🍟 Making Fast Food Even Faster...

Weird news? While the rest of the world is getting worried about how much land and energy AI data centres are consuming, Europe is faced with a whole different problem: what to do with all its too-cheap energy. First-world problems, eh?

In this Open Letter:

• Revenue boost: Hawks, lions and faster fast food.

• Big office perks, more BRICS in the wall & Takealot’s Temu headache.

• Sweet deal: How to absolutely delight your first customers.

• What’s hindering SA homeowners: The results are in.

• Plug & play: 100 Startup ideas in Rbn industries.

Together with

TRENDING NOW

Hawks, Lions and Boosting Production Revenue

Imagine any production environment (factories, fast food restaurants etc.) where you have a host of humans without many standardised processes, task allocation or timed objectives… chaos. 

That’s exactly what manufacturing was like in the late 1800s until a gentleman called Frederick Winslow Taylor introduced :

• Time Studies: Measuring how long it took workers to complete various tasks and identify the most efficient ways to perform them.

• Standardisation: Advocated for standardising tools, equipment, and work methods to ensure consistency and efficiency.

• Task Allocation: Breaking down tasks into smaller, more manageable parts and assigning them to workers based on their capabilities.

• Training and Development: Importance of training workers to perform tasks most efficiently.

• Incentive Systems: Rewarding workers for meeting or exceeding performance standards, thereby motivating them to improve productivity.

His work laid the foundation of modern management practices and influenced later management theories, including operations management and quality control.

Lingering issues 

Needless to say, it had a great impact on output and productivity – but up until recently, it still had two major limitations:

• You can only pick up issues or inefficiencies in production after the damage is already done.

• Relying on human managers’ involvement can be too expensive for certain processes – even super managers only have so much time.

The latter has in some places been replaced by tech already. For instance, Amazon is gamifying its packing stations in warehouses to drive employee efficiency. 

But there is a new tech in town that’s taking this capability to a whole new level.

When AI marries Computer Vision

Imagine being able to track and analyse every single step of a production process and, in real time, relay feedback to the team executing the processes. This is what Hawktivity, a Stellenbosch-based computer vision startup is providing its customers.

Their solution uses video combined with data and algorithms to provide real-time guidance to optmises production processes. This kind of solution is particularly useful in time-study data gathering and manufacturing, but one of its early successes has been in quick-service restaurants.

The Hungry pilot

A recent pilot project in 50 Hungry Lion stores, helped the stores cut average customer waiting time in half. It did so by analysing queue length in real-time as well as the current pace of servicing customers, pinpointing the area of bottlenecking and alerting a team leader to send more staff to the bottleneck. 

But it’s not only waiting times and customer satisfaction that was impacted. The stores on the pilot saw:

• a 25% increase in revenue

• 30% of which can be attributed directly to the solution

• meaning, the solution helped increase revenue by 7.5% on average - pretty neat.

Taylor’s work brought about a revolution in manufacturing and his principles remain valid today. And with the advancements in computer vision and artificial intelligence, we are about to witness another iteration of major improvements in modern management practices. 

We are watching this space….

IN SHORT

☁️ Head in the Cloud. Africa Data Centres has secured R2 billion in funding to expand its operating capacity and meet the growing demand for cloud computing in SA.

💪 Octomorphing. Software product development consultancy Polymorph is joining Octoco, a Stellenbosch-based group of technology companies to complement the group’s technology consulting company’s services.

🤖 ChipTok. TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has joined the AI chip race with partnership talks (with a ‘Murcan firm no less) to design and manufacture its own AI chips.

🤕 Takealot’s Temu Trouble. Local e-commerce platform Takealot has recorded an R252 million trading loss over the last 12 months, pointing the finger at global competitors like Temu & Shein slinging their wares to local shores.

🤩 The Big Office Perk. In a bid to get more people back into the office, global companies are bringing out the big perk guns: a desk of their own. Yeah. The only thing employees value more than the freedom to work from home is having their own desk.

