Accurate enough? A high school in London has announced it’s going to be replacing some teachers with AI, despite experts warning not to since AI is still prone to weird hallucinations — just ask this founder who had to train his AI to stop RickRolling users.

In this Open Letter:

• Future view: Changing the way we learn, forever.
• Interns for Mahala, R1m’s UX up for grabs & Woolies goes dark.
• Last chance: Only 10 spots left at CT’s lekker-est startup event.
• How most of us buy our cars: And the results are in.
• Just for you: Share this 10 times and get Pro membership.

Together with:

Did someone forward you this email? Join 12,202 South Africans reading The Open Letter by signing up here.

TRENDING NOW

A Whole New Way to Classroom

Covid sent online learning into overdrive…

Rocketing it from a respectable $164bn (R2.9 trillion) industry pre-Covid to an attractive $200bn (R3.6 trillion) and $240bn (R4.3 trillion) in 2022.

But, unlike a few things around Covid, e-learning has shown some real staying power.

The industry is expected to 5X globally to a cool $1 trillion by 2030.

So, naturally, there are a lot of players in this space… From your “familiar faces” like Coursera, Udemy, Khan and Shaw Academy to big universities offering unprecedented programmes like MIT’s online programmes and even a few free courses. 

To exciting newcomers like Jordan Peterson launching his own university.

Heck, one of SA’s most memorable exits in the last ten years was Cape Town brothers Rob and Sam Paddock’s online academy, GetSmarter, which sold for about R1bn. 

So, if you’re wondering how all these people can play in this pace, there’s something you should know…

It’s bigger than most of us think

See, when you think e-learning, most people immediately jump to K12 learning (you know, regular school, grade 1 to 12) and tertiary education.

But it is so much bigger than that. Also think:

• Corporate training –  ±R6 trillion industry
• Professional development – ±R790bn
• Microlearning – ±R27bn
• Language learning – ±R1.1 trillion
• Healthcare training – ±R1.9 trillion
• Financial literacy – ?? (surely billions)
• Coding and programming – ±R7.1 trillion

And you probably also need to think beyond the standard teacher-student concept (almost the entire world is short of teachers!) and start thinking about empowering people to teach each other.

Think of subject matter experts, retirees and experienced professionals sharing their insights; coaches and mentors able to connect with wider audiences; developers, IT pros and others in the tech space sharing skills and even tradespeople, musicians, writers, etc. all sharing the secrets of their craft with the next generation.

All that’s needed is a more creative space/way to teach…

The SA EdTech Building a Fully-Integrated Digital Classroom

Launched in 2018, local EdTech player Lessonspace is building a platform for virtual classrooms, online tutoring & collaborative learning.

Central to their platform is their collaborative whiteboard. And much like on actual whiteboards teachers and tutors can use it to make notes, draw drawings, and explain concepts.

What makes Lessonspace really interesting though is its set of education-specific tools that are built specifically for a wide range of subject matter including:

• Mathematics: Editable graphs and equations straight from the built-in resource drawer.
• Languages: Activities to help teach specific languages (10 at the moment, with more to come).
• Music: interactive sheet music so that students can learn to read and play different notes, songs etc.
• Coding: The collaborative whiteboard offers pair programming, complete with syntax highlighting.

Where most of its magic happens is as a tool existing EdTech tools plug into. This allows the platforms and institutions to focus on what they are good at, you know, courses and student matters, and leave the online classroom experience (high-quality video streaming without issue etc) to the experts.

This week, Lessonspace Founder Matthew Henshall was on this week’s podcast. Catch the entire episode.

With platforms like Lessonspace building bespoke, industry-specific tools and platforms to make the e-learning experience better for students and teachers alike, they’re poised to ride the online learning wave in a big way. We’re watching this space.

Podcast Highlights:

• Get the lowdown on Lessonspace’s central, most important company value.
• Understanding your customer and rolling with a changing customer landscape. 
• Insights for serial builders to hone ideas and cross-pollinate lessons.
• Education and the tech on everyone’s lips: Artificial Intelligence.

IN SHORT

🎓 Free Startup Interns. Graduate placement platform Jobox is on a mission to place 4’000 interns at SA companies; if approved, these interns will be paid a stipend at no cost to you. If you could do with an extra set of hands at your company, check out the InternFIT Programme.

🫡 Salute an SA Legend. South Africa’s most loved Maths and Science teacher William Smith (you know, the uncle from SABC 3) has passed away at the age of 85. Tributes have been pouring in for the teacher who helped countless South African learners and students pass Maths and Science. RIP, Sir.

🧠 Chipped Brain. Neuralink has confirmed its 2nd brain device implant surgery went well, with the recipient, Alex, able to design 3D objects and play video games.

🛵 In the Dark. Woolworths’ on-demand delivery platform Woolies Dash has seen a 71% growth in sales in the last year. The retailer will launch more ”dark stores” — not open to the public — to keep up with demand and to counteract the challenges of fulfilling online orders from local stores.

👩‍🚀 Startup Moonshot Help. Got an idea to get to market or pitch? Our friends at Jack Studios are celebrating their 10th birthday by giving startups a chance to secure R1 million worth of services — from UX to design, pitches to product help — to take a new idea to the moon. What you waiting for?

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with advanced lead sourcing and contact through Apollo and your own startup CFO without the hefty price tag with OCFO.

CHECK THIS OUT

Building Solid = Building Smart

When building Lean, especially early-stage, one of the last things you need to consider is the legal ramifications of testing and “breaking things”.

But, as many YCombinator startups learned in the 2010s, as soon as your idea gets legs, legalities become a big thing — one California University found up to 62% of new tech startups run into legal issues per year.

The truth is startups need legal advice for everything from company structure and compliance to contracts and agreements, securing your IP, employee matters, risk management and dispute resolution — and don’t even get us started on fundraising and managing investor relationships.

But there’s a catch: What startup can afford their own in-house legal person?

Fortunately, you don’t need to hire internally. You just need a savvy legal eye with ventures experience to step in and help every now and again.

That’s why we keep Dommisse Attorneys’ number handy — they know what high-growth companies need. Ask them yourself.

Engage SA’s Most Vibrant Startup Community

Want to unlock valuable opportunities on tap?

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

• Got Danei some pro design feedback on their trivia-style mini-game.
• Helped Pieter get the ball rolling in finding a non-tech co-founder.
• Had a good community laugh-cry session about the pressures of building big things when your old-school parents just want you to “get a freakin’ job”… #startuplife

And we have only 10 tickets left for our Cape Town event, so, you know…

Next week, 27 August at Stitch’s offices in Solan Road, Cape Town, we’re learning from successful African innovators and meeting the extended Open Letter community — grab your ticket here for only R150 or go for free if you are part of The Open Letter Pro (only R250).

Coming Up Next Week

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

What You Said…

We asked how you purchased your vehicle, and cash is king…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🚘 Bought a nice car with balloon payment and swapping for a new one every few years. (10%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 💵 Cash, baby (48%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🚲 I don’t have a car (18%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📈 Normal bank loan (24%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🔑 I lease mine (0)

Your 2 cents…

“Bought a car via loan, almost done with balloon payment”

Angeline

Nice one, Angeline. Trust you got the wheels you wanted… 🚘

“As an immigrant worker, getting a credit is an uphill battle. So I decided to work multiple jobs while living waay below my means to be able to save up for a car & pay for advancing my tertiary education.”

Isaac

Well done, Isaac. It’s tough but we’re all rooting for you. 💪🏽

“I fought hard to buy my car cash. It is second hand and I did not want to take out a loan. Less monthly expenses was the main goal! ”

Michelle

Remarkable, Michelle, hope you get many happy kms from it. 🚙

“Started off with balloon payment, then paid off the car early and now it is paid in full”

Madelein

Good one, Madelein. Hope you managed to save some on interest. 🏁

“First choice, so dumb, but hey. It's a hybrid so my petrol expense is decreased. And yes, that is what I need to tell myself so that I can sleep at night.”

Andersen

Hmm, nah we think you can sleep soundly, Sir! 🔋

‍

‍

🔥 Moving a Quick R66bn in Cars

Plus: Spaza shop solar 💡, FinTech finalists, MTN’s mixed bag & Cape Town’s lekker-est startup event.

Need a medkit? America’s FDA has approved a real-life medi-gel treatment, so you can patch up like in video games. The algae-based innovation that’s been on the cards for 10 years now (here’s the original video) will finally be available in real life.

In this Open Letter:

• Fleet deals: Moving R66bn’s worth of vehicles, fast.
• Spaza shop solar, flying our FinTech flag & MTN’s mixed bag.
• Ready Cape Town? Tickets for our first CT event are flying.
• The hardest part of hiring new people: The results are in.
• Startup ideas: Share this 10 times and get Pro membership.
  
  

In Cape Town next week?

Join us for our first Cape Town in-person ever!

Get Tickets

TRENDING NOW

Moving a Quick R66bn’s Worth of Cars

About a quarter of the 12 million-odd vehicles on SA roads are commercial ones. And it is estimated that more than 184k new commercial vehicles hit the SA roads every year.

But many (if not most) of these vehicles aren’t owned by the companies that operate them. Rather, they are leased from a bank or another company. 

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The reasons for this differ from company to company, but generally, it’s due to:

• Cashflow: Reducing high upfront costs and better cash flow management.
• Mitigating risks: By not owning the vehicles, companies can transfer certain risks (like maintenance issues, depreciation, and resale challenges) to the leasing or fleet management company. This can be particularly valuable for businesses that do not specialise in vehicle management.
• Outsourcing non-core functions: For many companies, managing a vehicle fleet is not a core function of their business. Outsourcing this through leasing or fleet management allows them to focus on what they do best, while still having access to the vehicles they need.
• Tax benefits: Leasing a vehicle typically results in it being classified as an expense as opposed to a depreciating asset on the balance sheet. Sometimes, you pay less company tax when you are profitable.
  

So, an entire industry developed around the financing and leasing of commercial vehicles. 

These companies put together packages for their clients based on the capital required to purchase those vehicles, all other costs associated with leasing the vehicle and the money they estimate they will make from selling the second-hand vehicles once the contract expires. 

‍

On the flip side, the leasing and de-fleeting business itself and, in fact, most car rental companies, have two major risks when offloading cars:

1. Understanding the residual value (the price you’ll be able to sell that second-hand car for once the lease agreement ends).
2. Having a buyer ready at an acceptable price (to make the whole deal profitable) as soon as the agreement finishes.

A few years back, all of that had to be done manually, making it a very tricky business – the de-fleeter had to know a bunch of second-hand dealers they could move stock onto. 

Not very efficient, not very scalable, and very risky.

‍

An SA online marketplace that works!

Online marketplaces are notoriously hard to build in SA, largely due to the lack of market size that impedes reaching critical mass.

However, the local B2B marketplace, DealersOnline, managed to do just that in the de-fleeter space. Think rental car companies, banks and other fleet solutions companies on the supply side, and second-hard card dealers on the demand side.

Their bidding platform, which now operates in several countries across Africa and the Middle East, helped large banks increase the sales value of their vehicles by up to 12%, and reduced the time to sell a vehicle from 45 days down to under 5. 

And when you increase revenue and reduce time to sale, there is a margin to be made (to learn how much and how the business works, sign up for The Open Letter Pro and get the exclusive deep-dive info).

