Bottoms up {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? It appears that Gen Z is reversing their no-alcohol trend. Let's hope they start going out more (and having babies, too). Welcome to the party, peeps!

In Today's Open Letter

Most founders can't afford a CFO to tell them where the money really goes, so this founder built a platform that looks inside your accounting software for the answers you really need…

Most companies have that one client that delivers the fattest invoice you high-five over every month… But what if that's what's sinking you? Because your time-tracked hours sit in one tool, your payroll in another and invoicing in Xero (none of them talking to each other), you'll never know.

It's the kind of strategic financial insights big companies have CFOs for. But at an average SA salary of R1.2 and R2.6 million per year (R100k per month), growing ventures and SMEs can't afford those.

Quick back-of-the-napkin affordability check:

That's why we have fractional CFOs, right? Yes, but SA has some 59k+ startups needing venture-specialised financial tracking, yet our universities mainly pump out corporate accountants that aren't skilled in venture capital modelling, cross-border IP, etc. (the stuff a growing venture needs). SA actually has only a handful of fractional CFO services with the right skillset, and few (if any) of those have more than a hundred CFOs on staff. So we're likely short.

Which is why we met up with Cirsten Claassen (the guy behind accounting firm Finvoke) to hear about a new tool he built to bring CFO services to more ventures…

The platform that reads your books like a CFO

Clarity is an AI financial analyst plugged into your actual books. It links your Xero data to your time tracking, and turns them into profit per hour by client, breaking down what every retainer really costs to deliver, and where the team's hours actually go.

Ask Clarity about your company's financials in plain language, and it answers like a CFO. It'll even highlight the clients costing you money.

How Cirsten built it

Cirsten says the need was quite obvious; he used to build these reports by hand for CFO services in Finvoke. And it needed a day or two of matching payroll to timesheets to Xero.

So he met with a technical partner over a couple of coffees earlier this year, and they built out Clarity to offer a CFO's take on your numbers for agencies. But then took it a step further by building the version that sits on any Xero account (no time tracking needed), built for scale-stage founders who need fast answers to straight questions.

What we like about it is that it's a scalable solution that also solves affordability for more businesses, and most B2B/agencies might want to take notes here. Next, we want to see Cirsten get this in front of all the right peeps and shoot for the moon.

We're watching this space…

Every product balances cost, quality and time. The thing that changes as you grow is which one matters most.

For a new company, the priority is proving the concept. So speed and cost will always win, which is why cutting corners is often rational (no users to disappoint yet).

But once your concept is proven and your user base is growing, the equation flips: Now, a lot of people are hitting a lot of issues, the platform buckles under load, features take three times longer to ship and the agency/tool that helped you build V1 can't own the technical direction for V2.

The gap between those two is where many scale-ups get stuck, because the original technology is now meant to evolve with your business.

And success is not a question of whether your product will hit this wall. Because it will.

It's whether you'll see it before your customers do.

🏠 SA Remote Work Record. SA remote job opportunities are at an all-time high, up 28% YoY and 41% over two years. The kicker: tech isn’t the fastest grower anymore. Finance roles quadrupled in two years, marketing and design doubled, and bookkeepers and admin are now trending. Here comes remote work's second wind.

💔 China Bans AI Girlfriends. Beijing has banned customisable AI companion apps effective 15 July, with five government departments jointly ruling that AI tools cannot "induce emotional dependence or addiction." ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent all suspended their companion features entirely rather than comply. Interesting…

🌕 SA's B.A.L.L.S. Go to the Moon. Stellenbosch engineers have built the electronics for Africa's first moon mission, three SA-designed spheres called B.A.L.L.S. (Bounced African Low Lunar Spheres) carrying low-frequency radio antennas, flying aboard China's Chang'e-8 to the lunar south pole in 2029. It'll be the world's first radio telescope array on the moon. Love to see it.

🎰 Betting on the Mayor. More than R700'000 has been wagered on Polymarket over who becomes Joburg's next mayor, with Helen Zille at 67% implied probability, much of it from a single account holding R8.6m in open positions. SA regulators are stuck at the "who owns this problem?" stage: FSCA is waiting on an international study, the NGB hasn't "considered this for gambling," and neither platform has applied for a licence. November elections, live odds. Welcome to 2026.

📊 Books Sorted. Spreadsheets don't scale. Xero runs invoicing, bank reconciliation, VAT, expenses and reporting from one cloud dashboard, with direct feeds into FNB, Absa, Standard Bank and Nedbank. TOL readers get 90% off for the first 6 months.*

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

Two years ago, we spoke to two founders who'd just started building on ways to use AI to fight fraud in SA. It was just the two of them, tryna figure out something entirely new.

By March this year, they were handling $5 billion in monthly transaction volume across 70+ countries; they'd grown their team immensely and raised R38 million to expand and grow. Not because of hand-outs, but because they built something worth investing in.

But here's the thing: We’re bringing one of the co-founders, Thalia Pillay, to our Stellenbosch event next week for her own side panel, so that she can tell you the whole story: Building, getting traction, how to know when and why to seek funding, how they got their funding — the whole journey.

Come meet Thalia and hear her story. Get tickets →

African game studio? Google Play's Indie Games Fund for Africa offers $50k to $200k in equity-free capital to 10 studios across 32 countries. Closes 31 July. Apply now.

Need more than just advice? The Founder Collab bundles R40k+ in tools, cloud credits, legal sessions and a curated founder community into one membership for SA tech builders. Join now.

Want free AI skills training? Google Hustle Academy 2026 offers one-day bootcamps and 60-min webinars for SA entrepreneurs and SME owners. Zero cost. Register for free.

SA small business ready for the national stage? NSBC Small Business Awards are open, free entry for NSBC Platinum Members across 4 categories including Startup Champion of the Year. Gala on 12 November. See details.

Research team solving alt-protein taste? Coefficient Giving is investing up to $10M in R&D grants ($100k to $1M each) for off-flavour, fat alternatives, egg replacement and fish replication. Closes 10 August. Apply now.

Yesterday, we featured Brett Commaille and Hlayisani Capital, asking whether SA's VC industry is working for founders. And most here say the terms still favour VCs…

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🚀 Yes, and it's getting better every year (0%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 💡 The money's there, but the terms still favour VCs (38%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤷 I wouldn't know, never made it past the first meeting (38%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🌍 It works, but only if you're selling into global markets (12%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🔥 Brett's right, experience beats hustle every time (12%)

The Blind Man With Vision, 28 Jul, CPT: Born blind, completed the Ironman and set the Blind Land Speed Record twice. Get tickets.

Faith in the Workplace, 29 Jul, Stellenbosch: Honest conversations on integrating faith with purpose in business. Get tickets.

Building & Scaling Venture-Backed Businesses, 30 Jul, Stellenbosch: Orca Fraud's founder journey and Hlayisani Capital on backing SA builders. Get tickets.

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🧩 Tool to Try: Frontpage lets you build a website that self-optimises based on real traffic and behaviour.

🐃 That's Interesting: Newborn blue wildebeest calves can stand within six minutes of birth, walk within thirty minutes and outrun a hyena within a day.

🦅 Next Level: This peregrine falcon is way more relaxed than you.

🧱 Wow Site: Babel is a daily skyscraper built from Wikipedia edits. Each brick is an article that was edited today.