Remember that fashion company tryna charge people R10 million for a T Rex-leather handbag {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? Yeh, scientists say it's basically just bacteria and chicken skin.

Send this to a friend you'd take to Jurassic World. 🦕

In This Open Letter:

Early Moss Group studies show SA trades about 1.2 billion items of clothing per year, with fashion making up 30% of Shopify’s 11 million stores, yet it takes retailers months to photoshoot and get every item live – so this local duo’s cutting that down to minutes…  

In fashion, every item (SKU) needs studio time, models, editing, localisation, influencer content and seasonal refreshes to be live on your website. But many retailers still work on magazine-era systems: Ship samples to a Cape Town studio, brief them, cast models and deal with 10 thousand little problems just to get the collection live and online.

It can take weeks to months just to get 100 items online, with a single fashion production shoot costing R27k-R500k per day.

You know we gotta help them do it faster…

The local startup rebuilding the production line

Fashion Labs is building AI-powered visual production for fashion and beauty. It’s essentially a way for retailers to dress models without models, cameras or studios.

The platform does two things:

This means infinitely reusable creators, asynchronous and localised campaigns, as well as creator monetisation without creator presence…

Founder Chi Chinake and advisor Simba Mubvuma met in the US, where they were both studying and working, before starting on the project with one question in mind: How to reduce the time to live for fashion and beauty brands.

With Fashion Labs, brands can now flat-lay a thousand SKUs and go live within a week. 

An additional layer is Malva, a virtual fitting room that lets users create a digital twin to try clothes on virtually before buying. If you get in with retail clients for big-brand catalogues and influencer campaigns, Malva, white-labelled, could be a nice upsell further upstream.

We're watching this space…

If clients aren’t sure if they can trust you, you need to bring in the experts. And that’s why DoubleShift works with three kinds of clients:

Sound familiar?

Here's how it works: You start with a conversation (no pitch), where DoubleShift gets into the specifics of your business (your product, competitive landscape, commercial ambition) and then, if they find the positioning truth that creates clear differentiation that can help build your brand, narrative and creative system, they’ll help you carry it into the market.

They're based in Cape Town and Pretoria, B-BBEE Level 2; their clients include Monavate, Lesaka and Retail Capital, and they only work in high-trust, high-complexity industries (you know where generalist agencies fall short).

Paid ads leaking money? We brought in a 16-year SA ads veteran to show you how to audit your ad account and improve results in 30 minutes flat. Get the step-by-step here.

Your desktop's first self-driving brain. Hyper (YC-launched) is an AI agent that picks up decisions from your team's Slack, docs and emails, then auto-feeds them as context into every tool you use. Currently in beta. Check it out.

Weekly accountability + R40k in free tools. The Founder Collab gives you expert masterclasses, a high-trust community of 140+ SA tech founders, and a stack of business perks from day one. See what's inside.

⚡ Bolt Goes Electric. Bolt has officially launched an EV ride category in South Africa, starting in Cape Town through a fleet partnership with YugoRide and China's Dongfeng. The target: 500 electric vehicles on the platform by December 2026.

🎵 Logo-Gate. Spotify swapped its iconic green circle for a glittery disco ball to celebrate its 20th birthday — and the internet absolutely lost it. The backlash got so loud that Spotify's already confirmed the old logo returns next week.

📞 SA BPO Under Pressure. SA's R53 billion BPO sector is facing a growing squeeze as AI automation threatens the very jobs that made us the world's second most attractive outsourcing destination. Can SA move up the value chain fast enough?

🔒 Ransomware Hits Home. SA organisations are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs of global ransomware groups. With attacks growing in frequency and sophistication, the message is clear: cyber resilience isn't optional anymore.

🌍 Going Global, Part 2. SA founders looking to take their companies international need the right structure, jurisdiction and people. Finance Isle of Man helps you get in the door, with 0% corporate tax, 50+ double taxation agreements and a government-backed body that connects you to the right experts.*

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

Yesterday, we featured CA-Live accounting study platform, asking what would've made the biggest difference in your study journey. The answer? Overwhelmingly human…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🎓 Better access to affordable tutoring (8%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📱 A 24/7 AI study buddy I could tap into anytime (25%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🚂 Content I could consume on the go (8%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤝 Mentorship from someone who'd already walked the path (45%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ⏰ More hours in the day (14%)

Your 2 cents…

In an age of infinite AI tutors, that sounds like the way. 🤝

On 19 May 2001, Apple opened its first two retail stores in McLean, Virginia and Washington, D.C. They attracted 7'700 shoppers and sold $599'000 worth of product in the first weekend.

Technology experts at the time called it a terrible idea. But the stores became one of the key drivers of the company's resurgence in the 2000s.

🧩 Tool to Try: LivePlant identifies 400k+ species and gives you adaptive care reminders based on season.

🌍 That's Interesting: Your brain literally washes itself while you sleep: brain cells shrink so cerebrospinal fluid can rush in and flush out toxic proteins built up during the day. Sweet dreams.

🎨 Next Level: The view from a retractable sports stadium roof.

🕹️ Wow Site: Why are you doing whatever you're doing when you could be flying Mittens through space instead?