Phone is a book {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? Renier was so disappointed that we missed Apple's iPhone Duo launch in our news this week that he and Jason organised for it to go right here for you. Apparently it's ~$1'900 (~R30k). What do you think: want, skip, maybe…?

In This Open Letter

If you know us, you'll know that 90% of the time we recommend going B2B in SA, embedding at a company as a consultant, building a product, then white-labelling it and taking it outside. But then there's always the 10% where you might want to build B2C SaaS and go global/wide — if so, this international example's for you…

In December last year, global online job board Indeed laid off former Apple employee Colin Johnson (Reddit handle u/Cojj25)'s 7-month-pregnant wife. He was so furious that he and co-founder and CTO Ben Adamsky and lead developer Branislav Djalic spent the next 5 months vibe-coding a competing job search engine "to put them out of business".

It started with a single post on Reddit in May this year; the community rallied behind it (the emotional hook of the pregnant wife really resonated), and by June they had 2’000 users and their first paid subs in July. Then, in August, this happened:

It snowballed as they went from 100k listed jobs to 959k, kept near-doubling users and went from $940 (R15'500) MRR to $1'617 (R26'700) in 3 days in August (72% jump). All from 4 Reddit posts and, as far as we can tell, no or very few other ads.

How? That's what this post is about: Figuring out what they did as a playbook.

The counterintuitive part

What struck us was that they posted this where builders hang out, not customers. r/SideProject, r/SaaS and r/ClaudeAI are where operators get together. If they took this straight to a job-hunting community (the customers), it might have just died quietly.

And they publish operator numbers: Users, pull requests shipped, application packs generated and paying subscribers, giving it more of a building-in-public feel than a launch. But if you check the comments section, you can see them engaging with the critics and "customers" directly there.

Now the part for you: Nothing here required being in the US, but the market there can afford a R479-a-month subscription, so learning the trick of being able to reach them could be worthwhile. Notion started similarly with a community on Reddit, but the core lessons to take from this post are:

We've seen similar stories in SA: Dan and Herman built EskomSePush off a national grievance and a community; Adii Pienaar sold WooThemes to the world off his own blog.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, their product is Dreamwork, with 959'644 jobs across 21'048 companies (183 from South Africa, nogal), and his wife gave birth in the meantime and is now working for Google.

Did we inspire you to go SaaS?

We're watching this space…

Have your say…

The people who’ve already solved your problem are not writing threads about it. They are busy, and their time is priced accordingly.

The Collab's masterclass line-up is our workaround: Founders and specialists who have actually done it, running practical sessions on fundraising, SEO, legal structuring and go-to-market. Adii Pienaar on building global tech out of South Africa is one of the recent ones.

Every online session is recorded, so missing one costs you nothing. The back catalogue of 60+ hours of big lessons comes with your membership.

Six-plus events a month, R600 for all of them.

You've probably got your own management style dialled in. But here's the thing: your team isn't you. And as you grow, you're likely to increasingly need to lead people who think and work differently from you. That's why OfferZen asked Anna McDougall, an engineering leader, speaker and author of You Belong in Tech, about the biggest mistakes new managers make.

And she's clear that there's no "correct" way to lead in her guide to creating a management toolkit that adapts to different people.

🚁 Bought the Bottleneck. Fibertime has bought drone mapping outfit FlightPlan Precision after spending millions on outsourced surveys. It connects 1'200 homes a day and can't have its build rate set by a surveyor's diary. The constraint is rarely capital.

💸 R162k, With Strings. Kickstarter and Google's Next Wave Fund closes 30 September: a $10'000 pledge, campaign coaching and free Google training for African founders. But it only lands once your campaign is live. The validation is the product here, not the money.

📦 SARS Slowed Shein Down. Shein's SA growth fell from 30-50% a year to 11%, and Temu dropped 42% a month, after SARS killed the low-value import concession. Both are now going local. Regulation moved the fight; it didn't end it.

⚡ Selling Less, Charging More. Eskom shifted less power in FY26 than in 2007, an 18% drop, while revenue rose 785% on tariffs up 1'105%. Record capacity, two-decade sales low. If you use serious power, the negotiating table just flipped.

👷 Teams Kitted Out. Hiring physical operations, site, warehouse or field teams? Jonsson Workwear has supplied durable workwear, footwear and PPE to South African businesses since 1955 — online ordering, national stores and tools to manage staff sizes, departments and repeat orders.*

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

Yesterday, we showed you the Closerr friendship app, asking how your circle is actually doing. Most here say it's slipping…

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🟢 On top of it. My people know they're my people. (33%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟡 Slipping, honestly. I keep leaving people on read. (50%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🔴 There's a voice note from last year I still haven't listened to. (17%)

Your 2 cents…

That's the whole product in one sentence, Wynand. 📞

🗂️ US Executive Assistant / Talent Operations @ Outsource SA Solutions

☕ Senior Java Developer (Kafka) @ Flash Group

💻 Dynamics 365 CE Developer @ Kerv

📋 Product Owner @ Woolworths

📊 Senior Data Scientist @ Vodacom

We asked one of SA's venture capital pioneers if AI could ever replace humans, and the answer just makes you want to go build something…

Don't miss all the extra operator interviews and insights content we do on our social channels — come enjoy the vibez.

Startup Stories: Altera Biosciences, Mon 14, Cape Town: Building a universal donor cell platform, over lunch at OneBio. R50. Get tickets.

Cape HealthTech Connect 2026, Thu 17, Cape Town: Full-day healthtech gathering of researchers, clinicians, startups and funders at BMRI Tygerberg. From R400. Register free.

Building Iconic South African Companies, Thu 17, Joburg: Your gathering with Barry Swartzberg and Sizwe Nxumalo at The Tryst. From R150. Join 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: This person is a magician with a forklift.

📚 Wow Site: Atlas of Books is an audiovisual way to discover new books based on what you already like.