Building a new business {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? It's simultaneously one of the hardest things a human can do (your great idea getting knocked like this rocket got whacked by lightning 3 days ago) and the most rewarding when you make it.

But it just became way faster and cheaper to try, so today, we look at where SA's next wave of great founders might come from…

Plus:

Forget the dropout in a hoodie. South Africa's sharpest potential founders are probably middle-aged, sitting three desks down from you in a corporate open-plan…

The "average founder is 45" statistic comes from an MIT and US Census Bureau study of 2.7 million founders, tracking the top 0.1% of startups by growth. This wasn't a survey. It looked at the actual people who built the fastest-growing companies in the economy.

It makes sense: The best startups usually come from people who've spent years living the problem.

So why aren't more of those people building companies?

Because they're also the people with the most to lose: a R100k+ salary, bond, kids in school… Until recently, starting a company meant resigning into years of little or no income, with slow and costly build processes making it a risk those with the best domain knowledge just couldn't take.

But now AI has changed that equation

Before The Open Letter, Renier ran one of the larger software development agencies in the country (building the first mobile apps for Checkers, Takealot and MTN). So we know the old cost models.

This year, Renier built both himself with AI, part-time, in roughly 4 months combined. And they're not demos; together, they've already generated over R1 million in revenue and served more than 1'200 unique customers.

That's why we think this matters even more in South Africa: Our future founders are already sitting inside banks, mines, hospitals, insurers and telcos. They've spent years building deep expertise, and now the barrier is much smaller to get into a side hustle or build your own company. The first step doesn't cost a million Rand anymore.

Once your prototype becomes something you want to own and maintain long-term, it's worth moving to a coding agent. OpenAI's Codex is a leader in this space, and Anthropic's Claude Code is particularly strong at working across large codebases.

Now that there's so much less risk, what will you be building?

That annoying piece of software you're forced to use is on notice: Citizen development is the growing trend of non-technical employees using AI to build their own applications, agents and automations.​

And it could be one of the biggest productivity shifts in the workplace

Think:

It's already happening in offices every day. And, sometimes, you, as the owner, don't even know about it. So, starting today, we will be featuring tools, tech and insights on how to become a great citizen developer.

As we get going, Alex Lieberman recently shared the Citizen Developer Life Cycle. A solid framework for how to let your team of citizens loose on solving business problems: 6 steps, each with critical questions and gates on how to turn employee-coded tech into usable, secure and production-ready apps.

Power to the citizens!

Let’s say your management pack lands on the 12th and revenue’s up 8%, gross margin held, but payroll ticked up slightly. Fine.

Then on Thursday a client asks for a 15% discount to renew, and you have no idea whether to take it or not, because the report from the past doesn’t make the future clear and actionable.

That is the gap: Financial reporting is accurate and necessary, but it can’t answer the questions an owner actually walks around with: What should I charge? Can I afford this hire? Which client should I let go?

Translating that report for forward decisions (matching invoices against actual costs, salaries and time) takes way too long.

You need a better way to move forward.

LinkedIn is not a noticeboard. And making your time spent there turn into actual business requires strategy. So we got an SA LinkedIn operator to show us how it's done.

These are 5 specific steps to grow your network and win clients on LinkedIn instead of posting into the void.

☝ Send this to a founder who's "on LinkedIn" but never gets anything from it.

⚖️ Anvaya Gets Institutional Weight. SA legal AI startup Anvaya has raised a seed round from 3CV, validating the thesis that highly skilled lawyers still waste disproportionate time on process-heavy work. SA's vertical AI-meets-SaaS thesis is no longer an anecdote.

📡 Give SA Starlink Already. A legal expert is calling for temporary licence waivers so Starlink and Amazon LEO can plug SA's rural connectivity gaps while ICASA sorts out the red tape. Not sure if the plea will have an impact, but you know we wanted Starlink yesterday already.

🤖 Robot Teacher, Meet Reality. A New York school announced it's deploying a humanoid robot to tutor kids 24/7. Small problem: the company behind it has ties to a sex doll manufacturer. Also, one robot for how many kids? There'll be a two-day waiting list. Pretty sure ChatGPT on your phone is better.

📉 Vodacom Cuts Dividends. Vodacom has scaled back its dividend payout policy from 75% to 65% of headline earnings to fund its growth push, including a R800m injection into fibre group Maziv. Hmm, wonder what SA pension funds (some of their biggest investors) have to say about this?

🎯 Leads Unlocked. Former Springbok Bob Skinstad has the presence but not the time to build LinkedIn. So FDC turned his profile into a lead engine that's driven 33.5 million impressions, 70k+ new followers and at least 2 quality business leads per month.*

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

Yesterday, we featured Véraison AI vineyard monitoring, asking if you even knew SA wine was at risk. Most started panic-buying already…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🍷 No, and now I'm panic-buying pinotage (47%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😶 I thought "farm-to-table" meant the wine was fine (22%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🤖 Just tell me the robots are saving the grapes (31%)

Your 2 cents…

We're game if you are, Elke… 🍷

On 28 July 1981, IBM introduced the System/23 Datamaster, a desktop computer designed as a word processor and data processor that end users could set up themselves (no computer specialist required).

It legitimised the concept of computers as workplace tools and became the forerunner of the famous IBM PC.

Building & Scaling VC-Backed Businesses, 30 July, Stellenbosch: Brett Commaille in the hot seat, Thalia Pillay on the panel. Get your ticket

Faith in the Workplace, 4 Aug, Pretoria: Boshoff Grobler (founding CEO, Ashburton Investments) and Ipi Thibedi (GMD, Ogilvy SA) on living your faith while leading. Book now

Work Rewired: Hiring, Skills & Careers in the AI Economy, 13 Aug, Cape Town: How AI is reshaping hiring, skills and what future-ready talent looks like. Get your ticket

Powered by Radi. Want your business event in front of 36,000 The Open Letter readers? Host it on Radi, and it lands here.

🧩 Tool to Try: IntentHunter monitors Reddit, Hacker News, X, YouTube and LinkedIn for people actively asking for what you sell.

🌍 That's Interesting: One of the most popular actors in China is Canadian Mark Rowswell, known as Dashan in Asia. Funny thing: Almost no one in the West has ever even heard of him.

🎨 Next Level: This waiter does his job on a Segway.

🕹️ Wow Site: Transita will tell you which countries’ visas you qualify for, for free.