‍

Good volume 

They currently sell between 4’500 and 5’500 vehicles per month in SA alone, where they operate the platform (as well as their vehicle inspection and storage offering), so they have one of the most accurate predictions of what second-hand vehicles sell for in SA. This neatly solves the fleet owner’s other problem of calculating that residual value.

Whilst no longer a startup (Barloworld did own a majority stake at one point, which the founders bought back again later), it’s impressive what they managed to build in a short space of time.

With a local used car market still going strong, innovative ways to get used cars into the hands of South Africans are a good bet. We’re watching this space…

THE OPEN LETTER PRO ONLY

Get exclusive insights into this startup, the industry and other opportunities, PLUS join our community of founders who get access to free events and support in building their businesses and more…

Go Pro

IN SHORT

🔋Powering spaza shops. Local solar-as-a-service provider Wetility is partnering with informal retailer FinTech A2Pay to provide affordable solar solutions to A2Pay’s merchant network of more than 6’000 spaza shops.

💰 Securing the bag. The annual Ecobank Fintech Challenge has announced its 12 startup finalists including SA’s very own EasyEquities, with the winner set to walk away with a cool US$50’000 in prize money.

🚘 GM’s AI play. General Motors is cutting nearly 1’000 software jobs globally to focus on higher priority initiatives like improving its driver assistance system Super Cruise, improving its infotainment platform and exploring the use of AI.

🥴 Mixed Bag. MTN has announced that it’s grown its user base for its super app Ayoba by 28.6% YoY to 36 million monthly active users. In stark contrast, its interim financial results for the first half of 2024 reveal a 20.8% drop in revenue for the group.

🏦 Stokvel stacked. Lesaka Technologies has invested R3.2m into local stokvel FinTech StokFella as part of their enterprise development initiatives.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with newsletter and automation tools like Beehiiv and business strategy development with Metavolve.

Engage SA’s Most Vibrant Startup Community

Want to unlock valuable opportunities on tap?

Last week, in our online community, we…

• We learned a whack load of hardcore founder truths about hiring, firing, and building the kind of team that’ll get you there with special AMA guest Philip Joubert last Friday.
• We discovered that if you don’t record online sessions, pros feel free to open up and give you the cold, hard truths you need to build big and not fool yourself.
  

And we’re only just getting started.

This time next week, we’re meeting in person to learn what tech approaches work and what doesn’t in Africa…

See you on 27 August at Stitch’s offices in Solan Road, Cape Town, to learn from successful African innovators and meet the extended Open Letter community — grab your ticket here for only R150 or go for free if you are part of The Open Letter Pro (only R250).

Coming Up This Week

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

What You Said…

We asked what you dislike most about hiring, and it’s the resumes…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 😴 Going through countless CVs (40%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 👥 Interviewing people (30%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧟‍♂️ The candidates (10%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📝 The recruitment company (0)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🥺 Letting someone go that stuffed up in probation (20%)

Your 2 cents…

“Love how you add a touch of humor to your reports!”

Roux

Ha ha, ja that’s just ‘cos we want you to have as much fun with this as we do. 🤓

🙌 Making 1m+ Hires, 70% Faster

Plus: Dricus’s Bok escort 🏉, SA’s dirty hotspots, movies while you bank & your chance to ask the Snapscan co-founder anything you want.

Back atcha? Did you see… when the head of the EU sent Elon Musk a written warning ahead of him hosting Trump on Spaces (X streaming) on Monday, Musk responded with this Tropic Thunder meme… Oh, behave.

In this Open Letter:

• Dire need: Streamlining the hiring process in SA.
• Dricus’s bomb squad, dirty air hotspots & Google AI phone embed.
• See you later: Ask the Snapscan co-founder anything.
• Who has and hasn’t lied to their boss: The results are in.
• Startup fuel: Share this 10 times and get Pro membership.

Together with:

TRENDING NOW

Shorten that Hiring Cycle

Hiring people is hard… 

It’s time-consuming, resource-heavy, and not to mention costly.

In applications alone, some roles receive over 200 applications per role that you or your recruiting team have to sift through to make an appropriate shortlist. 

For many companies, it takes an average of 42 days, multiple rounds (3 or 4, sometimes more) of interviews with key organisational stakeholders and costing anywhere between R30k and R60k in time taken to make just one hire.

‍

And the cost of a bad hire is massive…

But if you think hiring someone is hard, it’s even harder to let them go.

It’s not that hard for people to misrepresent what they can do, and once hired, South African Labour law dictates quite a lengthy and costly process to part ways with an employee taking anything from 3 (if you are lucky) to 12 months to resolve.

So needless to say, a major need in this space is to be able to hire better, faster.

Enter Wamly.

Go from candidate to hire more accurately

Wamly enables employers to create customisable interview questions which prompt a candidate to answer the questions in a one-way video interview. Why video? Because, whilst CVs feature important information, getting a feel for a person is a critical part of hiring. And being able to do that at scale, improves accuracy and reduces cost.

Integrated into the self-interview style flow, companies can also make use of assessment tools to rate individuals’ skills.

Finally, with all the data in one place, teams can collaborate by scoring candidates and making comments, helping the hiring manager collect data asynchronously. Meaning no aligning of calendars to meet up and discuss candidates and less bias or pressure to select certain candidates.

They already optimise various parts of the recruitment process. From cutting down the number of interviews per candidate by over 70% to increasing the number of interviews a recruiter can manage in a fraction of the time. Smart plays and that’s why we got founder, Francois de Wet on our latest podcast. Highlights include:

• The costs and challenges of being first to market.
• Quality, consistency, fairness and candidates’ Wamly interview experience. 
• A gold nugget on innovative pricing for B2b
• How to navigate resistance to change

This industry is growing fast and there are major opportunities here. To learn more about Wamly, how they make money and other opportunities in this space, sign up for The Open Letter Pro.

THE OPEN LETTER PRO ONLY

Get exclusive insights into this startup, the industry and other opportunities, PLUS join our community of founders who get access to free events and support in building their businesses and

Go Pro

IN SHORT

🌬️ Powering Energy Tech. Remember when we wrote about The Energy Gold Rush back in June 2023? Well, the SA startup we featured Open Access Energy has just landed $750’000 in investment to aid its mission of enhancing the distribution and management of renewable energy.

🤖 AI-Powering SmartPhones. Google has announced that it’ll start rolling out its Gemini AI assistant to Android devices including its latest line of Pixel phones.

🤢 Dirty Air Hotspots. Scientists from the South African Consortium of Air Quality Monitoring have developed SA's first air quality monitoring system using sensors, IoT and AI called Ai_r to identify air pollution hotspots in real-time.

📱Banking on Streaming. Capitec and Showmax have joined forces to give the bank’s 12 million app users Showmax streaming vouchers for as little as R22 to watch series, movies and more, or all English Premier League games for only R34.

🏆 SA Champs. SA’s UFC champion Dricus du Plessis will be walked into the octagon by Bok World Champs Siya Kolisi and Eben Etzebeth as he defends his middleweight UFC belt down under on Sunday morning (local time).

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with project management tools like Notion and super-easy social payment collection with WigWag.

CHECK THIS OUT

Build Trust or Fade Away

In South Africa, trust and authority are not nice to have — they literally make or break your business.

Edelman’s landmark SA Trust Barometer 2024 shows that 65% of South Africans are willing to trust businesses over the government and the media — but 89% agree they only trust businesses that communicate openly and consistently

In fact, the 2023 study found that 61% of consumers will only buy from brands they trust — and 73% of investors agree, saying they only back startups who put time and effort into becoming credible leaders in their niche.

But, there’s a problem…

Founder-led trust-building doesn’t scale. Once your company starts moving, you’re stretched thin managing product development, fundraising and team building.

And that’s as it should be — your time is simply better spent running the nuts and bolts of your business.

So what to do? Content.

Demand Gen’s 2023 report shows that 65% of B2B buyers want short-form blog posts and infographics that talk to their pain points — with 71% saying they prefer web content the closer they get to making a purchasing decision.

That’s why we created Stream, an unlimited content subscription for SA tech companies. We combine tech expertise (engineering) with pro writing to help you build authority and trust.

Engage SA’s Most Vibrant Startup Community

Want to unlock valuable opportunities on tap

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

• Connected Richard with a moonshot opportunity for his new secret project.
• Helped Andy discover the best/most efficient way to produce video content.
• Helped Danei find a freelance Bubble developer.
• Got Renier some rad video-cutting tool suggestions.

And we have two upcoming events you don’t want to miss…

Today at 12:00 we’re logging in to learn from OfferZen and Snapscan founder Philip Joubert — activate your Pro membership to get access.

On 27 August you’re invited to our in-person in Cape Town to learn tricks on building African solutions — grab your ticket here or go free with Pro.

Coming Up Next Week

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

What You Said…

We asked if you ever lied on a timesheet, and you have to see it to believe it…

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🕵🏼 Of course! Mine reads like a mystery novel (16%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🤓 Never, ever – rules is rules (29%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😎 Only when I’m really trying to impress HR (3%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🙉 I tried, but my conscience clocked me out (10%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤨 What on Earth is a timesheet? (42%)

Your 2 cents…

“Lying on a timesheet is fraud - claiming payment for time not worked. This off course is an immediate dismissible offence!”

John

Indeed, John, which is why we don’t share these polls with HR. 🥸

“I used to fill out the timesheet to get a good name from the HR office.”

Vakele

Right? Sometimes compliance is easier than defiance. 🤷‍♂️

“Why lie. It is what it is. You can never accumulate time, keep or save it. So better to be correct. Conscience also plays a part.”

Winn

Ah yes. A clear conscience is a soft pillow. 😴

‍

😇 Clocking in with a Selfie...

Plus: The 1st Nigerian in space 🪐, electric arrow busses, Jozi’s solar crown & two unmissable startup events

CrazyGPT? Uh, Open AI just caught GPT emulating people’s voices. Under the “Observed safety challenges, evaluations & mitigations” of its latest self-scoring report there’s an actual audio clip of it having an outburst and speaking back to the user in their own voice. Dun dun dun…

In this Open Letter:

• Productivity play: The startup helping SA clock in with selfies.
• 1st Nigerian in space, electric arrow busses & Jozi’s solar crown.
• Let’s hang out: Two awesome Open Letter events — book your seats.
• How expensive is being a parent: And the results are in.
• Startup fuel: Share this 10 times and get Pro.

Together with:

TRENDING NOW

Clocking in with a Selfie

Around 211 BC, the Romans changed the world (again) by switching from paying soldiers in salt (“sal” in Latin, where the word “salary” comes from) to silver coins.

The Denarius became the backbone of Roman currency. But more importantly, it was the unit of daily wage for Roman soldiers and labourers.

This was the birth of the workday wage.

Yet as timekeeping became more mainstream, wages changed to reward set hours and certain skills differently. In the industrial age, with machines running 24/7 and massive workforces, keeping track of all that data became mission-critical.

And to this day, clocking in and out is common practice for 9+ million South Africans across industries like construction, agriculture, retail, security and restaurants. 

Yet, with the rise of gig-work and flexible employment, chances are it might become even more common in the future.

‍

What’s currently out there?

Some companies still use mechanical sign-in, while some more modern solutions include the use of tags or biometrics.

But biometrics or even tags aren’t always practical. For one, the scanners are often fixed to factory walls and often carry a heavy price tag and upkeep costs. So what do you do when your workforce operates remotely but still needs to check in and out for work, like in the construction industry, where workers are required somewhere other than the company’s offices?

