🏡 How to Sell 100+ Homes in 24 Hours…

Out of place? While simulating a moonwalk (for the first time in 50 years), NASA astronauts ran into a cow. Also, some cool pics of them training & sunrise on the lunar surface.

In this Open Letter:

• Big developments: How to sell 100+ homes in 24 hours.

• The PRO dive: Exclusive industry deep dives for PRO members.

• Ring Payments, PeugeotGPT & LinkedIn games with your boss.

• Upcoming events: Next-level online and in-person startup events.

• Max growth: The next 5 tools and partners to level up your business.

• The state of online fraud in SA: The results are in.

Plus: It’s a big day, we just launched PRO subscriptions, so today features bonus deep-dive content only PRO members can see — plus a host of awesome PRO benefits and access to exclusive Open Letter events.

Selling 100+ Properties in 24 Hours

If not in the first 2—5 minutes…

A recent popular measure is to sell new properties off-plan – a developer creates sketches or a demo build of what units in a new development will look like, and try to sell the homes before they’re even built.

Gaining traction in 1998, when SA implemented the Housing Consumers Protection Measures Act, buying off-plan promises buyers financial benefits:

• Better pricing and savings: It’s a little cheaper buying in early-stage development, and the value increases over time (plus transfer costs do not apply, although VAT does).

• Finance and payment flexibility: Normally, a deposit secures your purchase and then you can find your own home loan or use the developer’s own pre-arranged deals – but you usually only start paying interest once development is completed.

• Customisation options: You can usually ask for custom fittings and finishes, so it’s more your style.

And it’s good for the developer too, since they get some funding up-front, market validation through the early sales process and they can use economies of scale by purchasing building materials and contracting services in bulk.

Dream come true?

Not quite, buying and selling off-plan is pretty challenging at both ends.

The challenges in selling off-plan

• When you buy, you never know exactly what your property will look like until it’s done, which makes it harder to sell.

• Developers need to sell enough early on to raise working capital.

• High marketing costs – selling off-plan can require insane marketing strategies and expensive sales teams eating your margin.

For those reasons, there are only a few developers in SA that make money doing off-plan development. But that might just change…

Levelling the playing field

After years of helping property developers put in place more effective marketing material that gets results faster, local founders Brad M and Dean Lederle founded LaunchBase. Whilst they still perform the creation of marketing materials and ads, the magic lies in the online sales process that happens on their platform… 

As the launch day of off-plan property sales approaches, LaunchBase: 

• Markets upcoming sales through various platforms, including their own database consisting of thousands of investors.

• They then record interest and monitor engagement to accurately predict demand – lowering the risk of over- or underspending on marketing.

• This creates FOMO – gorgeous 3D models with live views of unit sales drive purchasing decisions.

Their results speak for themselves – some developments sell out in as little as 5 minutes, and others nearly sell out on launch day.

With LaunchBase offering a win-win for developers and buyers alike, it’s no surprise they’re making waves in PropTech. We’re watching this space…

PS: Their latest project, The Daily in Greenpoint, launches tomorrow (Wednesday 10 July 2024 at 1 PM). Check it out and see how a launch works in real time. Who knows, you might find something you like.

💍 Ring Payments. Not one, but two local companies are launching their contactless payment rings developed right here in SA.

🎮 Corporate Gaming. LinkedIn and YouTube have joined the ranks of tech platforms offering on-platform gaming in a bid to attract more users. But if you’re worried your 1st-degree LinkedIn connections are going to pester you for money to feed their crops on Farmville, fear not LinkedIn games are limited to once per day.

🚘 PeugeotGPT. Ever had a burning question you wanted to ask while driving? Well, if you own a Peugeot simply ask the i-Cockpit “OK Peugot” and fire away and have your question answered by ChatGPT. This is not available in SA just yet - but check back in 2025.

☁️ Head in the Clouds. Huawei South Africa and the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies are offering free training in cloud computing from the 22nd to the 25th of July for small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) as part of a Digital Entrepreneurship Programme. Applications close on 15 July.

⚡️Fission Mission. South Africa’s Minister of Electricity has announced that SA is working on a deal to secure the funds for a 2’500 MW nuclear power plant to increase the electricity supply and secure the country’s energy needs.

📈 Become a VC. CatalyzU is launching its 5th cohort of its VC fellowship program on 23 July 2024. The program is designed to give fellows a comprehensive understanding of the African VC landscape and ecosystem. Applications close soon, sign up here!

🎯 Key Metrics for Startup Success
What: Got a unit economics or metrics question?
When: 19 July 2024, 12:00. Where: Online — join from anywhere.
Who can join: Free to Open Letter Pro members - Upgrade now

🇿🇦 Specno’s Founder’s Den is coming to Joburg!
What: Startup people unite for a one-of-a-kind networking experience.
When: 25 July 2024, 18:00. Where: Old Mutual, Sandton
Who can join: Free. Apply for tickets here.

The Tools You Need to Level-Up Your Startup (Pt 2)

Last week, we showed you how to plan, design, get paid and be startup legal-wise. Now we need to get you the financial, marketing, growth and deal-making skills to take your business from here to the moon with the tools we use to move faster.

1. Understanding Money: OCFO

Up until a point, spreadsheets do the job. But when you need to make sense of your cash flows and start paying income tax, no one gets finance better than OCFO. From monthly accounting, bookkeeping, and financial planning to help you raise your next round of funding, with OCFO, you don’t need a CFO on payroll.

2. Scaling Well: Metavolve

We have personally felt it: Growing fast can be painful for a small team. That’s where Metavolve can help. Their scale program assists businesses in developing a clear understanding of how to grow with minimum pain.

3. Growing Your Brand: Stream

CACs are rising and ad effectiveness tanking. The new name of the game is building your authority and an audience with content on owned channels. But how many founders have the time and skill to do that (on top of everything else)? That’s why Stream is great for creating content for lead generation, sales funnels, ads and marketing, socials, blogs, newsletters, video scripts, speeches — everything you need to drive sales and conversions.

4. Automate Your Workflow: Make

Efficiency is key to startup success. That’s why we love Make for creating easy no-code integrations. Whether it's automating repetitive tasks, syncing data between platforms, or creating complex multi-step workflows, Make saves you time so your team can focus on what matters most.

5. Finding Clients: Apollo

Outbound sales can be daunting. Especially early days when you’re just starting and need to land your first 10 customers — doubly so if it’s enterprise sales. That’s why we love Apollo: It helps you easily identify high-quality potential clients and then reach out to them quickly and painlessly using automation.

We didn’t have space to show them all, so for more, head over to our preferred startup supplier stack.

We asked if you’ve ever been a victim of online fraud, and credit card fraud “wins” the day…?

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🙌 Fortunately not (35%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤏 No, but almost happened (19%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 💳 Yes, a credit card transaction that wasn’t mine (42%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🕵 Phishing or Vishing (4%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📳 A sim swap (0)

Your 2 cents…

Close one, Vakele. Glad you were able to sort it fast.