THE OPEN LETTER NEWSLETTER

Enjoying The Open Letter? Some thought we were crazy for trying this 2 years ago and now people are saying this is "like being at a startup event without leaving home" and "an absolute must-read for anyone building a business in SA".

Well, we're about to do it again. In a few days, we're launching another revolutionary new SA startup tool that's gonna help boost our ecosystem to the moon, by boosting your startup to the stars.

Want in? Hit reply to this email right now and tell us about your business and your progress. The first 20 replies get exclusive first dibs on early access.

In this Open Letter:

• Revenue streams: A new way to earn from content in SA.
• Uber’s free job rides, SA’s top employers & City Power’s chatbot.
• Start strong: How to thrive in your startup’s first few months.
• Things in SA you’d like optimised: The results are in.
• Plug & play: 100 Startup ideas in Rbn industries.

Together with

TRENDING NOW

A New Way to Earn from Content

Creating content in SA? Making money is quite tricky…

After all, nowadays it is possible to script, shoot, and ship your content pretty quickly…

But can you really eke out a living (never mind living large) as a content creator when you’re properly up against it? Kajabi's State of Creators ‘24 report makes for some interesting reading:

• 96% of creators earn very little – chasing virality and battling the algorithm all while raking in ad spend for the platforms.
• Most 6-figure creators have multiple income streams ranging from digital products, platform payouts, physical products, consulting and coaching.
• The real money lies in monetising with your own products.

In South Africa, YouTube, for example, can pay out max R300 per 1’000 ad views on your videos via AdSense, but you need to reach a set number of views before they pay anything.

At that rate, you would only need to achieve 100k ad views just to earn R30k. But it’s not that simple, either…

See, Google pays out more or less for different audiences and topics. An African audience is worth 3 times less than an Asian one. And news, gaming, fitness and beauty content is worth but a fraction of law, government and homemaking content – you can actually calculate projected incomes on YouTube here.

Making a buck on smaller audiences

Why so little? Well, all the big platforms are geared toward global audiences, so you need millions of views just to get a small cut of the money that’s in content creation.

Creators in the US and Europe have more options because they simply have more people with disposable income. That’s why so many overseas creators can earn ad revenue, get sponsorships and report that selling their own products is quite easy.

So when you’re focussing on building an audience in a small niche in South Africa, well, it's gonna be tough to make money on those platforms.

A new way for SA creators to earn

Enter Ohkayi, a local content streaming service where content creators upload their content, choose how much they want to sell it for, and how long a viewer has access to it.

There are no ads (which let's face it, we love ads), no ongoing subscriptions, and no random algorithms serving up whatever content it feels like – just the content your viewers are looking for.

With content creators getting 90% of the income from their content – Ohkayi takes a 10% processing fee – you can already start making money from your first view.

Check out their Afrikaans promo vid (sorry, no English version yet):

One of the early use cases that caught our eye was school concerts. Schools used to make and sell DVDs of concerts or performances. Well no one has DVD players anymore and YouTube doesn’t give them the option to sell it. So this might just be the platform for it.

With 12.8 million kids, if 10% of them do a concert listed on the platform and 30% of those parents buy at R200 view, that’s a cool R76.8 million in revenue.

And while it’s still early days for Ohkayi, they’re onto something unique and we’re watching this space…

Refer one friend to sign up to The Open Letter and view our top opportunity pick for this trend (and all future trends we cover).

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IN SHORT

☂️ Under one Umberella. Ukheshe, a local FinTech startup has rebranded to EFT Corporations after acquiring them in January. The rebrand combines the offerings of both companies under one unified identity.

⚡️Joulene. Joulene. Joulene. Joulene. Joburg’s power utility City Power has launched its customer-facing AI chatbot Joulene (Geddit? Joule is a unit of energy). PS: Good luck getting that Dolly Parton song out of your head.

🎶 AI Music Rip Off. Some of the world’s biggest record labels, including Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Records, and Capitol Records, are suing popular AI music generator platforms like Suno and Udio for using music from their top artists to train their generative AI engines without permission.

💼 Top Bosses. A list of South Africa’s top employers has been updated to include the Shoprite Group, the country’s largest private sector employer, who received their certification based on an independently audited and fact-based HR Best Practices Survey.

🚙 Rides for Jobs. Uber and Metropolitan Collective Shapers are partnering to bring 500 free rides for job seekers between 18 and 35 in South Africa attending job interviews, training sessions, or induction programmes during June and July.

Add Digital Gold to Your Product Stack

When it comes to storing value, gold bullion has stood the test of time.

For the last 93 years, gold has outperformed SA Bonds, Global Bonds and Cash.

In fact, only equities could match it for performance — and that’s a way riskier asset class.

However, buying and storing gold is not practical for most people. That’s why Troygold lets you buy fractions of gold bullion — purchasable in fractions from R10 and up, and stored on your behalf with their partner, RMB Bank.

What’s more, Troygold now offers access to this service to partners via API.

This means businesses across Africa can now offer their customers gold savings and gold-based financial products within their own platforms.

Imagine your customers’ response when you offer them secure wealth-building gold as a value-add or benefit…

Reach out to Troygold today to learn more.

THE BUILDER’S TOOLBOX

How to Ace The First Few Months of Your Startup

Hit the ground running and need some pointers? No worries, we got you with a few copy-and-paste guides to doing all the right things in your first few months of starting up.

1. Learn to Outbound Like a Boss

Master outbound strategies for effective customer acquisition by personalising your outreach efforts, tracking the most NB metrics, and continuously refining your tactics – here’s how to nail your startup outbound.

2. Create a Killer Pricing Page in 5 Steps

Optimise your pricing page to highlight value and benefits. Ensure clarity, focus on customer benefits, and use compelling calls to action – here’s the guide to crafting a standout pricing page.

3. Maximise Your Onboarding with 3 Core Principles

Enhance user engagement through effective onboarding processes by creating a seamless, empowering, and continuous onboarding experience – check out these principles to perfect your onboarding.

4. Boost Your Public Image

Implement PR strategies to enhance your startup’s visibility and reputation by focusing on strategic communications and targeted messaging – elevate your public image with these essential PR tips.

5. How to Scale This Thing to Its Maximum Potential

Assess your startup’s scalability and implement growth frameworks using structured growth strategies and scalable business models – here’s how to maximise your scaling potential.

6. Avoid the 8 Biggest Startup Mistakes

Learn from common early-stage mistakes to ensure smoother growth by managing hiring and marketing expenses wisely and avoiding over-reliance on PR – steer clear of these startup pitfalls.

Plus: For 70+ more in-depth guides like these, check out our builder’s toolbox.

YOUR VOICE

We asked what you’d like computers (AI) to optimise, and wow, it’s pretty unanimous…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📝 Home Affairs – no way IDs and documents take that long to prep. (95%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤡 The intern who keeps copying the boss on office memes. (0)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🌳 The gardener who accidentally prunes the neighbour's plants. (0)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧽 The dishwasher that never gets the dishes clean. (0)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍕 The fridge that hides my fave snacks in plain sight. (5%)

Your 2 cents…

“Could be used for fraud monitoring too”

Nicholas

Oh, yes, Nicholas. Like especially AI was made for that!

Cape Town Driver selected 🍕 The fridge that hides my fave snacks in plain sight. and wrote: “Funny thing I have a similar concept but for the resutaurant industry. Let's chat.”

Well, don’t leave us hanging — now we have to know!

“Definitely home affairs. This chat of saying that the system is offline is not on and the queues are ridiculously long for no reason.”

Panache

Yes, Panache, I mean a simple algorithm for just handling peak times would go a long way already.

“Computerising Home Affairs will get rid of rive corruption and incompetence.”

Vakele

Hey, Vakele, you just gave us an idea — imagine if getting your ID/passport/documents was like going to an ATM. Beep, beep, print, done.

‍

Weird news? While the rest of the world is getting worried about how much land and energy AI data centres are consuming, Europe is faced with a whole different problem: what to do with all its too-cheap energy. First-world problems, eh?

In this Open Letter:

• Revenue boost: Hawks, lions and faster fast food.
• Big office perks, more BRICS in the wall & Takealot’s Temu headache.
• Sweet deal: How to absolutely delight your first customers.
• What’s hindering SA homeowners: The results are in.
• Plug & play: 100 Startup ideas in Rbn industries.

Together with

TRENDING NOW

Hawks, Lions and Boosting Production Revenue

Imagine any production environment (factories, fast food restaurants etc.) where you have a host of humans without many standardised processes, task allocation or timed objectives… chaos.

London’s famous 1954 match factory fire.

That’s exactly what manufacturing was like in the late 1800s until a gentleman called Frederick Winslow Taylor introduced :

• Time Studies: Measuring how long it took workers to complete various tasks and identify the most efficient ways to perform them.
• Standardisation: Advocated for standardising tools, equipment, and work methods to ensure consistency and efficiency.
• Task Allocation: Breaking down tasks into smaller, more manageable parts and assigning them to workers based on their capabilities.
• Training and Development: Importance of training workers to perform tasks most efficiently.
• Incentive Systems: Rewarding workers for meeting or exceeding performance standards, thereby motivating them to improve productivity.

His work laid the foundation of modern management practices and influenced later management theories, including operations management and quality control.

Lingering issues

Needless to say, it had a great impact on output and productivity – but up until recently, it still had two major limitations:

• You can only pick up issues or inefficiencies in production after the damage is already done.
• Relying on human managers’ involvement can be too expensive for certain processes – even super managers only have so much time.

The latter has in some places been replaced by tech already. For instance, Amazon is gamifying its packing stations in warehouses to drive employee efficiency.

But there is a new tech in town that’s taking this capability to a whole new level.

Julie been packing 500+ boxes per hour

When AI marries Computer Vision

Imagine being able to track and analyse every single step of a production process and, in real time, relay feedback to the team executing the processes. This is what Hawktivity, a Stellenbosch-based computer vision startup is providing its customers.

Their solution uses video combined with data and algorithms to provide real-time guidance to optmises production processes. This kind of solution is particularly useful in time-study data gathering and manufacturing, but one of its early successes has been in quick-service restaurants.

The Hungry pilot

A recent pilot project in 50 Hungry Lion stores, helped the stores cut average customer waiting time in half. It did so by analysing queue length in real-time as well as the current pace of servicing customers, pinpointing the area of bottlenecking and alerting a team leader to send more staff to the bottleneck.

But it’s not only waiting times and customer satisfaction that was impacted. The stores on the pilot saw:

• a 25% increase in revenue
• 30% of which can be attributed directly to the solution
• meaning, the solution helped increase revenue by 7.5% on average - pretty neat.

Taylor’s work brought about a revolution in manufacturing and his principles remain valid today. And with the advancements in computer vision and artificial intelligence, we are about to witness another iteration of major improvements in modern management practices.

We are watching this space….

Refer one friend to sign up to The Open Letter and view our top opportunity pick for this trend (and all future trends we cover).

Get your sharing link here.

IN SHORT

☁️ Head in the Cloud. Africa Data Centres has secured R2 billion in funding to expand its operating capacity and meet the growing demand for cloud computing in SA.

💪 Octomorphing. Software product development consultancy Polymorph is joining Octoco, a Stellenbosch-based group of technology companies to complement the group’s technology consulting company’s services.

🤖 ChipTok. TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has joined the AI chip race with partnership talks (with a ‘Murcan firm no less) to design and manufacture its own AI chips.

🤕 Takealot’s Temu Trouble. Local e-commerce platform Takealot has recorded an R252 million trading loss over the last 12 months, pointing the finger at global competitors like Temu & Shein slinging their wares to local shores.

🤩 The Big Office Perk. In a bid to get more people back into the office, global companies are bringing out the big perk guns: a desk of their own. Yeah. The only thing employees value more than the freedom to work from home is having their own desk.

🤝 Building BRICS. At least 12 more countries are looking to join the BRICS bloc including Cuba, Venezuela, Turkey, Laos, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Kazakhstan.

The Truth about Getting Ahead in Life

“Enough money to cover 6 weeks' worth of expenses” – that’s what JPMorgan Chase believes the majority of households need to weather most financial storms that could hit.

The problem however is that 65% of households don’t have this in place.

The main reason? Failing to plan for it – or budgeting.

But we get it, budgeting is difficult when your income or spending is inconsistent. It simply “never” works out the way you planned.

That’s why you need real-time tracking of income and expenses, automatically mapped to the right categories to keep you on top of your spending and work towards your financial goals.

Start your journey to financial freedom with FinWise today.

BUILDER’S CORNER

How to Delight Your First Customers

by Renier Kriel from The Open Letter and Stream

“Do things that don’t scale” has become part of startup folklore.

Written 11 years ago by YC founder Paul Graham, many have drawn inspiration from his often counterintuitive advice on, among other things recruiting your first customers, embracing fragility, creating insane customer experiences, containing your fire and delighting users.

The TLDR (although you really should read it) – it feels wrong to do time-consuming things that you won’t be able to do once your company is economically viable, but by skipping those things you miss out on vital steps and learnings.

So for today’s Builder’s Corner, we are focussing specifically on how to delight your first customers. WARNING: These things don’t scale…

1. Solve their problems (and some more) as if they are your only customer, ever

We all know startups exist to solve customer problems and when you are building SaaS products, it's easy to fall into the trap of trying to solve “for the whole market” you’re chasing. The problem with that thinking is that, early on, the whole market aint buying.

Let your customers feel like buying from you was the best decision they ever made and then, once they buy, exceed all their expectations. Why?

1. Early adopters are talkers. They like to be in the know and tell other people about the smart stuff they find. When you delight them, others will hear about it.
2. You will uncover nuances about their problems that are very hard to uncover when you service them at a distance. Get in the mud with them and you will learn a tonne. What’s more, your competition is likely not going to do it.
3. When you add more value than they could reasonably expect, it becomes easier to ask for a referral or get them to help you get another customer.

2. Champion their business

When they win, you win! Can you add value beyond what your product is doing for them? This could be in the form of an introduction, or insights on an observation.

The key here is that, if they really feel like you are on their side, chances are you will get access to information, insights and relationships you otherwise would not.

Be proud of working with them and making a positive impact.

3. Add that personal touch

Like Paul Graham says, Tim Cook can’t send a handwritten letter with every Macbook sold, but you can. Use your smaller, nimble approach as a weapon to personalise your engagement.

What does this look like?

• Handwritten cards are a good one, but many have caught on to this.
• Maybe a personalised welcome kit, including a note with a small gift or product sample.
• Anniversary and birthday surprises could work well if you can find the data.
• Most underrated of all? Call them regularly to ask how you can help them win, and then go and do that.

Today’s Builder’s Corner was written by Renier Kriel from The Open Letter who is an expert in SA startup strategy & growth.

Connect with him on LinkedIn here.

