⚡️Charging Up SA’s Minibus Taxi Future...

Plus: Safety drones 🛰, peachy WhatsApp commerce, SARS in your crypto & the hard-hitting startup truths you need to hear.

October 11, 2024

Time to whine? To celebrate 30 years of Green Day’s Dookie album, you can now purchase DE-mastered low-fi versions of all 15 songs on 15 different mediums they were never meant to be heard on.

Jip, that means stuff like “Basket Case” on a Big-Mouth Billie Bass, “Welcome to Paradise” on a GameBoy and “When I Come Around” on a wax cylinder (phonograph). 🤘

In this Open Letter:

• Driving change: The green side of SA’s minibus taxi revolution.
• Safety drones, Peachy WhatsApp commerce & SARS in your crypto.
• Good medicine: All the hard-hitting startup truths you need to hear.
• How you prefer your customer support: The results are in.
• Lonely building your startup? Join The Open Collab and get support.

Together with — Innovation City Cape Town

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TRENDING NOW

The Future of SA's Taxis

15M Daily commuters & cutting SA’s carbon by 3.5M tons

If you’ve been a reader of The Open Letter for a while, you’ll know we’re quite bullish on SA’s Taxi Industry…

This R90 billion industry keeps the wheels of SA turning, with SA’s 250’000-strong minibus taxi fleet getting 15 million South Africans from their homes and back every single day.

But it’s hard work operating a taxi

Check out some back-of-the-napkin maths we shared in a previous Open Letter.

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Sjoe, think we’d rather be the Gaaitjie than owner/operator…

Nearly 40% goes towards petrol, the lifeblood of keeping any (well most) vehicles moving…

And, yeah, the fuel price might be coming down now, but it’s been fluctuating the last few years, making it hard for taxi owners to price daily expenses – and drivers know: you either adjust your fares and risk losing passengers or suck it up and live off already razor-thin margins.

It gets scary when you have price jumps like when the petrol jumped R3 per litre between Jan & May this year – that alone adds around R6k in extra costs each month. Eek!

Not to mention the cost of maintaining your taxi… with the daily mileage these guys rack up, it can get costly, quickly.

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The local solution putting more cash in drivers’ pockets

Last week, a consortium led by GoMetro, launched SA’s first electric taxi, the eKamva.

We spoke to the founder on the latest “How Would You Build It” podcast and, in 2 years of research, they concluded that while pedestrian/private EV vehicles might be sexy, cool and all hyped up, it’s not necessarily where Africa’s EV future lies. 

The 15-seater eKamva (isiXhosa for “into the future”) sports a 60kW battery and has a 200km range, with 2 charging options: a 75-minute fast charge (ideal for the 3-hour window between peak hours), and a 10-hour slow charge for overnight charges.

eKamva is supported by flx EV, an early-stage, charging solution taking an Afro-centric view by seeing how SA taxis operate and using fast charging services. They have also partnered with various municipalities to develop charging facilities in close proximity to existing taxi ranks.

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GoMetro pegs the operational cost saving at between 40% and 70%, and since there are fewer (check out the pod, it’s like 8) moving components than on a combustion engine that can get damaged – think filters, spark plugs and oil – operators can avoid costly repairs.

And if something does go wrong, the vehicle is under warranty and the motor gets sent off for repairs, with a replacement motor provided to get them back on the road asap.

The eKamva will set you back between R1.1 and R1.2 million, (thanks to the 40% import duties on “luxury” EVs). But if the government can be convinced to remove this tax, it could bring the price down to between R650 and R750k – on par with the Toyota Quantum.

The green to care about

Replacing taxis with eKamvas could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 13.7 tonnes, per vehicle, per year (at 250k taxis, that’s 3.425 million tonnes of CO₂ per year). And that type of green might not be a big motivator for operators. But they might fancy the green cash that initiatives like this can put back in their pockets. We’re watching this space.

We had Justin Coetzee, the CEO and founder of GoMetro tell us more about the journey to eKamva, the challenges, opportunities and work that still needs to be done to green SA’s taxi industry – check it out or catch some highlights:

• At the intersection of tech & transport – how to spot a contrarian opportunity
• Why SA is perfectly positioned to formalise the informal transport sector
• Championing change – how to onboard people when disrupting
• Easier said than done – the ins and outs of taking it global
• Innovating outside of product line – bringing EVs to SA
• Measuring up – the nuts and bolts of eKamva busses

IN SHORT

Say something interesting…

👀 Tracking Takealot. A new analytics platform called Takealytics has launched to help sellers on Takealot make decisions on what products to sell on the e-commerce platform. Using Takealot’s public API, it pulls product data like reviews, competitors, descriptions and imaging of each day to inform sellers of what products could do well on Takealot.

🍑 Life is Peachy. Local digital payment provider, Peach Payments, is bringing a new sales channel and WhatsApp-based sales to its SA merchants through a partnership with Kenyan CRM and conversational commerce platform, Sukhiba.

