Hi there,

Time to think twice? With so many companies announcing hiring freezes in favour of AI, the latest AI chatbot scandal should serve as a cautionary tale. Anysphere, the only startup to reach $100M ARR faster than OpenAI is in hot water after its support bot hallucinated policy and peeved off many users, costing subscriptions and a potential valuation backlash.

In this Open Letter:

• Skilling ‘em up: The startup with an 80% new dev creation rate.

• Smart moves: Want to know how much your business is worth? We got you.

• OpenAI’s agent cheatsheet, startup pitching & SA’s guaranteed jobs.

• Builder’s corner: Bootstrap 101, AI agents & Google acceleration.

• What most of us keep in a safe: The results are in.

• Lonely building your startup? Join The Open Collab and get support.

First time reading? Join 23,011 South African professionals and sign up.

TRENDING NOW

A 90% New Dev Placement Rate in SA

In today’s Tuesday Deep Dive, we look at Africa’s dev skills gap and meet a local startup solving for a better way to train new devs with an 80% success rate and 90% placement rate…

You can't blame someone for thinking ZA’s tech and startup scenes are heading to the moon… what with recent funding raises by Jem and Stitch, and the startups The Open Letter covers week in and week out.

But an underlying issue might just cause big headaches for startups, corporates and anyone wanting to build innovative tech products locally… the skills gap.

There are only around 700k software devs/programmers/engineers across the African continent, with just over 133’000 of those calling Mzansi home (the highest number across the whole continent).

Even our BRICS buddies are churning out more software champs:
🇧🇷 Brazil: 632k
🇷🇺 Russia: 830k
🇮🇳 India: 2.5 million
🇨🇳 China: 3.8 million
🇿🇦 South Africa: 133k

Our limited local supply issue is also exacerbated by international companies luring away SA talent (around 50%, according to informal chats with reps at Offerzen) with big paychecks and even bigger opportunities elsewhere.

Traditional tech qualifications are bottle necking

Tech is evolving at an alarming rate – just look at ChatGPT acquiring 1 million users in 5 days in 2022, when before that, Instagram took 2.5 months, Facebook 10 months, Airbnb 2.5 years and Netflix 3.5 years. 

That’s sped up to 1 million users in an hour in 2025, and that rapid evolution of tech means today’s tech skills may become obsolete in a few years. 

Studies suggest that the half-life of technical skills (i.e. how long before a skill becomes half as valuable) is now less than five years. In some tech fields, it's as low as two and a half. Goodness gracious.

This means your traditional tertiary degree (like a 3-year undergrad Computer Science) takes longer to complete than the remaining lifespan of your acquired knowledge.​ While the way of thinking and level of complexity in bachelor's degrees definitely does help, many South Africans simply cannot afford the roughly R200k per year required to study at a university (fees, accommodation and living expenses).

The alternative? A jam-packed coding course that gets you into the workplace asap.

A local EdTech for Tech Ed…

Zaio is a local tech training platform, offering an alternative approach to tech education. 

With accredited, 100% online bootcamps focused on practical, project-based learning in full-stack web development, data science, cybersecurity and cloud engineering available from anywhere, 24/7, 365, they can run six cohorts of 30–50 participants per discipline per year (that’s between 720 and 1’200 students a year).

Combining pre-recorded content with live classes and a proprietary coding editor makes for an interactive and collaborative learning environment – as a video plays, it pauses and prompts students to complete specific coding exercises and assess these in real-time before continuing.

And, of course, Zaio bolsters learning with the latest tech…

Leveraging AI for personalised learning

Something we found really interesting is how Zaio integrates AI to provide immediate, personalised feedback for students – as learners progress, AI analyses their inputs, identifies recurring mistakes and offers tailored guidance, creating an adaptive learning method that’s available 24/7.

And it seems to be working: Zaio has an 80%+ student pass rate and is making a serious contribution to adding more devs to the ZA tech space.

We caught up with Zaio Founder & CEO, Mvelo Hlophe, who says Zaio has a 90% graduate placement rate, with companies like Amazon, Google, FNB, Accenture and Rain, nogal. 

Zaio’s training is attractive for big players, partly because their courses can be tailored specifically to help corporate partners align with skills development goals, help satisfy BEE scorecard requirements or run SETA-funded learnerships, etc.

