

TRENDING NOW

Bringing Data-Driven Decisions to Your Gaming

Mobile gaming is a big deal.

Around the world, there are more than 3 billion mobile gamers, with mobile games contributing about half of the $300 billion total gaming market size – more than consoles & PC games combined.

And they’re not just playing free games…

Player spending hit $41.2 billion in the 1st half of 2022, with massive mobile games like Diablo Immortal and Pokémon GO pulling in $100 million each in just 8 weeks and 2 weeks respectively.

Whilst it is a big industry, games are mostly B2C, which means lots of work and money to get the word out there. And it’s expensive…

Building in Hard Mode

The thing about gaming is it’s infinitely harder to create a profitable game with a lifespan anywhere near as long as most other tech products – ask any founder why they’d switch from B2C to B2B any day.

Why? Modern games are mostly online, and a large amount of people expect them to be free. So, to make the game successful, you need a large number of players (online games only work well when enough people are playing), but you also need to make money, which most games do by offering in-app purchases. Finally, you have to balance the game to make sure the free players are still enjoying it. It’s complicated.

And the complexity is taking its toll. 2023 was a blood bath for the gaming industry, as shown in the mobile gaming platform SuperScale’s white paper:

• 32% of mobile game studios had major layoffs in 2023
• 27% permanently downsized
• 24% almost shut down
• 29% had to cut their user acquisition budget
• Some sectors report 62% job losses
• And 40% started outsourcing development and publishing

  Why?

• 83% of games die within 3 years
• 47% of games die within the first year
• 17% die in 6 months, while 76% of games hit peak revenue in 1 year (and then it’s downhill from there).

Remember that the next time you complain about how hard it is to monetise your 1 tech product – building SaaS software is a bit less complicated…

The cost and complexities

But it’s not only in game design and development where things are complex. The fact is, it often takes an enormous amount of money to have a chance at success with a game. How much? Well, at one point, Candy Crush was spending $1M per day on marketing.

Keeping track of the return on investment (ROI) can get very complicated, especially when you are dealing with freemium games that have in-app purchases.

• Gamers from certain demographics (or cohorts) spend more on in-app purchases than others, leading to higher revenue.
• The cost to market to different cohorts varies.
• It changes over time (some cohorts play the game longer and spend more, others spend more over shorter periods, etc.).

The challenge? Constantly iterate to ensure the margin is as high as possible by adjusting where you spend your marketing money based on evidence from previous campaigns and some predictive analytics.

The local team revealing the map…

A cohort-based forecasting tool, Kohort, helps game studios forecast future events or trends with a much higher degree of accuracy, optimising and balancing marketing spending to help the specific game get better ROI on spend.

It works by categorising users by segment (sharing common characteristics like gender, country, age, platform, etc.) and cohort (a group of players who installed the game on the same day) to give game developers a more accurate view of players’ behaviour in the game. Basically, it tracks and reports if a specific ad results in a player with a specific demographic spending more or less than their average gamer on in-app purchasable content.

Then Kohort uses Machine Learning to produce extremely accurate forecasts should the current targeting and campaigns continue.

Before in-app purchases became popular, this problem didn’t exist, and we love how South Africans are pouncing on this opportunity. We’re watching this space…

CHECK THIS OUT

Enabling Growth: It’s the Little Things that Make or Break You

When Capetonian co-founders Theresa Ward and Edwina Butterworth set out to make their mark on the security systems industry, they thought their biggest battle would be against gender norms in this male-dominated space.

They were wrong…

The good news is their play worked and they grew their company Manyene Holdings from just 2 people in 2018 to 50 by 2024.

The bad news is the cost of such rapid growth depleted their cash flow and Theresa and Edwina battled to get financing with any of the traditional banks.

It’s an all-too-common story in South Africa, where 62% of SMEs struggle to access funding – making it the No. 1 barrier to growth in SA.

Fortunately, Theresa and Edwina found a lifeline…

With Lula, they got their approval within 24 hours or less.

Yet it is that easy, get access to a capital facility or capital advance of up to R5m from Lula.

Come Get Your Lula On

IN SHORT

Some titbits to drop at the braai tonight…

🌍 African Tech Fund. A new $250 million startup fund specifically for African tech companies is in the works. Tech accelerator Startupbootcamp, British-East African business tycoon Ashish Thakkar’s Mara Group and Blend Financial Services will target startup hubs in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ivory Coast and Egypt.

🪵 You wooden believe it. Japan’s Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry, have launched a new CubeSat made primarily from wood. Named after the Latin for “wood”, LignoSat consists of the scientific internals encased in a wooden box, with solar panels on the outside, and caught a ride on SpaceX’s latest Falcon 9 launch.

🧙 One ID to rule them all. South Africans could be getting a single digital identity that can be used to consolidate everything from your ID number, tax number, and medical aid number. This as Home Affairs is considering Home Affairs Plus — an expedited document processing and home delivery service for your NB Home Affairs docs. *Not really called Home Affairs Plus. Yet…

⚡️Instant Cross-Border Money. FNB has partnered with BankservAfrica to enable immediate processing of low-value payments within the Common Monetary Area of SA, Namibia, Lesotho and eSwatini.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with your own fractional CFO for less with OCFO, the easiest way to manage your finances with Xero and 12 more vital startup tools & services.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

In the last few days alone, in our online community, we…

• Met for our first LIVE (in-person) Office Hours with good coffee in two locations: Stellenbosch and Cape Town. ☕
• Supported and celebrated our EdTech members making big plays at Injini EdTech this week.
• Ran into a whole bunch of familiar faces at Innovation City's startup speed dating — The Open Collab peeps are everywhere these days!
• Helped Gustav find the IoT dev connection he needed for his next steps.
• Started looking for a unique WhatsApp solution for Corne — this could be big.
• Getting ready for the next Product Masterclass with Roger Norton today.

Thinking about joining The Open Collab?

• Supercharge your network in the SA startup landscape — get that introduction, get that customer, or meet that partner.
• Get feedback on your products, services and/or offers from others who have built and are building their own products right now.
• Join all our online and in-person events for free!
• Exclusive 1-on-1 sessions with startup consultants.

SA’s only dedicated tech startup and scale-up founder community.

Join The Open Collab

HAPPENING SOON

Upcoming Events

Join us today (Friday 8 Nov) at 12:00 for the second in a 3-part series with The Open Collab exclusive Product Series. Want to learn what it’s about? Watch the video on IG below…

Instagram post by @theopenletterza

8 November 2024 — Product Masterclass: Part 2: How to keep shipping truly great products, fast — Join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

14 November 2024 — TechSafari is coming to Cape Town! Join Caleb and team for a memorable night at Yoco to talk all things Tech and Startup in Africa. Get tickets here. Use OL20% code to get a sweet 20% off!