YOUR VOICE

We asked about the biggest barriers to home ownership in SA, and it’s pretty much prices…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📈 High property prices – "I need to win the lottery first!" (32%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😭 Can't save for a deposit – "Saving is harder than finding a unicorn!" (15%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ % High interest rates – "Banks are robbing us blind!" (16%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🫰 Low salaries – "I need a CEO's salary just to dream!" (22%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😈 Corruption and bureaucracy – "Too many palms to grease!" (3%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💸 High cost of living – "My grocery bill eats my savings!" (10%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏡 I’m too lazy to mow the lawn (2%)

Your 2 cents…

Nix selected % High interest rates – "Banks are robbing us blind!" and wrote

“Transfer costs and Duties are hideously expensive. It costs you the price of a small flat to buy a decent 3/4 bedroom home in a good and secure area. This just feels like a rip off!”

We feel your pain, Nix. Everyone’s out to get their pound of flesh.

Thula selected 🫰 Low salaries – "I need a CEO's salary just to dream!" and wrote

"High legal fees" is another option that can be a serious barrier to homeownership. You may get 100% bond approval but the bank will not finance the legal fees associated with buying the property. If you did not have that as savings then you have to opt for a personal loan, which has exorbitant rates.”

Exactly Thula. And we already know how few South Africans have any sort of serious savings.

Natasha selected 📈 High property prices – "I need to win the lottery first!" and wrote

“The unnecessary high prices for property are ridiculous. Buying or renting. Then go look at some of those houses that is for sale or open for renting, they need maintenance that's for your cost as the agent tell you it's a steal price hence some tlc needed. Bulldust! The carpets and cupboards comes from Noah's time. Try renting were the owner is an ass and repairs and paint nothing, but your rent is paid well before its due. I've heard of some tenants that made an arrangement with proof that their wages is being paid late and the owner gave them a week to vacate the property? Seems to me that estate agents, banks and owners are the only ones that benefits. Everyone would love to own a place to stay, why not try and make that possible with rent to own options from either the bank,rental property groups. In all of S.A not just certain parts. And why is it that a property is paid back over 20 years and a car for the same value 6-7 years. Greed, is the answer. Continues cash flow for banks.”

Sure a fixer-upper sounds like a fun adventure, but you’re gonna break the bank popping in by Builders every weekend…

Erla selected 😭 Can't save for a deposit – "Saving is harder than finding a unicorn!" and wrote

“The main reasons in our area, which is popular with young famlies moving out of townships, is that people have a judgement of some sort against them. Not earning enough is a close second.”

Yeah, definitely Erla. That adds an extra layer of complexity to an already stressful situation.

Chrisjah selected 😭 Can't save for a deposit – "Saving is harder than finding a unicorn!" and wrote

“Saving for a deposit is difficult if we combine low salaries and high cost of living as a combo.”

100% — a double-whammy to the pocket.

‍

Making friends? A new study found that people like you better if you’re more facially expressive when talking to them.

In this Open Letter:

• Smart move: Say goodbye to rental deposits.
• Top pick: A PropTech business idea to serve 3M+ users.
• New sea legs app, floating solar panels & Meta to save SA media.
• Big swing: How to manage your brand during a pivot.
• The WhatsApp service you really want: The results are in.
• Plug & play: 100 Startup ideas in Rbn industries.

Together with:

TRENDING NOW

Solving a Few Rbillions in Landlord-Tenant Headaches

For renters, there aren’t many payments quite as begrudged as the damage deposit.

Two months’ worth of rent just sitting there for 12+ months – it’s a cashflow killer.

And, according to one founder building in the PropTech space we recently interviewed, as much as 70% of renters may never get their deposits back (no officially published stats on that, but we know it happens).

Deposit-related issues are a double-edged sword:

• Renters may need to go into debt to come up with the required 1–2 months' rent for a deposit.
• Landlords, on the other hand, face risks if the deposit doesn’t cover a month’s rent (or even more) for potential damages or loss of income.
• Not to mention that it’s a time-consuming process especially when people are literally moving out in the morning and need to move into their next place that night.

‍

It’s a fine balancing act for landlords

Charge too much up front and you increase the barrier to entry and risk a drop in occupancy.

Charge too little, or nothing at all, and you won’t have any windfall if there are damages or the tenant defaults.

This is where local PropTech startup LeaseSurance are making some moves by offering protection on rental lease agreements that eliminate the need for property rental deposits.

Using tenant data gathered from landlords, they develop tailored premiums and coverage on rental contracts that give tenants the option of selecting to add a small additional monthly fee instead of the cash deposit.

Then LeaseSurance will cover any claims should they move. And the fee is typically around roughly 5% of the rental amount per month… much more affordable from a cash flow perspective.

And it's a big market

With over 3.3 million rental properties in SA, the likely amount of deposits locked in rental contracts of just the R5’7001–R7’500 pm properties bracket (just under 30% of all rental properties in the country) alone right now could be around R9.6bn.

According to the 2023 Q4 results of PayProp Rental Index:

Rental Bracket

No of Properties in SA

Percentage of Market

R0-R2’500 pm

201,300

6.1%

R2’501–R5’000

702,900

21.3%

R5’001–R7’500

963,600

29.2%

R7’501–R10’000

765,600

23.2%

R10’001–R15’000

521,400

15.8%

R15’001–R25’000+

145,200

4.4%

Formal Rental Housing

3,300,000

100%

Get access to more tenants

Traditionally only 30% of those who qualify for a rental property end up taking it, simply because they can’t come up with the cash deposit at short notice.

So, by incrementally upping monthly payments over lump sum deposits, you address serious barriers to entry for renters, giving landlords a larger pool of potential tenants to choose from.

And LeaseSurance seems to be onto something – currently projects show that 3 out of 4 tenants opt for the marginally higher monthly payment option as opposed to paying a deposit.

Pretty soon, the rental deposit might be a thing of the past… We are watching this space…

Refer one friend to sign up to The Open Letter and view our top opportunity pick for this trend (and every future trends we cover).

Get your sharing link here.

IN SHORT

🤝 African x Korean Kollab. AfricaLabs and The Korea-Africa Foundation have signed a memorandum of understanding for a strategic partnership to drive innovation and economic growth across the continent via AfricaLabs’ network of nearly 500 hubs across 260 African cities.

🤢 All Aboard. Dr Nicole Taylor, a postdoctoral research fellow from Stellenbosch University’s Mechanical and Mechantronic Engineering Department is developing an app, Mariner 4.0 in the hopes of curing seasickness in professional seafarers.

🤑 Funding SA’s Media. SA’s Competition Commission is considering starting a fund for struggling South African media houses which will be funded by global big tech players like Meta and Google.

✋ Eskom’s High 5. Eskom has won an appeal to keep 5 of its oldest plants operational until March 2030, exempting them from the more stringent restrictions on pollutants kicking in next year. The 5 plants currently generate a quarter of SA’s coal-fired generation capacity.

☀️ African Lake Power. New research has shown that Ethiopia and Rwanda could generate more than 100% of their energy needs from floating solar panels on large lakes and other water bodies.

Using Content to Drive Leads

The rise of AI has brought about the rise of automated sales emails…. It’s just too much. And it begs the question: “How effective will outbound sales be in the future?”

Only time will tell. But what has always worked is content marketing that drives inbound leads.

In fact, according to HubSpot, inbound SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads have a 1.7% close rate.

But how do you create more inbound leads? One way to do this is through content marketing.

When it comes to creating high-quality business content, you don’t need “good writers”, you need people that understand tech and business.

That’s where Stream comes in: Unlimited content subscriptions to grow your brand, drive inbound leads and front-load value to prospects.

Check it out here and set up a call to learn more.

HOW WOULD YOU BUILD IT?

How to Manage Your Brand When You Pivot

If you have to pivot but are stressing over the impact it might have on your customers and reputation, then this week’s podcast is for you. We spoke to Ean Barnard, head of brand and marketing at Finch Technologies, who had to transition from mixed-level B2C to full-on B2B, and he had some gold advice for when pivoting.

Catch the highlights

1. Overcoming the No. 1 brand hurdle in a pivot

Separating your business case from messaging and a useful framework for redefining your brand messaging. It’s about clarifying/redefining who are and what to say to clients – get the insights here.

2. Unlocking the power of collaboration for clarity

From team workshops and sessions to expanding to stakeholders for diverse perspectives, it’s vital to get as much input as possible to uncover new insights for messaging that resonates – see what Ean did here.

3. Adding a touch that resonates universally

No matter who or where you’re pivoting to, one thing remains true: Humans respond to human stories. Showcasing the people behind the company and their stories results in wins in any market – see how it’s done here.

YOUR VOICE

We asked what else you’d prefer to do via WhatsApp, and it’s a mealtime affair…

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 👩🏻‍⚕️ Drs appointments (31%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🍳 Restaurant menus and bookings (40%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🔗 Business registrations (19%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🙌🏼 Asking for a raise (4%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🔮 Getting psychic readings (2%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👛 Couch cash collection booking (4%)

Your 2 cents…

“Great article. I have also heard good things about FinWise.”

Jay

“Love the key nuggets and how updated it is with current and global affairs.”

Boka

Wonderful, thanks, guys! More coming real soon.

‍

3-Second memory? Try a goldfish that can drive a car. Yeah, would you believe those Israeli researchers developed the tech almost a decade ago and trained fish to do that? How on Earth don’t we have them as pets yet?

In this Open Letter:

• Niche boost: Driving sales with the human connection.
• SA-Indian solar boost, Cannabis on the JSE & Uber permits.
• Big deal: How to build a bigger, more valuable business.
• What you want more scanners for: The results are in.
• Startup power: 100+ businesses SA needs right now.

Together with:

TRENDING NOW

Connecting Sales Faster than You Can Say WhatsApp

When it comes to sales, rapid response is a game changer.

In fact, responding to a sales enquiry within 5 minutes has a 10 times higher chance to convert compared to after 10 minutes. Let 20 hours go by, and you’ve probably lost the deal.

Now, inbound call centres are great for that rapid response agent, but that’s not always practical or financially feasible.

Think estate agents or car salesmen. They’re on the road a lot and leads are coming in all hours of the day. Arguably the fastest and most convenient way to connect reps to leads is likely on an app.

Preferably one they both already use… WhatsApp.

But this is problematic for a few reasons:

• Many aren't comfortable giving out their personal numbers.
• That relationship is then between the rep and the customer, not the company.
• The company has no way to monitor sales rep’s response times and engagement if it's on their personal WhatsApp number.

Empowering the human-first connection

In a world that’s going AI-driven chatbots for first response, Sudonum is building tech to supercharge human-first engagement… and we are here for it – reaching out to an estate agent, you want the human touch.

Because, let’s face it, when it comes to facilitating emotional decisions, humans just work better.

Makes the whole sales process a little less daunting.

Sudonum enables companies, like estate agencies, to add a “Contact via WhatsApp” button on a website or digital property (like Property24). Clicking this button, the customer gets routed via a WhatsApp Business account to a real human agent (or sales rep).

In WhatsApp, in a chat, without having to add a new contact, retype standard messages, and repeatedly copy-paste text.

What’s more, while the chat itself remains private between participants, the company can track some all-important business metrics:

• how quickly a lead was responded to (if at all)
• how individual reps are performing
• and conversation durations.

At the same time, the lead gets popped into a CRM of choice to ensure it doesn’t get lost and that the company keeps the relationship details (not the agent).

And they have great traction. With customers across four continents and several industries including real estate, automotive and marketing agencies, rapid human response is taking off and we are watching this space…

Refer one friend to sign up to The Open Letter and view our top opportunity pick for this trend (and all future trends we cover).

Get your sharing link here.

IN SHORT

☀️ Funding Solar. Local clean energy company candi solar has closed its Series C funding round securing $38 million to support its growth plan including bringing 200 MW of business solar across SA and India.

🚙 Legal Lifts. SA Prez Cyril Rampahosa has signed the amended National Land Transport Act into law bringing regulation for Uber and Bolt operators to obtain operating licenses just like other public transport providers.

👕 Profitable Threads. Mr Price’s financial services division is about to hit the R1 billion revenue mark. This after the division’s revenue increased by nearly 5% to reach R869 million according to the group’s Financial year-end results.

🌿 Listing High. Cilo Cybin Holdings will become the first cannabis company to be listed on the JSE when its listing on the AltX market takes place on the 25th of June.

🚍 Reversible Lane. The MyCiTi bus lane on the R27/Marine Drive between Loxton Road and Broad Road in Cape Town will become reversible allowing inbound travel to the City in the mornings, and outbound travel to Table View in the afternoon.

Manage Your Money Better

Things have gotten pricey over the last two years in South Africa. With inflation of 6.9% and 6% in ‘22 and ‘23 respectively, and interest rates kept at the highest rate in 14 years, consumers are feeling the pinch. In fact, the South African middle class is facing increased pressure with debt servicing levels at 79% of their income, up 28% from two years ago. It's never been more important to budget well. That’s why we recommend Finwise.

Finwise connects securely to your bank account, to track your income and expenses and then it helps you:

• Budget and keep tabs on your spending (per category).
• Track and compare your spending to previous months.
• Track all your investments and your net worth.
• Plan and forecast your future finances to see if you’ll have enough.
• Get tips, insights and nudges to manage your money better.

Use FinWise to simplify the way you work with and think about your personal finances. Save money, get peace of mind, and be in full control of your finances.

Start your Finwise journey for free today — Sign up here.

BUILDER’S CORNER

How to Increase the Value of Your Business

by Elvorne Palmer from The Open Letter and Stream

Once you’re going and growing, something that always comes up is: Where is this going?

Do you want to list, sell or build an ever-growing stable group of companies?

Either way, at some point, you’re going to want to know how to increase your value…

There are several ways to deliver a big payday for shareholders. The one the startup world is probably most familiar with is the growth-focussed “winner-takes-all” method. Where you build out a new idea, raise a ton of VC money and try to grow as big as you can, as fast as you can, to dominate the market and then list on the stock market to create liquidity for the shareholders.

But that doesn’t always work in SA, though. We have a smaller market and thus it’s not always possible to reach profitability at scale.

So another more sensible approach is to build for profitability as fast as possible and leverage that success to build an even bigger business in that specific sector.

Here’s how that works…

The consolidation play

1. Build for profitability

The goal isn’t necessarily to become big early on, but rather as stable as possible. Prove the business model and the unit economics. This often means prioritising optimisation and streamlining the business over growth. You want to understand the dynamics well and also start building up some cash — you will need both later.

2. Build a strong team

It’s vital to build a company that can eventually run by itself – without too much of you as the founder’s interference. And the easiest way to achieve that is to have all the right staff in all the right places so that if you, as the founder, step out, it doesn’t really affect the business’s ability to earn. This will free up your time to focus on doing the deals later which will make this go big!

3. IP or Proprietary processes

It’s a tough one because you can’t always own IP, copyright or trademark, but it really makes a big difference if you have something – a process, system, method or technology — that’s clearly identifiable as your own. This could be vital for helping you do number 4…

4. Buy out others to augment your offering in the same sector

There are often major opportunities in consolidating smaller businesses into a larger company. This brings about scale benefits which unlocks bigger margins.

The thinking around this in the startup space would be: if you’ve developed some tech/IP that helps you do business better/faster/cheaper – whatever – than the other guys, there should be some “traditional businesses” or competitors who will eventually be struggling more than you.

