Long enough {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? China built the world's longest outdoor escalator, and it just looks incredible. At 905 metres, it's almost a kilometre long. 😳

In This Open Letter:

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide identify as “birders”, driving a R1.3 trillion global birdwatching tourism market (growing at 7% a year), yet they still use books – this SA team is moving it into the future…

South Africa has the highest number of endemic birds in Africa: species found nowhere else on the continent. Same logic as the Cape Floral Kingdom (the smallest of Earth's six, with over 9’000 plant species, 70% unique to this region), except we slap proteas on everything and mostly ignore the birds.

We're sitting on one of the world's most valuable birding destinations, ranked second globally for birdwatching tourism, yet our digital tools, like the rest of the world, are stuck in the field-guide era.

The local app giving SA birding its digital upgrade

Firefinch is a subscription-based birding app covering all 1’000 Southern African bird species — every bird ever recorded south of the Zambezi, plus SA's sub-Antarctic Marion and Prince Edward Islands.

Each entry includes hand-drawn illustrations (2.5 years just to complete those), edited photographs, sound recordings, sonograms, regional maps and classification data. In total: north of 7’000 individual content assets. And all of it works offline; essential when you're deep in the bush with no signal.

Built by Stephan and Ebbie Swart (tech guys, not birders), bird photographer Anton Kruger (birder since age 11) and Faansie Peacock, one of SA's leading ornithologists, or, as the team calls him, the Taylor Swift of birding. That split is the product's secret weapon: The beginners build until it makes sense to newcomers; the experts check it still satisfies the obsessives.

Firefinch recently launched Whistlr, a Duolingo-style feature that trains you to identify birds by sound. They've also spun out a standalone Kruger Birding app covering 550+ species with camp-specific maps and hotspot guides.

Completely bootstrapped, with a net-positive subscriber growth every single month since launch, Firefinch was an FNB App of the Year 2025 finalist and winner of Birding Life App of the Year 2026.

While most apps ship fast and figure out content later, Firefinch spent four years in production before releasing anything. In a world where AI can generate a field guide in minutes, that patience is their moat.

We're watching this space…

Forget free trials. This founder validated his app idea and made $100k in a single day: here's the entire playbook.

Shopify dropped a free AI design app. Tinker gives you AI-generated product photos, videos, 3D models, virtual try-ons and social ads — no Shopify account or subscription needed. Try it now.

40+ hours of business masterclasses. When you join The Founder Collab, you unlock practical sessions on marketing, sales, scaling and getting more customers alongside R40k+ in useful business perks. See what you get.

🧑‍⚕️ The AI Doctor Is In. Local ambient AI medical scribe Nora has just been acquired by the SA HealthTech company, Healthbridge, following an 18-month incubation partnership that saw Healthbridge take a minority stake, before it integrates with the full clinical suite. Cool approach…

🍎 Buy a Piece of Steve. Apple fanboys can now own a piece of Steve Jobs’ black turtleneck sweater through Apple’s 50th celebratory iPhone 17 Pros - Jobs Edition (9 units only), with a titanium Apple logo encasing a fragment of the turtleneck. Oh-kaaaaayyyyyy…

🚨 Hitting SA’s Data. The XP95 hacker group has said they’ve managed to get their hands on around 154GB of private and personal information from Stats SA. They’re demanding $100 000 (R1.7 million) in ransom, but Stats SA has refused to pay. Sjoe, ne.

🗳️ Where Will They Drop Their X? With SA’s local elections set for later this year (date still TBD), nearly half of eligible South African voters say that not a single one of SA’s more than 500 political parties actually represents their views. Ooof.

🇿🇦 Death By Regulation. A good place to start winning SA over would be by addressing SA’s business regulations. This as the latest OECD findings show that SA is now more restrictive than China, with a lot of startups at the bottom, rich corporates at the top, but practically no middle (which is what’s destabilising the economy, and thus, the country). Here’s what founders need to know.

🌾 Operations Simplified. InteliGro struggled with fragmented data and manual admin in their agri software. So Octoco built a unified system that cut admin, standardised crop recommendations and enabled faster, data-driven decisions for farmers and advisors.*

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

Yesterday, we featured Flourish, the SA platform making GLP-1 weight-loss treatment accessible and medically supervised. We asked what you think is SA's biggest obesity driver — and the verdict was loud and clear.

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🛵 On-demand delivery culture: money and convenience, no time to cook — 14%

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🥣 Food inequality: the cheapest food is the worst for you — 41%

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😵‍💫 Stigma and misinformation keep people from getting help — 7%

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🥼 We've never treated it as a real medical condition — 14%

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🖥️ Desk jobs and a sedentary lifestyle, watching various screens all day — 24%

Your 2 cents…

Nailed it, Kath — when the budget option is basically edible inflammation, the system's working against you from the supermarket shelf. 🛒

On 31 March 1880, Wabash, Indiana, became the first city in the world to be completely illuminated by electric lighting. Located along the Wabash River, its name comes from the Miami-Illinois term for "water over white stones."

Just two years later, in 1882, Kimberley became one of the first electrically lit cities in the world — and the first in the southern hemisphere to have electric street lighting. Some historians argue it was the second city on the planet after Wabash. Not bad for a diamond town in the Northern Cape.

From gas lamps to LEDs in 146 years. And half of Joburg still can't keep the lights on. 😅

🧩 Tool to Try: MascotVibe lets you create and animate brand mascots from a description or URL. Start free.

🌍 That's Interesting: A Canadian woman bought a lottery ticket, lost it, forgot about it — then lottery officials showed up at her door with $50m. They used CCTV and her credit card to find her.

🎨 Next Level: Watch this artist create an amazing 3D snake that pops out at you from a wall.

🛰️ Wow Site: A real-time counter showing the world spends $57'000 every second on military. Tracks the top 6 powers ticking up live.

🧠 Work Smarter: Neil Patel and Eric Siu break down how media companies and marketers are manipulating AI rankings and results right now.