12-14 November 2024 — Cape Town: Africa Tech Festival: Including AI Summit and so many tech must-sees — remember you can get a limited free pass, or get access to everything by applying for a startup pass early.

15 November 2024 — Sales Masterclass: Part 2: How to spot opportunities to increase conversion rates — Join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

6 December 2024 — AMA with Alan Knott-Craig: After our LinkedIn Live with Allan, you voted to an Ask Me Anything session — Join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

View all our upcoming events here.

WHAT YOU SAID

Special delivery…

We asked about the future of last-mile, and drones are the way…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🕹️ Drones. (40%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤖 Autonomous Robots. (16%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 👩‍🌾 Trading with others once we’re living in post-apocalyptic, self-sufficient compounds brought about by today’s US election. (37%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🖨️ 3D printing what you need. (3%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🚀 Supplies every 6 months to Elon’s Colony. (3%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💡 No, wait, I have a better idea... (3%)

Your 2 cents…

Haha, Barry – ja it could feel a bit like trading in the Wild West. 🎩

Good point, Henry! Airspace security qualms keep us grounded (literally). 🚀

Ah, welcome home, sir! 😂

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Home office? Well, it’s official, companies who want to force employees back to the office are crazy. A new working paper by an Australian finance prof shows that companies with WFH policies post better financial returns.

Can we get an “I told you so”, anyone?

In this Open Letter:

• AI for Wellness: The quest to save SA R161bn in burnout tax.
• African VC connections: Come join our JHB and CT events next week.
• Boston Dynamics creeps, a new Mac mini & free POS for err’body.
• What SA’s townships need most: The results are in.
• Lonely building your startup? Join The Open Collab and get support.
  ‍

TechSafari 🤝 The Open Letter: Big news! Our friends over at TechSafari are coming to SA for two gatherings, and we are partnering up to offer you all a great deal to get there! Check it out here.

Did someone forward you this email? Join 14,172 South Africans reading The Open Letter by signing up here.

TRENDING NOW

The Quest to Save SA Companies R161bn in Burnout Tax

Can you believe it’s November already? 

What are we saying, of course, you can – we feel the moeg in our bones this time of year.

It’s been a fun but tough one: A lil less loadshedding but economic up and downs, interest rates, elections, a new GNU, Siya and Rachel’s divorce – not to mention hard work and looking forward to a well-deserved break soon…
‍

And it’s needed, South Africans work hard, VERY hard. You can see it in the numbers as we approach burnout season:

• SA ranked 69th out of 71 participating countries in a recent Mental State of the World report – only the UK and Uzbekistan did worse than we did.
• 36% of the SA workforce experience excessive daily stress, with 71% either disengaged or actively disengaged – all signs of burnout.
• And it all costs the SA economy a staggering R161 billion every year due to lost days of work, presenteeism (being at work but unwell), and premature death.

‍

But what can HR do?

Staff are normally your most important business “asset”, but by far the most complex and expensive to manage.

And it doesn’t help that HR is notorious for overestimating employee wellness levels (i.e. in surveys more than 75% of HR leaders tend to think “our employees are super happy” but, when asked, more than half of those same employees are miserable and struggling).

It’s an expensive over-estimation. Employee turnover costs between 1.5 and 2 times an employee's annual salary to replace them – so it's in everyone’s best interest to keep our workforce happy and healthy.

The local player with a global mental health reach...

We’ve featured mental health scale-up Ollie in previous editions of The Open Letter, but they’ve added something new worth checking out – a global 24/7 AI Mental Health Coach…

Having established their B2B employee mental health platform (complete with a network of therapists, psychologists, counsellors and coaches), Ollie has introduced a custom-trained AI called, well, Ollie, that can chat with employees (via chat or voice) in over 21 languages to either:

• Coach them through a situation itself (AI)
• Pick up where the time is right to escalate it to a human, where they can chat with one of over 150 mental health experts around the world.
  

Ollie was trained by a research team using psychological methodologies. And, as a basic feature, can determine a baseline of where someone's mental state is at, giving a score out of 100 that indicates potential for burnout.

And it seems to be working…

Already making an impact

According to Ollie Health, Ollie the AI is already having over 1’000 daily chats with employees in need, with an average duration of 230 minutes (nearly 4 hours). So that’s like having a work bestie that you can dish with – except Ollie won't use anything you’ve told them to throw you under the bus for a promotion. 😊

This way, Ollie helps employees track and manage their own mental health score and build good habits – only using pro resources like therapists when it’s really necessary.

But then it becomes really interesting: The AI conversations are anonymous, but the data from conversation topics can be correlated with data points like sick leave and then give an overall burnout predictor at an organisational level.

Ollie then reports this in the company’s HR dashboard, which, together with their talent acquisition algorithm, can help HR identify which teams need more resources.

With companies like Ollie leveraging AI to give companies (and their HR teams) powerful insights into areas that were previously unseen spaces, we’re watching this space.

PS: A little over a year ago, we had Ollie’s founder, Marc Gregory, on the How Would You Build It Podcast. And some things have changed, of course, but it’s cool looking back at his founder’s and growth journey, with some insights on:

• Creating your own brand “currency” to grow your business.
• The hardest sell: growing when you’re selling a grudge purchase.
• Why AI is not about following the AI trend, but following human behaviour.

CHECK THIS OUT

Come Make African VC & Startup Connections

The Open Letter is happy to be collaborating with our African tech newsletter friends, TechSafari, when they come to SA next week.

We’ll be there, happy to welcome them to SA — and we’re inviting all of you to come along and meet some tech players, from founders to VCs from the wider continent setting.

We even organised you 20% off as an Open Letter reader…

The JHB mixer is happening on 7 November — Get your tickets here.

And the Cape Town event is at Yoco on 14 November — Get your tickets here.

And remember to use the code OL20% for your Open Letter discount.

See you there!

IN SHORT

Sound Smart at the Braai Tonight

💳 You Get a Point of Sale! Local online & e-commerce payments provider Payfast is planning to roll out FREE Point of Sale devices to SA merchants to make it easier for them to process payments.

🤖 RoboMechanic? Creep Factory Boston Dynamics has released a video of its robot Atlas sorting car parts. And while Atlas’ walking does seem a little awkward, it gets the job done. Hmmm. Wonder how it will react to getting shouted at by his Dad for holding the torch wrong, though.

🍎 Mini Apples. Apple announced the new Mac mini this week. A new M4 chip upgrade, iPhone Mirroring and Apple Intelligence, not to mention being Apple’s “first carbon-neutral Mac” — the 5 x 5in Mac truly is tiny but mighty. Check out the cool Mac mini launch video.