With EdTech platforms like Zaio building an AI-leveraged tech talent engine and getting new devs placed 90% of the time, we’re watching this space…

CHECK THIS OUT

What’s Your Business Worth Right Now?

(And how does that compare to last quarter?)

If your long-term goal is to sell your company or attract serious investment, the end of Q1 is the perfect time to take stock of your progress.

Just like reviewing your KPIs or financials, a business valuation should be part of your quarterly rhythm. Why? Because tracking your valuation over time helps you see where you’re gaining ground… and where you’re leaving value on the table.

A good valuation goes beyond revenue and profit. It tells you:

✅ What’s driving your business forward
✅ Where there are gaps or risks
✅ How your team, brand and customer base add real-world value

We’ve partnered with bizval to give all Open Letter readers a free express business valuation, so you can benchmark where you are and start building a roadmap for more.

And if you’re ready for a deeper dive, bizval is offering 10% off all paid services — just use the code THEOPENLETTER at checkout.

Founders who win don’t wait until exit to determine their worth. They track it — quarterly — and make sharper moves because of it.

IN SHORT

Let’s catch you up right now…

🔍 Job Hunting in SA? AI skills are no longer a buzzword in hiring, but fast becoming one of the most attractive skill sets in the workplace. According to online recruitment platform Pnet, the number of AI professionals securing new roles has seen a 96% increase from Q4:2019/Q1:2020 to Q4:2024/Q1:2025, with demand for AI professionals jumping 183% between Q1:2018 and Q1:2024. Hot dang…

🎤 Startup of the Year Live Pitches. Don't forget to get your tickets for Innovation City’s Startup of the Year Live Pitching event on Wednesday night (23 April) in Cape Town. 10 SA startups go head to head in a live pitch event at Innovation City, with the winner walking away as SA’s Startup of the Year 2025. Pull in, we’re gonna be there.

💰 Jozi’s Big Pitch 2025 Qualifier. Get your tix to the first in-person qualifier of The Big Pitch 2025 hosted by Startup Club ZA and SA Future Trust. On Wednesday night (23 April), 10 startups will compete in the Jozi Regionals (with CT’s regionals happening in August), for a $1 million investment. Nice one.

🌳 Fast Tracking Environmental Screening. South Africa’s Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment has launched the National Web-Based Environmental Screening Tool, enabling developers to assess site sensitivity and streamline environmental approvals. Having already processed over 3,000 applications, the platform is showing the value of reducing bureaucratic delays to facilitate faster decision-making.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with super streamlined business registration and compliance via Govchain, all your tech recruitment sorted by OfferZen and loads more vital startup tools & services.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

In the last few days alone, in our online network, we…

• Confirmed our next event speakers: 2 founders who’ve collectively raised some R2.8 billion — looking forward to seeing everyone round 22 May 📢.

• Discussed corporate hiring freezes in the face of AI, on the back of news that Mediclinic’s freezing to save R2bn per year.

• Learnt about a 🥇 ChatGPT prompt to discover your own blind spots.

• Gave members first dibs on a mobile project build opportunity.

• Helped Carlin get some contacts to help him invest company profits wisely.

• Discovered the world’s best AI notetaker — by far.

• Seeing loads of founders listing startups on our community boards, nice 💃🏻🪩

Thinking about joining The Open Collab?

• Supercharge your network in the SA startup landscape — get that introduction, get that customer, or meet that partner.

• Get feedback on your products, services and/or offers from others who have built and are building their own products right now.

• Join all our online and in-person events for free!

• Exclusive 1-on-1 sessions with startup consultants.

SA’s only dedicated tech startup and scale-up founder network.

WHAT YOU SAID

All in there…

Last Tuesday, we asked about the most valuable thing you’d put in an intelligent safe, and the farm’s the way…

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 💍 Gold/Jewellery (20%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🪙 A rare collection of coins/Pokemon cards (9%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🌱 Seeds for when the Apocalypse hits (14%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📷 Gigs of evidence confirming UFOs/Bigfoot/other conspiracy (9%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ❤️ The fam (albeit a tight squeeze) (26%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 🔫 Firearms (22%)

Ha ha, yes Andersen, maybe that should be our next topic… 🕵🏻‍♀️.

Argh, sorry Mervyn — our mistake. See below: If you share The Open Letter with 1 friend or colleague, and they sign up, we’ll send you the list of 100+ data-backed SA business needs… 👇