This is where local startup WorkWeek’s solution is a cost-effective alternative to traditional clocking devices or systems.

‍

Simply submit a selfie

With one internet-enabled smartphone on-site, an entire workforce can clock in and out by simply taking a selfie. The metadata of the image submitted is then used to check location and time and match that with an active working site or project predefined by the employer. 

This allows the company to have live data of who is working and where without having to send out a biometric scanning device to the field. The system then generates reports for payroll and business performance management purposes and where applicable data for health and safety records.

Because a selfie is hard to forge, it eliminates “Buddy Clocking” — when someone clocks in for a colleague. And live wage reports in real-time help companies forecast their payroll.

They have made some solid progress with around 80 clients and 3’000 workers logging roughly 5’000 clocking events per day in a short amount of time.

With smartphones becoming more accessible, and with more startups building solutions that leverage their built-in capabilities, we’re watching this space…

But there’s more…

This industry is growing fast and there are major opportunities here. To learn more about WorkWeek, how they make money and other opportunities in this space, sign up for The Open Letter Pro. 

ACCESS THE OPEN LETTER PRO DEEP DIVE & MORE

GO DEEPER: Get deep dives on SA startup unit economics in every newsletter.

CONNECT: Engage 40+ startup founders and operators in our Whatsapp community.

GET SUPPORT: Join our weekly office hours, get free consults and get referred.

ENGAGE: Get free tickets to all our events and exclusive ask-me-anything sessions with SA’s top founders, investors, and builders.

All this for only R250 per month.

Sign up to Pro

IN SHORT

👑 Solar Crown. Jozi’s Eastgate Mall has claimed the rooftop solar crown as its more than 13’600 solar panels make it Africa’s largest “registered” rooftop solar installation.

🚪 TikTok LayOffs. TikTok has laid off as many as 50 of its African team members from South Africa and Nigeria as part of its latest round of global layoffs.

🚍 Keep on Rolling. Golden Arrow Bus Services has signed a memorandum of cooperation with Eskom to set out terms for the introduction of 120 65-seater electric buses into the public transport sector later this year.

👩‍🚀 Nigerians in Space. Nigeria’s first space traveller will join other space travellers from India and some small island nations yet to be determined on the next Blue Origin space flight.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with tools like easy no-code websites via Webflow and services like Dommisse Attorneys who can help you get all your legal stuff sorted, fast.

CHECK THIS OUT

Scale Smart, Scale Health

In the high-speed world of tech startups, time is everything — which is why waiting days for a doctor’s appointment just doesn't cut it.

But founders and teams often prioritise product development over their health, which can lead to burnout and decreased productivity.

This is where Udok comes in.

It’s tech-driven healthcare that moves as fast as you do. Just log in and see the doctor in minutes from anywhere in the world.

And, like all good tech, it makes things affordable — Udok consults are up to 40% cheaper, too.

Keep yourself and your team at peak performance with Udok, now also with group health for startups.

Engage SA’s Most Vibrant Startup Community

Want to unlock valuable opportunities on tap?

Over the weekend, in our online community, we…

• Made sure everyone had a break! (y’all deserve it)
• We did all laugh at Australia’s Olympic breakdancing, though.
  
  

But we did get requests for more events, so we’re delivering…

If he’s not exiting, he’s scaling internationally… and you should definitely learn from him… This Friday (16 August) at 12:00 sharp we have an online AMA with SnapScan, JourneyApps and Offerzen co-founder Philip Joubert.

Become an Open Letter Pro member to get access.

And then tickets for our next in-person event are live!

You’re invited to the Stitch offices at 29 Solan Road in Cape Town on Tuesday 27 August where we have product-legend-of-our-time Roger Norton from OkHi and co-founder and COO of WhatsApp-enabled HR heroes Jem, Caroline van der Merwe, talking about how to build uniquely African soluti

If you remember our event from last week, you’ll know to hurry — it sells out quite fast, so go grab your ticket here.

It’s R150 per person (the first 20 get them for R100), or you can get in for free by joining Open Letter Pro.

What You Said…

We asked how expensive it is to be a parent, and we need a couple of million R20M grants pls…

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😎 I don’t even notice it (4%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😅 It’s not that bad (24%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🦕 They eating me out of the house (28%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 💵 R1.8m to raise them? More like R20m! (44%)

Your 2 cents…

“Brown bread, bog-roll and Bovril were the three most frequent purchases in our household in those years.”

Chris

Ah yes, Chris, the 3 Bs at the heart of every good home!

“The more they grow, the more they cost you.”

Vakele

Oh no, don’t say that, Vakele; most of us still have a good 10/20 years to go.

🫶 Helping 21M+ Parents Save the Day

Plus: Toasters on demand 🍞, breaking an e-sweat, Woolies’ solar power play & SA startup royalty.

Great outdoors? You got solar for your home, now how bout a high-tech solar hat to keep your phone and devices charged wherever you go… Noice.

In this Open Letter:

• Little-big solutions: Giving 21M+ parents a helping hand.
• Toasters on demand, breaking an e-sweat & Woolies’ solar power play.
• Engage: Your chance to learn from an SA startup royalty!
• The worst thing the internet gave us: The results are in.
• Grab yours: Share this and get 100+ SA business ideas.
  
  

Together with Metavolve:

TRENDING NOW

Helping 21+ Million Parents Save the Day

Ask any parent and they will tell you: having kids is expensive... 

In the US, the cost of raising a child is an estimated $313k (±R5.6m). Sure, things are more pricey in the USA, so adjusted using the Big Mac index, that’s roughly R1,85 million to get them from birth to employment (excluding tertiary education).

Tough on parents, but this also means that, for every child born, it contributes that much to the GDP over the next 18 years. And with 1.2 million babies born in SA every year, it's safe to say that children growing up has a great impact on economies around the world. (Not to mention the tax revenue and contribution to the workforce once they reach 18). 

That’s why many people are concerned about declining birth rates globally.

Birth rates worldwide have declined by almost 54% since the 1950s and the UN estimates it’ll drop by another 34% by 2050.

You can bet the cost to raise a child graph is exactly the opposite of this.

In SA, the amount of babies being born per year has been consistent, but with population growth that actually means our birth rate is coming down. We are currently sitting around 18.8 births per 1’000 people (a 56% drop from 1950). 

The cost of having children, changes in the modern workplace resulting in more women being involved, urbanisation and other factors play major roles in declining birth rates. 

But one often-overlooked reason is just how difficult and taxing it can be to raise a little one in our modern, busy lifestyles.

Diagnosing issues quicker, and doing the right things that lead to healthy development – all while trying to not lose your mind — is something most modern parents battle with.

‍

Make it all make sense

Parent Sense is a science-backed mobile app that features real-world advice about your baby’s sleep, health, play, and nutrition, tailored specifically for your baby, to make parenting through different life stages a little bit easier…

Pregnancy: The journey starts during pregnancy, where Parent Sense walks the journey with an expecting mother explaining what’s happening, normalising some of the changes taking place and helping identify potential issues.

0–3 Months: The app uses the data moms enter to provide guidelines around sleep, feeding, and general health.

3–6 Months: As the baby gets older, the app navigates topics like improving a baby’s sleep, when and how to start with solid food, and how to deal with regression (that fun thing babies sometimes do: sleep poorly).

6–9 Months: Tips and tricks on how to fast-track your baby’s developmental leaps through play, as well as recipes and shopping lists for your little-big eater.

9–12 Months: As your baby approaches toddlerhood, Parent Sense is right there with advice on all the key things for their next developmental milestones.

And it’s quite a unique business. With roughly 140k potential new customers per year and a customer lifetime of at least 12-odd months (a baby’s first year) all the way up to 5 years, founder Meg Faure explains how they made it work on the latest episode of our Podcast 'How Would You Build It'.

Highlights from our podcast with Meg include:

• Why B2C is hard and how they’re making it work in South Africa.
• How being a subject matter expert helped her win.
• Building authority through content opened doors that were otherwise not possible.

ACCESS THE OPEN LETTER PRO DEEP DIVE

Want to get a detailed breakdown of how startups like Parent Sense work, grow and make money?

Then, sign up for The Open Letter Pro and get access to our Pro Deep Dives in every Open Letter that goes out.

PLUS join our community of 40+ South African founders building high-value startups and get free startup support, events access and more.

Start your free trial today

IN SHORT

🛵 On-Demand Toasters. Massmart’s Game now lets customers shop for electronics and small appliances from its 51 stores via the Uber Eats app. Game has also integrated 23 of its stores into the on-demand delivery app OneCart.

👨‍💻 Coding For Madiba. More than 32’000 youth from Africa and Asia have participated in this year’s #Coding4Mandela tournament, with 70 teams heading to the national finals in September.

🎮 Breaking an Esweat. Fancy winning Olympic gold but couldn’t be bothered to train 12 hours a day? You’re in luck. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) have decided to create the Olympic Esports Games, with the first competition to take place in Saudi Arabia in 2025.

☀️ Solar Power Play. SA retailer Woolworths is upping its renewable energy project investments with more than R10 million in solar installations, and just over R7 million per annum in other renewable energy projects.

🏃‍♂️ Discovering Vitality. Discovery is planning to merge 2 of its 3 separate businesses Discovery South Africa, Vitality UK (VUK) and Vitality Global (VG) into a single global entity, Vitality.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with easy no-code automation with Make, your own CFO for a fraction of the cost with OCFO and loads more.

CHECK THIS OUT

Work more on the things that matter

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

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

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

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

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

agriBORA CEO, Kizito Odhiambo

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

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

Click here to book your free 1-hour strategy session.

Engage SA’s Most Vibrant Startup Community

Want to unlock valuable opportunities on tap?

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

• Helped Natasha walk into her product meeting with a 🔥 new idea
• Gave Richard an idea to potentially repackage a feature for other industries
  
  

Oh, and, of course, we had the most awesome event in Stellenbosch…

It was fantastic meeting so many of you in person at our first event. Look out Cape Town, we’re bringing the vibes your way in a few weeks.

But first…

We want to give you the chance to learn from SA startup royalty, so we’ve put together a very special online AMA opportunity.

Let’s put it this way… Would you like to learn a few business tricks from the co-founder of SnapScan, JourneyApps and Offerzen?

Well, great! Because that’s exactly who we’ve organised for an online Ask Me Anything (AMA) session next week on Friday (16 August) at 12:00 sharp.

Just one catch. This one’s only for our Open Letter Pro members.

Sign up to The Open Letter Pro

What You Said…

We asked what about your pet internet peeve, and would you believe ads win out…?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📢 Ads (42%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 🍪 Cookie consent popups (40%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📰 MSM amplifying its lies/truths (16%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🗳 Politicians succeeding in getting the left on Threads and right on X (0)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎙️ RickRoll (2%)

Your 2 cents…

“When the cookies are bigger than the webpage content...”

Ayuballie

Ha ha, yes, Ayuballie, sometimes it’s like those cookie consents are an anti-UX conspiracy.

“MSM amplifying its lies - ditto the actual full article with a VERY shareable, clickbaity headline hidden behind their paywall... The RickRoll is still one of the greatest things the internet has ever brought us and I'm prepared to die on this hill...”

Jason

You’re so right, Jason. And our favourite investigative reporters just did a very insightful deep-dive on this very topic. 😉

📊 Clawing Back R1 trillion in Ad Losses

Plus: Starlink’s Chinese cousin 🛰️, SA’s lucky startup 7, PnP’s big bucks & SA’s lekker-est startup events.