🍞 Smart Shopper eBucks. Hot off the heels of 99c bread for qualifying FNB customers, Pick n Pay announced that FNB Private Clients and eBucks members from RMB Private Bank can get as much as 30% of their spend back in eBucks when using PnP’s asap, and 20% back for those shopping in-store, as well FNB account specific rewards when shopping at PnP clothing.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with sustainable scaling and growth strategy help through Metavolve, your own CTO and tech team at a fraction of the cost with Octoco and 11 more vital startup tools & services.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

In the last few days alone, in our online community, we…

• Helped connect Trevor with leads for a full-stack developer.
• Celebrated Sebastian’s moves into the Portuguese property market.
• Got excited for our first LIVE and in-person Office Hours next week 🔥.
• Helped Danei with the ultimate sales deck template.
• Celebrated Sabeeha’s 4 new clients.
• Celebrated Gustav’s first revenue & closing partners!
• Had a lekker discussion around mugging detection for bike riders.
• Secured our seats for today’s collab-exclusive Sales Masterclass.

Thinking about joining The Open Collab?

• Supercharge your network in the SA startup landscape — get that introduction, get that customer, or meet that partner.
• Get feedback on your products, services and/or offers from others who have built and are building their own products right now.
• Join all our online and in-person events for free!
• Exclusive 1-on-1 sessions with startup consultants.

SA’s only dedicated tech startup and scale-up founder community.

Join The Open Collab

HAPPENING SOON

Upcoming Events

Join us at 12 PM today (Friday 1 Nov) for the first in a 3-part series with The Open Collab exclusive B2B Sales Series. Want to learn what it’s about? Watch the video on IG below…

‍

1 November 2024 — Sales Masterclass — Online: Keep your B2B sales pipeline filled with this Masterclass session with sales expert, Sebastian Chapman — Join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

4-6 November 2024 — Injini EdTech Week — Cape Town: This is where EdTech entrepreneurs, the broader ecosystem members, government and policy stakeholders come together in Cape Town — PS: entrance is free.

7 November 2024 — Cape Town: Tinder for Business: Meet 20 investors, corporates or potential customers at Innovation City. Sign up here.

7 November 2024 — JHB: TechSafari is hosting its first JHB mixer. Get tickets here and use OL20% code to get a sweet 20% off!

8 November 2024 — Product Masterclass: Part 2: How to keep shipping truly great products, fast — Join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

14 November 2024 — TechSafari is coming to Cape Town! Join Caleb and team for a memorable night at Yoco to talk all things Tech and Startup in Africa. Get tickets here. Use OL20% code to get a sweet 20% off!

View all our upcoming events here.

WHAT YOU SAID

Kasi deliverables…

We asked what you think townships need more of, and services are the key…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⚡️ Infrastructure (electricity & running water). (32%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 🦺 Safety & security initiatives. (27%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🌐 Inclusion in the digital economy. (14%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🎓 Education. (23%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🚐 Last-mile delivery solutions. (4%)

Your 2 cents…

“The Taxi Connect idea sounds good but it won't work in places like Thembisa, Alexandra and Diepsloot. Taxi drivers feel they can do whatever they want because they have support from the government and taxi associations. They treat customers poorly and people only use taxis because they have no choice.”

Sakhile

Nice one, Sakhile, it’s that kind of user insight that can help tech companies know where to put their efforts. 🙌

“I think this could differ from one township to another, depend on which province it's in and on people's mindsets. Education should be coveted, infrastructure should be implemented and safety and security a rule. Once those 3 are settled, the rest comes automatically.”

Liesl

We certainly hope so, Liesl, and love that so many startups are trying to make a difference here. 🇿🇦

“I wish I could choose more than one here. It would be in the following order of importance from my perspective: Infrastructure-Safety-Education.”

Ayuballie

No probs, in our books you selected all 3. 😊

“Answer the safety and security issues and then they will be able to access electricity (without it being fed off to multiple illegal places) and water and sanitation staff will be able to enter and fix issues as and when they happen. Right now their lives are in danger, besides the people living there, it is when they need electrical and water support, the most basic needs, the workers get targeted by criminals, putting their lives in danger.”

Lynn

‍
Keen observation, Lynne. Safety and security is NB. 🔐

Boring humans? While recording demos of their AI taking over an entire computer (a new feature they’re working on), Anthropic’s Claude stopped in the middle of the recording, opened Google and started browsing pretty pictures of Yellowstone Park instead.

Moral of the story? Even AIs find work boring enough to wanna go climb a tree. 🤷‍♀️

In this Open Letter:

• Double bill: A two-pronged approach to this R200bn+ market.
• Apples for health, AI watchdogs and PDF podcasts.
• Worth a shot: Win R300k back in business expenses.
• Time to network: 7 SA tech events you don’t want to miss.
• What makes you walk out of a restaurant: The results are in.
• Lonely building your startup? Join SA’s only tech founder community.

‍

Together with:

Did someone forward you this email? Join 14,138 South Africans reading The Open Letter by signing up here.

TRENDING NOW

Selling Direct to this R200bn+ SA Market

SA’s townships are alive with opportunity…

Unsurprising given that around 12 million of SA’s people reside in townships, with the bustling township economy worth nearly R200 billion – though in the past we said it could be worth over R400bn.

Opportunity. And challenges…

Now, if you’re thinking about the phenomenal rise in grocery delivery in SA – we wrote about this earlier this year – your big retailers and corporates recognise the opportunity to serve township communities but haven't been able to solve last-mile delivery yet.

And, in some ways, their need is more dire than us in the suburbs…

In the township, the local spaza shop is only really suited for small purchases – snacks, beverages, data and such.

Your basic monthly household shopping is a massive shlep – catching a taxi into “town” and lugging 3’000 bags back with you.

‍

So, why haven’t Checkers Sixty60 and Woolworths Dash jumped on these?

Well, they have, kinda.

They’ve just run into some more uniquely South African challenges…

Challenge 1: Criminals have started targeting last-mile

We knew it would only be a matter of time right? Attacks on delivery vehicles have tripled from 2023 to 2024, with as many as 65 attacks per day in June this year alone. (And this month it’s around 20-25 hijackings per day – sheez!)

Also this month, Woolies Dash suspended its services in Hout Bay due to driver safety concerns. Not to mention retailers’ worrying trend of hiring mainly foreign drivers, further eroding trust in townships who would want to see local drivers benefit more from Checkers and Woolworths.

Hmm, OK so if you can’t send armies of little bikes to every home, what about using the existing spaza shops as distribution centres or something?
‍

Ah, and therein lies the next problem…

Challenge 2: Manufacturers lack basic market data

See, when you create a product in SA and distribute it to retail chains and wholesalers, the stores typically can give you sales data, so you can plan your plays in the market.

But the spaza owner who buys straight from wholesale doesn’t report back on what happens to your goods on their shelves, making it super hard for the producer to get a handle on the buying patterns in those markets and plan logistics accordingly to ensure healthy margins and reduce risk.

All of this leads to a bit of stagnation in solving the last-mile-to-Kasi conundrum.

Except, of course, for this one local startup that’s klapping both at once…

When Elon starts building in SA, things gonna get wild.

