Takesy backsies? A month after firing 45 customer service employees to replace them with AI, Australia’s largest bank has hired them all back with a note: “yeah, sorry, the AI’s not that good”. 🙈

In Today’s Open Letter

Despite having more than double the users of PC and console combined, mobile gaming makes way less ARPU at higher CAC – that’s where these okes from SA come in…

South Africa doesn’t have many game development companies: Only two employing more than 10 people since 2022-ish. It’s a cut-throat industry that’s been battling with mass layoffs and declining revenue for two years now.

Perhaps because it takes so much in marketing spend to get any real traction, the type of risky funding very few locally have access to.

In fact, it’s estimated that 20% of user acquisition spend is wasted by this $30bn a year industry (that’s R529bn, wasting around R105bn every year) because, well, they just don’t know who, how and why some games take off while others tank.

Rumours are that Candy Crush spent over $1M per day on marketing to anyone and everyone, just to keep getting the numbers. But how do you replicate that in an industry with over 100 million game downloads per day?

Short answer: You can’t. Investors won’t just keep forking over cash to burn.

That’s why a group of South Africans set out to help global gaming companies make sense of it all…

The locals demystifying the play

Kohort is a scale-up built by South Africans Dan Marcus and Jan Pickard that’s working tirelessly to help mobile gaming companies gather better data so they can use their acquisition money smarter.

It all started when Dan and Jan met Australian co-founder Angus Lovitt, who had worked at King Digital Entertainment (Candy Crush), explaining how little insight gaming dev teams have into their actual players – who’s playing what and how.

They started Kohort in 2018 to figure out how to collect cohort data in gaming (we wrote about it last year) for better user insights after a $5M seed round in 2023. Doing really well on that front, they just raised again (July 2025) with US banking group Raine, to build a complete, end-to-end user acquisition system for the gaming industry.

We caught up with Dan recently on the How Would You Build It podcast to learn what it’s like building a business across continents, and he shared some real gems, including:

Click the image for all the insights 👇

Tip: If you enter your email directly on the podcast site, you’ll receive every new episode directly in your inbox.

Who has time to manually send invoices?

CmdSharp lets SMEs send a WhatsApp voicenote to auto-send an invoice from anywhere:

✅ Say “Invoice John for repairs R200”
✅ Or type “I @john #repairs R200”
✅ The bill lands with the client in 11 seconds

Now that’s using WhatsApp as a real cash-flow accelerator for real work.

What would you build on WhatsApp today?

AI is highlighting the poor quality of data everywhere…

AI is only as good as the data you feed it. And right now, most businesses have a problem: their data is a mess.

Dashboards full of numbers don’t equal strategy. Reports crammed with metrics don’t guarantee insight. If your data is scattered across databases, file systems, and tools, your “strategy” is still running on gut feel — reacting to old problems instead of planning for new opportunities.

That’s where Sidekick Lab’s Auto-Discovery comes in

In just days, we turn data chaos into a clear, searchable foundation:

✅ A super-index with built-in business context and guardrails. 
✅ Your team can ask thoughtful questions in natural language.
✅ And get reliable, actionable answers, instantly.

When your data is organised, your AI projects stop guessing and start delivering real results. The companies that make this shift will gain a decisive edge.

🚀 StraTech's Big Step. SA FinTech StraTech has secured funding from VEA Capital Partners to expand its enterprise financial systems across Southern Africa. Nice one.

🎥 YouTube's Secret AI Tweaks. YouTube has admitted to secretly using AI to enhance Shorts, aiming for crisper videos, with users pointing out the too-smooth edges, weird artefacts, and a generally ‘AI look’. Are we being primed and desensitised?

🔒 Locking it Down. Standard Bank has unveiled a new virtual credit card; the bank is so confident in it, it’s given users a “100% credit fraud protection promise”. Hmmm. Ok.

👵 Retirement Planning’s Healthy Twist. Discovery has just launched The Lifespan Linked Income Plan, built to help South Africans manage the financial risks of living longer across 3 distinct retirement phases. Very interesting.

✅ The Stack. Founders need reliable tools and suppliers. That’s why our Founder’s Stack gives you the best in IP offshoring and global market access with Finance Isle of Man, all your VC and startup legal sorted by Dommisse Attorneys, and loads more vital startup tools & services.

Yesterday, we told you how AI Tenders is making Gov tenders more transparent for SA SMEs, asking what the words “government tender” mean to you. And it’s not a very trusted phrase…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🫠 Complexity (4%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 😎 Corruption (77%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤑 Opportunity (but only for big players) (4%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤕 Headache (9%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤔 Hang on a minute (6%)

Your 2 cents…

Indeed, Rushana, and hopefully, a more transparent process brings it a little closer. 🚀

Need to get funding-ready? Investec and Outsourced CFO’s Founders Foundation Accelerator Programme is now accepting new applications: With over R79 million raised, this is ideal for SMEs of 2+ years and R1m+ annual revenue looking to scale. Apply here.

Win R300k for SME excellence. Lula and News24 are awarding R300k in various categories in the inaugural SME Excellence Awards. All you need to enter is a 12-month track record and annual turnover of R500k+. More details here.

Looking to raise $50’000? The MEST Africa Challenge 2025 is a pitch competition for early-stage startups in FinTech and digital value chains — from agri-tech to credit innovation. Enter before 26 September right here.

Want to promote your event/programme here? Let us know.

🛠 Tool to Try: Informed lets you pick news sources and topics — then reads your daily brief in a voice you love.

🤔 That’s Interesting: “Shampooing” hit Europe in 1814 via a travelling Indian entrepreneur — part hygiene, part showmanship.

🔥 Next Level: Core strength, reins and rhythm — this is how archers train to fire from horseback.

🍔 Hack: End every work/study session by writing one line for “future you” (what to do first next time). It kills morning inertia.

🌐 Wow Site: notscare is a jumpscare database with timelines, counts and links to where there are jump scares in movies, so you beat the spooks.

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