Coca-Cola dropped their annual Christmas ad, a remake of its 1995 classic. It was well received until people saw it was made by AI, with one TikTokker saying “Coke ruined Christmas”. Annnd of course, someone posted their unhinged version to Reddit…

In this Open Letter, we’re trying something a lil different on Fridays by featuring Five startups that you need to keep your eyes on — we call it Fast-Five-Friday… and it includes an all-new Jobs In Tech section and a new game, so be sure to keep scrolling!

Once done reading, hit reply and tell us what you think (even if you don’t like it).

1. EARLIER DAYS

Training That’s Actually Fun

Keeping your employees at the top of their game is crucial, but in many cases, traditional training methods that are slow and expensive just don’t cut it. Besides, modern ways of learning on mobile phones have proven to be very effective.

Take Duolingo, the world’s favourite language app, studies show that their learners can achieve similar levels of proficiency to students who have done four semesters of university in half the time.

So what if we take the power of mobile-first, reinforced earning and bring it to the workplace? That’s exactly what local startup Beeline does.

Beeline enables companies to create — or collaborate with their team to develop — fun, Duolingo-style training programs tailored to their needs. The result? Staff who not only complete training but actually enjoy it. Say goodbye to boring workshops and hello to the future of workplace learning.

2. GROWING NICELY

Mountain Bikes are Expensive, Insure it!

There are anywhere between 500k and 800k+ mountain bikers in SA. And it’s quite the money spinner, globally, bringing in a tidy $101 billion in 2023. With the average cost of a bike knocking you back R55’000 and a handful of change, it makes sense that these bikes need insurance… 

Enter Two Three Bird, a bicycle insurer with operations in the UK, South Africa, Australia, and the US. They recently acquired Project 529, a comprehensive registration and bicycle recovery service with more than 3 million searchable bikes on its database.

With the industry set to more than double to $228.90 billion by 2030, we think Two Three Bird might be onto something…

3. THE TIME IS NOW

Connect the World

When it comes to internet connectivity, South Africa is still very much unequal.

Leafy suburbs typically have access to fibre lines that cost anything from R350 to R1000 per month, and looking at household fibre data usage in Australia, it’s likely that South African households consume between 350 and 500 GB of data per month. That makes it less than R1 per GB.

Now, take mobile network data prices, which are the only option for many South Africans living in townships; we are talking about R40 - R100 a GB. That is 40-100x more expensive.

But fibertime is changing that. They install fibre infrastructure in townships and then sell daily uncapped vouchers for as little as R5. Depending on usage, the price per GB could be under R1.

With an estimated 11.6 million people living in townships in SA, this is a massive market. So, it is not only a lucrative business opportunity but a great way to provide more affordable access to all South Africans.

We had the founder of Fibertime, Alan Knott-Craig, on our podcast, How Would You Build It, recently. He shared stories of their failure at Mxit, success at Herotel, fibertime, and lessons they learned along the way. Listen here:

4. FROM THE OPEN COLLAB COMMUNITY

Grad Recruitment Sorted

Roughly 200k-300k university graduates hit the South African job market every year, and top companies scramble to find the best candidates. You have to market to various campuses, filter through hundreds of applications and under immense time pressure (the best candidates find jobs quickly).

Local scale-up Leaply tackles this HR pain head-on.

It offers built-in psychometrically pre-assesses and vets and recommends top graduate talent instantly and on-demand – simplifying the grad recruitment process into a simplified platform. What’s more, once you are registered as a grad on the platform, future jobs that appear that match your profile can also be sent your way.

Think of it as a lifetime recruitment friend — but not the annoying LinkedIn recruiter who slides into your DMs every six months asking if you’re “open to new opportunities”.

Find grad jobs faster than you can order a Sixty60

Wanna build with founders like Tiaan from Leaply? Come Join The Open Collab.

5. SUPPORT YOU NEED*

Now Anyone Can Sanction List Screen

In a mission to get SA of the FATF greylist, stricter anti-money laundering (AML) regulations now apply for businesses that deal with individuals where the movement of an asset is involved — think investments, sales of property or sales of any other assets.

Central to this AML process is checking whether individuals appear on international sanction lists — even better is ongoing monitoring to see whether any of your customers appear on these lists in the future.

That’s where local startup ZenDetect sorts you out. They onboarded Pioneer Finance within 2 weeks and helped them reduce their KYC overhead by more than 50%.

And to make it really easy for you to get going, they are offering FREE sanction list screening for a year for anyone onboarding sanction list screening before 15 February 2025.

All you have to do is book yours by 15 December, and BOOM, you got 1 year’s worth of savings to outprice your competitors with for Mahala.

IN SHORT

Some SA tech gossip for the braai…

⛰️ No Sloane Down. Africa’s largest startup campus and entrepreneurship hub, 22 On Sloane, has just opened its second local hub in Cape Town (Jozi has the first one). With co-working spaces, innovation spaces, a Game development studio, ecosystem events and networking opportunities, the hub is set to support Africa’s growing startup ecosystem.

🙅‍♀️ Anti-Spam. WhatsApp is testing new ways to let users provide feedback about whether or not they wish to receive marketing messages from WhatsApp Business accounts using ‘Interested’/’Not Interested’ for 4 specific categories of messages: marketing, utilities (order and account related), authentication (OTPs), and service (customer service).

🪙 Crypto House Hunting. In a first for the local property market, South Africans can now buy property using crypto thanks to a solution built by Broll Auctions and Sales, Schindlers Attorneys and Schindlers Digital Assets.

🇿🇦 Mission Impossible? Gauteng is getting new aluminium license number plates that can self-destruct when tampered with in a bid to clamp down on criminals making fakes. These new vehicle plates require an SABS certification mark, the SA flag, ZA, and a 1cm by 1cm security feature (a barcode) that will self-destruct if someone attempts to remove it.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with your own CTO for remarkable tech builds with Octoco, all your accounting sorted with Xero and 12 more vital startup tools & services.

STARTUP JOBS FOR DAYS

Got an itch for that switch?

• Senior Product Manager at Flash Group

• Full-Stack Engineer at Sweepsouth

• UX Designer at Amazon Web Services (AWS)

• MD/GM South Africa at Moove.

Hiring a Tech/Startup role? Reply to this email, and we will feature it here.

GAME TIME

Pick the Fake Startup

Let’s be honest, some startup ideas are downright wild. Below, you’ll find four options —three are real businesses, and one is completely made up. Can you spot the fake?

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*Zendetect has a paid partnership with The Open Letter