A two-pronged approach to township deliveries

Taxi Connect connects spaza shops and households with suppliers using – you guessed it! – minibus taxis for last-mile logistics.

They’ve got time to fill: Peak passenger times are 4–8 AM, with a money-wasting 8-hour break in between and a mad rush again 4–8 PM. So Taxi Connect lets drivers use those 8 hours to earn extra income from product deliveries.

And they know the township game: Drivers already know the safest and best way to drive through the township, to get to the specific spaza shop with maximum efficiency – and criminals know better than to try target taxis in the township. 

But the magic really starts when you combine it with shelfline. This unique platform empowers (mostly unemployed) youth to become traders supplying their local spaza shops (within a 10km radius). 

If you’re an entrepreneurial young person looking to make some cash, you can register on shelflife and become an agent who orders products from wholesale (the platform connects you to some really good ones) and supplies them to you using TaxiConnect after which you hop on your bike and deliver to whoever is ordering.

This goes a long way to creating opportunities for the youth, but the platform also sends much-needed trading data back to the wholesaler, retailers and ultimately producers, closing the data loop nicely.

With companies like Taxi Connect and shelfline creating unique opportunities in townships alongside established role-players, we’re watching this space…

THE OPEN COLLAB EXCLUSIVE

The Deep Dive

Join The Open Collab

IN SHORT

The latest SA and tech gossip...

👁️ Keeping an (A)I on it. Local artificial intelligence and computer vision solution provider visionAI has raised an undisclosed funding round from Kalon Venture Partners to continue its growth of innovative AI solutions that integrate with existing CCTV feeds in the manufacturing and supply chain sectors to increase operational efficiency.

🍏 Keeping the Dr away. Apple is continuing with its healthcare play with an app that helps pre-diabetic patients manage their food intake and make lifestyle changes. Apple tested the app on select employees earlier this year, and while it may not be released, reports suggest it could form part of Apple’s future healthcare products including the non-invasive glucose tracker that’s been in the works for years.

🎙️ RoboPod. Hot off the heels of Google’s NotebookLM “generate-a-podcast” feature, Meta has released an open implementation called NotebookLlama using Meta’s Llama models for processing. The project can generate a podcast-style delivery of text files uploaded to it using the guide for the PDF to Podcast workflow.

🤑 Healthy Funding. Absa has secured a R2.6 billion trade financing facility from British International Investment (BII) to help the SA lender provide liquidity to small- and medium-sized businesses in Africa, particularly in the agriculture and healthcare sectors.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with your own fractional CFO for less with OCFO, expert offshoring, company structure and legal advice from Dommisse Attorneys and 12 more vital startup tools & services.

CHECK THIS OUT

Earn Rewards for Doing Business

Not many banks really get the small business game. None, in fact, until the likes of Lula came along…

They know it takes more than most people have to build something from scratch… and that’s why they’ve decided to reward you a little for doing business… For the next few weeks, Lula will distribute R300k simply for trading using a Lula business account.

Every payment you make is one entry — and you can rack up entries and increase your share of the rewards.

So, in case you don’t know yet, Lula lets you:

• Open a business account for free with no monthly fees 
• Earn interest on your positive balance
• The fastest way to access a credit facility — money becomes available within 2 hours of a successful application.
  
  

And now, for every transaction, you get a chance at a slice of R300k in rewards.

A better startup banking solution, anyone?

Get Lula now

HAPPENING SOON

Upcoming Events

Join us this Friday for the first in a 3-part series with The Open Collab exclusive B2B Sales Series. Want to learn what it’s about? Watch the video on IG below…

View more on Instagram

theopenletterza‍

30-31 October 2024 — AI Expo Africa — JHB: Join over 2’000 industry insiders for Africa’s largest AI and automation trade show at the Sandton Convention Centre in JHB.

1 November 2024 — Sales Masterclass — Online: Keep your B2B sales pipeline filled with this Masterclass session with sales expert, Sebastian Chapman — Join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

4-6 November 2024 — Injini EdTech Week — Cape Town: This is where EdTech entrepreneurs, the broader ecosystem members, government and policy stakeholders come together in Cape Town — PS: entrance is free.

7 November 2024 — Cape Town: Tinder for Business: Meet 20 investors, corporates or potential customers at Innovation City. Sign up here.

7 November 2024 — JHB: TechSafari is hosting its first JHB mixer. Get tickets here and use OL20% code to get a sweet 20% off!

8 November 2024 — Product Masterclass: Part 2: How to keep shipping truly great products, fast — Join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

14 November 2024 — TechSafari is coming to Cape Town! Join Caleb and team for a memorable night at Yoco to talk all things Tech and Startup in Africa. Get tickets here. Use OL20% code to get a sweet 20% off!

View all our upcoming events here.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

In the last few days alone, in our online community, we…

• Had the most powerful product masterclass with Roger Norton.
• Discovered the most remarkable use case for the Vision Pro 🤩.
• Discussed big new blockchain moves by Stripe looking ready to replace traditional finance.
• Developed a game plan for when potential big corporate clients want you to tweak your code.
• Got a sneak peek at Friday’s upcoming sales masterclass — it’s gonna be 🔥.
  
  

Thinking about joining The Open Collab?

• Supercharge your network in the SA startup landscape — get that introduction, get that customer, or meet that partner.
• Get feedback on your products, services and/or offers from others who have built and are building their own products right now.
• Join all our online and in-person events for free!
• Exclusive 1-on-1 sessions with startup consultants.

SA’s only dedicated tech startup and scale-up founder community.

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WHAT YOU SAID

Food for thought…

We asked about your most unforgivable restaurant faux pas, and it’s all about food hygiene…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 💅 Something gross in your food. (48%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🥜 Not removing something you’re allergic to. (8%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍽️ Forgetting to order one of the meals. (10%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🙉 Loud/stupid music. (15%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤑 Charging extra for sauces and sides. (19%)

Your 2 cents…

“If a restaurant plays loud stupid music, it doesn't get the opportunity from me for any of the other faux pas. I go somewhere else, and take my chances on finding something gross in my food.”

William

Ha ha, ja William, some places just hit the wrong notes. 📯

“Not removing something you’re allergic to. They're all annoying but only one can potentially kill you....”

Yeh, no that’s serious business. 💉

🍟 Taking Food to the Cloud...

Plus: Checkers’ Hyper60 play 🛋️, no AI Getaway, why it’s clicking for Clicks & 7 SA tech events you don’t want to miss.

October 25, 2024

Something to say? A Japanese team is trying to learn to talk to fungi, and so far they’ve deduced that fungi can recognise shapes. Why? They’re looking for ways to use “dumb” lifeforms to build biological computers.

In this Open Letter:

• Food to the cloud: Welcoming restaurants to the 21st century.
• Checkers’ Hyper60 play, no AI Getaway & it’s clicking for Clicks.
• See you there: 7 SA tech events you don’t want to miss.
• How SA homes are growing in value: The results are in.
• Lonely building your startup? Join SA’s only founder community dedicated to tech startups.

