🧩 The Missing Piece of SA E-commerce

Plus: Finding co-founders 🎯, SearchGPT, business owners with funding & how to spot founder burnout.

November 05, 2024

Time to play? If you ever wished you could just prompt an AI: “Make me a game like Minecraft…” we’re almost there. In fact, you can test-play this AI-generated Minecraft game right now.

Tip: Drop some fences and then turn around… it’s freaky…

In this Open Letter:

  • Next level: The missing piece of e-commerce in SA.

  • Finding co-founders, SearchGPT & business owners with funding.

  • Game changer: How to spot founder burnout (and counter it fast).

  • How to prevent employee burnout: The results are in.

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

Together with:

 💡In Cape Town 14 November? We are going to Tech Safari’s Mixer event. Come join us. Use the code OL20% to get 20% off your ticket!

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The Missing Piece of SA E-commerce

E-commerce in South Africa is slowly becoming big business…

In 2023, SA’s online retail market hit R70 billion and is expected to reach a cool R100 billion in the next 2 years. Noice!

And, of course, Covid helped (or rather forced) it along as locals like Takealot, Checkers and Massmart doubled down – the space attracting international players like Shein, Temu and Amazon. 

But it’s not all smooth cruising…

The Complexity in Delivery

Geographically South Africa is much more disbursed than some of the large metros of the developed world. 

Just compare population densities:

In fact, our richest and most populous province, Gauteng, only has 831 people per square kilometre. With only about 49 people per km2 in South Africa, to serve 1’000 customers, the average distance to travel is around 142.86 km versus just 7km in Paris or New York. 

That’s likely why e-commerce historically had a slower uptake in SA than in many developed countries. In SA, e-commerce accounts for only 6% of retail, whereas in places like the US, it’s 16% and in the UK as much as 30%.

But where there is a problem, there is an opportunity…

Can someone take this ring off my hands please?

Delivering on your promises…

If you can’t deliver in key areas, well you can’t really sell online in SA (at least not well).

But having a delivery vehicle active in an area with unpredictable order volumes simply doesn’t make business sense. 

So what if you could pay for a delivery on demand? Such a provider could aggregate a host of deliveries for that area, schedule them one after the other and in doing so provide the e-commerce a way to deliver there, whilst still making a schweet margin. 

It’s the last mile as a service.

Getting the order was the easy part…

Hyper-local delivery drivers on call

Depending on how you look at it, local last-mile delivery provider Picup, is either a tech-based logistics company or a logistics-powered tech company.

Picup offers adaptable delivery options to suit various business needs. For example, it allows for both multi-collection routes, which is ideal for sequential deliveries, as well as on-demand, single-stop routes within short distances. 

Imagine you own an artisanal soap-making business… Picup’s system can receive orders, generate optimised routes, and allocate drivers based on location and driver preferences. If you have a larger service area, Picup integrates with third-party couriers to expand your delivery reach even further.

Getting the scope and scale right

Picup has a flexible driver network of around 4’000 active drivers weekly using anything from motorbikes to large vans (and everything in between). And, as these drivers are independent contractors, it helps keep overheads (and by extension delivery costs) down. 

With an impressive list of clients like Ucook, Dischem, Pick n Pay ASAP, iStore, Nando’s, McDonald's, Clicks, OneCart, and Waltons, Picup is expecting to hit 950’000 orders over this year’s Black Friday (a key date in Picup’s history), with order numbers set to continue into the new year.

Picup’s services include: 

  • field service (collections & deliveries) 

  • on-demand delivery 

  • third-party solutions (giving clients a white-label delivery solution to utilise within their existing applications) 

  • TMA (Transport Management as a Service) 

  • all packaged in a Delivery-as-a-Service (DaaS) model and SaaS platform with a bunch of powerful features to support end-to-end logistics.

With companies like Picup taking a tech-forward approach, it allows their clients to focus on scaling their business, rather than scaling their logistics. And is yet another key piece in the SA e-commerce puzzle.

We’re watching this space… 

IN SHORT

Start a tech conversation…

📱 Business WhatsApp. Local startup Tetafi is leveraging AI to build a financial management platform that lets informal businesses, startups and entrepreneurs track their daily business transactions via WhatsApp. The platform also helps connect business owners to loans and buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services.

🌍 African Connection. The Paratus Group has just completed its new East-West terrestrial fibre route running from the east coast of Africa in Maputo, through Johannesburg and across Botswana, to the west coast of Africa at the Cable Landing Station in Swakopmund, Namibia.