Hands free? A Neuralink competitor called Synchron connected its brain-interface device to an Apple Vision Pro, and it basically lets a disabled man control digital devices with his mind — see for yourself.

In this Open Letter:

• Make ads great again: Clawing back R1 trillion in ad revenue losses.
• Starlink’s Chinese cousin, SA’s lucky startup 7 & PnP’s big bucks.
• Engage: Great local startup events coming up!
• How you pay for big-ticket items: The results are in.
• Startup fuel: Share this and get 100+ SA business ideas.
  
  

Together with Dommisse Attorneys:

TRENDING NOW

Clawing Back R1 Trillion in Lost Ad Revenue

Let’s face it, cookies were great for marketing – re-targeting ads alone could boost revenue by up to 33% if you used it right.

Until they weren’t…

The war on cookies (or trackers installed on websites to track and share information) kicked into gear in 2018 with GDPR regulation going into effect. 

Recently, Apple’s new privacy laws and Google’s announcement it would stop support for third-party cookies entirely in 2024 ended the era of businesses using cookies to track engagement and better target potential customers. 

Now, we’ll admit, the increased privacy is great for marketers giving us the creeps…

‍

But it’s caused a much bigger problem for virtually every business on the planet (yes, yours too!)... cookie armageddon brings with it CACs of doom.

And it’s not just about conversions, those targeting tools were great for collecting the type of customer data and insights that we in tech use to plan and service customers better – a practice also taking a knock in the post-cookie apocalypse.

Ad fatigue is a real thing…

People are served anywhere between 4’000 and 10’000 ads per day – prolly too much to process. 

And with 96% of people thinking ads aren’t truthful, and over 51% thinking the ads they see are not relevant to them, it’s no wonder over 40% of internet users have ad-blocking software – an expensive exercise costing businesses around the world around $54 billion in ad revenue (that’s R1 trillion) this year alone. 

Marketing is unimaginably massive.

Global digital ad spending is hovering at around R17 trillion and locally as much as R14 billion per annum.

It’s too early to tell, but Deloitte has predicted a bloodbath of advertisers struggling to find quality prospects, re-engaging potential customers and measuring the success of their campaigns. In fact, it seems to believe only the top 61% of high-growth companies who have the capital to build first-party data channels will have a chance of making it – their article reads like a bit of a eulogy to negative-growth companies.

So with most of the ad spend not yielding the results it used to, where will the money go to get the same kind of impact?

Getting users to engage and share data willingly

After years of getting requests to execute interactive digital campaigns in short amounts of time, local gaming and animation studio, Seamonster, spun out an entity to do just that called Hailr.

Hailr is a low-code platform that enables marketers to build interactive, web-based campaigns and games that make digital campaigns more appealing, more engaging, and finally helps collect some of the data cookies used to capture (and maybe even more), completely out of free will from the customer or participant. 

‍

And some of the things they can pull up within 4 weeks are pretty neat…

• Scan a QR code in a broadsheet to play an interactive game and win a voucher. This collects data, enhances the impact of the broadsheet and tracks conversion through the redemption of the voucher.
• Take a social media campaign up a notch by offering an interactive game when users click it.
• Scan a QR code while in a line at a physical retailer to play a game on your phone while you wait, with a chance to win some prizes - all in exchange for some of that sweet, sweet data.

Some campaigns have seen up to 37% basket size increases at some of the top retailers in SA, with an average conversion rate of 70% with some of their other clients. And with the likes of Sanlam, Clicks and KFC building these branded engagement games and platforms, they’re bringing digital advertising innovation to some old hands in the marketing game.

Hailr is but one local startup capitalising on this major change, and we are sure many more will come…we are watching this space.

ACCESS THE OPEN LETTER PRO DEEP DIVE

Want to get a detailed breakdown of how startups like Hailr work, grow and make money?

Then sign up for The Open Letter Pro and get access to our Pro Deep Dives in every Open Letter that goes out.

PLUS join our community of 40+ South African founders building high-value startups and get free startup support, events access and more.

Start your free trial today

IN SHORT

🍀 Luck of the Irish. 7 local startups have been selected to participate in the 3rd edition of the Irish Tech Challenge SA 2024. The startups include Smartview Technology, Momint, The Awareness Company, Athena, AdBot, Samanjalo, and Credipple.

🛰️ Starlink’s Rival. China is creating its own Starlink with the launch of the first batch of satellites as part of Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology’s “Thousand Sails Constellation” plan.

🤖 CurroBot. Local independent school, Curro, is again hosting SA’s edition of the World Robot Olympiad with 755 teams of nearly 2’000 learners from 160+ schools competing at this year’s event.

💰 Chipping in. The Pick n Pay Group has overshot its rights offer by R4.3 billion — more than double what it set to raise in its bid to recapitalise the business and to turn around the trajectory of the struggling retailer.

🙈 Recession time? Fears of a recession in the US sparked by slower job growth, industry layoffs, and housing market concerns saw major indices take a dive. PS If you have any crypto, look away for a while…

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with CRM tools like Hubspot and business strategy development with Metavolve.

CHECK THIS OUT

The right time to involve a lawyer

A study by Harvard Business School found that startups that seek legal advice are four times more likely to succeed than those that do not.

And if you’re raising funding (now or down the line) a National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) survey says that 90% of venture capitalists consider the legal preparedness of a startup as a significant factor in their investment decisions.

The reality is that most founders and business owners avoid involving lawyers because they are scared of the associated costs. But not all legal services should cost you the farm.

For years, Dommisse Attorneys have been helping South African startups with:

• MoI and shareholder agreements to help navigate co-founder and shareholder relationships.
• Offshoring IP and setting up abroad to make your startups attractive to foreign investors.
• For the sale of shares and fundraising, get a great team on your side to help you avoid blind spots and protect your interests.
  
  

Need legal advice for your startup? Get in touch with Dommisse Attorneys today to explore how they can set your startup up for success.

Engage SA’s Most Vibrant Startup Community

Want to get valuable connections on tap?

Last week in our online community, we…

• Helped Leigh find a valuable connection to get MVPs rolled out in schools.
• Connected Danei with the best CRM consultant in the biz.
• Got Piet connected with a fire AWS expert.
• And sourced a high-quality merch contact for Renier (wonder what for…?)

We also have our first in-person event tonight (which is sold out!), and an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session is coming up with Philip Joubert, co-founder of Offerzen (previous founder of SnapScan and involved in early builds of many startups you know) on Friday 16 August at 12:00.

Philip will be talking about assembling a winning team and answering your burning startup questions!

Also, it's all systems go for our first Cape Town in-person event. Get more details here.

This event is exclusive to The Open Letter Pro members, so sign up today and get access to all our events for free, PLUS join our online community of 40+ startup founders and operators.

Sign up for The Open Letter Pro

What You Said…

We asked how you pay for big-ticket items, and saving up is the game…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 💰 Save up (67%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💳 Credit card (18%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💵 ⁠Borrow from my partner (3%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🐖 ⁠Emergency fund (6%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💸 ⁠BNPL (6%)

Your 2 cents…

“You need to be disciplined in order for you to achieve your goals. It can be done.”

Vakele

Wise words, Vakele, gotta learn that delayed gratification is the most valued.

“Saving up affords the opportunity to avoid costly finance charges”

Leslie

Good one, Leslie, helps you stay frugal and smart.

“I am 65 years old and have never owned a credit card.”

Graham

Wow, Graham, that’s definitely an inspiration!

What laundry? The math-loving coder who figured out how to hack coin-operated washing machines from an image he saw on Amazon (step by step here) has been invited to present at DEF CON hacker conference in Las Vegas next week.

In this Open Letter:

• Big ticket power: Helping South Africans afford more nice things.
• Melon for Mahala, Red Bull’s business play & SA’s AI-powered salespeeps.
• Joining in: Guess who’s bringing the drinks for next week’s event.
• Most annoying last-mile habits: And the results are in.
• Startup fuel: Share this and get 100+ SA business ideas.

Together with

TRENDING NOW

When You Don't Want to Wait for Approval

Getting credit in South Africa isn’t that complicated if you have a good credit history. 

But for the 1.1 million South Africans newly joining the labour force each year, it's close to impossible. 

“Get a store card, buy some stuff and repay it” – sounds easy but it's a painstakingly slow process, and as far as user experiences go, not great.

Besides, what if you don’t need credit but simply need (or even want) to buy a big-ticket item every now and then without destroying your cash flow?

And it's not only new job market entrants. According to Tyme Bank, only 6.9 million South Africans have access to credit cards or similar, meaning 19 million employed and tax-paying South Africans do not have such a facility. 

How do they buy a large ticket item such as a TV, proper running shoes or even pay for a car service? 

Well, up until recently they couldn’t – unless they access exorbitantly high loans from unregistered credit providers.

Get it today, and pay for it later.

That’s why Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) is such a game-changer for many South Africans – a trend we have highlighted before. But this time we’re diving in.

Often misunderstood as credit, BNPL, in most cases, is simply a financial product that allows customers to delay payments on items or services. This means people that they call a “thin file” consumer, one who doesn’t have a credit record yet, can participate in it more easily.

Yesterday, 5 years ago, three South Africans set off to change the BNPL game in SA after seeing it take off in other parts of the world, and PayJustNow was born. 

The solution splits your payment up into three very South Africanised transactions:

• Your first payment is at checkout or till point(Now)
• The next one is on the instalment date you picked when signing up (Now Now)
• And the final payment on the instalment date selected the following month (Just Now)
  
  

All at zero (interest-free) cost to the consumer. 

Another massive differentiator is that some BNPL players’ repayments are often positioned as smaller, but more frequent – i.e. fortnightly. Which is tricky for those monthly salaried consumers. If you’re struggling to afford one payment around payday, what are the chances the situation’s going to be any better 2 weeks later?

Is it more credit for people who already have too much credit? Not quite. As Mark explains here their solution is mostly used by people who don’t have credit cards.

It’s good for merchants too

While consumers get interest-free flexible payments, merchants also benefit:

• A larger pool of customers can now afford their goods and services.
• Which helps them move more stock faster.
• And with circa 400% markups on higher-end clothing brands, taking a third of the payment on checkout, it already offsets a lot of risk.

And it has taken off

With close to 2 million end users and thousands of stores and online stores across a bunch of industries, including automotive, appliances, and even service-based providers like Game, Sportsman’s Warehouse, and Dial-a-Bed offering their solution as a payment option, things are going well for them. 

But it wasn’t always this easy. Learn more about how they got early traction and validation here and more in this week’s podcast:

• The surprising growth in e-commerce over the last 5 years
• The reality of launching a new product with low margins
• The four most crucial daily metrics in this type of business

This industry is growing faster than most and there are major opportunities here. To learn more about the market size and get a deep dive into this startup and all future startups we feature, sign up for The Open Letter Pro. 

Plus: When you sign up, you get to join our community of 40+ SA founders who get access to free consults, free in-person events, and free online events, all for just R250. Start your free trial today and come check it out!

ACCESS THE OPEN LETTER PRO DEEP DIVE

Want to get a detailed breakdown of how startups like PayJustNow work, grow and make money?

Then, sign up for The Open Letter Pro and get access to our Pro Deep Dives in every Open Letter that goes out.

PLUS join our community of 40+ South African founders building high-value startups and get free startup support, events access and more.

