Back to the future {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? A group of scientists have shown we can make quantum time flow backwards, and even generate a bit of power from the process. Anyone else wanna go back and see some quantum dinosaurs? 🦕

In Today's Open Letter

AI's been confined to the cloud for too long. Almost 80% of us don’t work at desks, just humans doing real work – so this startup's built the AI that comes in and runs your shop…

Factories, hotels, restaurants, shops, workshops, showrooms: Most businesses don't live on computers; they are real people, doing work in the real world.

And so, only 1% of enterprise software investment actually goes to helping these folks (mostly dumb spreadsheets and paper-driven processes), where AI can't do all that much yet.

Welcome to the real world

SA founder Fasie Malherbe had worked in the hospitality industry since the age of 14. And he'd always imagined software could help in real life; that's why he built Lobster Ink in 2006, a hospitality training platform reaching millions daily across 132 countries that sold to NYSE-listed Ecolab in 2019.

After that, Fasie wanted even more impact, so he spent the next 5 years studying computer vision, a way of teaching machines to interpret, analyse and understand visual information from the world.

And that's when he learnt a whole new trick…

The SA startup teaching AI to move people

Smart Operator (or "Ops" for short) is an operator performance system. Think of it as an extra set of eyes, ears and a brain for frontline teams: real-time, hands-free, in any of 85 languages (11 of SA's 12 included).

Ops runs on three modalities:

Computer vision plugs into any existing CCTV camera and reads the floor. It tries to spot a spill before someone slips, checks product consistency and flags when a station needs an extra pair of hands.

Voice means zero onboarding: You don't need to learn any new software; you just talk to it, and it talks back.

The intelligence layer sits on top of Gemini, but locked to a proprietary knowledge base per client (their recipes, their brand standards, their SOPs), so it doesn't hallucinate and doesn't just agree with you on everything you say.

Ops does three jobs: Learn, perform and connect. Hospitality staff can use video, audiobooks, and podcasts, as well as a live AI role-play to train on the job. While they work, Ops runs the audits and checklists. And then certifies them as they go.

We're watching this space…

Over the past year, The Newsletter Company has built and run newsletters for B2B clients across financial services, property, education and professional services. Every engagement is different: the audience, the angle, the cadence. But the performance pattern is the same.

Open rates land in the high 30s to mid-40s, roughly double the 22% B2B newsletter benchmark. Across every client, in every vertical.

One financial services newsletter grew its audience 83% in 12 months, from 942 to over 1'700 weekly readers, while holding a 35.6% open rate and a 0.5% unsubscribe rate across 53 issues. A property and AI newsletter hit a 45% open rate from its very first month. One professional services client saw a single article pull 105 named corporate readers, including a full demo wave from a major investment firm. One contact became 58 readers across the firm in three weeks.

The Newsletter Company is built by the team behind The Open Letter: 35'000+ subscribers, 41%+ open rate, daily at 6 am. They handle strategy, content, platform, growth and optimisation. No other SA agency has built this many commercial newsletters from scratch.

The results aren't theoretical. They're in.

Who still thinks you need a website to sell online?

Gqeberha-built startup The Messenger Network built Clinch, a chat-based commerce platform that lets local businesses list services, showcase products and chat directly with verified buyers, all entirely inside WhatsApp.

But here's what's really clever:

✅ Free plan: list your business + up to 5 products at zero cost
✅ Premium at R250/mo for unlimited listings; 8.5% fee only on completed sales
✅ Built-in payment processing, delivery/collection support and buyer protection

Customers simply message the directory to search, review and buy.

What could you build on WhatsApp today?

🏥 Your Records, Your Pocket. A new company called Medi Diary wants patients to own their health records: portable, encrypted, offline-first (works through load shedding), free for pensioners and the unemployed. We couldn't find a working website, but the concept sounds cool.

💾 40 Years of Profits in One Year. Samsung's chip division is set to earn more in 2026 than its entire 40-year history combined. Something like R3.18 trillion ($196bn). Its Q2 figure alone (~R895bn) would overtake Nvidia's most recent quarterly profit.

🚗 China Lands in Rosslyn. Chery has officially taken ownership of Nissan's 63-year-old Rosslyn plant in Tshwane. Already SA's #2 passenger brand behind Toyota, Chery owns brands Jetour, Chery, Jaecoo, iCaur and Lepas and wants to sell at least 100k new cars per year in SA.

🪩 Crypto Tax Confusion. SARS published its Draft Guide to the Taxation of Crypto Assets, and some critics already say it's years behind and unclear on the key questions. Yet another case of SA regulation battling to keep pace with tech?

🌾 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.

Plenty of SA founders discover, at the worst possible moment (mid-acquisition), that they don't actually own crucial parts of the business. So we got one of the country's best IP lawyers from Dommisse Attorneys to show us how to make sure the code you paid for is provably yours.

And it turns out, there are 4 specific steps to own the code you paid someone to build before it costs you a deal.

☝ Send this to a founder who built their MVP with a freelancer and a handshake.

Yesterday, we showed you Keychat’s WhatsApp commerce platform, asking if you’d order takeout on WhatsApp. Most here are game…

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🙌 Sold, I'm ordering tonight (24%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📲 Yes, if it's quick n easy (41%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍔 Depends on the restaurant, tempt me (9%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🛵 Only if the delivery's actually sorted (20%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏬 Nah, the big apps do me fine (6%)

Your 2 cents…

True dat, Rory. We imagine it’s best for quickly ordering the stuff you already know and love. 🍨

African game studio? Google Play's first-ever Indie Games Fund for Africa is offering $50k to $200k in equity-free capital to 10 studios across 32 countries. Applications close 31 July. Apply now.

Need more than just advice? The Founder Collab bundles R40k+ in tools, cloud credits, legal sessions and a curated founder community into one membership for SA tech builders. Join now.

Want free AI skills training? Google Hustle Academy 2026 offers one-day bootcamps and 60-min webinars for SA entrepreneurs and SME owners. Zero cost. Register free.

SA small business ready for the national stage? The NSBC Small Business Awards open on 14 July, with free entry for NSBC Platinum Members across 4 categories, including Startup Champion of the Year. Gala on 12 November. See details.

Research team solving alt-protein taste? Coefficient Giving is investing up to $10M in R&D grants ($100k to $1M each) for projects tackling off-flavour, fat alternatives, egg replacement and fish replication. Global applicants. Closes 10 August. Apply now.

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

🧩 Tool to Try: Unfollowers Tracker shows who unfollowed you on Instagram.

🏎️ That's Interesting: Ferrari has a set of rules its car owners must follow: no criticism of the brand, no unofficial modifications, no resale in the first year. Break them, and you face lawsuits and bans.

🐕 Next Level: This dog breed is known for doing absolutely insane jumps.

📼 Wow Site: KamTape is an accurate recreation of what YouTube looked like in 2007.