🤝 Co-Founder Connect. An app to connect cofounders called CoffeeSpace exhibited at the Startup Battlefield 200 at last week’s TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. The app’s algorithm aims to connect founders in a way that goes beyond the traditional CV, by presenting a sneak peek at their personalities and working styles, to help best-matched co-founders connect.

💸 Long after loadshedding. SARS is feeling the pinch due to Eskom’s decreased diesel usage as a result of more South Africans’ switch to rooftop solar. This R8.4 billion shortfall for SARS from the fuel levy is part of the total R22.3 billion shortfall SARS is expecting.

🔍 SearchGPT. Last week OpenAI announced its search model, available for paid users, (at least for now), with the ability to search the web for answers and provide links to the sources it comes back with. ChatGPT will reportedly use AI to decide when your query requires a search based on your request.

😎 The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with easy-apply R5M business funding from Lula, next-level authority building with Stream and loads more vital startup tools & services.

BUILDER’S CORNER

How to Spot the Signs of Founder Burnout

And then treat it effectively…

Written in conjunction with organisational psychologist and Metavolve co-founder Cam Coutts. 

It shouldn’t be a surprise that entrepreneurs are quite prone to burnout.

Building a new business creates the perfect environment for it: Long hours, high uncertainty, lots of moving parts, complex problems to solve with minimal resources…

Only founders know…

That’s why news sources report that:

  • 54% of founders are very stressed about their businesses

  • 81% try to hide their stress, fears and challenges

  • And 77% are reluctant to seek qualified professional help.

“What many of us entrepreneurs don’t know, though,” says organisational psychologist and Metavolve co-founder Cam Coutts, “is that we have access to a unique burnout ‘cure’ that doesn’t work in most any other industry…”

But to understand how it works, you need to know how to spot burnout…

The Symptoms of Burnout in Startup

1. Emotional Exhaustion

Unlike physical exhaustion, you end the day feeling completely drained and almost unable to cope with any of your normal night-time routines.

Or if you normally work till 6, but the last while you’re “done” by 3 and just want to “lie on the floor” in an attempt to force yourself to take a break. 

And it kicks off a vicious cycle by triggering the next symptom…

2. De-Personalisation & Cynicism

“Your brain's internal self-defence mechanism to emotional exhaustion is, in lieu of being able to take a real break, to try and separate your empathy centres from your reality. I.e. make you care less,” Cam explains.

This plays out as, when you’re focused on a specific task, and an employee comes to you with an issue or you hear about a new customer query, you try to turn it away by saying “I don’t care” or “I don't have time for this now”.

You basically start ignoring personal and relational concerns, or fobbing them off as unimportant (when we all know they’re the real things that create flywheels in this game), leading you to make poor decisions and sometimes ruin relationships.

3. A Lack of Personal Accomplishment

The third symptom of founder burnout is when you are so overwhelmed by all the things that need doing, you don’t feel like you are getting anywhere.

Even if you are hitting major victories, they’re downplayed by the fact that there’s “so much more that still needs to be done”.

Basically, you are so exhausted that you don’t recognise small victories anymore. And you know you need to take a break, but you feel so much shame/guilt about it, that you can’t rest, so you end up going on holiday and coming back in an even worse state than before.

“Burnout is a syndrome (not an illness), that eventually becomes an actual illness,” Cam explains. “Left unchecked, burnout eventually leads to depression, anxiety, panic attacks and even physical illness – like when you suddenly get an extremely severe flu, that’s your body giving you a warning.”

The Founder-Only Burnout Cure

In most other professions, the treatment for burnout is reducing workload and taking a break. When doctors or nurses experience burnout, all they usually need is a holiday and time to recharge.

That doesn’t always work for founders, though – see, a doctor doesn’t need to care about the running of the entire hospital, but we founders do, so just going on holiday could actually stress you out even more when you can’t switch off.

The ideal treatment for a founder is to start with strategy. See those 3 burnout symptoms are a vicious cycle of one reinforcing the other, so the first step should be stopping the cycle – and out of all of them, number 3 is virtually the only one you can directly influence for immediate impact.

If you can win back your sense of personal accomplishment by clearing some of the chaos and giving yourself a measurable way to track that you’re improving by 1% every day, you break the burnout cycle. This should enable you to switch off a little over the holidays (i.e. tackle the first symptom), getting you fresh for the new year.

