Early Black Friday? Online retailer Zando announced that they are pulling out of South Africa. The upshot of this, though, is they’re selling all their stock at like 50-85% discount with free delivery.

In this Open Letter:

• Vital charge: The startup that helps save South African lives.

• Local EVs, deepfake Elon & AI drones to save your potatoes.

• Lonely building your business? Join the Collab’s Chat Roulette.

• Our fave traffic light behaviours: The results are in.

• Short on ideas? Share this and get 100+ SA startup ideas.

Together with:

TRENDING NOW

The New Tech Saving SA Lives Every Day

It’s no secret that it’s hard to get a hold of the cops in SA…

Around 26% of calls to 10111 are dropped. And if your call does get answered (anywhere between 8 and 35 minutes), our guys in blue are stretched pretty thin, with around 145’200 cops to keep 62 million of us in check. 

For context: The police-to-population ratio in SA is 1:427 – the United Nations recommends a ratio of 1:220, so we are barely halfway there…

Can technology help improve the situation?

Technology can be highly effective in crime detection and prevention. Just think:

• Surveillance, monitoring, and behavioural analysis: AI-powered surveillance systems can analyse footage in real time, identifying suspicious activities or behaviour that might need police intervention.

• Gunshot detection: AI-based acoustic sensors can detect gunshots, pinpoint their location, and alert law enforcement instantly.

• Predictive policing: AI algorithms can analyse historical crime data, identify patterns, and predict potential crime hotspots.

But ultimately, no matter how cool the tech is (or how powerful), for now its going to require human intervention to respond to emergencies.

A local platform with your nearest first responder at your fingertips…

AURA is a B2B platform that allows anyone to access a vetted, first responder (be it security or medical) that’s closest to their location in the event of an emergency.

They’ve built a response tech platform that sits behind their API which companies (like insurers, couriers, and even government) can bolt onto their existing applications in order to create panic buttons for their users – suddenly giving them access to AURA’s network of 3’500 response vehicles. 

And, from the looks of it, it works: They’re able to deliver an 8-minute response time nationally with 3’500 vehicles, and internal data shows they save up to 5 lives per day in South Africa.

But here’s the thing…

We actually spoke about AURA at the beginning of this year in our post on security tech opportunities in SA, but simply had to bring them back, because…

AURA launched in the UK earlier this year, and that brought with it an interesting new set of challenges. Over there, private security companies usually act as intermediaries that only monitor alarms, it’s the police that are actually dispatched when an alarm goes off – hmmm, must be nice…

Yeah, and that must be why many folks over there didn’t even bother getting a security company – why pay when the police show up anyway?

But, all that recently changed: The UK police have stopped responding directly to alarms, requiring that alarm activations be confirmed before they come over. In other words, the UK became a lot less like the UK and a lot more like SA – ideal for some innovative SA brand to swoop in and…

And you guessed it: AURA quickly spun up a gig economy for private security and medical personnel, with their solution cutting down the archaic traditional process (which requires multiple human interventions) in half with its smart technology and auto dispatch to the nearest emergency responder in the UK. They initially created synthetic demand to seed the marketplace until there was enough action on the platform to ensure supply and demand met each other in a win-win-win way.

But don’t let us spoil the story for you. We had Warren Myers, the Co-Founder and CEO of AURA, on the most recent episode of our “How Would You Build It” pod, so check it out for even more juicy details, including:

• Innovation, handbrakes, and working with SAPS.

• How emergency responses differ in the UK.

• How to generate demand when building a marketplace.

• The future of emergency detection (and apps).

IN SHORT

Grab a knowledge nugget for the braai…

⛴️ Going places. Fleet management company GoMetro has secured a R3.2 million grant from the UK Freight Innovation Fund for a 6-month trial of GoMetro’s EV-FIT solution and its Bridge fleet management software platform with UK’s Maritime Transport and Welch’s Transport companies.

🥔 Spud drones. SA potato farmers are getting a helping hand with autonomous drones that can detect potato leaf disease using AI. A partnership between local digital business consultancy Moyo, and Dell Technologies is bringing Dell AI Factory with Nvidia and Precision AI-ready workstations to a potato farm near you for advanced crop health monitoring.

💼 Business crypto. Yellow Card, an African crypto startup, has raised $33 million in Series C funding led by Blockchain Capital (they’ve already invested in Worldcoin, Coinbase, and OpenSea), to support its pivot towards its business customers in 20 African countries.

🔒 Own Goal. Local trading platform Banxso’s licence to operate has been provisionally withdrawn by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) and several of its bank accounts placed on hold by the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC). The platform has been accused of “benefiting” from deepfake AI ads featuring among others Elon Musk promising profits of up to R300k per month.