Start your free trial today

IN SHORT

🪂 Extreme Entrepreneurship. South African students are getting a shot at international business stardom with Red Bull Basement, an initiative to help student entrepreneurs develop and pitch their business plans (with the help of AI) to take them to the finals in Tokyo in October.

🍉 Melon Testers. SA’s first digital telecommunications service Melon Mobile has launched another SA first — a free 14-day trial of their mobile network with 5GB Data plus unlimited Calls & Texts to see the network’s capabilities for themselves.

🤖 Sales AI. Nearly 85% of local sales teams are either experimenting with AI or fully integrating it into their sales processes according to a recent study by Salesforce.

🍎 Healthy Sixty60. After more than 10 years Discovery’s Vitality will no longer partner with Pick n Pay for its HealthyFood benefit. Instead from 1 September Vitality members will get the HealthyFood benefit when shopping at Checkers and Checkers Sixty60.

👩‍🚀 Jou Ma se Astronaut. The Mother City is set to host more than 2’000 professional astronauts for the 2024 International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly. The event will be held on African soil for the first time in its 105-year history.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with project management tools like Notion and super-easy social payment collection with WigWag.

CHECK THIS OUT

Intercom for Startups

Join Intercom’s Early Stage Program to receive a 90% discount.

Get a direct line to your customers. Try the only complete AI-first customer service solution.

Apply now

ENGAGE

Community Meet in Stellenbosch

So many of you have already booked next week’s Open Letter community event, and we only have 20 spots left (book here)!

And guess what? We are making it even better! Introducing our event drink’s sponsor, CBC and Rekorderlig.

And, of course, the whole team and our entire community will be there at LaunchLab in Hammanshand Road, Stellenbosch next week on Tuesday (6 August 2024) at 18:00 sharp.

It’s R100 or free if you’re a pro member.

Buy Tickets Now

Coming Up This Week

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

Want to join a group of South Africans building high-value tech-enabled startups? How about free entrance to all our events for the rest of this year?

Well, now you can — we’ve enabled free trials, so you can try it and cancel anytime…

Start your free trial

What You Said…

We asked what delivery driver habits annoy you, and

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📱 Press “I’ve arrived” 5 mins before arriving (41%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧭 Ask for your address before accepting delivery (15%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ᯤ Goes offline at the most crucial times (8%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 👋 Drives past your house 3 times while you’re standing in street (36%)

Your 2 cents…

“You waving at the guy, he still merrily zooming on, like why am i standing here...?”

Marius

He he, yeah Marius, us and the kids make it a game — see how many times they gonna zoom by until they finally realise…

“Story of my life...”

Jason

Out of this world? The James Webb Telescope snapped an actual image of an exoplanet. Still a bit of a smudge, but it is 12 light-years (113 trillion km) away. And it’s possible because it’s 6 times the size of Jupiter (or 1’908 more massive than Earth).

In this Open Letter:

• Fast play: Unique startup plays in SA’s booming last-mile space.
• OpenAI’s search play, Marmite’s new boss & flagging SA searches.
• Let’s hang out: Our first in-person event is here — book your spot.
• How often you service your car: And the results are in.
• Startup fuel: Share this and get 100+ SA business ideas.

Together with Udok

TRENDING NOW

Unique Last-Mile Plays (Meep, Meep!)

If ever there was a perfect storm to drive the adoption of technology, it must be the Checkers Sixty60 launch and Covid lockdowns. 

It's obviously no longer the only player in the same-day FMCG space (bearing in mind it wasn’t the first: OneCart and Zulzi were leading the charge years before Sixty60), but the impact of the Sixty60 service has been immense. 

Earlier this year, it was reported that the app had been downloaded more than 4.5 million times, available at over 500 locations and has created more than 9’900 jobs. 

How much money does it make? It's not clear from the financials, but well-calculated estimates put it north of R10 billion per annum.

80k deliveries per day

What is particularly interesting is that Pingo, the company that coordinates the last-mile delivery for the Sixty60 service, made R994 million in revenue in 2023. And at R35 a delivery that’s 28 million+ deliveries – or 77’800 per day! 

‍
And that’s only Sixty60 – add Woolies Dash, Spar 2U, PnP ASAP!, Zulzi, OneCart, MrD Food and Uber Eats and the amount of last-mile deliveries in SA reaches millions per week. 

Almost overnight, it's a massive industry with massive opportunities for software and intelligence (read AI) to optimise routes, cut costs and increase margins – the obvious places entrepreneurs tend to look. 

But with a rising demand, just helping people get bikes on the road offers a massive opportunity!

‍

Rent a bike until it's yours

Local Rent-to-Own bike startup, Bike2Own started out by renting out 2 bikes they bought on auction and started modelling how it could scale. Now, a few years later, they’re servicing more than 400 riders. These riders earn between R2’600 and R6’000 per week with the highest earning in a week seen thus far R9’000 per week.

To rent the bike, these riders pay anything between R650 to R850 per week, depending on the bike spec and what’s included. And after 78 weeks (18 months) the bike becomes theirs. 

What is fascinating is that about 60% of riders, opt to go into a new contract to take on a new bike. They then rent out their old bike for additional income.

The ability to reduce risk with great payment processes is key to making this business work. If they drive for Uber Eats, Bike2Own gets paid directly from Uber weekly. If they drive for another company (like Checkers, Spar, Woolies, etc), these drivers pay by setting up an automatic recurring payment through Bike2Own’s WigWag setup.

It's more than just a bike

With a way to collect payments predictably, they have branched out to solve other needs of these riders: 

• Phones and data contracts – coz you need a smartphone to deliver.
• Gear –  jackets, helmets, gloves.
• Insurance and tracking devices – these bikes are unfortunately targeted by criminals in certain areas. 
• Parts shop – these riders normally know how to fix something on the bike, so selling parts and delivering to them is a great value add.
• Advertise on bikes – with countless trips per day, it makes sense to turn these bikes into moving billboards.

This industry is growing faster than most and major opportunities here. To learn more about the market size and get a deep dive into this startup and all future startups we feature, sign up for The Open Letter Pro. 

PLUS join our community of 30+ South African founders building high-value tech-enabled businesses and get free startup support, events access and more.

Start your free trial today

IN SHORT

🔍 RoboSearch. OpenAI has launched a search competitor prototype SearchGPT, that’s powered by OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, GPT-4 and GPT-4o models. And while it isn't available just yet, you can already join the waitlist.

🤳Selfie Safety. Bolt SA is rolling out rider verification as part of its safety features, allowing riders to take a selfie and upload a pic of a valid ID doc to validate themselves.

🖤 Spread out. PepsiCo SA is selling Marmite & Bovril to the Canadian company that owns Anchor Yeast. Included in the deal is also the business unit that produces the popular spreads.

🇿🇦 Flying the Flag. Following the remedial actions set out by the Competition Commission in its final report of the Online and Intermediation Platforms Market Inquiry, Google has started adding a label to its organic search results that indicates if a travel service or e-commerce platform is HQ’d in SA or owned by a South African.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with tools like easy no-code websites via Webflow and services like Dommisse Attorneys who can help you get all your legal stuff sorted, fast.

CHECK THIS OUT

Still, the fastest way to see a doctor

“We only have an opening on Thursday at 10 AM”

We have all heard that said, and this is a problem…When you want to see a doctor, you are sick now, not Thursday. And besides more, 10 am splits your day in half, so you might as well take the day off. Not to mention the drive, the parking, the waiting room (doctors always seem to be running late).

What if you could see a doctor right now? Not now, now, but right now. That’s Udok.

With more than 20 registered practitioners waiting to see you and trusted by Clicks to deliver healthcare consults in more than 150 stores nationwide, it’s never been faster and more convenient to see a general practitioner in South Africa.

Need to see a doctor? Try Udok today.

ENGAGE

Brand-New in The Open Letter Community

Things are getting fun in the community, and it’s time for a few firsts… kicking off with our first in-person event…

 
That’s right, we’ll see you at LaunchLab in Hammanshand Road, Stellenbosch next week on Tuesday (6 August 2024) at 18:00 sharp for a dive into why Stellenbosch is one of the best places to launch a startup and how to do it, plus some good vibes and lekker times.

It’s R100 or free if you’re a pro member.

Buy Tickets Now

Coming Up This Week

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

Want to join a group of South Africans building high-value tech-enabled startups? How about free entrance to all our events for the rest of this year?

Well now you can — we’ve enabled free trials, so you can try it and cancel anytime…

Start your free trial

What You Said…

We asked how often you service your car, and most everyone agrees…

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🕒 Like clockwork – exactly as the manufacturer says (36%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📅 Just once a year, never get up to those kms (43%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤷‍♂️ Meh, those are more like guidelines, right? (19%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🥰 Never, my partner takes care of that stuff (0)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😲 Wait, you have to service your car? (2%)

Your 2 cents…

“Got a car that still has its service plan — but getting to know more about Michanic, is presenting this as a VERY viable option for the future. Mega convenient.”

Jason

Nice one, glad you like the option, Jason!

“I pay severely too much per month for my car to not listen every time it tells me it needs something 😅”

Sabeeha

Ha ha, well that should get you all the more KMS from it, Sabeeha.

“I service and repair my own cars. It's all on Youtube anyway, hahaha”

Marius

So true, Marius. One of us needed to change brake pads recently (super cheap) but the dealer prices didn’t make sense (super expensive). YouTube and 20 minutes later, the job was done, with loads of spare change left over.

‍

Gone bananas? US zoos are fighting a terrible scourge of smartphone-addicted gorillas that’s breaking up ape families and causing zoo feuds. The only recourse? Limit those big apes’ screen time.

In this Open Letter:

• Roll with it: Bringing trust and transparency to SA roads.
• Shein’s SA mall play, Zuck’s Llama fight & censoring China’s video AI.
• All the action: Community events & engagement for you.
• The MedTech that’s got you excited: The results are in.
• Startup fuel: Share this and get 100+ SA business ideas.

Together with Outsourced CFO

TRENDING NOW

Keeping Millions of Used Wheels a-Rollin’

With the current economic climate, more South Africans are opting for used cars that are often outside their warranty/service plan.

But, of course, regular servicing is essential to keep your car on the road – whether once a year, every 15’000 kms or as the need arises (like some of our cars in our student days).

‍

The road to reliability is filled with potholes

While there are many options for servicing, challenges remain:

• Downtime: Waiting for your car to be serviced can leave you stranded for a few hours.
• Cost Transparency: Oh, an SA favourite; unexpected high bills and hidden costs are a biggie – whatcha gonna do, after all, just leave your car there?
• Quality Assurance: If issues resurface shortly after service, there isn’t much you can do about it, so you’re never really assured it’ll be fixed properly (or if someone just disappeared with your money).

‍

You’re not alone…

And it’s a big potential pool of other people facing the same sort of challenges. In 2023 alone, nearly 400’000 used cars changed hands – up 4.6% from 2022. 

Not to mention the 2020 Competition Commission ruling that found the way car dealerships handled new car service plans as uncompetitive – forcing them to unbundle service plans from finance and denouncing the practice of voiding warranties if you don’t service it with the dealer themself.

This opens the door to motorists being able to save up to 40% on their servicing costs. If you can trust the mechanic, that is…

A mechanic that's just a few clicks away

A local start-up, Michanic, is revolutionising this space in 3 ways:

• It’s mobile – the mechanic comes to you
• More accurate, transparent pricing – on both labour and parts
• Quality assurance and giving you recourse if the job’s done badly.
  