“We touched on this in a recent webinar,” says Cam, “and anyone can view it. Plus, I’m an organisational psychologist by training, so I am personally and professionally extremely passionate about helping founders deal with things like burnout.”

“All Open Letter readers are welcome to contact me if they have any questions or want to talk about burnout.”

You can reach Cam on LinkedIn here and connect with the rockstars at Metavolve here.

BUILDING TOGETHER

Happening over at The Open Collab

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

  • Learned to keep the customer pipeline filled in Friday’s sales masterclass.

  • Sorted out who’s going to Stellies and who’s in Green Point for our first LIVE office hours this Wednesday.

  • Got a sneak preview of Friday’s upcoming product masterclass on why product-led companies win out, with Roger Norton.

  • Started the week with a Tesla Beetle beating a Porsche on the quarter mile 🏎️.

  • Got intro-ed to a good-looking new virtual assistant to try out.

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 community.

HAPPENING SOON

Upcoming Events

Join us this Friday for the second in a 3-part series with The Open Collab exclusive Product Series. Want to learn what it’s about? Watch the video on IG below…

  • 7 November 2024 — JHB: TechSafari is hosting its first JHB mixer. Get tickets here and use OL20% code to get a sweet 20% off!

  • 8 November 2024 — Product Masterclass: Part 2: How to keep shipping truly great products, fast — Join The Open Collab community to attend for free.

  • 14 November 2024 — TechSafari is coming to Cape Town! Join Caleb and team for a memorable night at Yoco to talk all things Tech and Startup in Africa. Get tickets here. Use OL20% code to get a sweet 20% off!

View all our upcoming events here.

WHAT YOU SAID

Good for people…

We asked about preventing employee burnout, and you know best…

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🍕 Pizza parties (15%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏓 Foosball/Table Tennis/Air Hockey leagues (4%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💆‍♀️ Office massages (5%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 🏖️ “Unlimited” leave days (31%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🪂 Team-building exercises (9%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🔥 Hmm, no I have a better idea… (36%)

Your 2 cents…

“My partner has just experienced a burn out at the company we both work for. What I have learnt from it is that companies need to listen to their employees more, take note of behavior changes and have open discussions around ways to make jobs easy and more efficient. Check in with staff on a monthly basis and even offer an industrial psychologist to those that are struggling.”

Michelle

Completely agree, Michelle! Recognising changes early and supporting staff with open conversations is the kind of proactive care that can really make a difference. 🙌

“It could be all of the above but the fact is you need to match it to the need of the individual. We all have different ways to re-centre, ask employees what they need.”

Freda

Exactly, Freda — meeting individual needs is so key! 😊

“Treat them like the adults they are. Give people a sense of purpose, let the output they receive more or less match the input they give. Might be idealistic, but I don't think burnout has to do with what you put in. But rather what you get out, or in this case don't get out, for what you put in.”

Andersen

Absolutely, Andersen! Purpose and fair recognition for input are such powerful antidotes to burnout. It’s not idealistic at all — just real talk on what makes work meaningful. 🔍

“Relaxed working hours...i currently have an intern work half day. No problems”

Private

Nice, a flexible approach can make all the difference! 👍

“Set clear expectations – Ensure everyone knows their role and goals to reduce ambiguity and boost confidence. Poor job clarity is shown to be a massive contributor to stress. Encourage open communication – Create a safe space for team members to discuss workloads and any stress points. Support work-life balance – Offer flexible hours or remote work options to help balance personal and professional lives. Schedule regular check-ins – Managers should touch base frequently to spot and address stress before it builds. Celebrate wins – Recognise achievements to keep motivation high and everyone feeling appreciated. Involve employees in decisions – Allow team members to help shape their work environment, building ownership.”

Jo

Great breakdown, Jo! Addressing stress and job clarity can prevent so much burnout — and celebrating wins keeps motivation strong. Spot on! 🎉

“Above the basic leave allocations, assign leave by interview. Let employees make their case based on their productivity, their value added tasks and their personal growth markers. Award the best employees with better leave opportunities - autonomy to decide when to go, vouchers for spa days/getaways/tanks of petrol. Instead of burning out those who are the backbone of the company, give them a little more stretching room to value them”

David

Such a thoughtful idea, David. Rewarding employees with meaningful leave options could be a game changer in making people feel valued. 🎁