Together with:

Did someone forward you this email? Join 14,102 South Africans reading The Open Letter by signing up here.

TRENDING NOW

Welcoming SA’s Restaurants to the 21st Century

Years ago, restaurant operations were run with pen and paper – orders scribbled down, and cash counted out by hand.

Internationally, IBM introduced the first fully computerised Point-of-Sale (POS) system in 1973. And it took a few decades, but most people reading this will be familiar with restaurants having at least a Pilot or GAAP POS system.

You know, those static terminals your waitperson needs to run to every time you order a refill.

Jack’s first trip to the States was uncomfortable

And for a time it went really well… they eventually added touchscreens and card machines (oh, we’re flying now!) in the mid-late 1990s, then other smarter payment solutions like SnapScan and such.

But turns out many restaurants are still pretty dumb…

Here’s the thing… as culinarily “avant-garde” as that posh eatery is, tech-wise restaurants haven’t evolved much in the last 20 (probably more like 30)-odd years.

It’s still basically a static POS terminal in a closed system (not connected to the net) – meaning online orders are tricky, table ordering impossible, and even your Uber Eats orders all need to be added entirely separately.

And switching out is a big mission. Hardware to buy and training on new systems often keep busy restaurants just moving along with what they’ve got.

Eateries are due for a cloud update

During Covid lockdowns, Uber Eats in South-Saharan Africa saw a 1860% increase in demand. And it never really returned to normal – much like grocery delivery, the food delivery market has been growing steadily Year-on-Year, expected to be in the R21bn range in 2024.

Online bookings have also skyrocketed, with bookings app Dineplan showing a 9.3% rise in web, a 50% rise in app bookings and steady declines in telephone bookings, noting that diners like to plan further and further in advance and prefer tech to help them do it.

And don’t even get us started on intelligence! What data-driven decisions can a restaurant make with a closed system that can’t pull big data from the cloud? Just look at the kind of menu-planning decisions a simple data extract like Uber Eats’ annual cravings report can deliver – and now imagine what a local restaurant can do with that level of insights on your palettes, in your neighbourhood.

Nah, it’s definitely time we welcomed the restaurant industry to the 21st century, and one SA startup is on the job…

The future of SA’s restaurants

Local cloud software platform Munch is developing a comprehensive suite of tools designed to streamline restaurant management, covering everything from POS and Inventory to Kitchen Management, Online Ordering, and Self-service Kiosks. Their cloud-based platform moves beyond the limitations of traditional POS systems, freeing restaurants from bulky, outdated setups.

Their suite of products include:

• Mobile POS: Enables waitstaff to take orders directly at the table, reducing errors and delays and allowing payments to be processed on the spot.
• Standard POS: Handles dine-in and takeout orders with a user-friendly tablet interface, eliminating the need for expensive, specialised hardware.
• A Customer-Facing Munch App: Lets diners browse the menu, order, and pay using their phones, all in one seamless process.
• Kitchen Display: Keeps the kitchen team in sync with real-time updates, streamlining meal prep and reducing wait times (no more lettuce and tomato sitting under the hot light while the burger patty is cooked to perfection…)
• Back Office: All the above (and more) are managed in Munch’s Cloud Portal (even remotely from your phone).

And with a 30% reduction in wait times, a 90% decrease in incorrect orders, and ordering happening 50% faster, the proof is in the pudding that Munch is eliminating inefficiencies in the restaurant space one table at a time. 

We recently chatted to Munch on the latest episode of the “How Would You Build It” podcast. And they’re frying up some pretty cool stuff all along the restaurant value chain building a consolidated Menu, Inventory, and Order Management system – processes that typically are run by separate disjointed systems.

Catch the full episode or jump to highlights:

• How to land that first customer in B2B SaaS — Munch’s early track record.
• How to know what features to build next.
• How to simplify complex problems when building.

THE DEEP DIVE

Learn How This Startup Works

The Deep Dive is exclusive to members of The Open Collab. Join SA’s only founder community dedicated to tech startups and scale-up founders.

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IN SHORT

Say something interesting…

🍊 Code Orange. Jozi-based entrepreneurs are invited to apply for the 2025 cohort of the Orange Corners Designs (OCD) programme run by the Craft and Design Institute (CDI) and supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. The 12-month programme supports the 20 participants to grow their businesses and a chance to access R1 million in funding.

🤔 AI Cover Art? Local travel mag Getaway published an image of Mpumalanga’s Blyde River Canyon on the front cover of its October 2024 issue. But it would seem that it might be an AI-generated image from Shutterstock submitted by a Pakistan-based photographer who joined the site in August. Hmmm… Interesting…

🚚 Hyper Delivery. Checkers has updated its Sixty60 app by adding Checkers Hyper products including electronics, camping gear and more — making an e-commerce play to compete with Takealot and Amazon. Products vary from region to region though, are limited to specific time slots, but qualify for free delivery with R100 spend.

💊 Healthy Results. Local pharmacy retailer Clicks seems to be hitting it out of the park reporting on double-digit growth in its full-year results filing, and plans to open around 50 new stores and pharmacies to edge closer to reaching the 1’000 store mark.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with your own fractional CFO for less with OCFO, easy-apply R5M business funding with Lula and 11 more vital startup tools & services.

CHECK THIS OUT

Work more on the things that matter

A scaling business normally equals chaos. Staffing, operations, clients, finance and more all need attention and all seem equally important. But what if they aren’t?

Metavolve’s Scale programme has helped agriBORA double their customers with only a 25% increase in employees – in just 4 months.

“Confidence is the win that I can really talk about here.

I'm now able to assert where the company is headed, be more firm with shareholders and guide my team with certainty.

And the main reason why I'm able to do this now is because of the clarity I got from the strategy process we went through.“

agriBORA CEO, Kizito Odhiambo

If you want to grow with a mission, sign up for the Metavolve scale program and start focusing on the stuff that matters most!

Want to learn more about Metavolve’s framework that has helped more than 100 founders and business leaders develop sustainable scaling strategies?

Book a free strategy session now

HAPPENING SOON

Upcoming Events

25 October 2024 — Product Masterclass — Online : SA’s very own “product legend” Roger Norton is here for the first in a three-part product building series — The Open Collab community exclusive.

30-31 October 2024 — AI Expo Africa — JHB: Join over 2’000 industry insiders for Africa’s largest AI and automation trade show at the Sandton Convention Centre in JHB.

1 November 2024 — Sales Masterclass — Online: Keep your B2B sales pipeline filled with this Masterclass session with sales expert, Sebastian Chapman — The Open Collab community exclusive.

4-6 November 2024 — Iniji EdTech Week — Cape Town: This is where EdTech entrepreneurs, the broader ecosystem members, government and policy stakeholders come together in Cape Town — PS: entrance is free.