  

How? Well first off, Michanic lets you book a mechanic to come to your home or workplace. Then they leverage clear and transparent pricing based on six years’ data on job times and also integrate with their parts suppliers, ensuring more accurate quotes, with no nasty surprises.

Lastly, once you accept the quote and make payment, they ensure a mobile mechanic in your area arrives at your doorstep at the agreed-upon time. And, once the service is complete, Michanic acts as an escrow intermediary that can hold onto the payment to provide recourse, if any issues arise.

Offering convenience, transparency and accountability, innovative solutions like Michanic are taking a lot of good steps toward keeping more of SA’s wheels turning. We’re watching this space.

Plus: We had Michanic’s founder Lesetja Dikgale on the podcast this week, and he shared some valuable insights, including:

• How car owners save 40%+ on services and repairs
• How to build a hands-free tech product overnight
• And so much more – check it out:

Want to understand how startups like Michanic make money? Or do you want to get access to up to 3 opportunities with them or in the space they operate in? Then, sign up for The Open Letter Pro and get access to our Pro Deep Dives in every The Open Letter Newsletter that goes out.

PLUS join our community of 30+ South African founders building high-value tech-enabled businesses.

Start your free trial today

IN SHORT

🍑 Expanding the Orchard. Peach Payments has acquired custom software development firm Operativa to help the local FinTech grow more effectively and efficiently.

🤬 Chinese AI Censorship. A video-generating AI model Kling from China seems to be censoring topics like “Democracy in China” and “Chinese President Xi Jinping walking down the street” or anything else that could rub the Chinese government the wrong way.

🦙 Zuck’s Fighting Llama. According to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Platforms’ newly debuted “state of the art” model Llama 3.1 is set to take the AI fight to OpenAI and Google after taking several months to train Llama’s models and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on computing power.

🎟️ Get yer tickets… The world’s largest ticket marketplace Ticketmaster has acquired SA-based Quicket to support the rapidly growing African live event market.

👗 Fashion that Pops. Shein is popping up in SA at the Mall of Africa for a 10-day Pop Up Shop event from 2-11 Aug offering an “interactive experience” where customers would be able to “assess the quality for themselves”. Could also just be a way to assess having a local brick-and-mortar presence…

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with tools like Apollo that help you find new enterprise leads and Metavolve which helps founders dodge a lot of the pain of scaling a business.

CHECK THIS OUT

When you need more than compliance

Scaling companies need more than just tax and regulatory requirements.

You need maximum return for the areas where you spend money – that’s where strategic financial decisions can play a major role in helping you grow healthily.

You need a CFO.

McKinsey & Company says startups with top-performing CFOs tend to see a 60% higher return on equity than their peers.

But what does a highly experienced CFO cost?

Likely between R90k and R110k per month… worst still you likely don’t need this person full time.

That’s why we created our Outsourced CFO model at OCFO – get highly experienced strategic financial inputs at a fraction of the cost.

Keen to explore how OCFO can help you grow?

ENGAGE

What You Missed in the TOL Community

We’ve been diving into 5X-ing your builds with AI, and people are doing some amazing things…

Coming Up This Week

• Next Wednesday 10-11: Office Hours, where we all log in and work together, + the whole Open Letter team is at members’ disposal.
• Put on your dancing shoes! Our first-ever in-person event is coming soon! Time, date and place coming your way next week…
• Support: All day, every day: unlimited introductions, recruitment, service provider referrals and business-building insights.
• Plus: Book free consulting sessions with The Open Letter team to help you grow!
  
  

Want to join a group of South Africans building high-value tech-enabled startups? Start your free trial now!

Join by Going Pro

What You Said…

We asked what MedTech advances you’re excited about, and affordability is a big one…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏎️ Rapid testing (14%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤖 AI-powered screening (25%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🩺 Portable diagnostic tools (16%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🥼Affordable healthcare technology (43%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😏 The big patient data we can gather from these devices (2%)

Your 2 cents…

“I think if this type of tech is constantly improved to make better diagnosis, then the lessons learnt from this tech can be applied to a variety of areas, some even outside of medicine.”

Panache

Nice catch, Panache. Yes, that could unlock a whole lot of NB lessons.

“Most poor people cannot afford medical aid, so such devices can assist in providing medical care.”

Vakele

Indeed, Vakele. And hopefully, it can get to the point where you can run tests in places where there’s not even a clinic — it would be so great.

“If run correctly, AI-powered screening could result in rapid testing, be a portable diagnostic tool and early diagnosis will lead to affordable healthcare. Big patient data will ensure accuracy in the AI-powered screening and diagnostics.”

Feda

Yes, Freda, just imagine how advanced our medicine can become with that kind of dedicated processing power.

Got the power? These guys used Midjourney and Luma to put a bunch of political bigwigs on the catwalk. Now we just need to pull a Formula 1 and demand they wear their “sponsors” as badges.

In this Open Letter:

• Health game: How AI is saving 2.5 million Africans.
• Finfluencer clampdown, SA’s VC rise & blue screens of death.
• Don’t miss out: Community events & engagement for you.
• Who built your company website: The results are in.
• Real value: Share this and get 100+ SA business ideas.

TRENDING NOW

AI Helps Cure 2.5 Million Africans

Tuberculosis (TB) is a pretty big deal considering it now trumps HIV/AIDS and is second only to COVID-19 among the world’s leading infectious killers.

In fact, in 2021 more than 832 people contracted TB each day in South Africa, with 153 (18%) losing their lives daily to a disease that’s totally preventable and treatable.

But it ain't easy to diagnose…

Part of the reason why so many still die of TB is that it’s hard to detect:

• Firstly, the symptoms of TB (coughing, fever, night sweats, weight loss etc), are pretty common in a ton of other diseases – so it's often misdiagnosed.
• Secondly, the bacteria in TB is slow-growing, taking a while to detect, resulting in multiple doctor's visits, tests, X-rays, and, again, plenty of misdiagnoses (and expenses).
• Lastly, given SA’s already buckling health system, clinics in poorer communities outside of major metropoles have up to 3 hours waiting time, so a real pain getting treatment (if you ever even get diagnosed).

The true cost of TB

TB tests can cost as much as R3’000 a pop, and treatment is insane: one course requires daily medication for 6–8 MONTHS, easily running to R20’000 for some TB tablets.

Add in other meds like cough syrup, painkillers and immune boosters to alleviate the symptoms, and it starts turning into a costly exercise – not to mention potentially being off work all that time 😵‍💫.

Speeding up Diagnosis

The key to fighting TB is early detection. Enter local MedTech AI Diagnostics.

These guys are revolutionising TB screening with their AI-enabled digital stethoscope that captures and analyses a patient’s lung sounds and feeds it back to a state-of-the-art deep neural network that’s been trained on thousands of negative and positive lung sounds.

AI Diagnostic’s tech improves the accuracy of TB detection dramatically, cutting down on missed cases by 41% and reducing unnecessary tests by 33%. With this improved testing mechanism alone, you’re looking at a saving of R300 million on lab costs each year. 

The Western Cape Government is already using it to make TB diagnosis faster, cheaper, and more reliable, especially in primary healthcare.

With South Africa’s illustrious history of medical advancement and innovative MedTech startups working to solve real-world medical problems, we’re watching this space...

Want to understand how startups like AI Diagnostics make money? Or do you want to get access to up to 3 opportunities with them or in the space they operate in? Then, sign up for The Open Letter Pro and get access to our Pro Deep Dives in every The Open Letter Newsletter that goes out.

PLUS, when you sign up, you will join our community of 30+ South African founders who support each other in building high-value startups.

Start your free trial today

IN SHORT

🚀 On The Up. South African Venture Capital investments are on the rise, passing the R3 billion mark for the first time since the launch of the SAVCA annual VC Survey 14 years ago, with larger investments being made in a smaller number of companies.

🥶 Dead Blue Screens. ICYMI: On Friday IT security company Crowdstrike caused a mass outage event on Windows PCs. Planes were grounded, SA’s Capitec went down, even Crowdstrike-sponsored F1 team Mercedes had blue screens during Friday’s practice session.

💰Climate Bucks. Local ClimaTech, Plentify has closed its funding round from American and African VCs. The oversubscribed funding round will be used to accelerate growth and expand internationally.

😡 Taken for a Ride. If you’ve gotten the short end of the stick by taking financial advice from local Finfluencers on TikTok, Telegram and WhatsApp, there’s good news. South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) is setting its sights on efforts to regulate financial advice on social media.

👉 The Stack. Founders need leads to build and grow their businesses. Check out our Founder’s Stack with tools like Apollo that help you find new enterprise leads and Stream that helps you create the perfect outreach to convert them to clients.

ENGAGE

What You Missed in the TOL Community

Last Friday, we just couldn’t leave poor CrowdStrike alone for the Windows PC outage…

Coming Up This Week

• Wednesday 10-11: Office Hours, where we all log in and work together, + the whole Open Letter team is at members’ disposal.
• Our first in-person event coming soon!
• Plus: All day, every day: unlimited introductions, recruitment, service provider referrals and business-building insights.
  
  

Want to join a group of South Africans building high-value startups together? Start your free trial now!

Join by Going Pro

What You Said…

We asked if your company has a website, and it’s mainly no-code…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🙅‍♂️ No, don’t need one (7%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🤩 No, lemme get a Savvy.site (23%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👩🏻‍💻 Yep, built by my school science prize-winning cousin (0)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🆆 Yep, using WordPress (23%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🎨 Yep, using some other no-code platform (34%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👾 I build everything myself (13%)

Your 2 cents…

“I built my website on wix”

Farhaanah

Nice, Farhaanah, see Wix has also been expanding their product and building out a robust version for agencies, too.

Elmethra selected 🤩 No, lemme get a Savvy.site and wrote

“As a single mom, solopreneur trying to find the time to even work (looking after parents & my son)... Using a platform that streamlines what I need in order to get my professional space online, is overdue”

Nice one, Elmethra, sure the guys at Savvy will welcome you with open arms.

“I am surprised at the low adoption of WordPress. Globally, Wordpress has a market share of 43% of all websites, and 63% of content managed websites.”

William

Oh yes, William, there are some Open Letter team members who absolutely swear by WordPress, even though Webflow is our official affiliate. And you’re just never gonna sway them, just like PC and Mac, Pepsi and Coke…

‍

Out of place? While simulating a moonwalk (for the first time in 50 years), NASA astronauts ran into a cow. Also, some cool pics of them training & sunrise on the lunar surface.

In this Open Letter:

• Big developments: How to sell 100+ homes in 24 hours.
• The PRO dive: Exclusive industry deep dives for PRO members.
• Ring Payments, PeugeotGPT & LinkedIn games with your boss.
• Upcoming events: Next-level online and in-person startup events.
• Max growth: The next 5 tools and partners to level up your business.
• The state of online fraud in SA: The results are in.

Plus: It’s a big day, we just launched PRO subscriptions, so today features bonus deep-dive content only PRO members can see — plus a host of awesome PRO benefits and access to exclusive Open Letter events.

TRENDING NOW

Selling 100+ Properties in 24 Hours

If not in the first 2—5 minutes…

A recent popular measure is to sell new properties off-plan – a developer creates sketches or a demo build of what units in a new development will look like, and try to sell the homes before they’re even built.