And the idea is to use your success (or this is even a good reason to raise some funding) to go and buy them out – competitors, suppliers and other companies in the same space. So you can take whatever customers they have, optimise it as much as possible and assemble a group that’s perceptibly more valuable.

There’s even a formula for these kinds of buyouts:

• Only offer to put up a percentage (say 10%) of the business’s purchase price upfront.
• Then to do a leveraged buyout deal – you take the assets of the business you’re buying and put them up as collateral for a loan to buy it (asset finance).
• You could even create a deferred payment deal with the seller – where you agree to pay them off over time instead of all at once.
• And then you pay back the loan or the deferred payments with the money the business you’ve just bought makes – hopefully, combining it with your business you can optimise it enough to have it pay for itself very quickly.

So effectively you use a little bit of cash, but mostly your track record and future vision to buy entire companies.

Today’s Builder’s Corner was written by Elvorne Palmer from The Open Letter & Stream who is an expert in go-to-market & content.

Connect with him on Linkedin here.

‍

YOUR VOICE

We asked what types of scanners you’d use, and truth detection it is…

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 🥑 Food nutritional content scanner (30%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤸 An “Is my exercise actually working?” check (17%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤖 Scanners linked straight to AI doctor for diagnosis (17%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧌 A real-life internet troll toxicity checker (3%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤬 Instant bulls#$% detectors for parliament and meetings (33%)

Your 2 cents…

“Really enjoyed content and style of delivery”

E Klopper

“I am so glad I signed for this newsletter its very informative...thank you”

Abigail

Awesome, thanks guys — keep an eye, we’re launching lots of big new things soon!

‍

AR ready? A couple of former Magic Leap execs are betting on slowly introducing AR to the public with their new startup Sightful, releasing a laptop with no screen, just AR goggles.

In this Open Letter:

• Global reach: A 75M+ impact for SA Biotech.
• SA’s robokiddos, biltong-powered fuel & TymeBank’s global play.
• Founder fuel: How to spin up, pivot and move super-fast.
• How you like your rewards: The latest poll results are in.
• Startup power: 100+ businesses SA needs right now.

Together with

TRENDING NOW

A 75M+ Impact for SA Biotech

Four years after the global COVID-19 pandemic, the world has largely returned to normal. Except for nearly 75 million people globally who developed “Long COVID” and basically never fully recovered. 

The Long COVID problem

Between 10% and 20% of the 750 million+ people who contracted COVID-19 have developed Long COVID, a chronic after-effect condition with symptoms including fatigue, brain fog, shortness of breath, chronic pain, worsened fatigue after exercise, and heart palpitations.

Problem is there are currently no diagnostic tests for Long COVID, and clinical tests often show no abnormalities, leading to the thinking that there’s nothing wrong with sufferers, leaving them with no end in sight to their symptoms – which persists for at least 3 months, or way longer.

Enter Biocode, a Stellenbosch based Biotech startup spun out of Stellenbosch University’s Physiology Department. In research, they discovered persistent blood clots in most Long COVID patients. These microclots are between 1 and 100 micrometres small – slightly more than the diameter of a strand of human hair.

But microclots cause seriously big issues

Causing obstructions in smaller blood vessels, they throttle the body’s blood and oxygen flow, further damaging the arteries – which is what Long COVID symptoms actually are: the body struggling for oxygen supply.

Biocode has developed a world-first diagnostic tool, Biolab, to detect these abnormal microclots, the test results help patients with actionable next steps to reduce microclot levels, offer a long-term health roadmap, and validate the experiences of those suffering from Long COVID. 

Which is big: Across the pandemic, South Africa had around 4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. And global guidelines estimate about 15% of those will likely have Long Covid – that’s 600k South Africans some of whom may not even know they have it, but just feel “off”.

But it’s even bigger: Expanded globally, there are 75 million potential patients, who could benefit from this technology, which is why the tech is already being sublicensed in Germany, Switzerland, the US, and the UK, with plans to go full global. 

Not to mention, the potential of expanding this microclot detection into other medical applications. But that’s not all Biocode is up to…

The even longer game

Biocode is also developing its Biocheck Inflammation rapid test kit, which screens and tracks chronic inflammation, a key factor in coronary artery disease, diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer's – which combined cause over 70% of global deaths annually. 

The Biocheck test provides results in 15 minutes showing the presence of inflammation as well as the level of inflammation. This can help people adjust lifestyles to lower or eliminate this inflammation which in turn could lead to longer and healthier lives.

The market for this? Probably most of the 8.1 billion+ humans on Earth.

The impact of Biotech on the quality of life can be enormous and local startups such as Biocodes make us excited about South Africa’s role in this. We are watching this space…

IN SHORT

🍞 Bitcoin, Milk & Bread. Pick n Pay recently reported generating R1 million in monthly sales from shoppers paying with cryptocurrency. This is one year after becoming the first (and only) large retailer to accept crypto payments for groceries.

🤖 SA’s Coding Kiddos. The Department of Basic Education has gazetted an amendment to the National Curriculum Statement for Grades R-12 to offer coding and robotics from as early as grade R in public schools across SA.

🥩 Biltong Going Global. Vivo Energy is expanding its footprint with the acquisition of Engen South Africa. The deal includes a ”biltong clause” to ensure that Vivo Energy will source and offer SA products like biltong across its fuel stations even outside of SA.

📡 Canning Satelite TV. MultiChoice has lost 400’000-odd subscribers in SA alone the last 12 months including a 9% drop in DStv Premium & Compact Plus subs, a 9% drop in Compact subs, and a 2% drop in its DStv Family subs. Eina!

🏦 Banking on Scale. Local digital bank TymeBank is raising nearly R2.8 billion in preparation for its planned listing on the NYSE by 2028. Once completed, this raise will value the business upward of $ 1 billion….unicorn loading.

NOTHING LIKE COFFEE & CRYPTO

Need a gift for that one mate who doesn’t stop talking about his bitcoin?

Nothing tells your mate “I get it, stop telling me about it” than buying him some Crypto Coffee.

Not financial advice… just crypto & coffee.

A medium roast arabica that will take your friendship in one direction and that is up. Buy online here.

HOW WOULD YOU BUILD IT?

How to Spin Up/Pivot and Move Fast

If you’re looking for insights on how some founders seem to spin up (or pivot) and launch ideas into businesses so fast (and successfully), then this week’s podcast is for you. We sat down with Kim Whitaker, now with Airbnb but perhaps best known as the person behind Ubuntu Beds during Covid – one of SA’s gold-standard case studies in innovation/pivoting.

And Kim shared her insights into spotting opportunities and quickly spinning up a new company, in record time.

Catch the highlights

1. From zero to success in 48 hours

From closing down Cape Town schools to contracting Covid to getting on the radio and launching a game-changer in two days – this is the real story behind Ubuntu Beds.

2. The No. 1 secret to building fast successfully

Pulling off miracles in no time requires the perfect mix of two special ingredients in your team: discipline and creativity – here’s how it works.

3. The only skill you need to build something they’ll love

From first dates to brands, we all make the same mistakes until we realise the one thing that changes it all is learning to see through the user’s eyes – get the insights here.

4. How we could fix all of SA with design thinking startup mindsets

If SA was run like a tech company, the Finland example and gold advice for founders and builders – check it out here.

YOUR VOICE

We asked what activities should give bonus rewards, and it’s a tie between coffee and work…

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎾 Padel (16%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🪂 Fortnite (8%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ⚔️ Dota (4%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🚴 Mountain bike (20%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ☕ Coffee shop hopping (26%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 💻 My work (26%)

Your 2 cents…

Ha ha, yeh there’s one nobody thought of yet, Marian — supporter’s rewards!

We can see it now, Chris — big five survival rewards out on the greens…

Ah, the only question in life worth answering before 8 in the morning, hey? Give Crypto Coffee a shot, we love their brew.

Powered by beehiiv

Adding up? Apple blew a few minds at their developer conference yesterday. We especially love the new iPadOS scientific calculator. Here’s to never doing long division again.

In this Open Letter:

• Game on: The tech to make golf hobbies pay off.
• Amazon’s SA trouble, 1-hour Apples & SARS klaps Temu, Shein.
• Check it: You’ll never guess who won this week’s lucky draw.
• Way ahead: How to spot new business opportunities, early.
• Industries you want gamified: The results are in.
• The lead: 100+ SA business ideas — get access.

TRENDING NOW

Finally, the Golf Hobby Makes Sense

With over 420 locations, South Africa ranks 12th in the world for golf courses. 

And the sport’s a biggie: Golf contributes an estimated R49 billion to the economy – roughly 0.6% of GDP – whilst also providing 40k jobs annually. In the USA, it’s even bigger: R1.8 trillion to the US economy in 2022 and created over 1.65 million jobs.

Within this industry, there are major opportunities to help the three major roleplayers do more:

• Golf courses want to sell more rounds of golf at better prices.
• Equipment and gear manufacturers want to engage the players to sell products.
• Golf players want to play more rounds, for less.

It's complicated…

Golf courses have fixed expenses, and pricing every round is tricky. 

Once courses cover their fixed cost, the cost to accommodate a player is minuscule… pure profit. 

So, for many courses, it would make sense to get the courses filled up, even if it means dropping the regular price somewhat.

Golfers, on the other hand, are likely to play more should it become more rewarding or cheaper to do so.

So how do you drive benefits for all 3 role players?

It’s time to Golf 2 Earn

South Africa has long been a major player in global golf. And it's only fitting that a local startup pioneers another golf first.

Introducing Wunderpar. It’s a blockchain-based reward program where golfers earn Wunder tokens by activating their app before playing a round. The app then tracks movement on the course and rewards the player with tokens. 

These tokens can then be used to redeem entries into raffles, claim discounts or even redeem for physical goods.

By rewarding golfers for playing, Wunderpar can capture an audience of golf enthusiasts which then allows them to:

• Get golf courses to boost the amount of Wunder earned on their course, effectively increasing traffic to the course.
• Get brands onboard to engage the audience and sell through their store.
• Build a golfing community with leaderboards and prizes that drive playing and engagement.

They’ve been active in South Africa for 8 months and have seen 67’627 rounds being played on the app and 8’708 items purchased using Wunder. They have also onboarded Callaway as a partner, driving more value to users while also expanding their offering to the Middle East and Sweden.

The gamification of physical world actions is on the rise and it's exciting to see a local startup get in on the concept in golf. We are watching this space…

IN SHORT

🦥 Sloth-like Launch. One month in and it looks like Amazon is struggling to make inroads in SA with one local marketplace seller saying they sell 2 or 3 products a week on Amazon vs 10 a day on Takealot.

🛒 Booming Bash. The Foschini Group’s online shopping platform Bash is set to break even ahead of schedule. With the release of TFG’s annual financial results, the online retailer grew by 44.4%, and became the No. 1 fashion and lifestyle app in SA.

🍏 1-Hour Apples. Riding the on-demand wave, Apple’s iStore has introduced free iStore ”RightNow”, a one-hour delivery service available in the Sandton and Cape Town CBDs, and set to expand to Tshwane and Durban soon.

👗 Taxing Threads. Your Temu (and Shein) order is about to get ±39% more expensive starting in July. From the 1st, imported items of clothing valued at under R500 will carry the same duties as bigger orders which carry a 45% import duty plus VAT.

💰German FundFest. Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development has launched a new funding scheme develoPPP Ventures for African startups including South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya. Applications for the R2 million in grant funding close end of June.

AND THE WINNER IS…

Congratulations, Kunal! You’ve won a R1’000 in Troygold (remember you need an account to claim) and a copy of SA startup must-read, The First Kudu. We’ll contact you personally with your prize, but we just wanted to share how your big win went down…

We’re putting together another lekker comp, so check back for details real soon.

BUILDER’S CORNER

How to Build For The Future

by Renier Kriel from The Open Letter

Want to be good at spotting startup opportunities? Become a futurist.

Startups are essentially bets on how the world is changing and how that change will create the opportunity for a business to capitalise. They then build for this new world and, if all goes well, are ready to capture the market when the anticipated change goes mainstream.

Examples: 

• Holidaymakers wanted entire apartments/houses, not hotel rooms: Airbnb was born
• Use tech to drive down insurance premiums: Naked Insurance
• Boost the booming coffee industry’s supply chain: Henlo Coffee
• When banks won’t do small business loans: Lula
• Unlock the township economy with payments infrastructure: Kazang 

Sure, it makes sense in hindsight. But how do you spot opportunities like these BEFORE the time? 

Let’s dive in…

1. When new tech emerges

After using ChatGPT for the first time, many asked “What will this do to job X?”. And it's a good question to ask. But to find the opportunity, you need to go a few layers deeper. Ask “What will happen once AI actually kills job X”. 

This will lead to a whole host of anticipated happenings. I.e. People skilled in job X will be out of a job, but those people will pivot careers or find a niche that AI can’t do, or it will result in a social dilemma. Each of those brings forth its own set of opportunities (help them find jobs, help them pivot, help them find AI-proof niches etc.).

If you play out these scenarios it could lead to finding a big market…

2. When the law changes

NHI, Bela Bill and many other legislative changes bring forth a new set of rules. Anticipate how these laws will play out and what some of the associated challenges will be, then start building to solve that!

I.e. the Bela Bill proposes that homeschooling should be regulated. This will likely mean a host of reporting for homeschoolers. Be the first to build this tool and you are set to have a bunch of customers.

3. When there are big problems

Big problems mean big opportunities. Anticipating that Eskom will not be able to resolve loadshedding in the short term led to a boom in renewables. Could the same happen with clean water supply?

Imagining the future and how it will impact the world is a great way to find startup ideas. If you need some inspiration, check out our list of 100+ startup ideas for South Africa.

Featuring multi-billion-Rand opportunities across 25 industries, including:

- 15 too-hot FinTech opportunities
- 12 Groundbreaking B2B & ecosystem ventures
- 11 Entertainment & Sports businesses waiting to be built
- 11 Insanely cool tech companies to start
- 9 Disruptive E-commerce plays to change the game

Plus: PropTech, InsureTech, EdTech, HealthTech, Automotive and so many SaaS opportunities just waiting to be built…

Share your referral link with a friend and get them to sign up and we will email the list to you!

Today’s Builder’s Corner was written by Renier Kriel from The Open Letter who is an expert in SA startup strategy & growth.

Connect with him on Linkedin here.

YOUR VOICE

We asked what industries need some gamification, and a lot of eyes are on home affairs…

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🚨 Doing your taxes – blegh! (19%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🪪 Applying for ID, passport or vehicle licensing. (27%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🩺 Waiting for the doctor or at the hospital. (14%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 📸 Tourism and hospitality should be way more fun. (19%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧺 Laundromats and just doing laundry in general. (11%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💵 Banking – cue the “banking royale playoffs”. (10%)

Your 2 cents…

Exactly, Bobby! And free quality collectable stickers and board games at Caltex on the way to your holiday destination.

Nogal, Jason. It’s like the doctors are all Googling, WebMDing or asking ChatGPT “What the heck did that patient have?”

