🇿🇦 The Special Forces of Startup Support…

Plus: Cheaper streaming, magnetic forests & the big four startup fits.

Newsletter

January 16, 2024

Space dust? NASA says it finally managed to open the container with the world’s first actual asteroid sample. It only took 3 months, but already scientists say there are super interesting hydrated organic compounds from asteroid Bennu in there.

In this Open Letter:

Venture studios: A new way to build a startup in SA.
Cheaper streaming, magnetic forests & accelerating Africa.
Easy growth: Ensuring you have the perfect market fit.
How we like our pocket AIs: The results are in.
Free stuff: Share this and get cool business tools.

Ultimate Startup Support in SA

In the startup-verse, the harsh reality is that the majority (9 out of 10) don't make it.

Yet, the prize and thrill of building a successful startup has many wondering, is there a better way? This has led to a whole host of mechanisms to help give as many new startups the best possible shot at making it.

At the core are the grassroots startup development initiatives we all know – accelerators like Y Combinator and Techstars, incubators and VCs to help fund and develop new ideas.

And they all fit together in a specific way:

Incubators are short-term programmes that validate ideas and help get early traction.
Accelerators are short-term programs for growth-stage startups (already have an MVP just need to grow) that help them reach a point of raising capital.
VCs are investors, offering capital to help startups reach their goals.

But there is another, slightly rarer and, some might say, more in-depth type of startup developer. One that acts more like co-founder…

Enter the Venture Studio – a game-changer for startup development

Venture Studios are like the special forces of the startup world. They're not just passive investors; they roll up their sleeves and get involved in building businesses from scratch.

Hotter than Stellenbosch right now…and that’s hot

They employ top people across various disciplines and bring them to the table to help you build while often supplying the funding needed as well – the whole shebang.

A scientific approach to building startups
Venture Studios don't gamble on hunches; they use a structured, gated process for developing and testing hypotheses. This approach allows for the early identification and discontinuation of less promising ventures, thereby focusing resources more efficiently on those with greater potential.

They learn the nuances of a startup in a specific territory faster
By managing multiple ventures at once, they accumulate knowledge rapidly across various sectors and technologies. This breadth of experience means they can avoid repeating mistakes, improving the success rate of new ventures.

They share expert skills across multiple startups
Venture Studios operates several ventures simultaneously, sharing expertise, services, and other resources between them all. This shared model is particularly beneficial for startups that need experienced, yet costly resources early in their lifecycle. In a Venture Studio, these resources are distributed across various projects, offering significant cost savings and synergies.

Opportunities for older founders
Contrary to popular belief, the typical successful founder isn't in their early 20s, but rather closer to 45 – experienced but often burdened with responsibilities that make high-risk ventures less feasible. Venture Studios offers a solution here: They provide roles like venture architects or venture owners, allowing “startup founders” to earn a salary while working on startups. While this might mean less equity than founding a startup independently, it also means less risk and a steady income — nice.

The numbers speak for themselves

Startups backed by Venture Studios have shown impressive Internal Rates of Return (IRR) – around 53%, compared to 21% for those backed by traditional VC funds.

In the South African eco-system, you have companies that do venture services like Specno who assist startups, corporates and scale-ups in building ventures. And then there are those like The Delta that have a hybrid model of building some of their ventures internally whilst also helping corporates build their ventures.

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A new way to build

But, you often get the best results when a studio builds along specific verticals…

This way they create synergies between startups that complement each other. Put a large corporate in the mix that has many problems to solve and opportunities to unlock and you might just create a powerhouse for SA startup creation.

And that’s exactly what's happening over at Next176.

Backed by Old Mutual, they’ve set up their own Venture Studio to create disruptive and innovative businesses as well as invest in growing startups — a hybrid model. And they have lofty goals – to positively impact a billion African lives – by focusing on consumer-led products in the Health, Education, Jobs, Business Ownership, Debt Management and Environmental Sustainability space.

Heck, they’ve already invested a collective R84 million into tech-driven startups like Kena Health and JOBJACK. And they say they are also building a bunch of new startups internally with some exits on the horizon.

So, with VC funding drying up, perhaps venture studios are the future of building startups in SA. We can see them having a major impact on the local ecosystem. We are watching this space.