⚡️ Tax-Free EV? SA President Cyril Ramaphosa is apparently considering incentives for local electric vehicle manufacturers, as well as tax rebates or subsidies for those purchasing and using them. Speaking at the South African Auto Week conference, Pres. Ramaphosa said it was about ensuring South Africa remains competitive in global markets.

🏦 No Crypto. Earlier in the week, Capitec blocked all transactions to local crypto exchange Valr, citing fraud concerns. Capitec still allows transactions to Valr via Capitec Pay but at a premium to EFT transactions.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with super-easy local and international payment processing with WigWag, expert offshoring, company structure and legal advice from Dommisse Attorneys and 11 more vital startup tools & services.

CHECK THIS OUT

Empower Your Team To Scale Fast

Let’s not mince words here…

The only thing harder than starting up and proving your product/idea is worth the time and effort is achieving Market Fit and scaling up. Because scaling often means moving founder-led sales to a team of sales personnel.

Their challenge? Well, they often don’t have the trust and authority in the marketplace that a founder does — which makes closing sales a tough gig. But when the brand or product they represent has trust and authority, it really greases the sales wheels….

In fact, 81% of customers only buy from brands they trust. 46% of those are willing to pay more for products from brands they recognise.

The Fastest Way to Build Authority

The truth is: there are no shortcuts to trust, it’s earned.

But how do you earn it? Content marketing is by far the fastest, simplest and most effective way to do that – delivering 3X higher brand engagement at a fraction of the cost.

If you are a tech scale-up, you need to content to:

• Empower your salespeople

• Create high-quality touchpoints that add value

• Attract the right type of audience

• Differentiate yourself in a competitive market

• Position yourself and your brand as a thought leader

• Lower your cost of customer acquisition

• Improve your conversions

That’s why we created Stream:

• We marry engineering expertise

• With award-winning copywriting

• And a super-flexible pause-and-cancel subscription model

To give your tech scale-up the ability to build trust with authoritative content that empowers your sales team, and helps you say the right things to the right audience at the right time.

Get in touch today for a free consultation on what content can do for you.

HAPPENING SOON

Upcoming Events

Today at 12:00 — Digital Chat Roulette: It’s like startup speed dating, but you don’t have to leave the house/office — The Open Collab community exclusive.

25 October 2024 — Product Masterclass: SA’s very own “product legend” Roger Norton is here for the first in a three-part product building series — The Open Collab community exclusive.

1 November 2024 — Sales Masterclass: Keep your B2B sales pipe filled Masterclass session with sales expert, Sebastian Chapman — The Open Collab community exclusive.

8 November 2024 — Product Masterclass: Part 2: How to keep shipping truly great products, fast — The Open Collab community exclusive.

18 November 2024 — Cape Town: In-person: Building SA’s most-used digital products — tickets available soon.

View all our upcoming events here.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

In the last 48 hours alone, in our online community, we…

• Gave Chris a warm intro to the COO of the company he’s been trying to secure a meet with for months 🤗

• Hooked Elijah up with a contact for building a WhatsApp CRM.

• Discussed both internal and outreach comms: email VS WhatsApp VS in-person.

• Celebrated Garth’s successful custom GPT pilot.

• Helped “hook” Gustav up with the Boardroom founders.

• Got super-sweet connections to get into Africa Tech Festival for free, but with access to more of the event than the normal pass.

Coming Up Next Week

• Wednesday 10-11: Office Hours, where we all log in and work together, + the whole Open Letter team is at members’ disposal.

• New: Free monthly startup strategy calls for all Open Collab members.

• Support: All day, every day: unlimited introductions, recruitment, service provider referrals and business-building insights.

FOR THE MEMES

Sustainable fashion for way less…

We meet a lot of cool SA founders and started doing quickfire pitches where they tell us what their startups are all about.

This is Nick and Michaela from sustainably sourced fashion platform Thrif, where conscious buyers get quality goods at a great price…

WHAT YOU SAID

Don’t stop believing…

We asked what you do during peak traffic at a robot🚦, and air-drumming the wheel’s the game…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🥪 Take the next bite of a meal. (8%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💅 Fix makeup/hair/beard. (5%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✋ Ward off window washers/pamphlet handers/car trash collectors. (18%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🔊 Send voicenotes (including rhythmic indicator sound). (23%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤘 Steering wheel/air drum. (46%)

Your 2 cents…

Nice one, Phillip. Ja you can’t beat that for mid-city traffic. 🛵

Haha love the honesty… ☝️

Nice, Andersen, keeping it clean and green. 🔋