Ha ha, yeh getting money for almost nothing and creating jobs (which the employees apparently hate). Shame, though, we’d all benefit if only they’d embrace some new tech and approaches.

Powered by beehiiv

A winter nonny? Seeing as we’re all missing summer a bit, SAB has announced it’s bottling sunshine with Crona Cero in SA, a new alcohol-free brewski that’s enriched with Vitamin D — you know, for when you’re missing the sun.

In this Open Letter:

• Big break: Here’s to gamifying the R12bn coffee industry.
• Pirate clampdown, Discovery breach & SA’s thriving ecosystem.
• Something for you: 100+ SA business ideas — get access.
• Slam dunk: How to build a killer newsletter in South Africa.
• Where you wanna invest: The latest poll results are in.
• Giveaway extension: More chances to win R1k’s worth of gold.

TRENDING NOW

Gamifying Coffee

Ask boomers how to buy a house and they’ll probably say something to the tune of “stop buying Starbucks”. 

And they might be onto something, with the price of a cappuccino ranging from R27.90 all the way up to R55.50 at SA’s favourite local destinations, coffee is pricey. Unless of course, you buy from Xpresso, which sells everything in their stores for R12.

Coffee is an estimated R12bn a year market and is set to grow to R15bn by 2025 and the likes of Food Lover’s Market are betting hard on coffee as a major area for growth in the next 5 years with another 245 Seattle Coffee shops.

Setting up shop

But when it comes to setting up your own coffee shop, the espresso machine and barista combo is the star of the show. And when you open 50 Coffee shops a year, you want affordable high-quality espresso machines and baristas that adhere to the quality requirements of your product.

That’s where local startup Henlo Coffee saw an opportunity. Their espresso machines are not only affordable (R169k vs R250k+ for imported machines) but get your cost of quality down using electronics all while being connected online.

Coffeemaking, gamified

Each machine has a built-in Barista Companion, measuring every step of the process of making your perfect cup of coffee. If the barista does anything that’s out of line with the perfect cup you ordered, the machine notifies them on the spot, allowing them to course-correct. Effectively gamifying quality and removing the need for ongoing barista training and quality checks.

What’s more, the data tracked gets passed back to a live dashboard giving owners oversight on the quality and quantity of coffees, which helps them fight losses (no more unpaid coffees going out) and plan better. 

Finally, with the machine being connected online, it allows Henlo to perform remote maintenance and monitoring to ensure the machine is running in tip-top shape.

Instagram post by @coffee.henlo

For Henlo, this enables nice SaaS revenue on top of the margin made on the coffee machine itself… smart.

Although South Africans have all the ingredients to design and manufacture world-class hardware products (high-quality engineers, low labour cost and an economy big enough to launch into), many shy away due to the supply chain challenges of being on the southern tip of Africa. 

But find a fast-growing market, an innovative product and a hardware supply chain with lots of fat in and you might just be in business. We love what Henlo is doing and watching this space (while sipping a cappuccino)...

IN SHORT

🤖 Health Bot. The local team behind GovChat has just launched Supple, an AI health chatbot to provide digital healthcare assistance to all 54 African Union members.

🏎️ Revving Up. Local payments orchestration platform Revio has changed to Precium to reflect its growth from a local processor to a global payments platform off the back of its $5.2 seed funding round at the end of 2023.

🇿🇦 Thriving Ecosystem. SA has landed the 52nd spot in StartupBlink’s Global Start-up Ecosystem Index 2024’s Top 100 Countries, with Cape Town (128th), Jozi (139th), Pretoria (426th), and Durban (547th) all cracking the Top 1’000 cities.

🥸 Discovered Data. Around 20 Discovery Insure clients have had their personal data extracted from the insurer by a fraudster including residential addresses and details of the items covered by the policies. This follows the massive TicketMaster breach where nearly 560 million customers' personal info was taken.

🏴‍☠️ Streaming Pirates. MultiChoice had a busy week, from taking action against the Waka TV streaming Kingpin who got arrested on Wednesday for “illegal sale of internet streaming pirate devices that allowed individuals to access MultiChoice content”, to the R125 per share cash offer from Canal+ to all shareholders.

🚀 Taking Off. Boeing’s Starliner (with 2 crew members on board) has docked with the International Space Station despite the discovery of 3 hydrogen leaks over the course of the launch and mission, as well as some thruster issues mid-mission.

100+ STARTUPS SA NEEDS RIGHT NOW

Looking for your next big business to build?

How bout tapping into over 20 months of active startup market and industry research… all at once…

Introducing our new stack of 100+ South African business ideas, complete with industry deep dives, market sizes and broader economic insights — all hand-picked and vetted by us.

Featuring multi-billion-Rand opportunities across 25 industries, including:

• 15 too-hot FinTech opportunities
• 12 Groundbreaking B2B & ecosystem ventures
• 11 Entertainment & Sport businesses waiting to be built
• 11 Insanely cool tech companies to start
• 9 Disruptive E-commerce plays to change the game
• Plus: PropTech, InsureTech, EdTech, HealthTech, Automotive…

The only thing we ask is that you refer 1 friend to The Open Letter. That’s it, just use your referral link below to share The Open Letter with someone you know will also unlock value from it, and all 100+ startup ideas are yours, for free, forever!

Claim it by referring someone with this link…

Share the newsletter

HOW WOULD YOU BUILD IT?

How to Build a Killer Newsletter

If you’re looking to create a hyper-engaged audience for your product/business (you know, to lower CAC or up conversion rates), then this week's podcast is for you. Because, obviously, that’s exactly what we do! And that’s exactly what we’re doing here: Telling you how we built The Open Letter – enjoy!

Sizzling highlights

1. Finding the niche and getting the confidence to press GO

From walking around with an idea in your head for years to meeting the right people and suddenly BAM, 5 minutes later you’re in business, this is the value of pinpointing a niche where you can add value – get the insights here.

2. Email is the most valuable primary medium

Evolving from the stock-and-stale standard company email format to something truly unique, inspiring and personal – here’s what most people get wrong about email.

3. Growing your audience & beating the algorithms 

Going from little-to-no engagement to record-setting open rates while maintaining a super high-quality audience – some serious insider secrets here.

4. Turning your haters into followers

The not-so-nice side of any direct engagement with a business audience, the right mindset to engage on a human level and flipping a potentially bad situation into a win – here’s how we turn haters into fans.

5. Keep adding value

Dev jobs, cool events and a focus on building really valuable businesses – get a taste of what's coming up next from The Open Letter.

You can also grab the Spotify and Apple Podcast links on our website here.

YOUR VOICE

We asked what you’d like to invest in, and startup’s the way...

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏢 Commercial property (18%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🦄. Local startups (32%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📊 More options of listed companies (6%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👑 Gold bullion, baby (17%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🛰 Space tech and cool industrial projects (5%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤖 AI companies (12%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💪 I only invest in myself (9%)

Your 2 cents…

Lekker Wesley, yeh SunCash is the bomb — remember that time we interviewed with the Momint CEO?

Wise words, Panache! Upskill, try new things, push yourself and test boundaries — then you achieve the kind of success that allows you to invest.

You’re probably right, Vakele. In the last few weeks we’ve seen reports of how countries, from France to Dubai and even Mauritius are positioning themselves as the “AI hub” of their region — meaning they’re trying to attract AI companies to come put up headquarters in their country. SA should be doing the same in Africa, for sure!

ENTER TO WIN BIG!

We’ve extended the competition till Tuesday!

So you can still enter…

To celebrate our 10k subs and TroyGold’s launch of a first-of-its-kind subscription, we’re shaking things up and giving away R1’000’s worth of gold bullion with this week + a copy of SA startup must-read, The First Kudu (check out the new audiobook here).

To enter, simply refer one friend this week using your unique referral code.

That’s right, just one friend to sign up. Want more entries? Refer more friends and each referral will count as one entry into Friday’s draw.

(Note: In order to claim your prize you’ll need an active TroyGold account, which is free to create.)

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An SA shake-up? Yes, by now we all probably know the ANC lost their majority rule, both nationally and in a few key provinces.

But, interestingly, if we ran in the elections and got all our readers to vote for us, we’d be SA’s 32nd largest party (just about 4k adrift from COPE).

Yep, we hit 10’000 subscribers over the weekend and we want to say thank you for reading and engaging!

In this Open Letter:

• Capital Markets: How blockchain and CASP are shaking up finance.
• Here comes TrumpTok, Pick n Pay’s pickle & why Apple’s chips are down.
• Go to market: How to build a beautiful website yourself.
• How we like our insurance freebies: The poll results are in.
• Giveaway time: Win R1k’s worth of gold & The First Kudu!

TRENDING NOW

An Alternative Way to Capital

The JSE (Joburg Stock Exchange) has seen 22 delistings in 2023, down only slightly from the 25 delistings that occurred in 2022. And apart from the recent separate listing by WeBuyCars, there isn’t too much else cooking on Africa’s top stock exchange.

It’s worrying for asset managers who are pressed to make do with fewer options, but it's also worrying for companies that want to use the stock market as a means to raise funding.

But why is the JSE listings shrinking?

Well, it might have to do with the costs of listing: It’s estimated that for a company to issue traditional financial assets (shares) via the exchange, typically involves up to 40 intermediaries. Wow, 40 extra hands all taking a cut from the transaction.

In fact, the global financial intermediary sector is said to extract over $200 billion in value from the market every year (that’s R3.8bn).

Yes, listing is pricey, but for good reason: Compliance and trust are crucial for the functioning of capital markets. 

But we can’t help asking if that risk could be done at a lower cost…

Tokenising assets the future of finance?

A smart contract can represent ownership of an asset. Think shares, a bond or even a representation of a real-world contract. And on the blockchain, these smart contracts can easily be traded with other users in exchange for cryptocurrency.

With the first 75 FSCA Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) licenses being issued earlier this year, we might see more tokenised asset exchanges and solutions hitting the market. 

And Mesh is one such local startup. Mesh developed the infrastructure to enable the issuance and trade of assets. Running on the Stellar blockchain, Mesh recently launched one of the continent’s first tokenised bond sales, raising R100m for “Die MOS inisiatief” to fund the development of private education facilities. 

The bond was fully underwritten and guaranteed, offering investors prime + 2% with a minimum investment size of as little as R5’000. 

It’s one step closer to bringing alternative investment opportunities to the man on the street, all while helping companies raise funding more affordably.

Exciting times ahead….we’re watching this space…

IN SHORT

🌬️ Cape Doctor Power. The V&A Waterfront in Cape Town is testing 5 small-scale, pole-mounted vertical wind turbines as part of its green energy mix.

🍏 Apple Chips Down. Nvidia is set to replace Apple as the world’s second-most-valuable company thanks to a massive upshot in demand for the high-end chips that power AI applications, and a seemingly decreased demand for iPhones.

🔻Petering Out. Retail OG Pick n Pay looks to be in a spot of bother after publishing its financial results ending 25 Feb 2024. The results show a 373% decrease in net profit from R1.17 billion to a net loss of R3.2 billion.

🎺 TrumpTok. Former US Prez and presidential nominee Donald Trump joined TikTok this weekend and has already amassed 1.7 million followers. Guess he doesn't hate everything Made in China.

🤷🏽 Berkshire Affordable. The NYSE claimed a bizarre glitch that displayed Berkshire Hathaway’s stock as being down by 99.97% has been fixed.

BUILDER’S CORNER

How to Build a Good-Looking Website Yourself

by Renier Kriel from The Open Letter

One of the most valuable concept validation techniques is to get a website up that markets your products and services, and then send some traffic there.

Best-case scenario, it leads to a few customers. Worst case, you get market feedback. But if building your site takes a long time, costs a lot of money or doesn’t look great, this experiment quickly becomes too costly.

That’s why I use Webflow.

Webflow makes it easy (for even non-coders) to build visually appealing websites in a visual interface. You pretty much design the website (or start from a library of over 1k+ templates) and Webflow writes the HTML, Javascript, etc. in the background.

After building many sites, including The Open Letter and our latest venture, Stream’s site on Webflow, we think it’s good enough to give you a quickfire guide on using it to get a new website up in a jiffy.

1. Set up your Webflow account

Head on over to Webflow and create a free account — it gives you dashboard access and lets you explore the features before you fully commit. The free plan allows you to build a site with 2 pages, 50 content items and 1’000 visitors per month before having to pay. Enough for you to get a feel for how it works.

2. Browse for a template you love

They have over 1’000 templates, catering to various industries and purposes. Whether you just need something basic to test an MVP and messaging or want to, later on, go full-blown e-commerce (check out WigWag’s plugin to enable E-commerce in SA), you likely don’t need a designer to get a really slick-looking website.

3. Start editing

The best part is how easily you can just change up the template to suit your brand needs — it’s basically an intelligent drag-and-drop editor. And if you get stuck, they have like a thousand video tutorials on how to do virtually everything you can imagine on there.

4. Find a site plan (hosting) & connect your domain

Webflow has hosting plans built into it all, making it super easy for you to connect your domain and publish your work of art to the world!

5. Click publish

It’s basically done and live as soon as you’re happy with it. And then you can just use the Webflow editor to make changes and republish… no developers or designers needed (just yet).

If you want to get started with Webflow, please use our affiliate link which will help us earn revenue.

Today’s Builder’s Corner was written by Renier Kriel from The Open Letter and Stream, who is an expert in SA startup strategy & growth.

Connect with him on Linkedin here.

YOUR VOICE

We asked where you’d like to earn some “free” embedded insurance, and most eyes are on the FinTechs…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍟 My Uber Eats and takeaways (8%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📱 My data purchases (3%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ ⛽ When filling up with petrol (22%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎬 My DStv bill or Netflix sub (10%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🛒 Rewards for my online shopping (14%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 💰 My bank or digital wallet, for sure! (43%)

Your 2 cents…

An intriguing thought there, Charles? Yeh, many would probably say that was the idea behind the RAF, but a properly structured, controlled and individualised (preferably commercial) product would likely be quite welcome with vehicle owners.

Not a bad idea at all, Jason. Wonder if FNB would bite…

ENTER TO WIN BIG THIS FRIDAY!

To celebrate our 10k subs and TroyGold’s launch of a first-of-its-kind subscription, we’re shaking things up and giving away R1’000’s worth of gold bullion with this week + a copy of SA startup must-read, The First Kudu (check out the new audiobook here).

To enter, simply refer one friend this week using your unique referral code.

That’s right, just one friend to sign up. Want more entries? Refer more friends and each referral will count as one entry into Friday’s draw.

(Note: In order to claim your prize you’ll need an active TroyGold account, which is free to create.)

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Good boy? China now has an army of rifle-equipped robot dogs — watch them open fire on targets here. PS: Swarm of drones with automatic rifles also included.

In this Open Letter:

• Huge potential: Cracking Africa’s trillion-Rand insurance game.
• Bots gets Starlink, most phones in SA & local acquisitions and funding.
• And the winner is: You’ll never guess who won this week’s lucky draw.
• Startup collection: Going from idea to market — the playbook.
• Where most go to find a date: The poll results are in.