7 November 2024 — Cape Town: Tinder for Business: Meet 20 investors, corporates or potential customers at Innovation City. Sign up here.

7 November 2024 — JHB: TechSafar is hosting its first JHB mixer. Get tickets here.

8 November 2024 — Product Masterclass: Part 2: How to keep shipping truly great products, fast — The Open Collab community exclusive.

View all our upcoming events here.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

It’s all happening at SA’s only founder community dedicated to tech startups and scale-ups. In the last 48 hours alone, in our online community, we…

• Helped Tiaan find a fast and simple, local card payment solution.
• Got such good feedback from the in-person check-ins with members.
• Helped Laurie connect with potential partners for his wife’s startup.
• Helped Erhard gain some traffic and traction for his new product.
• Tried to get Roger to pose more like Steve Jobs for his Product Masterclass cover shots.
• Celebrated Sabeeha’s four 🔥 new paying leads.

WHAT YOU SAID

In case of emergency…

We asked how happy you are with your home’s growth in value (as an investment), and ooops…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Well, everything was fine, until I read that post… 😬 (31%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Nah, I keep a handle on these things, it’s growing lekke 😎 (8%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Dunno, better get Hoom for my sale 🏡 (13%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Not worried, I bought it for my family, no need to profit ❤️ (18%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Haven’t bought yet, dreaming of one day… 💒 (25%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yeah, that’s why I choose to rather rent 💰 (5%)

🏡 Getting 7M Homeowners the Best Deal

Plus: SA’s CO2 cloud, AI interview coach, SABC’s streaming numbers & lessons from an SA product legend.

October 22, 2024

Lunar fashion? It looks like the next generation of NASA astronauts will be wearing Prada to the moon. Thankfully those visuals are just to create some hype — the final new design is set to be unveiled soon.

In this Open Letter:

• Big moves: The startup helping SA homeowners get better deals.
• SA’s CO2 cloud, AI interview coach & SABC’s streaming numbers.
• Building things that matter: Join our SA product legend Masterclass.
• The emergency services you really want: The results are in.
• Lonely building your startup? Join The Open Collab and get support.

Together with:

Did someone forward you this email? Join 14,008 South Africans reading The Open Letter by signing up here.

TRENDING NOW

Helping 7M+ Homeowners Get the Best Deal

How hard/easy is it to lose a lot of money selling your house in SA?

Because selling seems simple enough, there are estate agents everywhere…

Nearly 4’000 Estate Agencies are listed on Property24, with some 40’000 Property Practitioners moving and shaking in SA’s R7 trillion residential property sector. 

And house prices seem to be skyrocketing, so it must be booming, right?

Uh, not quite.

SA’s big property dilemma

See, what you might not know (and likely neither do many estate agents) is that SA’s property sector has actually been battling to deliver real returns for quite some time.

We had a decent boom between 2000 and 2006 where prices rose by around 20% annually, and it’s kinda gone downhill from there:

• The 2008 financial crisis and a new credit act saw prices fall -16.5% in real terms.
• A decent-seeming 51% boost between 2011 and 2019 was brought down to just 0.4% due to inflation.
• During lockdowns, a brief 8% uptick was deteriorated to 1.1% by inflation.
• And we’ve had negative growth of -4.28% in 2022 and -4.19% in 2023.

So, you might be selling your house for more than you technically paid for it (or owe), but there’s a good chance you’re not getting what it’s really worth.

Remember that, unlike investing in unit trusts, where the diversification you get from a suite of shares tends to balance each other out for growth, a property is just one asset – if it depreciates, that’s a solid loss.

And in that scenario, you don’t just want an OK-ish agent, you want the best representation money can buy.

The moral? Estate agent choice can be make or break

Estate agents typically charge between 4-7% and at that fee, you want to be sure they are fighting for the best price for you, have access to the right kind of buyers and top of their game when it comes to the administrative side.

And considering property is often the biggest investment (or at least one of the biggest) most people will ever make, so, no pressure… 

To be fair, they had a great smile, and a pretty solid tagline…

The local player connecting you with your ideal agent

Enter Hoom. An online marketplace for sellers to find the perfect estate agent for their sale.

It all starts fairly simply; as a seller, you:

• List your property details in 6 simple steps 
• Specify agent preferences (ages, agent category, languages, gender) 

Then, within 24 hours, Hoom matches you with up to 5 estate agents in your area, based on your requirements, complete with pic, bio, value proposition, full disclosure on their commission rate, plus any additional services they offer (like photography, video tours, international market exposure, ID verification for viewers, etc.)...

All in the name of helping you find that one agent who will get you the deal you’re after.

Plus, if you sell your home using one of the estate agents you found via Hoom, you get some lekker seller-perks – most notably cashback (anywhere between R6’250 and R20k+, depending on the value of your house), for yourself, or to donate with one of the causes Hoom partners with.

And estate agents also benefit

From the agent’s perspective, it pays to bring your A-game when listing on Hoom, because: 

• The platform acts as a constant funnel for new listings
• There are no upfront fees or monthly costs for agents
• Hoom’s back-end and admin means all the leads are qualified and warmed up for sale.

But what’s really cool is that Hoom offers great opportunities for new entrants into the market to help transform the real estate industry. You no longer need a R1 million marketing budget to compete with the big agencies to get in front of sellers.

They’re currently only operating in Cape Town, with plans to gradually expand to the rest of SA over time. And, they were recently a PropTech finalist, and "Most Innovative Real Estate Company" contender at the 8th African Property Investment Summit. 

With more and more innovative startups shaking things up in an old-school industry, we think PropTech is ready to take some serious ground. We’re watching this space…

THE OPEN COLLAB EXCLUSIVE

The Deep Dive

Join The Open Collab

IN SHORT

Sound smart at the watercooler

💼 Ready. Steady. Job. MindCiti, a local mental health, soft skills, and job readiness app has launched its AI Interview Job Coach to help job seekers prepare for their next interview using personalised coaching and feedback, that simulates real-life interview scenarios.

💨 Carbon Clouds. Carbon Mapper has released the first methane and carbon dioxide detections from the Tanager-1 satellite including a 3-km-long carbon dioxide plume in South Africa, and methane plumes in both Texas and Pakistan.

📦 Go for Africa. Local click-and-collect delivery service Pargo is set to launch into more territories across Africa as it builds on its 4’000+ strong South African pick-up points and the 150 pick-up points in their trial program in Egypt that launched last year.

👀 StreamingABC. After launching a little over 3 months ago, the SABC’s free streaming service has racked up more than 500k registered users. The revamped platform offers catch-up content, on-demand video, as well as live streams of all SABC radio and TV channels.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with sustainable scaling and growth strategy help through Metavolve, your own CTO and tech team at a fraction of the cost with Octoco and 11 more vital startup tools & services.

