Power moves {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? The Neighbourgood team, which converted Cape Town’s The Old Townhouse Hotel into a co-living space, posted a video explaining the actual costs, how they financed it and how they created value. Loving it. 🏘

In This Open Letter

SA buys 6.7 billion litres of cold drinks per year, but they’re still a bit hard to deliver unspilt – so this local venture’s coming to seal the deal…

The trillion-dollar global online food delivery market sank millions into route-optimisation algos, heated delivery boxes and custom-built e-bikes to get you your burger three minutes faster.

But there’s still one big leak: The laws of physics mean coffee, milkshakes, iced drinks and soup slosh when you move them.

And with most using the 80s throwback plastic lid for drinks, they’re literally spillage on SA’s delivery bikes for quick-service restaurants and coffee shops alike.

Leak by the numbers

Spilt drinks can add up. Restaurant operators lose between 2 and 3% of delivery sales to incorrect or missing orders, with 32% of customers bailing after just one bad experience.

Now, a restaurant or coffee shop could get itself a nifty little automatic cup-sealing machine (if they had a spare R18k lying around and don’t mind the lost counter space, that is).

Or go the layers of plastic wrap over the lid route – which isn’t pretty or sustainable. 

Could it be that the solution is not a new lid, or a new cup, or even a machine, but something far simpler?

The local (p)layer keeping your drink in your cup

Beverage Seal is a paper disc that creates a leak-proof barrier between any cup and lid without needing any specialised machinery.

Founders Eugene Jensen and Johann Peek recently told us this hardware idea came from a software experiment: Looking to create more jobs for delivery drivers, they trialled a ‘Coffee Lift’ app in 2019, but realised that nobody wanted to order coffee online because it arrived cold or spilt. 

Working on that led to the lightbulb moment that something on top of the lid doesn’t work, but the pressure underneath meant that a specific type of high-wet-strength paper actually creates a decent seal. And you can even put a straw right through it once you’re ready to drink.

Check it…

Ready to scale

They’ve already sealed over 10 million drinks locally thanks to a first proof-of-concept with a national food retailer and a pilot with a major international fast-food burger joint’s local footprint. Now you can find their seals in the likes of Burger King, Starbucks and Vida e Cafe.

And Beverage Seal is getting ready to scale, setting their sights on the US and Saudi Arabia and with patents already registered in several countries and gearing up their production capability right here in SA, they are going after the large franchises on a global scale.

In a world of complex digital solutions, sometimes the simplest fix is best.

We’re watching this space.

It’s often because you don’t know where you stand. 

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📦 Takealot’s Stealthy WhatsApp Play. Looks like Takealot is gearing up to hit the WhatsApp streets, and our team is wondering about potential instant alerts, treats and maybe wishlist price drops. See why we think something’s coming in the Takealot WhatsApp space.

🚀 SA’s AI Startup Boost. Magda Wierzycka, the founder and CEO of SA investment firm Sygnia, is launching a venture capital fund that will invest in local startups building AI tools, with the fund fully operational with seed capital within the next six months. Very nice.

💬 Sending It Tomorrow. WhatsApp has started testing a message scheduling feature. It surfaced in the WhatsApp beta for iOS, and can reportedly be used in both individual and group chats, supporting text, image and video messages. Finally.

🛬 Cape Town’s R10 Billion Facelift. Airport Company South Africa is dropping over R21.7 billion on infrastructure investment, with Cape Town International Airport securing a cool R10.1 billion revamp. But don't hold your breath just yet: contractor appointment is only in Dec 2026.

🌍 Thinking Offshore? For SA founders going global, the Isle of Man offers 0% corporate tax, 0% capital gains tax, 0% withholding tax, UK VAT access and a business-friendly legal system. Finance Isle of Man helps companies move, structure and scale internationally — sans the usual friction.*

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Yesterday, we showed you how HirePro’s bringing advanced hospitality staffing tech to SA, asking how you’d fill no-shows on a busy night. Most go DIY…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🧑‍🍳 Put on an apron and get back in the kitchen yourself (66%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📱 Call anyone and everyone on your contact list (17%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🚪 Close up shop and go home to watch Netflix (0)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏃 Try make it work. Bookings is bookings (11%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍽️ Wonder why service is so slow tonight (6%)

Your 2 cents…

Love it, Bongani. That’s the way to make a name for yourself. 🧑‍🍳

On 24 February 1955, a baby was born in California who might have been called Abdul Lateef Jandali if his birthparents, who felt their faiths were too incompatible for them to marry, hadn’t put him up for adoption, where his name was registered as Steve Jobs instead.

Jobs would go on to found companies like Apple, NeXT Inc (the tech behind macOS) and Pixar Animation Studios.

We asked a pro why so many companies sound the same and how to make yourself really stand out and get noticed…

Don’t miss all the extra operator interviews and insights content we do on our social channels — come join the convo.

🍷 Tool to Try: Snap a pic of any wine list and Wine Wiz will tell you what to order.

🐕 That’s Interesting: A doggie once saved his owner with a broken neck by lying on him and licking his face for 20 hours in the snow until help arrived.

🎨 Next Level: Watch Chinese artist Leng Jun paint with mind-bending, hyper-realistic detail.

🏛️ Hack: A clean visual guide explaining different types of presidential governments.

✈️ Wow Site: Travel Visa Stack will tell you if you need a visa to visit a country or not.