Hard at work? Google’s Gemini AI is experiencing an infinite loop bug with coding problems. Hilariously, though, it seems to have scraped actual dev comments during training, ‘cos it’s saying things like “I am going to take a break” to come back and “look at it again with fresh eyes”. It even told one user: “I have failed you. I am a disgrace to my family. I am a disgrace to my species,” 38 times. LOL. 🤖

In Today’s Open Letter

SA fashion retailers locked themselves in a seasonality trap and 30% of fashion (R10 trillion’s worth each year) goes unsold — this startup’s got a brand new model to help rescue those margins…

Traditional fashion retail is built on predictability: Design for a season, produce in bulk, ship to targeted locations and price for a specific demographic. 

Once the product hits shelves, the playbook is fixed. And if it doesn’t sell, it’s destined for the sale rack, often destroying margins and brand value. In some instances, 30% of new fashion goes unsold each year, which is a lot of money left on the table in this $1.84 trillion global market (circa R10 trillion in waste).

Much of this surplus gets shipped off to other countries, where goodness knows what happens to it.

The local retailer giving threads a second chance

FARO is a tech-enabled clothing retailer that spotted a serious fashion gap: Higher-end, famous fashion brands around the world have mountains of excess, unsold or returned inventory. And FARO is doing the reverso thing and building exclusively brick-and-mortar shops to sell it in. What?

The play is: FARO buys bulk surplus on consignment from major brands, often loaded into shipping containers bound for South Africa. In some cases, a single shipment can contain 60k+ unique SKUs, 15 times the 4k-odd styles a single large retailer might manage in an entire year. 

Once the goods arrive at their warehouse, their AI system takes over scanning and classifying each garment (even those without a barcode). It uses historical sales data, local shopper preferences and geographic trends to predict which store it should go to, at what price and margin. 

This means the same item could potentially sell for different prices in different demographics, protecting those margins that large retailers often forego with their sales cycles, all while getting good-quality brands in customers’ hands and keeping all pricing offline to protect brand relationships.

It’s a fashion thang

Their inventory is designed to turn over every 8 weeks, so each store visit (they have outlets far and wide, from Fourways Mall to Mamelodi and Soweto) feels like a treasure hunt, creating a dynamic retail loop: Bargain-hunting customers (think TikTok-savvy Gen Zers) share their finds online, driving organic footfall. 

Unlike traditional retailers who are bound by distribution contracts and fixed assortments, FARO can reshape its inventory mix store by store, week by week, on the fly.

We caught up with FARO Co-Founder & CEO David Torr (whom you might also recognise from UCOOK) on the latest episode of the How Would You Build It podcast, and he shares some incredible insights from his founding journey, including:

Catch it here

Who has R500 an hour to spend on tutors?

Pass and Prosper is flipping that idea completely by building a peer-powered Law tutoring platform that lives entirely on WhatsApp.

In a world where only 35% of SA law students graduate on time (55% at all), they’re helping students at scale with free top-student notes and workshops priced around a draught beer.

But here’s what’s really clever:

✅ Notes and explanations come from tutors sitting in the same lectures as you

✅ Everything runs in WhatsApp — join, get notes, book workshops, no portals or PDFs

✅ Live Google Meet workshops drive active learning, without breaking the budget

Pass and Prosper isn’t just using WhatsApp. They’re creating a fast, frictionless learning experience that feels made for you.

Because in a cohort of 1’200, personal, WhatsApp-native support can be the edge.

What would you build on WhatsApp today?

What’s the surest way to kill a real feeling of appreciation for a colleague?

Subject it to a five-step nomination form for the quarterly #Values award to see if your boss’s boss approves it… 

Most teams know recognition matters. But clunky HR tools and top-down programmes just don’t cut it anymore. You’ve got culture to build, talent to retain and no time for bloated rollouts.

What if appreciation felt… natural?

That’s why Zuzo exists — the only employee recognition tool built inside Slack and MS Teams, designed for real moments between real people. No separate logins. No gimmicks. Just meaningful praise and instant, spend-anywhere rewards.

Appreciation where you work. Recognition with your people, not to them.

It’s already trusted by growing SA teams, from 17 to 700 people. Built by Yoyo – makers of the WiCode –, Geoff Forbes and the Zuzo team are making culture scale without making it feel corporate.

Ready to make recognition easy and effective?

🪪 Smart Stuff. South Africa is set for a digital leap as Standard Bank joins Capitec and FNB to offer Smart ID services at hundreds of branches, aiming for a whopping 1’000 locations by 2028. Combining a trip to the bank and Home Affairs? “Lovely.”

🚀 Out of this world. Astronomers might've spotted a new gas giant planet the size of Saturn orbiting the closest Sun-like star, Alpha Centauri A, just 4 light-years away, thanks to the James Webb Telescope. Hello Neighbour.

🥸 Quantum Comms Leap. A game-changing quantum communication link now stretches 12’900km from China to South Africa, smashing the previous 7’600km record. Using quantum physics, the link provides ultra-secure data transfer, potentially disrupting traditional security methods. Ring ring.

🛒 Banking on it. Capitec has joined Pick n Pay’s partner bank networks, which lets customers handle transactions like depositing cash, withdrawing funds, and transferring money at over 1’400 PnP stores across SA. Interesting.

✅ The Stack. Founders need reliable tools and suppliers. That’s why our Founder’s Stack gives you the best in IP offshoring and global market access with Finance Isle of Man, all your VC and startup legal sorted by Dommisse Attorneys, and loads more vital startup tools & services.

Yesterday, we showed you how CmdSharp’s helping SMEs get paid on time, asking how you’d deal with customers who don’t pay. Most would name and shame ‘em…

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 🏏 Introducing woodwork to some kneecaps (32%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📋 A global blacklist to name and shame (34%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 💰 Make it quicker to settle their invoices (26%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧑‍🌾 Trade exchanges like back in the Middle Ages (0)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💡 I’ve got an idea… (8%)

Your 2 cents…

Glad you like it, Nontando. We hope this gives you business ideas to change your world. 🌈

Need to get funding-ready? Applications are now open for the Founders Foundation Accelerator Programme by Investec and Outsourced CFO. This 9-month journey helps entrepreneurs become funding-ready and strengthen their marketing and sales capabilities. With over R79 million raised and 800+ jobs created to date, this programme is ideal for SMEs with 2+ years of operations and R1m+ annual revenue looking to scale. Apply here.

Got traction in health, FinTech or education? The MTN Cloud Accelerator 2025 is offering up to $66,000 (R1.1M) in grant funding plus access to MTN’s APIs, cloud credits and go-to-market support. It’s a 12-week scale-up programme for growth-stage African startups serving rural or underserved markets. Enter by 15 August: Apply here.

Time to take your township businesses online? The Township Digital Market Access Programme 2025 helps Gauteng-based SMMEs get onto e-commerce platforms, grow digital sales and access key support services. Your chance to build a sustainable, tech-enabled business with real market access. Applications close 18 August: Apply now.

Want to promote your event/programme? Drop it here.

🛠 Tool to Try: freebeat.ai creates polished music videos by analysing your track’s mood, lyrics and tempo.

🤔 That’s Interesting: We kinda know what Napoleon looked like from his death mask.

🔥 Next Level: The dog tilts the security cam to steal food… and the cat quietly points it back. Watch.

🍔 Hack: Keep a running brag doc of wins and praise at work so reviews and raise talks are easy.

🌐 Wow Site: AtomAnimation gives an interactive 3D atom and periodic table where you tweak protons, neutrons and electrons in real time.

Found something cool we should share? Let us know.

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