TRENDING NOW

A R1.5 Trillion Africa Insurance Play

The African insurance market was valued at $81.6 billion in 2022 (a cool R1.5 trillion), of which South Africa holds the lion's share with roughly 74% of total premiums. This means the rest of the continent represents a mere 0.4% of the global insurance market (at the moment). 

Currently, insurance penetration (the insurance market divided by the GDP) in Africa is just 3%, compared to Europe’s 8% and the USA’s 11%.

But the potential market is huge and, quite frankly, this is where the world’s future growth lies, so there’s some real gold for those who can help Africa catch up…

Why does it matter?

There are many broader economic benefits of insurance for both individuals and businesses, including:

• Risk Management - Those unexpected losses don’t take you out.
• Business growth - Encourages business expansion and innovation by mitigating risks.
• Social Security - Offers a safety net against economic hardships, improving quality of life and workforce productivity.
• Saves tax money - Reduces the need for the government to foot the bill in the case of disasters, allowing that money to work elsewhere.

Many say insurance is like the backbone of a growing economy. Without it, there is a constant erosion of value making it hard to make progress.

But why’s Africa lagging behind?

• Economic challenges - Most simply can’t afford it. 
• Limited access to insurance products - Traditional insurance distribution models simply don’t cut it. 
• Lack of consumer awareness about the benefits of insurance - Once again, traditional models of distribution just don’t work well in most of Africa.
• Lack of frictionless payments - Mobile money is really popular in Africa, but only 14% of providers support auto debit which undermines sustainable insurance take-up 

Preach it, Rev

A new way to distribute, price and sell insurance

Inclusivity Solutions is a Cape Town-based startup that’s replacing much of the paperwork and manual processes involved in issuing policies with a new digital enablement platform. 

(But this isn’t the novel part, local startups like Root offer a similar solution.)

What makes Inclusivity Solutions interesting is their embedded insurance offering – a form of digital bundling, enabling partners from virtually any industry to offer insurance policies as an add-on or feature, generally as part of a digital sale.

• Think mobile network operator that wants to drive up their ARPU; they can offer free life cover for every user spending more than a certain amount per day/month.
• Add a hospital cash insurance product free of charge with every cross-border transaction.
• Embed insurance to cover loans to businesses in the case of death or disability of the owner.

Insurance as an incentive drives customer behaviour helping the businesses they partner with grow. On the consumer side, by rolling out the insurance products digitally and partnering with customers with large established distribution, they solve the major prohibiters of insurance in Africa. 

A win-win-win.

With predictions showing the African insurance market heading to $123.8 billion (2.3 trillion) by 2028, this is definitely a South African startup to watch….

IN SHORT

🧫 Growing BioTech. Immobazyme, a BioTech that leverages the power of precision fermentation to create high-value proteins has secured its latest round of funding, taking its total funding to just over R24 million. The investment will go towards scaling up Immobazyme’s production capabilities.

🛠️ DIY Buy. SA Short-term Insurer Santam has acquired Kandua, an online marketplace for home services (think “Uber of plumbers,” etc.), bundling it into Santam’s existing Home+ service offering.

🚌 Keep on Rollin. Local ground transport operator management platform Ratality has been acquired by Busbud, a Canadian global mobility group to accelerate its B2B software growth.

🛰️ Another One. Botswana has just become the latest African country to grant Starlink an operating license. At this rate, South Africans will get GTA VI before getting Starlink…

📱Phone Frenzy. PEP and Ackermans, part of the Pepkor Group, sold 5.6 million cellphones between October 2023 and March this year, selling 7 out of every 10 prepaid smartphones in SA and making it the biggest cellphone retailer in the land.

AND THE WINNER IS…

Congratulations, Ngcebo! You’ve won a R1’000 Takealot voucher and a copy of SA startup must-read, The First Kudu. We’ll contact you personally with your prize, but we just wanted to share how your big win went down…

But all is not lost if you haven’t won! We’ve got a brand-new competition coming up next week — with sweet, sweet new prizes. Details next Tuesday…

THE BUILDER’S TOOLBOX

From Idea to Market: Your Quick-Fire Startup Playbook

Lots of ideas but no clear route to market? No worries, we got you with a few copy-and-paste guides to take your next build (or iteration) from zero to one, fast.

“Builders, Assemble!”

1. How to Validate Your Idea in 10 Minutes

7 Desktop-validation methods to gauge the market size and scope, discover pain points (and how NB they are) plus what the competition’s doing – learn to validate ideas in 10 minutes.

2. How to Build a High-Performance Marketing Engine

3 Steps for high-gear marketing through next-level segmentation, iteration on qualitative feedback and affinity, plus 6 tools to automate it all with the ultimate marketing engine.

3. How to Secure Pilot Users (for Feedback & Learning)

Steal a page from Notion’s community-led model, the “test ads” and iterate method or check out this B2B SaaS user play in the guide to securing pilot users.

4. How to Grow by Asking for (and Receiving) Feedback

4 Steps for getting more useful feedback you can build on – including ensuring honesty, powerful question-framing and listening so you can grow your startup on feedback.

5. How to Make Sure You Have Market Fit

Nailing all 4 market fit types – including 1) How to check if you have each fit (type) and 2) What to do if you don’t (yet) – check the gold standard in ensuring market fit.

Plus: For 70+ more in-depth guides like these, check out our builder’s toolbox.

YOUR VOICE

We asked how you’d find a last-minute date, and most lean on a friend…

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😘 Tinder, Boardroom or some other dating app (20%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💬 Online forums or stalking on socials (6%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🙊 Ask a friend to set me up (34%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍻 Just go down to the pub/club and meet people (15%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🤶 All of the above – just don’t know what my wife/hubby will say. (25%)

Hey, thanks, Vivaldo — glad you like it! We unpack a variety of different industries and business opportunities throughout the year, so hope you keep finding cool and unique things here (and that million-dollar opportunity, of course!).

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Canva cringe… some people are losing their minds at this clip of Canva’s cornier-than-corn corporate rap presentation (warning: max cringe), but you just know there’re gonna be others who are like “Is this the future of all tech showcases” 🤩🤩🤩?

In this Open Letter:

• All heart: When love becomes a R144bn business.
• Woolies tech, presidential deepfakes & SA game dev boost.
• Social play: How to 10X your startup LinkedIn game.
• SA’s favourite internet tech: The latest poll results are in.
• Giveaway time: Win a R1k Takealot voucher & The First Kudu!

TRENDING NOW

When Love Becomes a R144bn Business

Six out of every 10 South Africans are single and not looking to get married anytime soon. 

And while dating websites have been around since the dawn of Web 2.0, Tinder popularised it with its intuitive interface on mobile, matching algorithms and ease of onboarding. 

The global dating industry was estimated at $7.9bn (R144bn) in 2022 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.6% from 2023 to 2030. And, as a romance time saver, the concept makes sense. 

For most working adults, meeting enough new people to assess their suitability as a romantic partner takes an inordinate amount of time for the results you get. Studies show you’re more likely to meet a romantic partner online than through your network.

But it’s not all puppy eyes and roses… the business of dating platforms is complicated. 

For starters, customer success is murder on your churn rate. Because when a dating platform helps their customers succeed romantically, well they essentially lose the customer forever (mostly). 

And that’s where Tinder has faced backlash for being focused on hook-ups rather than a long-term romantic partner. Hook-ups reduce churn and increase stickiness… May have been unintended, but that's how it turned out nonetheless. 

So where to go to find true love?

Many professionals, especially entrepreneurs, entrench themselves so much in the problems they’re solving, that most of their interests are just that – building a business or growing a career. So it makes sense that many professionals would connect mainly with other professionals with similar interests.

That’s where the local dating app, Boardroom, comes in. Targeting busy professionals seeking long-term relationships, within 9 months they have sparked over 10,000 matches between professionals in South Africa – leveraging LinkedIn verification, which offers some additional insights and trust. 

With an estimated 261 million single professionals aged 25 to 49 in the world with an online presence, there’s a massive opportunity for a new incumbent to focus on this niche. 

The dating platform game is competitive and crowded. But hit the right niche with a good offer, and it might be a match made in heaven. We’re watching this space and especially this local player making the moves…

IN SHORT

🐳 A Whale of a Time. Orca, a local startup building a central AI-driven fraud orchestration platform has just raised a $550k pre-seed round.

💻 The Woolies Connection. Woolworths launched its new online tech store, WConnect recently. Selling everything from smartwatches and cellphones to consoles and laptops. PEP also followed suit, launching PEP Cell as an online cellphone store.

🥧 Listed Pi. Microcomputer manufacturer Rasberry Pi is set to go public on the London Stock Exchange in June 2024. It’s expected that the company will raise $40 million which will help accelerate its engineering efforts to capture a larger share of a $21.2 billion market.

📲 RoboBiden? The FCC has handed down a $6 million fine for a scammer who used a voice cloner to impersonate Joe Biden in a series of illegal robocalls. Hopefully, the robocall is better at sticking to its script… 

🎮 Next Roblox? Aspiring South African game developers can now apply to join the 22 on Sloane Game Development Programme which helps Devs leverage new technologies and resources to develop and launch new games.

🏡 Behavioural Home Loans. Discovery Bank has launched a new home loan product offering its clients personalised interest rates based on their risk profiles, with a further opportunity to decrease this rate by up to 1% through its “behavioural banking” model.

🎟️ Cape Town Startup Event. In Cape Town this Thursday and looking to hang out with some of the coolest people in the city’s startup scene? StartupclubZA is hosting a Cape Town Connect event featuring Jonathan Smit (ex, Payfast) and Kiaan Pillay (Stitch). We have 3 tickets to give away — to stand a chance to win reply “I’m in Cape Town on Thursday!” to this mail and we’ll put you in the lucky draw!

BUILDER’S CORNER

How to 10X Your Brand on LinkedIn

by Renier Kriel co-founder of The Open Letter & Stream

One of the best network investments I ever made was becoming more active on LinkedIn – in today’s world, personal branding is a superpower. Just look at Elon Musk, his personal brand helps him raise billions, sell billions and recruit the best talent out there.

And it works. Personally, I have seen how LinkedIn can be used to generate leads, get in contact with otherwise unreachable people and build genuine connections in business. All things that make doing business a bit easier.

But for me, starting was daunting, so let me help you get going…

4 Steps for Founders to Get Value from LinkedIn

1. Get into the right mindset

One of the biggest mistakes on LinkedIn is to rely on your company page to do anything – it’s a dud, LinkedIn is about connecting people, so if you want to have an impact and get traction, you will have to use your own, personal profile.

For startups, you basically have two worthwhile approaches:

1. Executive content: Founders and leadership build up their personal brands and use that to accelerate growth through partnerships, opportunities and sometimes even direct sales.
2. Employee-led content: Once the founders/execs are on their way, get the rest of the team going. Clear vision and alignment here are key (see point 2 below).

(Not that company LinkedIn is useless, it’s just that it’s better geared for big brand building, i.e. corporates.)

2. Build your strategy

Next up, there’s a lot of noise out there, so to be successful you have to get really specific.

I quite like the steps Morning Brew founder Alex Leiberman lays out in this video, specifically:

• The Audience of One: Think about that one person you create content for that represents all the people you want/need to talk to. Everything you write, write as if you are writing for that person. Pick an influential leader and it will motivate you to write things they will find interesting. Chances are, many other people will too.
• Finding the middle ground: Writing down “what you know”, “what excites you” and “what your audience needs/wants” and then only focusing on the topics that overlap, ensures you become laser-focused.

3. Save your sanity with a content plan

Now that you know your niche and topics, you need to know how to create a HUGE amount of content that actually adds value.

For that, I really like the content brainstorming method in Justin Welsh’s LinkedIn course – Justin built a simple content framework table that lists types of posts at the top and topics you want to write about on the left. That way you can mix and match types with topics to create a whole roster of things to talk about.

Types of posts that are easy and effective include:

• Comparing A to B
• Lists
• Lesson learnt
• Contrarian observation

4. Automate the most draining parts

Anyone who’s ever tried this before will tell you the biggest stumbling blocks are:

• Actually writing the content
• Keeping it consistent (rain or shine).

It’s not a 1 or 2-week game, LinkedIn delivers rewards, but it takes time and consistency. You have to bite the bullet and commit to making this a part of your life for the next 3 months, then 6 months, then year 1, 2 and so on…

Or you can get help… put in a few hours of strategy and planning and then automate all the grudge bits like so:

• Content writing – use Stream to brainstorm content strategy and ghostwrite for you.
• Posting – automate it with Buffer.

Today’s Builder’s Corner was written by Renier Kriel from The Open Letter & Stream, who is an expert in SA startup strategy & growth.

Connect with him on Linkedin here.

YOUR VOICE

We asked what internet tech will rule future SA, and fibre’s the tech to beat…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⚡ Fibre (30%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 📡 5G (28%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🛜 Wi-Fi (12%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 🛰 Starlink (26%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤫 Something new I’m working on (4%)

Our team are just wondering how we can get our hands on some of the sweet, sweet R5 loadshedding-proof fibre…

ENTER TO WIN BIG THIS FRIDAY!

This Friday, we’re announcing the winner of this week’s R1’000 Takealot voucher and a copy of SA startup unicorn must-read, The First Kudu (check out the new audiobook here).

To enter, simply reply to this email and tell us what you think of The Open Letter. That’s right, give us a review (good or bad) and you will get entered into Friday’s draw!

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Skynet, yet? The US held the world’s first AI warfare conference, and according to this journalist, it was a bit of a Military-meets-Silicon-Valley Orwellian nightmare.

In this Open Letter (it’s a biggy!):

• Real growth: Sending fibre where it’s never gone before.
• ScarJo’s “stolen” voice, AI overflow & Microsoft’s local biz.
• R1k at Takealot: Did you win this week’s lucky draw?
• Trending now: 3 Hottest topics in SA startup right now.
• Something new: 70+ pro guides for growing your business.
• The best SA product to export: The poll results are in.

TRENDING NOW

112.7M Reasons for Fibre-Excitement

Smartphones are becoming the entertainment device of choice in SA townships.

In fact, when we visited Kazang recently, they shared how they discovered many people in townships have 2 mobile devices – 1 cheaper, lower-spec phone for travelling and a 2nd higher-end device that stays at home because it’s mainly used for entertainment. 

In November last year, Showmax toppled Netflix, with its 2.1 million subscribers (compared to Netflix’s 1.8 million) to become the king of streaming services in Africa. And with the likes of the English Premier League games for only R69 a month, you can imagine that streaming on mobile devices is becoming more and more popular.

But the internet to pull this off is not quite there yet. A quick look at SA’s recent Census Stats shows some interesting numbers.

• Back in 2011, a staggering 64.8% of households had no access to internet services, with that number dropping significantly to only 21.1% in the recent 2022 Census.
• Also in 2011, only 8.6% of homes had an internet connection in the dwelling, with that number only bumping up slightly to 13.3% in 2022.

And here’s where it gets interesting. Over the same period (2011–2022) the number of households using a cellphone (or other mobile device) grew nearly 4x from 16.3% to a whopping 60.5%.

