Need a lozenge {{ FIRSTNAME }}? One of next year’s Miss World contestants won her country’s biggest beauty pageant by performing a death metal song for her talent segment. Wait. What?

In This Open Letter

When everyone’s fave loyalty aggregator stopped serving SA, this founder spent a weekend building an alternative and got acquired in less than a year…

Most founders take years to build their startup to exit stage. So we can all take a few lessons from Capetonian Byron Rode, who announced only last week that the product he built over a weekend last December sold to a mega SA media holding company.

It all started when everyone’s favourite loyalty aggregator pulled out of SA…

South Africans love our loyalty cards

As many as 82% of us use a loyalty program, with the average person belonging to 10.3 programmes. For a while, our biggest problem was how to carry all these cards with us.

Needing a digital storage solution, SA turned to Stocard, which quickly became one of the most-used third-party loyalty card aggregator apps in SA. Until one dark day back in July 2021, when Stocard was acquired by Klarna. It was a problem, ‘cos Klarna isn’t available in SA.

And it didn’t take long for Klarna to reimagine things. By 15 December 2024, Stocard was bundled into the Klarna ecosystem and, to our dismay, suddenly no longer usable in SA.

That’s when Byron saw his gap

Like a legend (and presumably a heavy former Stocard user), Byron built a working prototype overnight called Store (my) Cards, tweeting a link to The Good Things Guy, who reaches millions of South Africans per month via web, socials and video. 

The message spread that Stocard was gone, but there’s a homegrown alternative, and it gained enormous traction over the next few months: 26’000 app downloads, storing 115’000 cards, with 4’500 daily active users and 130’000 unique users every month. 

It was a startup fairytale, unlocking the cash to build extra features: Barcode scanning, Apple Wallet integration and, critically, insight into when and where users shop. The app can analyse shopping behaviour across major retailers and is building location-based promos and family sharing into its roadmap.

And big corps love that kind of thing

In November, just 11 months after the first iteration, The Glynt Group of companies acquired it, with Byron stepping into the role of CEO and Co-Founder of ignis, their innovation arm. Mega.

v2 of the now-rebranded (my)cards is currently in active development, with the next versions of the app live in the next few days, with a host of additional features on the roadmap.

But what lessons can SA founders take from Byron?

Now if only they’ll build a marketplace to trade loyalty points…

We’re watching this space.

Imagine if tomorrow, your startup could use the services and tech of one of SA’s biggest multi-million-Rand e-commerce operators – because you totally can…

“E-commerce businesses are logistics businesses” is a quote we often hear when speaking to experienced e-commerce operators.

Why do they say this? Because the success of your e-commerce business hinges on being able to get the product in shape, on time, to the right place.

But imagine you could get SA’s most experienced e-commerce fulfilment team, with a large network of drivers, to do that part for you?

Introducing, Takealot Fulfilment Services (TFS).

TFS provides reliable freight forwarding, courier, on-demand and supply chain services that streamline your operations and drive growth. We are talking about:

So whether you are delivering local or abroad, TFS can help you get it there on time, in shape and at the right place.

You have to see how TFS helps e-commerce stores suddenly scale…

🦄 Forget Unicorns. The University of Johannesburg (UJ) is set to launch the University Innovation Pod (UNIPOD), an innovation hub to empower early-stage entrepreneurs with tools, expertise, digital skills and networks to turn ideas into real-world solutions. Very cool.

🧮 Nice ‘n Easy. The Purple Group has released its 2025 financial year results, and it’s had a bumper one, with investment platform EasyEquities driving the group’s strong performance. Nice one.

🐔 Nostalgia Lane. Former Twitterer Jack Dorsey is backing a new app called diVine, which will bring back thousands of archived Vine videos from a backup of the popular 6-second looping vid site before it was shut down. Just look at all those chickens.

✂️ SA’s Doge-y Moves. National Treasury’s Targeted And Responsible Savings (TARS) initiative has managed to cut wasteful government spending by closing or scaling down low-priority and underperforming programmes to the tune of R6.7 billion in just 4 months of being in operation. Jinne.

✅ The Stack. Founders need reliable tools, so our Founder’s Stack gives you cloud services by Cloud on Demand, Africa-ready payroll & HR via Deel Local Payroll powered by PaySpace and loads more.

Yesterday, we showed you how Taptic is boosting education in Africa with open exam paper access, asking about your favourite subject in school. Most dig science and maths…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🗯️ Languages (12%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🧪 Science and Maths (42%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧮 Economics or Accounting (4%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🥪 Break (27%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏃‍♀️ PT and sport (15%)

Your 2 cents…

Nice, CA. We actually hear often of peeps now doing things in fields they disliked in school. 🍎

🐮 Senior System Analyst + 36 more roles @ Flash Group

💎Customer Support Manager @ Jem HR

🌳 Full Stack Software Developer @ Koola Capital

😎 Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) @ Matrix Software (Pty) Ltd

😎 Solutions Consultant @ Matrix Software (Pty) Ltd

🧑‍💻 Software Engineering Roles @ Octoco

🌮 Full-Stack Developer @ The Awareness Company

Hiring? Let us know here and we’ll feature it next week.

75% of workers in South Africa are “deskless”. Meaning they operate in the field (think security guards), on a product floor or in places such as coffee shops or restaurants.

It goes without saying that the conditions of these workers are vastly different from those of those working in offices or from home, and so are their needs.

That’s why Jem put together a research report on the South African Deskless Worker.

Want to learn more about how to empower deskless workers in SA?

Get the latest insights with Jem’s annual Deskless Worker Pulse report here.

Gold miners rallied after Harmony’s strong quarterly update, backed by record Rand gold prices, while Woolworths surged on trading updates showing above-inflation sales growth, with smaller industrials like Bowler Metcalf riding the upbeat sentiment.

Data from Investing.com (captured 13 Nov 2025, 1-Week performance)

Gold climbed as traders eyed a US government restart and softer yields, firming safe-haven bids.

+3.48% (R 69 190.61 → R 71 600.62)

Data from Investing.com (Fri 7 Nov 2025 → Thu 13 Nov 2025)

Bitcoin drifted lower despite choppy mid-week ETF flows, with dip-buying offset by ongoing redemptions.

–2.05% (R 1 788 410 → R 1 750 832)

Data from Investing.com (Fri 7 Nov 2025 → Thu 13 Nov 2025)

Ethereum slipped after breaking key support as sell-pressure rose and volumes spiked on the drop.

–0.68% (R 59 439.1 → R 59 034.1)

Data from Investing.com (Fri 7 Nov 2025 → Thu 13 Nov 2025)

🥫 Tool to Try: Emma is your AI food scanner that spots hidden sugars, allergens and health risks in your groceries.

🚗 That’s Interesting: The James Bond film Spectre wrecked $37 million worth of custom Aston Martin DB10s during filming.

🍀 Next Level: In 1998, a man named Bill Morgan woke up from a 15-day coma and won a $30’000 car in a competition. While re-enacting the win for TV, he won another $250’000.

🧠 Hack: Google owns the “.new” domain, so if you go to “docs.new”, it instantly opens a new Google Doc. Same for slides.new, sheets.new, keep.new, forms.new or cal.new.

💡 Wow Site: DumbassIdeas collects and shares hilariously terrible business ideas.

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