Team Claude or Team ChatGPT {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? Turns out most SA employees really want to use Claude, but their companies will only pay for ChatGPT. And it creates an interesting dilemma. 🤖

In Today's Open Letter

The world sends almost 400 billion emails per day, to a built-in audience with excellent delivery (all your partners and customers see it), and it costs almost nothing – so this local team's helping turn every email into a billboard…

Back in 1971, an MIT computer engineer named Ray Tomlinson sent the first network email to a computer sitting right beside him. The message was probably something like QWERTYUIOP, but history was made.

Email is still one of the most-used forms of communication today. Most teams send and forward dozens per day, and that's why even we at The Open Letter experienced the opportunity early on: drop your number or a link with a strong CTA at the bottom, and get access to that audience.

But we also saw the problem: Renier created an email signature and told the rest of the team to just "copy it over and add in your details," which, because emails work with code, didn't turn out so well – 17 unwanted phone calls later, we knew there was a problem. And the email providers don't make managing your signatures easy either.

Which is why a local team stepped in…

The platform running your company's signatures from one dashboard

Databias manages email signatures and banners for a whole company from one dashboard. Staff send email as normal, but it routes through Databias's servers, picks up the right signature and banner, and carries on to the recipient. So now marketing can sign off on one design, and it'll work across Outlook, Gmail and Apple Mail.

It's the passion of founder Matt Faircliff, who built his first email-branding product in the early 2000s and has been improving it ever since, nowadays with a small team at Databias.

From configuring replies and rules to scheduled and targeted banners with trackable clicks and optional HubSpot integration, Databias also offers security with SPF, DKIM and DMARC in place as soon as you are onboard.

What we like is it takes that one painful task of customising signatures away from individual staff and gives a big, free channel to marketing. So you can probably (looks around the room to ensure colleagues agree) count us in.

We're watching this space…

We've already sold more tickets than any event we've ever run. But the Homecoming Centre can hold a lot more, so we're keeping sales open to find out.

Tomorrow night, you get Pay@ CEO Andrew Hardie on building to a R1bn exit, Capitec, Quona and Katapult Ocean on building ventures in SA. Plus a room full of the people actually building and investing in SA companies.

Win by agreeing your exit price before you need it. Joburg-born Clive Calder owned the label behind Britney Spears and *NSYNC for years before selling it in slices to his distributor BMG. The catch: BMG had to buy the rest at a pre-set price whenever he chose. He chose 2002, at the peak, for US$2.74 billion (about R29 billion then). See the deal.

Scale by only getting paid when clients do. Eastern Cape founder Jadon Moerdyk switched his marketing agency, RemodelBoom, to a pure revenue-share model: clients carry no risk, and he earns only when they earn. No investors, and it now brings in tens of millions of rands a year. See how.

Pay personal banking fees on your business account. Capitec Business charges R1 for payments to other Capitec accounts, R2 to other banks and R3 for debit orders. Their online calculator shows what you'd save against your current bank. Check the fees.

🏦 Shoprite Is Getting A Debit Card. Shoprite plans a debit card and a bigger transactional account, with Investec behind it, pending regulatory approval. Shoprite gets banking without becoming a bank. Investec gets millions of everyday customers.

🚗 Netstar Plans To Sell Car Data. Altron's Netstar wants to sell insights from tracked vehicles, built from the 2.3 million cars it already tracks. It says buyers get anonymised profiles, not locations. If you have a tracker, read your terms.

🎤 Elvis Takes On AI Music. Presley's estate has sued Suno, saying users can still make songs in his voice and that it trained on 859 of his songs without permission. It's the voice claim AI music firms should worry about.

💳 Payments Solved. Selling across Africa means navigating cards, bank transfers and mobile money across 10+ countries. Paystack handles it all on one infrastructure — 99.99% uptime, T+1 settlement and the trust of the continent's biggest brands.*

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

We featured custom AI war rooms and asked what happens when a crisis hits your company. And most here say it's 12 WhatsApp groups and zero clear answers…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📲 12 WhatsApp groups, zero clear answers (40%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 📞 Everyone phones the one guy who knows (30%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🗓️ We hear about it at Monday's meeting (30%)

Most SA co-founders split their shares on day one and never revisit it until one of them walks away with a full stake. So we asked a startup attorney how to split fairly and still protect the business.

And it turns out, there are 5 steps to split equity with a co-founder without putting the company at risk.

Early-stage startup building for Africa? The HBS Africa Business Club's New Venture Competition picks startups to pitch investors and judges at Harvard Business School in February, for equity-free prize money (last year's pot was about R900k). Closes 12 Nov. Apply now.

Western Cape tech startup ready to go global? AfricArise's Cape Venture Bridge takes 20 startups through 6 months of market-entry training, 12+ hours of mentoring and R125k in tech credits, and sends the top 5 to GITEX Africa. Closes 15 Nov. Apply now.

Livestock, dairy or aquaculture tech with an MVP? The SAIS Investment Readiness Programme gives African startups a year of tailored support, up to about R285k in expert help and investor introductions, and takes no equity. Closes 15 Nov. Apply now.

Innovation-led SMME needing money to build your prototype? The Innovation Hub and TIA's Seed Fund offer pre-seed grants of up to R500k and seed funding of up to R800k to SA-registered businesses taking tech to market. Closes 20 Nov. 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. Register for free.

Want to promote your event/programme here? Let us know.

What It Takes to Scale and Exit, 12 Nov, CPT: Pay@'s Andrew Hardie on building to a R1bn exit, plus Capitec, Quona and Katapult Ocean. Get tickets.

Building Relationships for Funding, 13 Nov, online: Zimi CEO Michael Maas on building angel relationships to raise R50m. Join to access.

Community Coffee Rave, 26 Nov, CPT: An early-morning coffee bar with DJ Kurt April, for founders and teams at Innovation City. Apply here.

Powered by Radi. Want your business event in front of 36,000 The Open Letter readers? Host it on Radi, and it lands here.

🪂 Next Level: Watch 2 skydivers set a new record for the biggest human catapult.

☕ Wow Site: Need a boardroom for an hour? AirOffices lets you book meeting rooms inside coffee shops like Vida e Caffè, Starbucks, Kauai and Bootlegger, paying by the hour.