Gaining traction in 1998, when SA implemented the Housing Consumers Protection Measures Act, buying off-plan promises buyers financial benefits:

• Better pricing and savings: It’s a little cheaper buying in early-stage development, and the value increases over time (plus transfer costs do not apply, although VAT does).
• Finance and payment flexibility: Normally, a deposit secures your purchase and then you can find your own home loan or use the developer’s own pre-arranged deals – but you usually only start paying interest once development is completed.
• Customisation options: You can usually ask for custom fittings and finishes, so it’s more your style.

And it’s good for the developer too, since they get some funding up-front, market validation through the early sales process and they can use economies of scale by purchasing building materials and contracting services in bulk.

Dream come true?

Not quite, buying and selling off-plan is pretty challenging at both ends.

The challenges in selling off-plan

• When you buy, you never know exactly what your property will look like until it’s done, which makes it harder to sell.
• Developers need to sell enough early on to raise working capital.
• High marketing costs – selling off-plan can require insane marketing strategies and expensive sales teams eating your margin.

For those reasons, there are only a few developers in SA that make money doing off-plan development. But that might just change…

Levelling the playing field

After years of helping property developers put in place more effective marketing material that gets results faster, local founders Brad M and Dean Lederle founded LaunchBase. Whilst they still perform the creation of marketing materials and ads, the magic lies in the online sales process that happens on their platform…

Took us at least 10 mins to sell the first Open Letter Pro subscription 🫤

As the launch day of off-plan property sales approaches, LaunchBase:

• Markets upcoming sales through various platforms, including their own database consisting of thousands of investors.
• They then record interest and monitor engagement to accurately predict demand – lowering the risk of over- or underspending on marketing.
• This creates FOMO – gorgeous 3D models with live views of unit sales drive purchasing decisions.

Their results speak for themselves – some developments sell out in as little as 5 minutes, and others nearly sell out on launch day.

With LaunchBase offering a win-win for developers and buyers alike, it’s no surprise they’re making waves in PropTech. We’re watching this space…

PS: Their latest project, The Daily in Greenpoint, launches tomorrow (Wednesday 10 July 2024 at 1 PM). Check it out and see how a launch works in real time. Who knows, you might find something you like.

THE PRO DIVE

What is it:

• Buying off-plan is an attractive option for homeownership
• But it is risky and extremely hard/costly for developers
• Helping developers sell more stock faster creates benefits for buyers and sellers.

Market size in SA:

• Municipalities approved 77k–88k new building plans in 2022 & 2023
• Of this, 18’270 were new homes built.
• At an average house cost of R1M.
• That’s an estimated R18bn per year industry.

Featured Startup:
LaunchBase

Founder(s):
Brad M & Dean Lederle

🔥 PRO Members Only 🔥

Only Open Letter Pro members get access to bonus insights like:

• The real (hidden) growth opportunity in this trend
• Detailed unit economics & business model deep dives
• Margins, ARR, CAC, Burn rate etc.
• Plus: Auxiliary opportunities – businesses and deals you can start now and begin earning from day one.

Plus:

• Exclusive Pro community chat with us & top founders
• Weekly office hours: Pro support with PMs, strategists etc.
• AMA Masterclasses with successful founders & investors
• Exclusive free ecosystem events & excursions.

Upgrade to Pro

IN SHORT

💍 Ring Payments. Not one, but two local companies are launching their contactless payment rings developed right here in SA.

🎮 Corporate Gaming. LinkedIn and YouTube have joined the ranks of tech platforms offering on-platform gaming in a bid to attract more users. But if you’re worried your 1st-degree LinkedIn connections are going to pester you for money to feed their crops on Farmville, fear not LinkedIn games are limited to once per day.

🚘 PeugeotGPT. Ever had a burning question you wanted to ask while driving? Well, if you own a Peugeot simply ask the i-Cockpit “OK Peugot” and fire away and have your question answered by ChatGPT. This is not available in SA just yet - but check back in 2025.

☁️ Head in the Clouds. Huawei South Africa and the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies are offering free training in cloud computing from the 22nd to the 25th of July for small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) as part of a Digital Entrepreneurship Programme. Applications close on 15 July.

⚡️Fission Mission. South Africa’s Minister of Electricity has announced that SA is working on a deal to secure the funds for a 2’500 MW nuclear power plant to increase the electricity supply and secure the country’s energy needs.

📈 Become a VC. CatalyzU is launching its 5th cohort of its VC fellowship program on 23 July 2024. The program is designed to give fellows a comprehensive understanding of the African VC landscape and ecosystem. Applications close soon, sign up here!

UPCOMING EVENTS

🎯 Key Metrics for Startup Success
What: Got a unit economics or metrics question?
When: 19 July 2024, 12:00. Where: Online — join from anywhere.
Who can join: Free to Open Letter Pro members - Upgrade now

🇿🇦 Specno’s Founder’s Den is coming to Joburg!
What: Startup people unite for a one-of-a-kind networking experience.
When: 25 July 2024, 18:00. Where: Old Mutual, Sandton
Who can join: Free. Apply for tickets here.

BUILDER’S CORNER

The Tools You Need to Level-Up Your Startup (Pt 2)

Last week, we showed you how to plan, design, get paid and be startup legal-wise. Now we need to get you the financial, marketing, growth and deal-making skills to take your business from here to the moon with the tools we use to move faster.

1. Understanding Money: OCFO

Up until a point, spreadsheets do the job. But when you need to make sense of your cash flows and start paying income tax, no one gets finance better than OCFO. From monthly accounting, bookkeeping, and financial planning to help you raise your next round of funding, with OCFO, you don’t need a CFO on payroll.

2. Scaling Well: Metavolve

We have personally felt it: Growing fast can be painful for a small team. That’s where Metavolve can help. Their scale program assists businesses in developing a clear understanding of how to grow with minimum pain.

3. Growing Your Brand: Stream

CACs are rising and ad effectiveness tanking. The new name of the game is building your authority and an audience with content on owned channels. But how many founders have the time and skill to do that (on top of everything else)? That’s why Stream is great for creating content for lead generation, sales funnels, ads and marketing, socials, blogs, newsletters, video scripts, speeches — everything you need to drive sales and conversions.

4. Automate Your Workflow: Make

Efficiency is key to startup success. That’s why we love Make for creating easy no-code integrations. Whether it's automating repetitive tasks, syncing data between platforms, or creating complex multi-step workflows, Make saves you time so your team can focus on what matters most.

5. Finding Clients: Apollo

Outbound sales can be daunting. Especially early days when you’re just starting and need to land your first 10 customers — doubly so if it’s enterprise sales. That’s why we love Apollo: It helps you easily identify high-quality potential clients and then reach out to them quickly and painlessly using automation.

We didn’t have space to show them all, so for more, head over to our preferred startup supplier stack.

YOUR VOICE

We asked if you’ve ever been a victim of online fraud, and credit card fraud “wins” the day…?

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🙌 Fortunately not (35%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤏 No, but almost happened (19%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 💳 Yes, a credit card transaction that wasn’t mine (42%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🕵 Phishing or Vishing (4%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📳 A sim swap (0)

Your 2 cents…

“I was trying to buy a cheap laptop. I used my credit card details and several transactions tried to get through overnight. Fortunately, I was able to cancel the card that night.”

Vakele

Close one, Vakele. Glad you were able to sort it fast.

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The future? Well, sci-fi fans asked for it so this startup delivered real-world holograms. So when Metaverse meetings fall flat you can just beam yourself to boxes around the world instead.

In this Open Letter:

• Cyber play: Orcas and AI fraud detection for Africa.
• Radioactive rhinos, recurring gold subs & how to sell a bank.
• Human element: How to build an HR Tech startup in SA.
• Who needs more profit: The latest poll results are in.
• The lead: 100+ SA business ideas — get access.

Together with WigWag

TRENDING NOW

Africa’s AI-Powered Fraud Busters

20-odd years ago, you could stay safe on the internet as long as you didn’t reply to any emails from “Nigerian Princes”.

But things have gotten complicated in the last few years. Online fraudsters have seen SA record a 600% increase in fraudulent activity between 2018 and 2022.

Just on the banking side, the gross loss due to online fraud in 2022 was as much as R740 million for the year, a 68% increase from the year before.

But what’s worse, it is estimated that up to 80% of fraud goes undetected. So the problem is bigger than many people realise.

In comes AI

The introduction of AI to fraud is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, you have criminals who use these tools to create, among other things, deep fake videos. Some of these AI-created ads have scammed millions from over 150 South Africans.

On the other hand, AI can be particularly good at analysing large amounts of data (like customer transaction data) in real-time, to identify anomalies that might indicate fraud.

Pretty useful in 3 key places:

• Identifying fraud in real time to freeze accounts and prevent damage.
• Analysing large datasets to investigate incidents.
• Pattern-spotting and identifying fraudster strategies to implement future countermeasures.

Dealing with fraud

When it comes to online fraud, big banks deal with it in two ways: prevention and insurance.

They implement world-class solutions that often employ AI to detect and prevent fraud. Anything that slips through, is typically covered by insurance.

However, this approach doesn’t work for FinTechs in emerging markets for two reasons:

• The tools deployed by big banks are typically built in developed countries, where the cost is higher. Not to mention the impact these tools have at the scale they operate – they are super expensive. Bring them to Africa and their ROI on fraud prevention is way less impactful.
• FinTechs (especially startups) often can’t afford comprehensive insurance to cover all cases.

Not to mention that fraudsters employ different tactics in emerging markets than in developed countries.

That’s where Orca comes in. Orca (which derives its name from fraud prevention orchestration), is a South African startup that specialises in fighting online fraud in emerging markets, with AI.

Orca’s machine learning modules combine KYC (Know Your Client) data, transaction data, case management data and reporting to spot anomalies and help FinTechs and banks manage their fraud risk better.

And whilst they only started the company earlier this year, they're already making waves in fraud prevention on the back of a recently raised round of funding and a few flagship clients. We are watching this space.

For the water cooler or your next braai…

Key takeaways from this trend & the startup capitalising on it:

What is it: 600% rise in fraud in SA between 2018 & 2022 and AI is making it easier to combat. AI can also fight fraud with real-time transaction analysis to spot anomalies.

Market size in SA: Fraud in SA is R740m per year, but with 80% undetected/unnoticed could be as much as R3.7 billion. Preventing that from happening one could justify charging a decent chunk of it. We’d say it’s likely a R1bn opportunity at the moment and growing fast.

Featured Startup: Orca AI

Founder(s): Thalia Pillay and Carla Wilby

Investors/Backers: Norsken22, First Circle, Musha Ventures, Everywhere, Kara Ventures - latest round: $550k

IN SHORT

🥇 Gold-Level Subs. Troygold has partnered with Precium to launch a gold subscription service where you can purchase fractional amounts of gold for as little as R10 per month.

🦏 Radioactive Rhinos. The Rhisotope Project, a local startup implanting radioactive pellets into rhino horns to deter them from being poached (as the horn will not be safe for consumption), has entered the final research stage of the project and is seeking VC support to launch.

🛒 Shoprite’s Bulk Buy. Shoprite has launched its Cash & Carry stores’ e-commerce platform for bulk buyers. The platform offers visible stock access (to cut down on excess inventory and cash flow constraints) and free delivery within 50 km.

📺 Streaming SABC. The SABC’s streaming platform SABC Plus has just relaunched with a few enhancements, as well as apps available for the service on Apple TV & Google TV coming soon.

🏦 Wanna Buy a Bank? Bidvest Finacial Services is looking to sell Bidvest Bank and FinGlobal as it restructures the group to focus on core areas of the business. The group is already in the process of disposing of Bidvest Life.