🕹️ Sky Lens. SA is seeing a surge in drones in the surveillance and security industries as security industry players look to tackle crime. Local SOE Passenger Rail Agency of SA (PRASA) has reportedly seen a 75% decrease in infrastructure vandalism since it started using drones. So if you’re into security and drones, could be a lekker opportunity for you.

🎯 Taking Aim. SARS has set its sights on the nearly 6 million South Africans holding crypto assets. It’s partnering with the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) to ensure tax declaration compliance by crypto holders.

🎓 Busy Body. Old Mutual’s had a busy week this week. Not only has it launched its own Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) service, Old Mutual Connect (complete with a R5 sim card), but the insurer also introduced its updated financial literacy platform, Moneyvarsity with added resources and some AI-based capabilities.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with your own fractional CFO for less with OCFO, easy-apply R5M business funding with Lula and 11 more vital startup tools & services.

CHECK THIS OUT

The Fastest Way to Meet Potential Investors & Partners in CT

Building ventures is not all about hard work & determination.

The Economist Intelligence Unit found that 8 out of 10 successful founders attribute a big part of their success to networking. And most VCs end up investing in founders they met in person.

Great! But how do you lure enough of the right people to a place where you can meet them?

Answer: You don’t. You simply go to Innovation City’s Business Speed Dating Event on 7 November, instead.

With tailored matchmaking and a super-sharp format of 5-minute rounds, you’ll meet all the investors, founders and potential partners you can handle in just 2 hours.

But there’s a catch: Seats are limited (and going fast), so it’s best to secure your spot early.

Submit your application here.

HAPPENING SOON

Upcoming Events

Today — Linkedin Live: We chat with author and serial entrepreneur Alan Knott-Craig about his new book, Life Lessons — Join here.

25 October 2024 — Online Masterclass: SA’s very own “product legend” Roger Norton is here for the first in a three-part product building series — The Open Collab community exclusive.

1 November 2024 — Online Masterclass: Keep your B2B sales pipe filled Masterclass session with sales expert, Sebastian Chapman — The Open Collab community exclusive.

8 November 2024 — Online Masterclass: Part 2: How to keep shipping truly great products, fast — The Open Collab community exclusive.

14 November 2024 — Cape Town: In-person: Building SA’s most-used digital products — tickets available soon.

View all our upcoming events here.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

In the last 48 hours alone, in our online community, we…

• Helped Enrico find the No 1 🔥 note-taking app for meetings.
• Helped John find some of the best AI Pro packages out there.
• Marvelled at GPT4’s South African accent.
• Helped Jaco find some rad local providers for airtime via API.
• Discovered the world’s raddest tea thread.
• Spent an hour working together: From Blouberg to Durban, Pretoria to Düsseldorf and everywhere in between — we all logged in and it’s a vibe.

Coming Up Next Week

• Wednesday 10-11: Office Hours, where we all log in and work together, + the whole Open Letter team is at members’ disposal.
• New: Free monthly startup strategy calls for all Open Collab members.
• Support: All day, every day: unlimited introductions, recruitment, service provider referrals and business-building insights.

MEET THE STARTUP

The LinkTree upgrade every solo needs

Every day we meet local founders doing amazing things, and we bring them straight to you.

Trevor’s Savvy Sites lets solos and SMBs get online in just a few minutes… and soon accept and process easy payments via WhatsApp too..

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WHAT YOU SAID

A little bit of customer success

We asked how you talk to customer support, and WhatsApp gets the all-green…

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Anything but automated robot calls! 🤖 (24%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I actually like talking on the phone ☎️ (11%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Nope, it’s email or nothing 📧 (16%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 I like engaging on WhatsApp ✅ (44%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Can’t we just go back to good old face-to-face? 🤗 (5%)

Your 2 cents…

“I prefer a person to a bot or a mix that gives me real solutions.”

Joanne

Yeh, Joanne, if it adds to the experience or gets you helped faster, great. 🥳

“I have absolutely never had a good experience with WhatsApp as a channel for customer service. FNB once treated me to several hours of misery over three days just to request a simple transaction, for example. I have others.”

William

Eina, sorry William, yeh tech only helps when it actually HELPS, hey? 🤔

“It depends — If I'm going to be holding for a while, I'd much rather use WhatsApp, otherwise I've found that talking on the phone typically resolves my query faster.”

Jason

Guess it comes down to call volumes and query times, eh Jason? 🤙

“Providing customer support face-to-face is invaluable for start-ups. At this early stage, offering personalised assistance, even through video calls, helps build trust and ensures customer satisfaction. When your customer base is small, you can provide "white-glove" service, showing clients that their needs are a priority and addressing any issues promptly. As your business grows and scales, maintaining this level of personal support may not be practical, so it's important to maximise the opportunity while you can to create loyal and satisfied customers. Look after your first-adopters, they form the foundation of growing your client base.”

Trichardt

Pure wisdom, Trichardt! We always say find your ultimate five-star user experience. 👌