🐟 Big Fish, Small Pond...

Plus: Africa’s biggest drone, audiences up for grabs & finding your growth users.

Newsletter

October 24, 2023

Hi there,

User woes? Can’t be as bad as Meta who had to apologise last week after its auto-translate inserted the word “terrorist” into some Palestinian Instagram profiles.

In this Open Letter:

Big fish, small pond: An industry to get into early.
The biggest drone, graphite wars & lekker beaches.
Must-havers: How to find your growth customer.
Where we keep our money: The results are in.

TRENDING NOW

Getting in Early

Ever heard the saying “big fish in a small pond”?

One of the most successful founders you’ve never heard of, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and Treeshake founder Dave Duarte, attributes his success to getting into social media decades ago before anyone took it seriously. Today he’s a megatrends specialist who earns top dollar.

The moral? Startup success = be the first and become the best in a small, growing industry you know is going to be big.

*Everyone sees the big market, but few see the “soon-to-be big” market.*

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And if there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that electronic vehicles (EVs) are coming.

It’s small now, but…

We spoke before about how EVs in South Africa could free up billions in disposable income. And, yes, it’s pretty small now, but SA had the 7th highest increase in electronic vehicle sales in the world this year.

So there’s reason to think the EV market could start stirring:

For the first time, AutoTrader included EVs in its Mid-Year Car Industry Report.
EV sales have grown by 106% for new vehicles and 108% for used ones in 2023.
The numbers are still small – just 131 used EVs sold Q1 & Q2 2023 – but climbing.
EVs are still about 3.5 times more expensive than combustion cars, so we need better pricing.
In Europe, 13.6% of all new car sales are electric vehicles – should SA reach the same levels, that could constitute 71,800 new electric vehicle sales per year.

But then there’s the big ol’ Eskom elephant in the room…

How are we gonna charge ‘em?

Funny enough, SA’s 170 public chargers back in 2021 was one of the world’s highest number of chargers per car – because no one owned EVs yet. Now, however, we’re falling behind with our mere 435 as EV sales have doubled to 1’200 in the last 2.5 years.

And what about loadshedding? Well, with SA’s solar adoption through the roof, it might not be a biggie, since solar seems to be the most cost-effective way to top up your EV battery’s charge.

In short: If you’re looking for a small, inevitable industry to get big in, EVs are a fun, cool and dare we say green-sexy option.

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Local Startups Plugging into the Trend

With its first 8 prototypes already built back in 2015, MellowVans started producing full-on electric delivery vehicles ready for the global market in 2021 in Stellenbosch. These vehicles have a range of ±100 km which is enough to do several daily deliveries within small towns or areas of the city.

With customers such as Takealot, DHL and Spar in SA, MellowVans is keen on expanding to Europe where the EV market is rife.

The charging station market was already a $4.1 billion industry in 2022 in Europe, btw, and with rising EV sales locally, we’re going to have to increase our number rapidly to meet demand.

Having identified this opportunity, Zimi Charge provides electric fleet charging solutions for companies that are moving their fleet of vehicles over to electric. With a range of pricing options, companies can either rent it, own it or pay per charge. (Pssst… We have Zimi on the podcast this week – so be sure to read Friday’s newsletter for more.)

It’s still very early for EVs in South Africa, but expect more EVs to hit the road soon and, if you’re interested in this space, perhaps now is a good time to dive in and get building while the pond is small. 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).

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OVER TO YOU

Do you see yourself driving an EV in the next 5 years?

Vote to see what others say...

IN SHORT

🏖️ Hoist the Flag. Eight Cape Town beaches have been awarded Blue Flag status by the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa after meeting the requirements for Blue Flag status across 33 criteria in four categories. An additional 2 beaches have achieved pilot blue flag status for the 2023/2024 summer season.

🔋 Graphite Fight. South Korea is looking to Mozambique and Tanzania to secure graphite – a key material used to produce Electric Vehicle battery anodes. This as China tightens its export controls over some categories of graphite to “safeguard national security and interests”.

🕹️ Droning On. The largest drone built in Africa, the Milkor 380, has just undergone its first successful test flight. The drone from Pretoria, with a wingspan of nearly 20 metres is capable of a continuous flight time of 35 hours, 2’000 km range and can reach an altitude of 9’000 metres.

🤖 Where it’s at. Funding for AI projects hit a staggering $17.9 billion in investment in Q3. This is despite overall startup deals shrinking by 31% to $73 billion from the year before – including climate tech investing which dropped a cool 40% year-on-year.

⛔ Access Denied. Turns out we weren't imagining it. The readers on the SA 4x4 forum, have also picked up that the entire News24 seems to be behind its subscriber paywall these days. Looking at the comments, if you can find a business model to make a free news website work, well you’d have some readers.

BUILDER’S CORNER

How to Find Your Growth Customer

With the “must-have” method

You have your product and some traction, nice! Now, how do you blow the roof off this thing? Turns out true scalability starts with focusing 10’000% on the exact right user…

*Make ‘em bigger, better, stronger – MORE*

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This goes back to product-market fit in a big way, but Facebook- and Google-level growth hacker Sean Ellis always said that you can scale almost anything, as long as you can find its “must-have” user.

The user for whom the product is a non-negotiable, they absolutely NEED it in their life. End of story. That’s the user whom, if you can find more of, your product will snowball.

So, how do you find them?

3 Steps to nail down that growth user

1. Start with the “bait” survey

Send users a survey asking them how they’d feel if you took your product off the market tomorrow. And just give them a few options like – “happy”, “not affected”, “disappointed”, and crucially “very disappointed”.

*This was made with DALL-E 3 – pretty sweet*

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2. Find your “very disappointed” 40%

What you’re looking for is for at least 40% of users to say “very disappointed”. Because that means the product has become entrenched in their every day. That’s your must-have user, the one you will be focusing on for growth.

But what if it’s less than 40% 😢?

3. Segment until you get your 40

If you have less than 40% “must-have” users, start segmenting them. If you sent out a survey to mainly, for example, doctors, start splitting them up – male VS female doctors, by different specialisations, by geographical location, age etc. Keep segmenting your data until you find a segment that has a 40% “very disappointed” rate relative to the number of users in that specific segment.

Then, brush your teeth and comb your hair, because you just got a new job at a new company targeting ONLY that user segment. From now on, that segment is your new user – build for them, market to them, and delight them.

With a bit of luck, the segment’s still big enough for what you need, because there and only there (until proven otherwise) is probably where your growth lies.

Got an ideal user hack? Hit reply and let us know…

THE RESULTS

Well, well… we asked which bank you prefer and FNB wins the majority…

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Capitec (16%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Nedbank (6.5%)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Standard Bank (24%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Absa (5%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 FNB (42%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Bank Zero (3.5%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Tyme (1.5%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Lula (0)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ VBS (0)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I roll with cash (1.5%)

Your 2 cents…

“Discovery Bank as a 2nd acc”

Nikhil

“What, no Discovery Bank?”

Connect

Whoops, yeah you’re right, sorry Discovery.