🤝 Building BRICS. At least 12 more countries are looking to join the BRICS bloc including Cuba, Venezuela, Turkey, Laos, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Kazakhstan.

The Truth about Getting Ahead in Life

“Enough money to cover 6 weeks' worth of expenses” – that’s what JPMorgan Chase believes the majority of households need to weather most financial storms that could hit. 

The problem however is that 65% of households don’t have this in place. 

The main reason? Failing to plan for it – or budgeting.

But we get it, budgeting is difficult when your income or spending is inconsistent. It simply “never” works out the way you planned. 

That’s why you need real-time tracking of income and expenses, automatically mapped to the right categories to keep you on top of your spending and work towards your financial goals. 

Start your journey to financial freedom with FinWise today.

BUILDER’S CORNER

How to Delight Your First Customers

by Renier Kriel from The Open Letter and Stream

“Do things that don’t scale” has become part of startup folklore. 

Written 11 years ago by YC founder Paul Graham, many have drawn inspiration from his often counterintuitive advice on, among other things recruiting your first customers, embracing fragility, creating insane customer experiences, containing your fire and delighting users. 

The TLDR (although you really should read it) – it feels wrong to do time-consuming things that you won’t be able to do once your company is economically viable, but by skipping those things you miss out on vital steps and learnings. 

So for today’s Builder’s Corner, we are focussing specifically on how to delight your first customers. WARNING: These things don’t scale… 

1. Solve their problems (and some more) as if they are your only customer, ever

We all know startups exist to solve customer problems and when you are building SaaS products, it's easy to fall into the trap of trying to solve “for the whole market” you’re chasing. The problem with that thinking is that, early on, the whole market aint buying. 

Let your customers feel like buying from you was the best decision they ever made and then, once they buy, exceed all their expectations. Why?

1. Early adopters are talkers. They like to be in the know and tell other people about the smart stuff they find. When you delight them, others will hear about it.

2. You will uncover nuances about their problems that are very hard to uncover when you service them at a distance. Get in the mud with them and you will learn a tonne. What’s more, your competition is likely not going to do it.

3. When you add more value than they could reasonably expect, it becomes easier to ask for a referral or get them to help you get another customer.

2. Champion their business

When they win, you win! Can you add value beyond what your product is doing for them? This could be in the form of an introduction, or insights on an observation. 

The key here is that, if they really feel like you are on their side, chances are you will get access to information, insights and relationships you otherwise would not.

Be proud of working with them and making a positive impact.

3. Add that personal touch

Like Paul Graham says, Tim Cook can’t send a handwritten letter with every Macbook sold, but you can. Use your smaller, nimble approach as a weapon to personalise your engagement. 

What does this look like?

• Handwritten cards are a good one, but many have caught on to this.

• Maybe a personalised welcome kit, including a note with a small gift or product sample.

• Anniversary and birthday surprises could work well if you can find the data.

• Most underrated of all? Call them regularly to ask how you can help them win, and then go and do that.

YOUR VOICE

We asked about the biggest barriers to home ownership in SA, and it’s pretty much prices…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📈 High property prices – "I need to win the lottery first!" (32%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😭 Can't save for a deposit – "Saving is harder than finding a unicorn!" (15%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ % High interest rates – "Banks are robbing us blind!" (16%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🫰 Low salaries – "I need a CEO's salary just to dream!" (22%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😈 Corruption and bureaucracy – "Too many palms to grease!" (3%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💸 High cost of living – "My grocery bill eats my savings!" (10%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏡 I’m too lazy to mow the lawn (2%)

Your 2 cents…

We feel your pain, Nix. Everyone’s out to get their pound of flesh.

Exactly Thula. And we already know how few South Africans have any sort of serious savings.

Sure a fixer-upper sounds like a fun adventure, but you’re gonna break the bank popping in by Builders every weekend…

Yeah, definitely Erla. That adds an extra layer of complexity to an already stressful situation.

100% — a double-whammy to the pocket.