We have more devices, but home internet hasn’t kept up with the pace…

The data consumption conundrum

South African data prices have come down a lot in the last few years, but it’s still not quite at the level where streaming video becomes economically viable.

On average, streaming SD-quality video consumes around 0.7 to 1 GB of data per hour — R30 odd for watching a show, R60 for a football game. It’s still too expensive….

Are there other options than cellular data?

In the suburbs, fibre infrastructure investment can make sense as your type of consumer can typically afford a monthly premium over time.

But townships are different. 

You have a lot of non-permanent structures and, with such narrow streets, it's not that easy to install fibre infrastructure. Not to mention your consumer’s earning cycles often mean debit orders and high monthly costs are less practical.

Enter fibertime, a Stellenbosch-based township internet provider founded by former Mxit and Herotel CEO, Alan Knott Craig Jnr. During an initial pilot, they financed and installed Wi-Fi devices in 880 homes in Kayamandi, Stellenbosch, at no charge to the occupants. Residents could then purchase Wi-Fi connectivity at R5 for a 24-hour voucher at speeds up to 100Mbps – even during load-shedding.

‍Can this make money? 

Their model thrives on population density. While a suburban property typically houses 5 people, the same space in a township accommodates 100 – a twentyfold increase. Then there is a disproportionate cost in serving 20x more people as it won’t cost 20x more or require 20x infrastructure. 

Also, vouchers are linked to individual devices, and not the entire home, meaning each person in the house could end up buying a voucher in the house for their own usage. They claim that making an average of R5 per home per day makes their model profitable and weekend surges have seen them nearly double to R9.20 per home.

By being active in Kayamandi, they currently cover about 0.25% of South Africa’s townships, so there’s lots of room for growth. And, as entertainment providers like Showmax make a push into the township market through mobile streaming, demand for data will keep rising. 

And with an affordable unlimited data option, fibertime might just be onto something. We are watching this space…

IN SHORT

👩🏽‍💻 AI Overflow. Prosus-owned developer resource platform, Stack Overflow, is partnering with OpenAI to create OverflowAPI. This move will see OpenAI gain access to the popular Stack Overflow community and provide attribution to Stack Overflow community to foster deeper engagement.

🚀 To the moon? Nvidia announced quarterly results and set record quarterly revenue of $26.0 billion, up 18% from Q4 and up 262% from a year ago. The results also included a staggering $14.88bn net income for the 3 month period.

🤖 IllegalGPT. OpenAI could find itself in a spot of legal bother after it’s being accused of making a ChatGPT voice that sounds like actress Scarlett Johanson for its AI assistant called “Sky”.

🌐 Microsoft Support. Microsoft SA has agreed to a 10-year, R1.3 billion deal with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition to support local small businesses and invest in youth skills development.

🌱Carbon Crunch. SA faces up to a 10% reduction in exports and a 9% reduction in GDP by 2050 due to global carbon taxes. This could also impact between 350k and 2.6 million jobs.

AND THE WINNER IS…

Congratulations, Christo Kleinhans, you’ve won a R1’000 Takealot voucher and a copy of SA startup must-read, The First Kudu. We’ll contact you, personally with your prize, but we just wanted to share how your big win went down…

But that’s not all, folks! Next Friday, we’re giving away another R1’000 Takealot voucher and another copy of The First Kudu. And all you have to do to see your name up in lights is to:

• Reply to this email and tell us what you think of The Open Letter. That’s right, give us a review (good or bad) and you will get entered into next week’s draw!

PS: The First Kudy is also available as an audio book which you can grab here.

HOW WOULD YOU BUILD IT?

Hot Topics in the SA Startup Space Right Now 🔥

If you’re here because you like how we show you startup and tech through the lens of the larger SA economic, business and social scope, then this week’s podcast is for you! We sat down, just Bobby and Renier, to unpack some burning topics in this pre-election “crazy season” that’s sure to impact the SA startup space…

Catch the highlights

1. What’s next for The Open Letter

From growth to 5-star partners and what is that we hear about a community…? – some crazy exciting updates right here.

2. Major opportunities coming out of NHI

From eliminating cost drivers (and we can name quite a few!) to just getting the entire system to operate at the level of efficiency that government foresees with the NHI bill creates so many new opportunities for innovation, it’s actually quite funny – get some MedTech ideas here.

3. Super-hot EdTech opportunities from the Bela Bill

The major impacts on local schools, centralised decision-makers, Grade R and homeschooling create room for and (given SA’s track record with education) probably necessitate a lot of innovation. And therein lie quite a few key opportunities – get the insights right here.

You can also grab the Spotify and Apple Podcast links on our website here.

SOMETHING NEW

70+ Free Guides for Building Your Startup

Some astute members have already noticed that there’s a new section on our website. So let’s just make it official: We’ve launched the Builder’s Toolbox and you can go check it out right here.

The ultimate SA build combo….Build, plant and braai

Quick-fire Insights on Specific Topics

OGs will know we’ve done boatloads of Builder’s Corner segments, featuring focused, quick-fire insights into doing specific things to start/grow/manage your company better.

Well, now we’ve collected them into a handy library, so you get pro tips on topics like…

• How to hire A-players for your startup
• How to boost your public image, Mr CEO
• How to unlock your growth market
• How to lower your CAC and increase profit
• How to valuate your company (like a VC)
• How to track and measure your WOM

And 70+ (soon to be 100s) more… Enjoy!

A WORD FROM VANTA

Free SOC 2 Compliance Checklist from Vanta

Are you building a business? Achieving SOC 2 compliance can help you win bigger deals, enter new markets, and deepen trust with your customers — but it can also cost you real time and money.

Vanta automates up to 90% of the work for SOC 2 (along with other in-demand frameworks like ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR), getting you audit-ready in weeks instead of months and saving you up to 85% of associated costs.

Download the free checklist to learn more about the SOC 2 compliance process and the road ahead.

YOUR VOICE

We asked what SA products you think will sell best in the UK, and seems there’s no beating the biltong…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍮 Melktert (8%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🥓 Biltong (32%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🫧 Fizzers (3%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👞 Vellies (12%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🥫 Mrs Balls (12%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🦸 My startup services (7%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🌟 Bottled sunshine & some rugby talent (26%)

Your 2 cents…

Yeh. Allistair, there’s nothing quite like it, hey?

Jip, Panache — no one here’s gonna complain if you say it’s the world’s best dried anything!

Heita, what a treat — know where our next pair’s coming from, thanks, Bertrand.

Ha ha, Mervyn, we were once on a plane with a bunch of Aussies, and they were handing out droëwors — tryna finish a kg bag they’d smuggled on the plane from SA.

Lekker, Pascal, you know we expect nothing less from you!

Powered by beehiiv

‍

Meet your maker? A couple of YouTubers took it upon themselves to build a working “stillsuit” from the Dune movies, i.e. a suit that recycles your body’s water to prevent dehydration in desert conditions. And, yes, they do recycle and drink their own sweat (safely?).

In this Open Letter:

• Backtrack: Reversing SA’s R100bn e-commerce pipeline.
• Tax Freedom Day, bye-bye BritBox and Hustlers wanted.
• The framework: How to pick the ideal niche for your startup.
• Your ideal crime-fighting tech: The results are in.
• Win R1k Takealot voucher: Check Friday’s email for a chance to win a R1k Takealot voucher & The First Kudu!

In partnership with

TRENDING NOW

Reversing SA’s R100bn E-Commerce Pipeline

By now it's common knowledge that e-commerce is heating up in South Africa. 

Triggered likely by the widespread adoption of grocery delivery services during Covid, it spread out to other industries and contributed to some R71 billion in sales last year, representing a 29% growth year-on-year.

A recap of the 2024 heat:

• In January, Temu started delivering in SA.
• In May, Amazon.co.za launched.
• A week later, Takealot launched unlimited delivery subscriptions & same-day delivery.
• Now, Checkers Sixty60 started beta-testing same-day delivery on larger items last week.

At the current growth rate, World Wide Worx predicts that by 2025, online would represent 10% of all SA retail (that’s ±R100 billion)… so it makes sense for everyone to play hard there. 

‍

But these players mostly deliver on a supply chain that goes from somewhere in the East (likely China, Vietnam or South Korea) to a consumer in a metro in South Africa. 

But what about the other way round?

Catching up with the rest of the world

SA’s been slow to the e-commerce party. In countries like the United Kingdom, e-commerce is 26.9% of their total retail – an estimated R2.6 trillion per year. It’s therefore not too far of a stretch to think that when the 100k-odd Europeans that hit our shores each year return home, they’d like to get some of those good-old SA products they love here back in the EU.

Not to mention the nearly 1 million expats around the world who’d love to get their hands on some Fizzers, Mrs Balls Chutney and likely a pair of FOM vellies or Veldskoen. 

But for local manufacturers, shipping e-commerce products hasn’t been economically viable. 

In fact, a small parcel could easily set you back R2’500. Which is nuts, considering the supply chain exists (I mean they drop off stuff here, is the ship going home empty?). 

Most likely it's a case of a large logistics provider that doesn’t wanna deal with the small guys.

Unless, of course, you find a way to fix that…

‍

Enter Tunl

Local logistics startup Tunl fills the gap between supplier and logistics provider by negotiating in bulk and fulfilling some of the work the logistics provider then doesn’t have to do. 

And they have made some big strides in unlocking exports for over 750 merchants and shipping over 11’000 parcels around the world in 2023. 

No doubt that, as the tide rises in e-commerce locally, one of the major opportunities around will be for local manufacturers to start shipping products – locally and all over the world. And with Tunl saving stores up to 75% on shipping, this might just be a massive opportunity for locals to sell into those mature e-commerce markets.

The global e-commerce market is massive. Taking a great South African product and selling it overseas is a major play…. We’re watching this space.

IN SHORT

💼 Hustlers Wanted. Google’s Hustle Academy is back. This 5-day virtual bootcamp for small business owners in South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria focuses on leveraging AI to elevate small businesses to the next level.

💸 Smooth Operators. OpenseedVC, an operator VC firm backing operator founders in Africa and Europe, has reached the first close of its $10 million angel-style early-stage fund.

😵 Teams Fatigue? Well, Google might just be coming to your rescue. Off the back of some cybersecurity failures, and some pretty decent discounts, Google is hoping to entice a large chunk of corporate and government customers to ditch the Office and take up Workspace.

🔓 Freeeeeedom!!!! Happy Tax Freedom Day for yesterday (20 March 2024). It’s the day when the average taxpayer has earned enough to fulfil their annual tax obligation and to pay for 1 year of government spending. From today, you’ll be working for yourself, and your family.

📺 Cheerio Mate. Joining a slew of high-profile international companies pulling out of South Africa, streaming service BritBox is set to exit SA in August this year.

A WORD FROM CRYPTO COFFEE

Need a gift for that one mate who doesn’t stop talking about his bitcoin?

Nothing tells your mate “I get it, stop telling me about it” than buying him some Crypto Coffee.

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A medium roast arabica that will take your friendship in one direction and that is up. Buy online here.

BUILDER’S CORNER

How to Pick a Niche For Your Startup

by Sheldon Bishop author of one of our favourite startup newsletters called The Zero to One

The best way to stand out when starting a new business is with a very specific offer appealing to a specific group of people.

If you start selling consulting services to everyone, you’re instantly in direct competition with every other consulting service provider out there.

Offer the same to, say, “CEOs of scale-ups that recently raised Series B funding” and your positioning makes them feel understood and your service instantly becomes unique – you might be the first, able to set your own price, etc.

Great, so how do you niche down strategically?

My 3-Step Framework For Finding Your Ideal Niche

Step 1: Start with a crowded market

This might sound counter-intuitive, but the upside to a crowded market is the Product-Market Fit has already been proven – people are willing to pay for solutions.

Take banking for example: People need financial solutions and, historically, you had SA’s Big Four offering a range of products to the already-banked population.

Then TymeBank came knocking as SA’s digital bank, partnering up with your Pick n Pay and Boxer retail stores to target financially underserved markets with specific and relevant solutions, and the rest is unicorn history.

Step 2: Pick the right niche

There are 3 factors that unlock your access to a specific niche – ranked in order of ease:

1. You’ve worked in the niche, so you know its ins and outs.
2. You know someone who can introduce you to the right people.
3. You don’t know anyone in the niche, but you know you can easily get in touch with people on the inside.

Step 3: Make it profitable

When you’re picking a niche, it has to be worthwhile, so keep these two points in mind:

1. Always pick a profitable niche: You want customers who have deep pain points, but also money to spend.
2. Only focus on qualified clients: Unqualified clients make it extremely difficult for you to deliver results. These clients need more work and support and are often the least happy about your services.

Targeting qualified clients sets you up for success to deliver awesome results and spread your brand name.

This is a short adapted excerpt from Sheldon’s latest newsletter. For more on this topic and others sign up to Zero to One here.

Today’s Builder’s Corner was written by Sheldon Bishop.

He is an expert in helping you replicate high-growth startups’ success and writes about it in his weekly email newsletter called The Zero to One.

YOUR VOICE

We asked where you think tech can add the most value in the fight against crime, and pattern-spotting’s the way…

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👨‍💻 Crime Detection (19%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🚔 Visibility (Patrols, CCTV, Drones) (26%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤖 Crime Prevention (15%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📈 Crime Pattern Identification (31%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🦾 Prosecution (ChatGPT handing down sentencing like RoboCop) (9%)

Your 2 cents…

You’re probably right, Sivuyise, not to mention we’d finally get the type of world 90s action movies promised us!

Nice one, Jason. Yeh, imagining every SAPS member with a Tony Stark-style Jarvis in their ear giving strategic input and analysis is pretty rad, too.

WINNER + NEW COMPETITION ROUND ON FRIDAY!

This Friday, we’re announcing the winner of this week’s R1’000 Takealot voucher and a copy of SA startup unicorn must-read, The First Kudu (check out the new audiobook here).

Check Friday’s Open Letter to see if you’re the winner. And if you haven’t entered yet, what ya waiting for? Reply to this email and tell us the name of any South African startup or company you think will make it big!

Powered by beehiiv

Nature’s revenge? Famously friendly toward humans in the wild, one pod of Killer Whales are living up to that name and attacking boats at sea — most recently, they sank a 50-foot yacht. Scientists suspect the leader of the pod had suffered a boat-related trauma and is seeking revenge — which happens to be the plot for the 1977 Richard Harris film, Orca 🐳.

In this Open Letter:

• Future-proofing: Opportunities in SA’s R640bn security sector.
• African money moves, sun-powered Golf plants & cashing in.
• Giveaway time: We like you very much, here’s some free stuff.
• Startup capital: 6 Deep dives on startup funding in SA.
• Your payment method of choice: The poll results are in.

TRENDING NOW

Future-Proofing SA’s R640bn Security Industry

The private security industry in South Africa is massive. 

It employs over 2.7 million people in well over 10’000 registered and active security businesses. And, according to the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSiRA), the number of active, employed security officers and the number of security businesses has increased by 42% and 45% respectively since 2010.