😎 The Stack. Need tools or services to help your business grow? Check out our Founder’s Stack. Packed with tools like Apollo that help you find customers and Metavolve which helps founders stress less by providing a framework for growth.

Get Paid Faster, Easier

Nothing greases the wheels better than an easy payment process.

Just ask VISA — seamless payment experiences increase satisfaction by 23%, up conversion rates by 35.26% and reduce cart abandonment by up to 21%.

And with the number of online transactions in SA is set to double by 2027, card payments will be more important than ever.

That’s why you need a payment provider that:

• Utilises innovative yet trusted payment technology
• Offers simple setup and receiving of funds
• Enables 24/7 instant payouts
• Offers responsive human support
• Has competitive pricing

WigWag uses Stitch’s world-class technology to offer:

• E-commerce plugins: Integrate your Shopify, WooCommerce, Webflow or Squarespace site with WigWag to seamlessly accept card payments.
• Embedded payments: Check out WigWag’s API docs if you are building a tech solution and want to embed payments.
• Global receiving: WigWag processes any Visa and MasterCard, globally, getting you paid, from anywhere in the world.
• Instant payouts: Real-time withdrawals for smooth business operations.
• Human support: WigWag is always available to help.
• Ad hoc payments: Use checkout links or add card payments to Xero invoices for payments outside of your store.

New to card payments? Check out this simple payments directory to easily guide you step by step.

Ready to simplify your payment processes? WigWag is offering Open Letter readers 1 month free (Up to R20 000)* if you sign up before 30 July using this link.

That’s zero fees in your first month!

HOW WOULD YOU BUILD IT?

Building mass-market HR tech for developing markets.

If you’re looking for insights on building solutions for corporates this week’s podcast is for you.

We spoke to co-founder Caroline van der Merwe about how they built SA HR Tech solution Jem HR, and she shared some gold insights about how they arrived at strategic decisions such as building the entire employee-facing experience via WhatsApp.

Catch the highlights

1. The No. 1 way to reduce friction for users

Solving key problems, boosting delivery and security while driving value where your end-user already engages – see how Jem’s WhatsApp approach works.

2. Building a business off clients with little-to-no budget

When the entire industry underinvests in HR, it pays to look for the spaces where you can actually generate a real saving – here’s how Jem ended up focusing on the “bakkie crowd”.

3. Drop everything and do this for 1 day a week

From building what you think is best and chasing deadlines to getting serious about your business and doing what it takes – learn how to do the hardest thing for founders.

4. Building a solid team via baptism of fire

Hopes, dreams, reality and building a solid startup team by becoming the leader you know you need to be – discover the one type of question you need to ask to succeed.

Check out all our startup podcasts.

YOUR VOICE

We asked what industries could use a profitability boost, and school she goes…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🙋 Mine, I need more cash. (17%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🎓 Teachers, they should be paid more than soccer players. (57%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍜 Restaurants should boost efficiency, not just hike prices. (11%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎨 Design – must be a way to do more and earn more. (0)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🛍️ E-commerce – gotta be a way to make it profitable. (11%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💬 Other (tell us in the comments) (4%)

Your 2 cents…

“I really like teachers, but right now I need the cash myself.”

Michael

Oh, we hear you, Michael! It’s like “When’s month end?” (and it’s only the 5th).

“Live music”

Wendy

Definitely, Wendy. Did you catch our piece on Okhayi a week back? That solution could help musos get paid, too.

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New on the shelf? If you haven’t seen them yet, meet all of South Africa’s GNU cabinet members right here. For the first time in 28 years, it’s no longer an all-ANC show, and this extra mix of DA, PAC, IFP and even FF+ faces has already caused a rally in the Rand, shares and SA bonds.

Question: Will this new cabinet be good for business? Hit reply to this email and give us your take…

In this Open Letter:

• Nice market: Boosting agriculture profits in Africa.
• Certified Rolexes, WhatsApp money card & Cape Town’s Moody nod.
• Let’s scale: Tools and partners to help level up your startup.
• What you’d pay to watch: The results are in.
• Plug & play: The tools and services you need!

Together with

TRENDING NOW

Enabling African Food Production

Farming in SA is known for small margins. Data is limited (most are private companies) but a few people in the industry suggest it's typically only a 0.5% to 5% nett profit margin depending on crop type and buyer.

But these small margins are in most cases systemic rather than intentional exploitation. Before the internet, the chain to get your potatoes to your local grocer involved:

• Distribution of inputs (fertiliser, services, equipment, packing materials etc.) to a farmer in a remote location.
• Growing the crops and then taking them to a government-owned market which takes a 5% share of transactions.
• At the market, there will be selling agents and buying representatives (after all, farmers aren’t always good negotiators) each taking roughly 6–8%.

Darryl likes to be paid on time, in cash, no questions.

What’s squeezing the farmer’s margin

1. At sale time, ±15% is gone to all the roleplayers facilitating the sale.
2. The farmer often has to take whatever price is offered – you know, ‘cos fresh goods can go off, leading to major losses.
3. Often farmers don’t know where the highest-yielding market is which results in them trucking produce to a market only to sell to a store in their area - lots of money wasted.
4. Inputs (fertiliser etc.) are hyper localised and this reduces the ability of of farmers to benchmark pricing and selection which could lead to higher costs.
5. Finally, farmers often need a lot of working capital and, with a lack of data, traditional financiers can’t always calculate the risk of lending them money, which pushes up the interest rates on loans unnecessarily.

In isolation, each of these might not be big enough a business but put them together and the soon-to-be R418 billion market locally offers a major opportunity.

Keeping the produce flowing

The answer to unlocking more margin for farmers (and making a good margin yourself) lies in 3 parts:

• Discovery: Enabling farmers to find buyers and vice versa before the produce leaves the farm, as well as helping them find the best and most affordable inputs (fertiliser, services, equipment, packing materials etc.).
• Distribution: Making sure the goods move efficiently.
• Data: Collecting better data (how much you produce, sell and your input costs) helps qualify a farmer for more working capital.

And that’s exactly what Nile.ag is doing. It’s Africa’s largest online agri-marketplace, connecting farmers directly to commercial buyers in 38 countries and 100 produce categories. It’s fast replacing the traditional government-owned markets which do upward of R20 billion per year.

What’s more, they also help farmers source the inputs they need at a better price — helping input providers deliver at lower costs by removing some of the need for expensive sales and distribution efforts.

But likely the most exciting play is how they are using data. Nile is leveraging data from the entire supply chain, both inputs provision and produce offtake, to offer data-driven financing solutions to farmers. These solutions would either not have been possible or not at the same interest rate (in the absence of data). And this credit extension provides a powerful lever to grow the ecosystem.

Will this work everywhere? Not really, developed markets’ supply chains are more mature. That’s why Nile is focusing on emerging markets.

And it makes sense, once the supply chain is established, it's hard for a newcomer to break into it at that scale.

A winner-takes-all market.

So far it seems like this South African startup is winning. 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

💳 WhatsApp Money Moves. Cross-border money transfer operator Mama Money is launching its Mama Money card which allows its customers to transfer payments internationally and manage their accounts using WhatsApp.

📋 Wining Record Keeping. A local medical records system CareOn (built by the Netcare hospital group) has beaten 87 entries from 19 countries to win the Digital Innovation Award at the 7th International Quality Awards in London.

📈 Soaring Tech Stocks. Tech stocks are leading global markets in the 1st half of the year, with Nvidia and the rest of the Magnificent 7 (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft & Tesla) adding $3.6 trillion in market value.

👍 Mother City Moods. Cape Town has received a revised outlook from stable to positive from rating agency Moody’s. And the city could be upgraded even further if its operating and financial performances continue to strengthen.

⌚️Pre-Loved Guarantee. Rolex will start offering an authentication service for its pre-owned watches in South Africa to help prevent buyers from getting scammed by fakes. The Rolex-certified pre-owned (RCPO) programme has been in a few select markets since late 2022.

Save Time and Money on Routine Doctor’s Visits

Doctors are super expensive — SA healthcare costs have shot up by 105% in the last 10 years alone.

Not only that, but the whole process takes so long… You need to phone to book an appointment. Drive all the way out there. Then sit in the waiting room, then drive over to the pharmacy, then, then, then…

Or, you can just jump onto Udok and see the doctor on your phone in less than a minute and pay up to 40% less.

What’s cool is you can pay with a card or medical aid, with no co-payments.

And they’ll send your prescription to any pharmacy you like.

So next time someone’s unwell, just Udok instead.

BUILDER’S CORNER

The Tools You Need to Level-Up Your Startup (Pt 1)

Building a business is tough, but using the right tools and partners might just make it a little easier.

We’ve been in the game for a while, and we often get asked: “Who can I speak to, to help with X, Y and Z”.

So we assembled the best of the best: A selection of tools and some unique South African service providers that can help you get the job done better and faster. We call it our Founder’s Stack. Today we will be featuring 5 of those, but to check out the full list, head on over to the brand-new section on our website.

Here are your first 5…

1. Planning your moves and keeping track of it all: Notion

We’d be lost without it. Notion is a flexible documentation, project management and task management hybrid tool. Use it to store your research and easily cross-reference it to a project or task list. It’s the only tool that has managed to keep us organised and that is quite a feat.

2. Get your website up: Webflow

Building beautiful websites has never been this easy. Choose from over 5k+ templates as a start and tweak your site without any coding experience. With Webflow you can get up and going within days.

3. Design with ease: Figma

When it comes to design, Figma is a game-changer. This collaborative interface design tool allows your team to work together in real time, whether you're creating wireframes, prototypes, or final mockups. Its cloud-based platform means you can access your designs from anywhere, and its intuitive features make the design process smooth and efficient.

4. Get paid: WigWag

All credit card payment switches offer the same right? Wrong! WigWag is not only extremely simple to set up and start receiving payments but also offers highly competitive rates and great customer service —they’re a local SA provider with local support. It’s simply the fastest most convenient way to get paid in SA.

5. Getting the house in order: Dommisse Attorneys

At some point or another, you are likely going to need legal support. Be it a shareholder agreement, memorandum of incorporation or term sheet for new investors. Dommisse offers all this and more and with a 10+ year track record of working with the top startups in South Africa, these guys know what they are doing.

And if you need any more connections to stellar suppliers we’ve used and recommend, check out our new preferred startup supplier stack.

YOUR VOICE

We asked what content you’d pay-per-view for, and coaches take note…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎯 Startup how-to podcasts (7%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎸 Live shows/concerts (18%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📊 Business coaching/consulting (32%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏋 Health and fitness-related (4%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ ⚽ Sports Events (incl. school sports) (21%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎨 Craft masterclasses (making cool stuff) (11%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💡 Other (oh, please tell us in the comments…) (7%)

Your 2 cents…

“I would also pay for great Live shows/concerts if fee is reasonable and for live sports events like Pickleball (if reasonable fee).”

Madelein

Hey, there’s a use case we didn’t think of, Madelein, amateur and semi-pro sports clubs! They can upload matches and content here and people can buy and watch. Nice.

“I love the school concert idea! As a choir mom, we struggle to fundraise. We could upload a video, and then all family, close and far can watch at a small charge. This is a game changer.”

Liesl

Yes, Liesl, and it also allows you to record and upload more to make more concerts available for viewing later on. We’d get on that and tell the school immediately. This is perfect for that kind of thing.

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