Smart skin {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? Scientists unveiled a new skin patch that doesn't need to send data via Wi-Fi; it monitors the body's health, and an onboard AI sommer processes all data right there on your skin. Fancy. 🧐

In This Open Letter

And it's a business problem, because we're witnessing the death of one of the biggest and most powerful channels in history…

South Africans were hit with 17.47 billion spam calls in the first 6 months of 2026, in a new report from Truecaller. That's up 25.2% on last year, forcing Truecaller users to block 7.18 billion calls. And it's a global trend:

But the bigger picture is the death of a channel: The share of calls SA actually answered fell to 7.8%, from 10.2% in 2025, meaning 9 in 10 now go unanswered. And that same thing has been happening around the world, too:

It's a pretty big business problem: Next to meeting in person, the phone was probs the biggest and highest-trust business channel of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Today's largest companies were built on it (think about banks, brokers, customer support and fraud identification and handling). To this day, 80% of SA adults consider the phone vital for business communications.

And larger companies will likely be less affected by it (they've built the trust already); it's new and growing companies who might now never have the opportunity to build that level of trust.

Don't forget it took SA 18 years to respond. The other day we reminded you about the Consumer Protection Act's new rules and the spam call registry that came online in April this year. What we didn't mention is that the CPA had the power to create that 18 years ago (2008), but didn't.

In the meantime, SA's two largest data breaches, 60 million records at Master Deeds in 2017 and 24 million individual- and 794k business records at Experian in 2020, were both marketing list plays (i.e. hacks to probably build the same lists spammers are using right now).

So, what now?

Look, SA's far from getting a handle on spam: POPIA's first-ever direct marketing enforcement notice went out only in 2024 and was simply ignored and, funny enough, Truecaller itself is under POPIA investigation, LOL. But it is safest to register with the NCC at R2'574 a year if you want to outbound.

We don't think phone will fully die as a channel:

We'll keep an eye on this space…

Every founder has that midnight sweat moment: Either something went wrong at the wrong time, or you’re lying in bed and suddenly realise a blind spot you never saw in your own business, and now you can’t sleep.

The problem is you gotta run production tomorrow, so there’s almost no time between now and then to properly Google or ask Chat to get a solution.

That is the exact input the Founder Advisor wants. Type the messy version, the one that starts with "so basically". It works out what category of problem it actually is and points you at the local companies that handle it.

Two minutes, no sales call, no signup. Worst-case, you learn what to search for.

Best case, the 11 pm thing stops being an 11 pm thing.

🧱 LEGO SA Got Hacked. LEGO Certified Stores SA emailed customers about exposed emails and mobile numbers, even though the failure happened four layers down, inside a reporting tool used by its loyalty vendor; LEGO itself still has to take responsibility.

📡 Capitec: The Next Big ISP? Capitec is eyeing home broadband off the back of 25 million banking clients, no network needed, just distribution. One snag: DataEQ scored Capitec Connect's operational sentiment at 4% against an MVNO average of 56%. Distribution wins the first million. Service decides whether you keep them.

🍎 Apple Wants 15% on Sales. Apple has told a US court it wants 15% on link-out purchases, after conceding its actual costs on those sales are essentially zero. If you sell a subscription app out of Cape Town, your rate gets decided in a courtroom where you have no standing. Budget for 15%.

🚕 inDrive Shipped to SA First, Because SA Is Hard. inDrive launched Panorama View and Recommended Pickup Points in Joburg and Cape Town before anywhere else in the world. Why? Because our busiest pickup points are Jabulani Mall and Liberty Promenade, not Sandton City, and a map pin is useless when everyone navigates by landmark.

🥾 Safety Sorted. Hospitality, construction, retail, manufacturing, logistics and agriculture teams need workwear that lasts. Jonsson Workwear supplies safety boots, PPE and branded uniforms built for demanding environments, with 70 years of experience kitting out SA teams.*

* From our partners. Find all the best service providers for your business in our Founder Stack.

When founders do their own sales, it's easy to get stuck: A good first meeting, a few polite follow-ups, then silence. So we asked an SA sales leader how to turn sales into a system that works.

His response? 5 specific steps to run a sales process that actually closes.

BTC gave back the week's gains. Bitcoin slid to about $62'900 on 14 August, wiping out the prior week's climb, with spot ETFs posting back-to-back outflows for the first time since late July. Cooling CPI barely moved crypto even as equities hit record highs. The two markets are no longer telling the same story.

Crypto's Wall Street era has arrived. Institutions made up 72% of Wintermute's spot OTC flow in H1 2026, the highest on record, up from 59% a year earlier. But companies don’t want to just trade bitcoin anymore; they want a mix of traditional stocks and crypto, so it’s time for crypto to grow into its own and get established.

Tokenised stocks are the growth story. Binance Research's August insights show TradFi perps jumped from 2.7% to 28% of Tier 1 exchange futures volume in seven months, with bStocks passing $500m in market cap. Fitting for Women's Month as we also learn the story of the company’s female co-CEO Yi He, who went from promoting soft drinks outside a supermarket in rural Sichuan to running a third of Binance's workforce.

Disclaimer: Digital asset prices can be volatile. The value of your investment may go down or up and you may not get back the amount invested. You are solely responsible for your investment decisions and Binance is not liable for any losses you may incur. Not financial advice. For more information, see our Terms of Use and Risk Warning.

Last week, we showed you the unbelievable growth of Sixty60, asking where you actually get your food. The verdict? A dead heat between the aisle and the app…

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨 🛒 I get it from the physical store (49%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🛵 Delivered (Sixty60, Dash, 2U, asap!) (50%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🪴 I grow it myself (1%)

Your 2 cents…

Don't get us wrong, the urban network still needs work. But, yes, Wynand, you know rural's going to become the growth lever for them at some point. 🚜

Leadership Lessons: Q&A with Daniel Amber, 19 Aug, Online: The Cars.co.za CTO on why your org chart is your delivery strategy, whether you designed it that way or not. Register for free.

Public Speaking Workshop with Verity Price, 22 Aug, CPT: The first African to win the World Championship of Public Speaking teaches working women to communicate their value. Get tickets.

Digital Divas Summit 2026, 28 Aug, CPT: A full day on career growth, AI, ambition and visibility for women across business, tech and the creative industries. Get tickets.

Building Iconic South African Companies, 17 Sept, JHB: Barry Swartzberg on building Discovery and taking Vitality global, plus 3 Capital's Sizwe Nxumalo on what makes startups break out. Get tickets.

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🧩 Tool to Try: FeaturesVote lets you collect user feedback, run feature voting, and share a transparent roadmap and changelog in one place.

🦇 That's Interesting: The "Batman effect": When someone dressed as Batman was on board a train, passengers were twice as likely to offer a pregnant-looking woman their seat. Heroism is contagious.