CHECK THIS OUT

One less thing for Small Business Owners to stress about

According to a recent Xero study, 24% of SA small businesses reported cash flow problems, with 72% of them using personal funds to keep their business afloat. 

A major cause is delayed payments, with businesses spending an average of 1–2 months chasing late invoices. But, even with on-time payments, it’s tricky covering the salary run when your customer payments runs don’t line up.

It’s a pain Sports & Corporate owner Allistair Bunding has experienced firsthand…

“We pay staff on a weekly basis, but we only get money from our clients at the end of eight weeks.”

Add to that the need to buy raw materials upfront, and it’s easy to see why cash flow becomes a pressing issue, particularly around month-end.

Allistair describes how stressful it is to juggle these financial demands:

“You don’t want to be telling your staff on a Friday, ‘Sorry, we can’t pay you,’ especially when December comes around, with holiday pay and bonuses on the line.”

Like many entrepreneurs, Allistair initially tried to rely on traditional banks to fill the gaps.

But the process of getting funding is so complicated and time-consuming that 92% of small business owners do not even attempt to get funding from traditional banks anymore.

“Dealing with these commercial banks, nothing is basic, and most of the time, it’s not functional.”

Traditional banking often adds unnecessary complexity to an already hectic schedule, and the last thing a small business owner needs is additional stress over funding.

That’s where Lula steps in

With its Revolving Capital Facility, Lula offers a streamlined and efficient way to secure funding – quickly. 

“The transaction was done in five minutes.”

With Lula, there’s no complicated paperwork or endless waiting. Just a simple, functional solution that gives you the cash flow you need when you need it.

So if you’re tired of banking headaches, there’s a better way to get funding faster.

Get Lula – and make month-end a breeze.

Get Lula now

HAPPENING SOON

Upcoming Events

Join us this Friday for the first in a 3-part series with an SA product legend. Want to learn what it’s about? Watch the video on IG below…

View more on Instagram

theopenletterza

Add a comment...

25 October 2024 — Product Masterclass: SA’s very own “product legend” Roger Norton is here for the first in a three-part product building series — The Open Collab community exclusive.

1 November 2024 — Sales Masterclass: Keep your B2B sales pipe filled Masterclass session with sales expert, Sebastian Chapman — The Open Collab community exclusive.

8 November 2024 — Product Masterclass: Part 2: How to keep shipping truly great products, fast — The Open Collab community exclusive.

15 November 2024 — Sales Masterclass: Part 2: Learn to improve your conversion rates with sales expert, Sebastian Chapman — The Open Collab community exclusive.

View all our upcoming events here.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

In the last 48 hours alone, in our online community, we…

• Had an incredible chat roulette experience that made us feel at home 🤗.
• Got some last-minute tickets to SA Future Trust Summit.
• Helped John get AI to process all his looooong docs in seconds.
• Marvelled at how far AI has come with insane generations with Google’s ImageFX.
• Celebrated some remarkable Open Letter growth over the weekend.
• Got a sneak peek at Friday’s upcoming sales masterclass — it’s gonna be 🔥.

Coming Up This Week

• Wednesday 10-11: Office Hours, where we all log in and work together, + the whole Open Letter team is at members’ disposal.
• New: Free monthly startup strategy calls for all Open Collab members.
• Support: All day, every day: unlimited introductions, recruitment, service provider referrals and business-building insights.

Join The Open Collab

WHAT YOU SAID

In case of emergency…

What other emergency services would you like at the push of a button?

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🍫 Midnight snacks (19%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🤓 A helping hand so I don't have to work late (19%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ ☕️ Caffeine hit (your drink of choice, of course) (14%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 💐 Instant gifts (for those forgotten anniversaries, birthdays, etc.) (29%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🔋 Charger delivery (when you’re running low on juice) (19%)

Your 2 cents…

“It would be amazing to have an app that offers different categories of gifts and prompts for certain occasions, wraps them, and hand delivers them to your person of choice.”

Culpepper

Ooh, sounds like we’d support, Culpepper 🎁.

“I have a great coffee setup at home, but it would be lekker to hit a button and have a fresh Cortado at my gate within a handful of minutes...”

Jason

Not bad at all, Jason ☕.

Early Black Friday? Online retailer Zando announced that they are pulling out of South Africa. The upshot of this, though, is they’re selling all their stock at like 50-85% discount with free delivery.

In this Open Letter:

• Vital charge: The startup that helps save South African lives.
• Local EVs, deepfake Elon & AI drones to save your potatoes.
• Lonely building your business? Join the Collab’s Chat Roulette.
• Our fave traffic light behaviours: The results are in.
• Short on ideas? Share this and get 100+ SA startup ideas.
  
  

Together with:

Did someone forward you this email? Join 13,943 South Africans reading The Open Letter by signing up here.

TRENDING NOW

The New Tech Saving SA Lives Every Day

It’s no secret that it’s hard to get a hold of the cops in SA…

Around 26% of calls to 10111 are dropped. And if your call does get answered (anywhere between 8 and 35 minutes), our guys in blue are stretched pretty thin, with around 145’200 cops to keep 62 million of us in check. 

For context: The police-to-population ratio in SA is 1:427 – the United Nations recommends a ratio of 1:220, so we are barely halfway there…

Can technology help improve the situation?

Technology can be highly effective in crime detection and prevention. Just think:

• Surveillance, monitoring, and behavioural analysis: AI-powered surveillance systems can analyse footage in real time, identifying suspicious activities or behaviour that might need police intervention.
• Gunshot detection: AI-based acoustic sensors can detect gunshots, pinpoint their location, and alert law enforcement instantly.
• Predictive policing: AI algorithms can analyse historical crime data, identify patterns, and predict potential crime hotspots.

But ultimately, no matter how cool the tech is (or how powerful), for now its going to require human intervention to respond to emergencies.

A local platform with your nearest first responder at your fingertips…

AURA is a B2B platform that allows anyone to access a vetted, first responder (be it security or medical) that’s closest to their location in the event of an emergency.

They’ve built a response tech platform that sits behind their API which companies (like insurers, couriers, and even government) can bolt onto their existing applications in order to create panic buttons for their users – suddenly giving them access to AURA’s network of 3’500 response vehicles.   

And, from the looks of it, it works: They’re able to deliver an 8-minute response time nationally with 3’500 vehicles, and internal data shows they save up to 5 lives per day in South Africa.

But here’s the thing…

We actually spoke about AURA at the beginning of this year in our post on security tech opportunities in SA, but simply had to bring them back, because…

AURA launched in the UK earlier this year, and that brought with it an interesting new set of challenges. Over there, private security companies usually act as intermediaries that only monitor alarms, it’s the police that are actually dispatched when an alarm goes off – hmmm, must be nice…

Yeah, and that must be why many folks over there didn’t even bother getting a security company – why pay when the police show up anyway?