With a reported 580k security guards actively employed at average salaries ranging from R6k to R13k+ per month, you’re looking at an industry that pays around R3.4–R7.5bn just in their salaries per month. (And in a previous Open Letter, we showed the entire industry is probably worth around R640bn).

But it’s sorely needed, StatsSA says 2023 was a bumper year for crime in South Africa, with a substantial drop in the number of people who feel safe in their neighbourhoods.

Housebreaking has been the No. 1 crime in SA since at least 2019, and it’s been sharply on the rise ever since:

The business of security

Private security companies can be good businesses, but it's by no means easy.

You’ve gotta be on top of:

• Fixed cost of patrol vehicles and staff to cover areas where you are selling contracts.
• Then you need to provide sufficient coverage to the clients you service in those areas.
• In parallel, you need to ensure you keep signing up enough clients in said area to justify the costs.
• All while managing the risk of fighting actual criminals.

This makes growing the business risky — adding new areas to service is very capital intensive and a lot of external factors could impact the outcome of expansion. 

Which means as a tech startup play, if you can reduce that risk and/or increase revenue for local security companies, you might just have yourself a picks-and-shovels business in this growing industry.

Bring on the tech

Artificial Intelligence: AI is all the rage, and it’s already proving super useful in the security industry. Activeye integrates with existing CCTV systems and introduces a rule-based environment to build a database of normal vs abnormal behaviours, alerting the user when an abnormal behaviour or event is picked up.

This effectively increases coverage areas as you don’t need patrol vehicles to spot abnormal behaviour when AI-enabled cameras can pick up on it.

Upsells: Using a physical remote isn’t always the most practical way to turn your alarm on and off. Mobile apps as control offer a great amount of convenience as the control can be shared with many in a household, and can be used anywhere in the world.

Olarm and hyyp are both local players that let you manage and monitor your home or business security systems remotely. 

Finally, one can help reduce the risk for these local private security companies by sweating their assets more. i.e. Use their vehicles and guards for a service they cannot sell themselves at a lower, yet recurring fee.

Think last-mile delivery drivers or Ubers – when in a tight spot, these drivers can’t always rely on SAPS to respond on time.  Yet it’s also not practical for Uber to contract different local security companies wherever they operate. What’s more, integrating into everyone is a major pain…

So some clever South Africans built a platform to address this…

Changing the game

In comes Aura, South Africa’s largest response network with over 2’500 security and medical responders, giving users access to their nearest responder any time, anywhere.

We noticed Aura some time ago when they did a big Series A funding round, but recently we picked up on their growth. According to the Financial Times, they are the 27th fastest growing company in Africa and have seen their revenue go from R11 million to R68 million between 2020 and 2023. Impressive stuff.

So how does it work?

It's a platform play… they sign up (and vet) security companies and integrate them into their armed response systems. By signing up many providers, they can ensure they cover pretty much every part of the country where the service could be needed.  

On the other side of the marketplace, they sign up companies that either want to provide this service to drivers (such as The Courier Guy) or their customers (such as FNB) at a monthly fee and at a certain service level.

And it's not only a South African opportunity – they’re already also operational in Kenya and the United Kingdom, with more countries in the works.

With the tendency of the private sector to capitalise where governments fall short, the future is bright for private security and those that serve them. Unless of course, the government pulls an NHI on private security… but not likely – we’re watching this space.

IN SHORT

🚚 A Powerful Fleet. Local IoT and fleet management software provider, Mix Telematics, merged with American company Powerfleet to become a R1.8 billion business.

☀️ Sun’s out, Production’s Up. The Volkswagen Group Africa is investing R100 million to bolster their Kariega manufacturing plant with 5.6 MWp of solar energy to power the plant.

🤝 Chipping in for expansion. African money-transfer startup Chipper Cash has partnered with TBD to help it accelerate its global cross-border payments. TBD is part of ex-Twitter boss Jack Dorsey’s Block company.

👷 Funding Banker. Nedbank is launching a R10-million fund, the Indalo Fund, to change the way entrepreneurs are funded, and create a pipeline of viable businesses.

😬 Unfriend that co-worker. Meta is shutting down Workplace, its corporate-aimed version of Facebook that tried to foster workplace friendships and interactions. Turns out co-workers just use normal Facebook to engage colleagues they actually want to be friends with 🤷🏽.

HOW WOULD YOU BUILD IT?

6 Deep Dives on Funding Your Startup in SA

If you’re looking to fund a high-growth tech startup in SA, this one’s for you. We’ve built a collection of purely funding-focused podcasts, packed with insights from VCs, accelerators, venture studios and founders who’ve played the game and raised successfully.

Some are a few months old, but the advice is timeless, so if you haven’t seen all these episodes, they’re recommended viewing to help raise the cash to grow.

1. Should you build a startup with funding?

Startup funding strategies, how to register and structure your company, cash flow and how real SA businesses got funded – get the scoop here.

2. How they raised $5.2M in 2023

Next, we spoke to a co-founder who raised numerous rounds of capital (most recently at the end of last year) to get insights into the strategies they use to ensure they get funded – get the inside track here.

3. Programmes that can help prepare you for funding

One way to improve your chances is to enrol in a startup programme: They help you unlock growth and give you access to a network of pros, including VCs and investors – discover who can help here.

4. How to succeed through an incubator/accelerator 

Getting the help you need for a startup sprint (rather than crawl), which can help you secure that funding, faster – get insider insights here.

5. Sticking close to corporates with a Venture Studio route

The state of startup funding in SA and Africa, a new way to build (and get funded), and key advice on building for a big exit – see what it’s all about here.

6. Sometimes bootstrapping is best

You don’t always need investment. Building a financially sound company from day one is tough but possible. We spoke to two founders who bootstrapped one of Africa’s fastest-growing companies of 2023 – see how it’s done. 

You can also grab the Spotify and Apple Podcast links on our website here.

YOUR VOICE

We asked about your payment method of choice, and tap’s the way…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤳 Tap and go (54%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📲 E-wallets (7%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💳 Good old card and pin (22%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💵 Cash, ‘cos it’s king (7%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🖥 It’s EFT for me (5%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🛍 I’m more of a buy now, pay later person (0)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎩 Gold bullion (5%)

Your 2 cents…

Ha ha, yeh, we prolly shouldn’t even go there right now, hey, Chris?

Ai, of course, Wesley, we shoulda had crypto on the list — sorry, man.

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We messed up 🤦🏼. Last week, we told you about a stealth AI startup with a bot that specialises in the SA elections. But then we shared the wrong link! Here’s the right one — go check it out!

To make up for the slip, here are 2 more cool things:

1. OpenAI just announced GPT-4o, a model that can reason and interact across text, audio and video in real-time.
2. Also… big news: We’re approaching 10k subscribers and to celebrate we are giving away R1’000 Takealot.com vouchers every Friday for the next 4 weeks. Be sure to read our Friday newsletter for details on how to enter and win!

In this Open Letter:

• Big transactions: Amped for a new wave of economic growth.
• Discovery’s Bitcoin, solar blinds & a slice of Post Office pie.
• Go deep: How to build a high-performance marketing engine.
• When the lights go off again: Your poll results are in.
• Free stuff: Share The Open Letter & get business tools.

In partnership with

TRENDING NOW

Where Will SA’s Economic Growth Come From?

South Africa has reclaimed its crown as Africa’s largest economy, at $373 billion in GDP per year, reflecting well on our resilience in an unstable global economy. But, in dollar terms, our economy has shrunk quite a bit since 2011’s GDP of $458 billion.

Are there still growth opportunities in South Africa? Absolutely. 

The key to unlocking economic growth, though, often lies in reducing the friction that prevents transactions. And one area where it’s becoming increasingly easy to transact is our townships. 

The Township Economy

More than 11.6 million people live in SA townships, and the economy here is estimated to be between R750bn and R900bn per year. But if you operate in the township, you’ll know there’s still more to be done to reduce the friction and make transacting even smoother:

1. Lots of time is wasted: Long queues at ATMs to withdraw grant money or wages take away time that could be spent hustling or building a business
2. They rob you: In your street, you are relatively safe, but venture out and everything of value is at risk.
3. It’s just too pricey: High costs of transport to an economic hub to buy or transact – let’s say you want to travel to town to buy a bus ticket for Christmas with the family, R30 a taxi round trip when you’re earning R2’000 per month… ouch.

To name but a few.

Reach the front and there’s no cash left… eish.

The key to overcoming a lot of this friction is through hyper-localisation. If the distance to travel to get access to services and/or products is shortened, you unlock:

1. Less time wasted trying to access funds
2. It’s safer, as you aren’t travelling long distances
3. You pay less or no taxi fare to get what you need.

And tap-to-pay, yes NFC-enabled debit cards, might just be a solution to reduce the friction for the 11.6 million South Africans that still call Ikasi home.

Getting rid of friction

In 2020, there were little to no cashless transactions in the township. Fast forward to 2023 – local FinTech enabler Kazang is doing more than R1 billion a month in tap-to-pay transactions.

This payment method already represents close to half of all the township-based payments they process, and adoption and usage are growing fast. 

But tap-to-pay is but one (albeit an important one) of the many building blocks in the ecosystem:

1. Being able to read bank cards, the Kazang device allows customers to draw money at a merchant… no more long queues.
2. With a network of 85’000 Kazang-enabled merchants across South Africa, they are everywhere. Meaning customers don’t have to travel too far to get access to it.
3. And, while VAS services such as prepaid airtime and electricity have been sold in these shops for a long time, Kazang now allows merchants to also sell bus tickets (something they’d normally have to travel into town for) saving the customer anywhere between 5% and 10% and adding a whole lot of convenience by not having to take a trip to town to buy it.

SA’s flourishing future township economy, according to AI.

Layering in merchant benefits

But it is not only the consumers that benefit, the spaza shop owner benefits greatly from this, too: 

• Kazang offers benefits such as cashback rewards. When they launch a new service, for example, they reward merchants for selling that service. I.e. “sell 5 bus tickets this month and earn R50”. Great to drive self-learning of the services available, but also a great way for larger brands to drive on-the-ground action in this market segment, either by offering merchants rewards for showcasing, promoting and even selling more of their products in their shops.
  
• The ability to offer cash withdrawals digitises the cash (it appears in the merchant’s Kazang wallet), which decreases risk, but Kazang also enables the merchant to pay suppliers directly using their Kazang balance. This is way better than the traditional EFTs upfront which stretches cash flow.

• And finally, merchants get a steady stream of new products to sell on and make margins, allowing spaza owners to generate more income. 

Doing business in townships is complicated, but the adoption of digital might just be the thing that lowers friction enough to make this the next frontier of economic growth in South Africa. We’re definitely watching this space…

IN SHORT

Today’s coffee-time shorts are brought to you by CryptoCoffee.

☀️ Let the sun shine in (or not). A local electrical technician has designed a solar-powered window blind that’s capable of powering smartphones, laptops, powerbanks and UPSs. She’s since launched a startup called LC Dynamics to bring this unique solution to the rental and sectional title market.

🪙 Discovered Bitcoins. Discovery Invest has launched its own Bitcoin fund, The Discovery Bitcoin Fund, to offer its clients Bitcoin ETFs in Rands.

🤖 AppleGPT. Open-AI and Apple are getting closer to a deal that’ll see ChatGPT features in Apple's upcoming iOS 18 operating system.

📮 Licensed to (way)bill. The South African Post Office is hoping that the current review of legislation by SA’s communication minister will hopefully allow the beleaguered state entity to charge courier companies a small fee to act as a “designated agent” for parcels under 1kg.

🇨🇭 Swiss Army… tool? The world’s most famous pocket knife, Victorinox’s Swiss Army Knife, will soon no longer have a blade. This comes after tighter weapons regulations around the world.

PS. Remember the CatalyzU fellowship “How to Startup” we covered a few weeks back? Deadlines for applications are today, so it’s not too late… apply here.

A WORD FROM TODAY’S SPONSOR PARTNER

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BUILDER’S CORNER

How to Build a High-Performance Marketing Engine

Speaking to experienced founders and ecosystem players (not to mention some of our Open Letter polls), a major stumbling block for many SA startups and scale-ups is marketing, going to market and positioning.

And where many fall flat, is in failing to establish a brand. Basically — how many people get to know and trust you, and how fast can you make that happen?

And, just like you build a product to honestly solve problems, you gotta ask yourself whether both the content and marketing you put out on social media, for example, also honestly helps anyone – or is it just part of the background noise?

If only, right…?

Well, one obvious key is to build a brand that solves problems even on social media, for example, just as your product would elsewhere. And I was quite inspired by this 3-minute social branding segment from Gary Vaynerchuk as a brand-building guide to lead into a full-on marketing strategy, so here’s how I’d tackle it…

A Social Brand as Foundation for Great Marketing

1. Go super granular on segments

Most brands (or people for that matter) only focus on 2 or 3 very broad customer types and then just kinda hope for the best. But if you’re really going to connect and add value, it pays to go super-specific.

Vaynerchuk advises to create 40–50 customer segments – as granular as you can:

• Female Xhosa-speaking university students, 18–24 in Gauteng
• English-speaking male lawyers, 28–34 in Cape Town, etc.

And then find the right channel(s) for each segment, know the current trends on each platform (what content’s over-indexing, where) and then start generating and measuring content performance.

2. Let the machine self-inform

Yes, you’re obviously going to be looking at quantitative data – how many likes, followers, clicks and conversions posts generate – but the key to getting smarter and better as you grow is to have specific team members review content for the qualitative feedback.

This means you have people analysing any posts that do super well – over-indexes, get a lot of comments and engagement and just seem to resonate with the audience – and make that formula and format the brief for the next post in that segment.

You keep doing this, rinse and repeat so that your marketing actually builds deeper and deeper affinity with time. Now suddenly, you don’t need millions of rands in ads anymore, because your team has learnt how to reach specific people on their level, in their mindset, where they gather.

3. Keep refining segments for affinity

As you repeat and grow, you can start eliminating those segments you’re just not hacking. And start looking closer at the ones you are finding affinity with for even deeper cohorts and segmentation.

This should all help feedback to your product, too, in terms of who your customer really is – or at least which customer you can reliably reach.

4. Get the support to do this properly

Now, I know this sounds big – many established brands don’t even approach their brand-building this holistically. But the truth is you can build this with even a small, competent in-house team – especially if you approach it as you would building a product:

• Segmentation: Your product person is ideal for this (it’s just your user personas, after all)
• Qualitative data: Your insights team can help set it up 
• Qualitative analysis & briefs: A smart marketing person will shine here
• Posting & scheduling: You can automate it all with tools like Buffer
• Design & video creative: Internal designers can help, else a visual agency/freelancers
• Copy: Often the hardest to nail, but it just got super-easy and flexible with unlimited, pause-and-grow specialist tech copy by Stream.

Got a startup hack or insights to share? Hit reply and we might feature you here, too.

Today’s Builder’s Corner was written by Elvorne Palmer from The Open Letter and Stream who is an expert in copy, content strategy & SEO.

Connect with him on Linkedin here.

