Back atcha? Did you see… when the head of the EU sent Elon Musk a written warning ahead of him hosting Trump on Spaces (X streaming) on Monday, Musk responded with this Tropic Thunder meme… Oh, behave.

In this Open Letter:

• Dire need: Streamlining the hiring process in SA.

• Dricus’s bomb squad, dirty air hotspots & Google AI phone embed.

• See you later: Ask the Snapscan co-founder anything.

• Who has and hasn’t lied to their boss: The results are in.

• Startup fuel: Share this 10 times and get Pro membership.

TRENDING NOW

Shorten that Hiring Cycle

Hiring people is hard… 

It’s time-consuming, resource-heavy, and not to mention costly.

In applications alone, some roles receive over 200 applications per role that you or your recruiting team have to sift through to make an appropriate shortlist. 

For many companies, it takes an average of 42 days, multiple rounds (3 or 4, sometimes more) of interviews with key organisational stakeholders and costing anywhere between R30k and R60k in time taken to make just one hire.

And the cost of a bad hire is massive…

But if you think hiring someone is hard, it’s even harder to let them go.

It’s not that hard for people to misrepresent what they can do, and once hired, South African Labour law dictates quite a lengthy and costly process to part ways with an employee taking anything from 3 (if you are lucky) to 12 months to resolve.

So needless to say, a major need in this space is to be able to hire better, faster.

Enter Wamly.

Go from candidate to hire more accurately

Wamly enables employers to create customisable interview questions which prompt a candidate to answer the questions in a one-way video interview. Why video? Because, whilst CVs feature important information, getting a feel for a person is a critical part of hiring. And being able to do that at scale, improves accuracy and reduces cost.

Integrated into the self-interview style flow, companies can also make use of assessment tools to rate individuals’ skills.

Finally, with all the data in one place, teams can collaborate by scoring candidates and making comments, helping the hiring manager collect data asynchronously. Meaning no aligning of calendars to meet up and discuss candidates and less bias or pressure to select certain candidates.

They already optimise various parts of the recruitment process. From cutting down the number of interviews per candidate by over 70% to increasing the number of interviews a recruiter can manage in a fraction of the time. Smart plays and that’s why we got founder, Francois de Wet on our latest podcast. Highlights include:

• The costs and challenges of being first to market.

• Quality, consistency, fairness and candidates’ Wamly interview experience. 

• A gold nugget on innovative pricing for B2b

• How to navigate resistance to change

This industry is growing fast and there are major opportunities here. To learn more about Wamly, how they make money and other opportunities in this space, sign up for The Open Letter Pro.

IN SHORT

🌬️ Powering Energy Tech. Remember when we wrote about The Energy Gold Rush back in June 2023? Well, the SA startup we featured Open Access Energy has just landed $750’000 in investment to aid its mission of enhancing the distribution and management of renewable energy.

🤖 AI-Powering SmartPhones. Google has announced that it’ll start rolling out its Gemini AI assistant to Android devices including its latest line of Pixel phones.

🤢 Dirty Air Hotspots. Scientists from the South African Consortium of Air Quality Monitoring have developed SA's first air quality monitoring system using sensors, IoT and AI called Ai_r to identify air pollution hotspots in real-time.

📱Banking on Streaming. Capitec and Showmax have joined forces to give the bank’s 12 million app users Showmax streaming vouchers for as little as R22 to watch series, movies and more, or all English Premier League games for only R34.

🏆 SA Champs. SA’s UFC champion Dricus du Plessis will be walked into the octagon by Bok World Champs Siya Kolisi and Eben Etzebeth as he defends his middleweight UFC belt down under on Sunday morning (local time).

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with project management tools like Notion and super-easy social payment collection with WigWag.

CHECK THIS OUT

Build Trust or Fade Away

In South Africa, trust and authority are not nice to have — they literally make or break your business.

Edelman’s landmark SA Trust Barometer 2024 shows that 65% of South Africans are willing to trust businesses over the government and the media — but 89% agree they only trust businesses that communicate openly and consistently

In fact, the 2023 study found that 61% of consumers will only buy from brands they trust — and 73% of investors agree, saying they only back startups who put time and effort into becoming credible leaders in their niche.

But, there’s a problem…

Founder-led trust-building doesn’t scale. Once your company starts moving, you’re stretched thin managing product development, fundraising and team building.

And that’s as it should be — your time is simply better spent running the nuts and bolts of your business.

So what to do? Content.

Demand Gen’s 2023 report shows that 65% of B2B buyers want short-form blog posts and infographics that talk to their pain points — with 71% saying they prefer web content the closer they get to making a purchasing decision.

That’s why we created Stream, an unlimited content subscription for SA tech companies. We combine tech expertise (engineering) with pro writing to help you build authority and trust.

Engage SA’s Most Vibrant Startup Community

Want to unlock valuable opportunities on tap?

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

• Connected Richard with a moonshot opportunity for his new secret project.

• Helped Andy discover the best/most efficient way to produce video content.

• Helped Danei find a freelance Bubble developer.

• Got Renier some rad video-cutting tool suggestions.

And we have two upcoming events you don’t want to miss…

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 pro members.

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

What You Said…

We asked if you ever lied on a timesheet, and you have to see it to believe it…

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🕵🏼 Of course! Mine reads like a mystery novel (16%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🤓 Never, ever – rules is rules (29%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😎 Only when I’m really trying to impress HR (3%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🙉 I tried, but my conscience clocked me out (10%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤨 What on Earth is a timesheet? (42%)

Your 2 cents…

Indeed, John, which is why we don’t share these polls with HR. 🥸

Right? Sometimes compliance is easier than defiance. 🤷‍♂️

Ah yes. A clear conscience is a soft pillow. 😴