But, all that recently changed: The UK police have stopped responding directly to alarms, requiring that alarm activations be confirmed before they come over. In other words, the UK became a lot less like the UK and a lot more like SA – ideal for some innovative SA brand to swoop in and…

And you guessed it: AURA quickly spun up a gig economy for private security and medical personnel, with their solution cutting down the archaic traditional process (which requires multiple human interventions) in half with its smart technology and auto dispatch to the nearest emergency responder in the UK. They initially created synthetic demand to seed the marketplace until there was enough action on the platform to ensure supply and demand met each other in a win-win-win way.

But don’t let us spoil the story for you. We had Warren Myers, the Co-Founder and CEO of AURA, on the most recent episode of our “How Would You Build It” pod, so check it out for even more juicy details, including:

• Innovation, handbrakes, and working with SAPS.
• How emergency responses differ in the UK.
• How to generate demand when building a marketplace.
• The future of emergency detection (and apps).

THE OPEN COLLAB EXCLUSIVE

The Deep Dive

IN SHORT

Grab a knowledge nugget for the braai…

⛴️ Going places. Fleet management company GoMetro has secured a R3.2 million grant from the UK Freight Innovation Fund for a 6-month trial of GoMetro’s EV-FIT solution and its Bridge fleet management software platform with UK’s Maritime Transport and Welch’s Transport companies.

🥔 Spud drones. SA potato farmers are getting a helping hand with autonomous drones that can detect potato leaf disease using AI. A partnership between local digital business consultancy Moyo, and Dell Technologies is bringing Dell AI Factory with Nvidia and Precision AI-ready workstations to a potato farm near you for advanced crop health monitoring.

💼 Business crypto. Yellow Card, an African crypto startup, has raised $33 million in Series C funding led by Blockchain Capital (they’ve already invested in Worldcoin, Coinbase, and OpenSea), to support its pivot towards its business customers in 20 African countries.

🔒 Own Goal. Local trading platform Banxso’s licence to operate has been provisionally withdrawn by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) and several of its bank accounts placed on hold by the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC). The platform has been accused of “benefiting” from deepfake AI ads featuring among others Elon Musk promising profits of up to R300k per month.

⚡️ Tax-Free EV? SA President Cyril Ramaphosa is apparently considering incentives for local electric vehicle manufacturers, as well as tax rebates or subsidies for those purchasing and using them. Speaking at the South African Auto Week conference, Pres. Ramaphosa said it was about ensuring South Africa remains competitive in global markets.

🏦 No Crypto. Earlier in the week, Capitec blocked all transactions to local crypto exchange Valr, citing fraud concerns. Capitec still allows transactions to Valr via Capitec Pay but at a premium to EFT transactions.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with super-easy local and international payment processing with WigWag, expert offshoring, company structure and legal advice from Dommisse Attorneys and 11 more vital startup tools & services.

CHECK THIS OUT

Empower Your Team To Scale Fast

Let’s not mince words here…

The only thing harder than starting up and proving your product/idea is worth the time and effort is achieving Market Fit and scaling up. Because scaling often means moving founder-led sales to a team of sales personnel.

Their challenge? Well, they often don’t have the trust and authority in the marketplace that a founder does — which makes closing sales a tough gig. But when the brand or product they represent has trust and authority, it really greases the sales wheels….

In fact, 81% of customers only buy from brands they trust. 46% of those are willing to pay more for products from brands they recognise.

The Fastest Way to Build Authority

The truth is: there are no shortcuts to trust, it’s earned.

But how do you earn it? Content marketing is by far the fastest, simplest and most effective way to do that – delivering 3X higher brand engagement at a fraction of the cost.

If you are a tech scale-up, you need to content to:

• Empower your salespeople
• Create high-quality touchpoints that add value
• Attract the right type of audience
• Differentiate yourself in a competitive market
• Position yourself and your brand as a thought leader
• Lower your cost of customer acquisition
• Improve your conversions

That’s why we created Stream:

• We marry engineering expertise
• With award-winning copywriting
• And a super-flexible pause-and-cancel subscription model

To give your tech scale-up the ability to build trust with authoritative content that empowers your sales team, and helps you say the right things to the right audience at the right time.

Get in touch today for a free consultation on what content can do for you.

Get Stream

HAPPENING SOON

Upcoming Events

Today at 12:00 — Digital Chat Roulette: It’s like startup speed dating, but you don’t have to leave the house/office — The Open Collab community exclusive.

25 October 2024 — Product Masterclass: SA’s very own “product legend” Roger Norton is here for the first in a three-part product building series — The Open Collab community exclusive.

1 November 2024 — Sales Masterclass: Keep your B2B sales pipe filled Masterclass session with sales expert, Sebastian Chapman — The Open Collab community exclusive.

8 November 2024 — Product Masterclass: Part 2: How to keep shipping truly great products, fast — The Open Collab community exclusive.

18 November 2024 — Cape Town: In-person: Building SA’s most-used digital products — tickets available soon.

View all our upcoming events here.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

In the last 48 hours alone, in our online community, we…

• Gave Chris a warm intro to the COO of the company he’s been trying to secure a meet with for months 🤗
• Hooked Elijah up with a contact for building a WhatsApp CRM.
• Discussed both internal and outreach comms: email VS WhatsApp VS in-person.
• Celebrated Garth’s successful custom GPT pilot.
• Helped “hook” Gustav up with the Boardroom founders.
• Got super-sweet connections to get into Africa Tech Festival for free, but with access to more of the event than the normal pass.
  
  

Coming Up Next Week

• Wednesday 10-11: Office Hours, where we all log in and work together, + the whole Open Letter team is at members’ disposal.
• New: Free monthly startup strategy calls for all Open Collab members.
• Support: All day, every day: unlimited introductions, recruitment, service provider referrals and business-building insights.

FOR THE MEMES

Sustainable fashion for way less…

We meet a lot of cool SA founders and started doing quickfire pitches where they tell us what their startups are all about.

This is Nick and Michaela from sustainably sourced fashion platform Thrif, where conscious buyers get quality goods at a great price…

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WHAT YOU SAID

Don’t stop believing…

We asked what you do during peak traffic at a robot🚦, and air-drumming the wheel’s the game…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🥪 Take the next bite of a meal. (8%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💅 Fix makeup/hair/beard. (5%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✋ Ward off window washers/pamphlet handers/car trash collectors. (18%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🔊 Send voicenotes (including rhythmic indicator sound). (23%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤘 Steering wheel/air drum. (46%)

Your 2 cents…

“Skips to front with motorcycle :)”

Phillip

Nice one, Phillip. Ja you can’t beat that for mid-city traffic. 🛵

“...or pick my nose....hahaha”

Monica

Haha love the honesty… ☝️

“Whilst being happy about my hybrid not guzzling fuel.”

Andersen

Nice, Andersen, keeping it clean and green. 🔋