YOUR VOICE

We asked when you think load-shedding will be back, and it’s super funny…

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🕒 29 May at 11 pm (9%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤣 30 May at 6 am (73%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💪 Doesn't matter, we will be OK! (17%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😉 Never (1%)

Your 2 cents…

Ha ha, thanks for playing along, guys!

Sorry, CC, didn’t mean to offend — we have no idea if there’s any actual intent behind it, the story just comes from the fact that people have noticed there’s markedly less or even no load-shedding in the run-up to elections, etc. Our main intent was to show that there are business opportunities even within things like load-shedding, the poll was intended as some lighthearted fun.

Fully, Allistair. Also don’t think we’ve seen the last of it, but the general temperature is that SA might slowly be getting a handle on our power supply (we hope it’s true!)

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Election juice? A local AI stealth startup launched Mzanzi.ai a dedicated SA chatbot you can go grill about anything related to the upcoming general elections.

In this Open Letter:

• Power shift: Readying the war chests for SA’s cheapest kWh.
• Eye in the Cape sky, Takealot goes limitless & SA bans hate.
• Big leaps: How to grow in SA’s innovation space.
• Your ideal post-uni destinations: The results are in.
• Free stuff: Share The Open Letter & get business tools.

In partnership with

TRENDING NOW

What Happened to Load-Shedding?

Startup war chests are readying for SA’s power inflection point

We all have that one friend at the braai who said: “Watch how they end load-shedding leading up to the elections…” And, alas, it’s happening. 

But don’t get too excited. 

Hello darkness, my old friend…

According to former Eskom CEO, Andre de Ruyter, the public utility’s diesel budget for 2024 is R24 billion, four times that of previous years. And chances are they are running some extremely expensive diesel turbines non-stop to keep lights on, for now. 

However, some say the reduced load-shedding has to do with 6% less demand due to solar PV installations and somewhat better powerplant performance. 

South Africa’s solar installations delivered around 4’400 MW towards the end of last year, with more being installed since then. For context, according to our friends over at EskomSePush’s in-app insights, our available capacity yesterday was 28’907 MW, with peak demand at 18h00 just over 28’000 MW.

Shoutout to ESP for the graph

The Eskom Death Spiral

Getting Eskom out of its financial woes is very complicated. 

They have to cope with:

• Ageing, high-maintenance powerplants 
• Cable theft and sabotage
• Losing paying customers to solar 
• Non-paying municipalities
• Pressure from the social side of the government to give away electricity
• Not to mention coal issues – wet coal, rocks mixed into the supply, stolen coal, etc. 

All of this means one thing, electricity prices will likely keep rising faster than inflation.

Infographic via poweroptimal.

On the other hand, the cost of a solar setup at your house is coming down quite rapidly. 

Fact is, somewhere in the near future there will be an inflection point, where the cost of buying electricity from Eskom will be more than financing or renting a solar setup.

It differs depending on where you stay (clouds, direction of panels, etc) and your setup, so don’t take your mate’s word for it. But some household systems have seen a neutral or even positive return, while others are close.

SA’s glorious solar-powered future, according to AI.

War Chest, ready

It makes sense then that local solar renting service GoSolr is getting a war chest of R10billion ready. 

Depending on how much power you need (or how little you can live with), a Solar PV installation can set you back anywhere from R60’000 to R350’000. This means that with their R10 billion war chest, GoSolr can install anywhere from 28’500 to 166’000 solar solutions, which could see their annual revenue boosted to north of R2bil. (Their starting plan is R1’399 per month).  

And GoSolr is but one player in the game.

We also have the likes of Versofy, Soly and Hohm, not to mention buying your own solar from the likes of AC Direct or SA banks offering finance to purchase a system outright – all contributing to less demand from Eskom.

Are there still opportunities in this space?

Even with all these players in the space, there’s still plenty of room to innovate and grow – there are 17.8 million households and over 2.6 million businesses in South Africa. And if renting a solar system ends up being much cheaper than buying electricity from Eskom (which we’re betting it will be), it’s reason to believe we’re only getting started.

Not great news for Eskom, but loads of opportunities for the private sector. We’re watching this space (with the lights on… we have solar).

IN SHORT

💰 Money Moves. SA independent payments processor, Adumo, has been acquired by NASDAQ-listed FinTech group, Lesaka Technologies, for a cool R1.59 billion.

👁️ Eye-in-the-Sky. Cape Town has a new crime-fighting supercop. An information, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft called Eye-in-the-Sky.

🥧 Apple Pie. Apple has just launched its new iPad Pro featuring the M4 chip (to power AI stuff), and at only 5.1mm, it’s the thinnest Apple device yet. Check out the launch vid, Crush!, that’s got the internet a little hot under the collar.

🎯 Ready. Aim. Fire. Local e-commerce Takealot is turning up e-commerce heat with the launch of MORE, a monthly subscription service offering free same-day delivery & collect options, plus a host of other benefits, including free Mr D grocery and takeaway delivery.

🖋️ No to hate. Be careful who and what you “@” going forward. SA President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill into law.

🗺️ Intercity FaceTime. A public exhibition called “The Portal” connects NYC and Dublin for people to interact publicly via a video link, and huge screens on either side have just opened. Annnnd it took all of 3 hours for someone to get arrested.

A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR PARTNER

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HOW WOULD YOU BUILD IT?

How to Grow SA’s Innovation Space

If you’re as passionate as we are about finding solutions to develop SA’s startup ecosystem, this week’s podcast is for you. We sat down with veteran talk show host and radio presenter-turned-entrepreneurship insider, Kieno Kammies, co-founder of Innovation City, to unpack what’s next to power innovation in SA.

Catch the Highlights 

1. The number 1 thing SA tech needs to BOOM

With unique ideas, great tech, awesome platforms, serious VCs and corporates actively looking to work with scale-ups, it’s time for founders to get over ourselves and take action – get the insights here.

2. The secret to taking leaps of faith

Knowing your purpose, employing your current skills and scope, and calculating your acceptable losses – learn the winning formula.

3. Why SA’s so perfectly positioned for ecosystem success

“Half” the German ecosystem spends 3–4 months a year in Cape Town because we’ve built such a thriving, attractive space and it’s only going to grow – see how right here.

You can also grab the Spotify and Apple Podcast links on our website here.

YOUR VOICE

We asked where you would have liked to travel to post-varsity/school, and Cali’s the way…

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏕️ Somewhere disconnected from the world (like the bush) (22%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🌉 A high-tech startup in Silicon Valley (46%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧑🏽‍🤝‍🧑🏼 An area of great need/distress where I can help out (6%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏙️ Close to banking and trade such as Singapore or Hong Kong (12%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧉 A tropical Island sipping margaritas honing my influencer skills (4%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💼 Just wanna get on with work. (10%)

Your 2 cents…

Thanks, Alana, what a fresh perspective — we can all do with a little more doing good sometimes. Wish someone told our 20-something selves that…

A safer swim? Check out this new ocean rescue drone that doubles as a lifebuoy — it even carries and delivers extra life jackets in an emergency.

In this Open Letter:

• Fair game: Giving foreign students the full SA experience.
• G’bye Shell, Africa’s only YC Top-50 startup & a huge solar investment.
• Get growing: How to outbound-sell like a boss.
• The future of SA freight: Your results are in.
• Free stuff? Share The Open Letter & get business tools.

TRENDING NOW

Giving Foreign Students the Full SA Experience

Is a R72bn+ game…

In South Africa, a major challenge for graduates is landing that first job. 

No work experience means no point of reference regarding skills and no references to vouch for your work quality. 

Graduates need jobs…

In a previous Open Letter, we spoke about how South Africa’s graduate unemployment rate was only 10.6%. Seems pretty low and inconsequential, right? Not if you consider that 10 years ago it was half that. And with nearly 340’000 new grads entering the job market each year, you can see how that number could spiral out of control.

But it’s not just an SA thing

4.8% of Ivy League university graduates in the USA struggle to find work (40% are under-employed, i.e. working in low-skill, low-pay jobs just to get by). And, after paying roughly $90’000 per year for their education, those grads are desperate to put their degrees to work and start getting some ROI. 

What’s worse is, most early 20-somethings have no idea what work is like and deciding what job to go after with zero work experience isn’t ideal. 

So getting your teeth stuck into a project at a top firm is a great way to discover what you like and don’t like, in a lower-risk environment.

The future of SA work-integrated edu-travel, according to AI.

Get an experience with your experience

iXperience is a local startup using the need for work experience, the demand for travel experiences, and the cost of living differential to make it happen for US students. Their 6-week program takes students from mostly Ivy League universities and offers them 2 weeks of training coupled with a 4-week internship at one of 250 global companies. 

Combining work experience with travel experience, all while building that resume with a practical project that has outcomes and deliverables, all for between $9’970 and $12’750 per participant – cheap by American standards… 

And for iXperience, this is simply the start of a relationship with a professional that will likely end up at a global firm and is likely serious about his/her career. This means they will likely have money to spend and a desire to spend it on further career development later in life.

So opportunities that naturally evolve out of this is…

• Paid courses and coaching for job interviews.
• Finding and placing candidates for a fee (recruitment).
• Other training courses such as AI prompt engineering, leadership development, etc.
• A community of alumni that has many ways of monetising – like advertisement, affiliate sales or upselling future courses and experiences (excursions).

We crunched some numbers

And it’s a fairly good market, this… If you consider that, in the US, UK, Germany and Netherlands alone, at least 5–20% of students take part in some form of work-integrated learning programme. And their numbers are pretty good…

• US: 18.58m students per year, used to paying $5’000—$20’000+ per programme.
• UK: 2.86m students per year, used to paying in the £5’000—£15’000 range.
• Germany: 2.92m students per year, used to paying €3’000—€10,000+.
• Netherlands: 340k students per year, also used to paying €3,000—€10,000+.

That’s at minimum a 1.2m size market, with over R72bn to spend.

Experiences in the context of professional development are a very unique way of solving professional and personal desires. And with Cape Town becoming more and more popular as a global destination, we are sure there will be many more like this. We’re watching this space…

IN SHORT

Your coffee-time reads are brought to you by CryptoCoffee.

🛒 Ready your wallet. Amazon.co.za officially launched this morning and is open to orders from South Africans.

🐧 Wave the Competition Goodbye. African FinTech, Wave, is the first startup from Y-Combinator’s 92 African startups to crack their prestigious Top 50 companies by revenue list.

☀️ Solar Investment to the Moon. Local energy startup GoSolr is set to invest R10 billion in its solar generating capacity, 7x’ing it over the next 4 years with backing from African Rainbow Capital Investments and Standard Bank.

🐚 Go Well, Bye Shell. Shell is packing up shop and leaving SA shores after more than 120 years of operating in SA.

🗳️ Coughing for Votes. With elections around the corner, the DA is spending R2.7m a month on Facebook and Instagram ads. Their opposition? Not so much.

🤖 AI’s Trending Cliff Notes. X is using Grok to summarise trending stories (called Grok Stories) under the guise of helping users catch up on relevant content — which sounds like a fancy way of saying they gonna flip your content and sell ads off it without giving you anything.

A WORD FROM TODAY’S SPONSOR PARTNER

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BUILDER’S CORNER

How to Outbound Like a Boss

by Renier Kriel from The Open Letter

Talking to strangers… It’s one thing when it's at a bar or a startup event where people likely want to talk to you. A whole nother thing when contacting people out of the blue, trying to convince them to buy your product. 

But if you are serious about business growth, cold outbound is likely unavoidable. 

Pictured: The perfect example of how and when NOT to outbound.

Whilst the pain (or discomfort) of doing this won’t go away, there are some things you can do to at the very least increase your chance of success. 

4 Rules for Outbound Success

1. Work on your personal brand

The first thing most people will do when getting an outbound message that interests them is Google that person. And what they find will likely spark their interest or have them close that tab and move on. 

So a good place to start is your LinkedIn Profile.

Now, some things you can’t change – like work experience, qualifications etc. But there’s quite a bit that’s totally in your control:

• A high-quality profile picture.
• A profile page that’s set up (with a banner, some links and all the relevant information).
• You actively engage on the platform and connect with people you meet. 
• You share posts and updates about what you’re up to, building or learning.

2. Personalise your message

The more personal the better.

Yes, it doesn’t scale, but in a world where everyone is using AI to generate their outbound messages, writing up something personal stands out from the crowd.

The channel you pick also results in a higher degree of personalisation, in order of preference it should be:

• In-person: Either at a place they hang out (but don’t be creepy, tho) or at an event.
• On a call: Yes we all hate telemarketers, but it's because they don’t care about you, they care about a sales target. Don’t be a telemarketer; phone, connect and engage.
• LinkedIn connection request + message: This one is great. They can see your face (and your nicely set up LinkedIn profile) and people have the incentive to accept – their network/follower count grows. So connect and add a note. Once they accept, it automatically becomes a message to them – the first touch point to form a connection. But don’t pitch in this note, or they might ignore your connection request. Try to use this to get a reply of some sort.
• Email: A well-crafted email will still have a chance to get a reply. But just remember, people’s email behaviour differs. Some people inbox zero and are likely to reply. Others might think “I’ll get back to this later,” (and then promptly forget) so be sure to follow up politely until you get a “yes” or “no thank you”.

3. Increase your reading

The more you read, the higher your chances of being able to add value to a conversation and your prospect. This includes books, newsletters and social media.

Everything you take in becomes ammunition you can use to keep conversations going by adding value.

Add value long enough and, should an opportunity arise to sell, you’ll be perfectly positioned.

4. Get organised

If you’re going to engage multiple people at once, know that personal relationships have an asynchronous and dynamic nature, so it will become really hard to keep track of what’s happening where.

Getting the right tools to help you stay on top of things is crucial.

When you’re small-scale, you can start with something simple like a Google Sheets or a Notion table. As you level up and do more outbound, consider Attio or even HubSpot. 

Bonus Tip – It’s very similar to dating

While it has happened and worked before, the chances of someone accepting a wedding proposal on a first date aren’t great.

In fact, do that often enough (propose to random people you just met) and you might even get into trouble. 

If you want to build long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationships, though, take the time to get to know the person, engage and add value to their life

Once the processional song starts playing, you’ll know the wait was all worth it…

Got a startup hack or insights to share? Hit reply and we might feature you here, too.

Today’s Builder’s Corner was written by Renier Kriel from The Open Letter who is an expert in SA startup strategy & growth.

Connect with him on Linkedin here.

YOUR VOICE

We asked what you think should be the future of freight, and we’re all for trains…

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🚛 Even more trucks – it's the most practical. (0)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🚉 Get the trains back on track! (83%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🚫 Fewer trucks please, can’t drive a car on national roads because of them. (10%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🚢 How about boats? (0)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏭 Local manufacturing is the way to go – less fossil fuels. (7%)

Your 2 cents…

Indeed, Herman — not to mention local industry tends to offer better benefits than service-based employment, meaning our blue-collar workers will have such better quality of life, which means more spending power and all-round healthier economic options for every South African.

Couldn’t agree more! Love the enthusiasm for efficiency.

If only SA had more people like you over at Transnet and Prasa — love it, thanks!

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