IN SHORT

🫰 Cheaper Streaming. Showmax subscribers in SA can expect to pay 10% less on its monthly cost when it launches the much anticipated Showmax 2.0. Showmax is set to cost R89/month, while its mobile offerings are also set to be similarly discounted.

🦈 Magnetic Forests. A South African startup, SharkSafe Barriers has come up with an innovative, safe way to deter sharks from popular beaches: an array of flexible pipes that mimic a kelp forest (sharks steer clear of them) with magnets inside that disrupt sharks’ electromagnetic receptors.

🧴 Iced Sunscreen. Scientists at the North Pole have found traces of sunscreen in the snow after collecting glacier samples from the Brøggerhalvøya peninsula. Pretty interesting considering the sun doesn't shine there in winter, and could point to long-range atmospheric transport from contaminated air masses from Eurasia.

👟 African Acceleration. Pan-African venture capital firm Norrsken22 has opened up applications for its eight-week Accelerator Program for African startups. The program offers upfront funding of $125,000, as well as interactions with unicorn mentors and leading investors. Apply here now.

📵 Hanging Up. Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), Lyca Mobile has ended operations in SA, 6 years after entering the market. Lyca Mobile is one of the largest MVNOs in the world, with operations in some 60 international markets.

🌍 African Expansion. FirstRand is looking to acquire banks in the other African countries it operates in to capitalise on the rapid economic growth in other countries on the continent.

BUILDER’S CORNER

How to Make Sure You Have Market Fit

We often speak about product-market fit, which is just building the right product, the one the market needs most right now. And, generally, the market rewards you by buying it.

Startup guru Brian Balfour actually breaks market fit into 4 distinct categories. Each with its own exercises, measures and methods.

So, if you’re pretty far along and have a product already, this is one to pay attention to. (And if you’re still building, keep it in mind as a place to build towards.)

Nailing all 4 Market Fits

1. Market-Product Fit

How to Check: It’s sorta the opposite of product-market fit, in that this time you check to ensure that the market you’re targeting is the ideal fit for your existing product.

Do some surveys to gauge how well your product meets their needs – try the “bait” survey to find your superuser. And then look at customer satisfaction, retention rates, and your Net Promoter Score (NPS).

How to Get It: If you don't have Market-Product Fit, consider pivoting your product features based on customer feedback. Niching down on a specific segment of the market should do the trick. Find a few segments to test and see if you get better feedback, retention and NPS scores among those niches.

2. Product-Channel Fit

How to Check: Analyse the effectiveness of different marketing channels (Google VS social networks, Facebook VS Linkedin, Instagram VS TikTok, email VS app etc.) in reaching your ideal customers.

Look at your customer acquisition cost (CAC), conversion rates, and engagement levels in each channel. Your best channels are the ones where you have the best possible CAC.

How to Get It: To improve Product-Channel Fit, test different marketing channels and strategies. Optimise your messaging for each channel and focus on those that bring the highest quality leads at the right cost.

3. Channel-Model Fit

How to Check: Now you need to check if your business model works with your sales and distribution channels. How profitable is each channel for you? And then, how scalable is that channel?

Consider the lifetime value (LTV) to CAC ratio you get from each channel. You ideally only want to spend a low percentage of 20—30% of LTV as CAC, so look at the channels where you think that’ll be possible. Then, also analyse channels based on sales cycle length – the faster you can get to the sale, the better.

How to Get It: If you’re spending too much to acquire new customers, there’s only one of two options: 1) Find different channels that work better with your business model, or 2) Adjust your business model, pricing strategy or sales approach to better leverage existing channels.

4. Model-Market Fit

How to Check: Assess if your business model is sustainable and scalable in the market you’re currently targetting. If you niched down, check that the niche is big enough, reachable enough and able to pay in your competitive landscape.

If yes, great, go for it. If not, you’ll have to find a way to increase your potential market to unlock growth.

How to Get It: If you lack Model-Market Fit, you could try and discover a newer, larger market – though that’s easier said than done, and takes you back to Step 1.

More often than not, model-market fit might require you to pivot your business model. Maybe you can change your revenue model, target a different market segment, or adapt your operations to better suit the reality of the market (i.e. slim down operations until you are profitable in the current situation).

See how to reverse-engineer startup success.

Got a market fit hack to share? Hit reply and let us know…