Hi there,

Love a good bakkie? So does she! SA women are searching for Bakkies more than men. And not just the Botha kind, it’s Hiluxes, Rangers, the works.

In this Open Letter:

• The fix: The Yuppiechef of SA construction startups.

• SA’s favourite beer, fashion tax & gold outperforms stocks.

• Good measure: 6 Google Analytics alternatives.

• Get gilded: We’re giving away real gold (to you).

• The results: How you choose to invest.

TRENDING NOW

Fixing the Fixtures Game

If the construction industry was an actor, it’d probably be Barney Ross in Expandables 4. A bit grizzled, weighed down by years of struggle and challenges, yet somehow still teeming with untapped potential.

The sector, once a titan of economic growth, has suffered significant setbacks. The show-stopping numbers? A 19.8% slump in growth during 2020, courtesy of the pandemic, construction mafia, lacklustre economic scenery, and a dip in commercial property demand.

This constellation of hurdles suggests that although larger municipalities have seen an uptick of 28% in plans submitted in 2021, it could take up to 2026 for the industry to reclaim its former glory.

Every challenge brings opportunity

Enter the stage of startup innovation. The secret sauce here is the art of niche problem-solving. In South Africa, identifying a lucrative niche can be as elusive as finding a needle in a haystack.

Still, get it right, and you could be sipping champagne on the deck of your flourishing business.

Take the intriguing, albeit anxiety-inducing process of sourcing fixtures and fittings for construction projects. It’s like questing for the Holy Grail.

You finally get to the shop that sells what you need, and they don’t have stock, so now you have to trek across town to their other branch – that’s hours and money ticking away.

Even worse if you have top-dollar contractors, architects, interior designers and builders having to drive around and source fixtures, all on your tab. Not to mention entire teams of builders sitting around earning full pay while waiting for the perfect plumbing to arrive.

It really is a wasteful nightmare that’s worth solving.

A new way to source fixtures

In much the same way Amazon's digital revolution sprung from the limitations of physical bookstores (being unable to house millions of books in one physical store), South African B2B e-commerce player Livecopper is set to revolutionise the construction world.

Livecopper is the Takealot-meets-Builders Warehouse of the building industry. With a catalogue that would make even the most extensive physical warehouses blush, Livecopper offers over 10’000 building fixtures, then takes it up a notch by letting you submit your building plans and get quotes on them, too (a feature as tailor-made for quantity surveyors as a designer suit at a red-carpet event).

Good company

And the kicker? The founders of Yuppiechef, Shane Dryden and Andrew Smith, have recently invested in Livecopper. That's like getting the nod from industry royalty.

What we like about this play:

• Niche focus — making targeting easier and typically results in lower CAC.

• Higher margins — Bigger ticket items mean more money for the same effort. What’s more, certain items face less competition so one could charge more without too much risk.

• Saves time and money — the benefit to the end user isn’t simply “it gets delivered”. The substantial cost of time wasted driving around plays a big role.

• Can always beat physical stores with catalogue size.

• Nice extensions into a services marketplace for tradesmen (and women) (something many in SA have tried and failed at).

In essence, Livecopper is a compelling case study for startups looking to inject innovation into traditional industries and we love it. Not to mention there are definitely some other niches waiting for a play in the construction space itself…

OVER TO YOU

IN SHORT

💧 High Tech Tank. South African-born JoJo tank is going high-tech with an app and IoT devices to aid in water monitoring and management.

⚡ Ditch the Lightning. Apple’s upcoming iPhone 15 is rumoured to feature the USB-C connector instead of lightning cables in a move that is forced by the environmentally conscious. The move will mean greater compatibility across Apple devices as well as with non-Apple hardware.

🤑 Tax the Stitch. Chinese-founded fast-fashion giant Shein is facing social media backlash from its users after a marked increase in their customs tax. It would also seem like they’re facing greater scrutiny by the SA government after rumours they package clothing in containers that let them come in under a tax threshold.

🍻 Raise your Glasses. The results are in and South Africa (5th in the world for alcohol consumption) has declared its favourite elixirs. Carling Black Label remains SA’s favourite beer – with 6 of the Top 10 produced by SAB. SA’s Top Alcohol Brand, however, is 4th Street Wine, with big strides being made in the ready-to-drink, Wine, and Spirits categories.

🏅 Hold the Gold. Back in 2004, NewGold ETF was listed on the JSE. You could buy a couple units of gold on the JSE using your hard-earned South African Rondt. Fast forward nearly 20 years and that lump of gold outperformed the JSE’s All Share index.

JUST FOR YOU

Got Gold?

Share The Open Letter and you can win! We’re giving away R2’500 worth of gold, plus this cool merch from Troygold.

And all you gotta do to stand a chance of winning it all is 1, 2, 3, 4…

STEP 1: Click on this shiny button 👇️ 
(The button opens a LinkedIn tab.)

STEP 2: Click “Share in a post” right under the Open Letter logo in that new tab.

STEP 3: Type a few words on what you think about The Open Letter, as a post to your followers.

STEP 4: Tag us: @TheOpenLetter and hit “post”.

Done, now you’re entered to get gilded.

­BUILDER’S CORNER

6 Alternatives to Google Analytics

If you’re a little frustrated with Google’s new GA4 analytics, you’re not alone. Millions of people are ragging on it online – calling it everything from a “downgrade” to straight-up “trash” and, worse yet, “the Windows Vista of Analytics”.

Not that Universal Analytics was that great, but this new one?

OK, to be fair, the GA4’s cross-platform tracking and granular control over events were sorely needed. But you do get the sense that its setup is more beneficial to large corporates – it can do A LOT if you have the training, resources, time and money to set up properly.

We figured we’d just have to learn it, but then we came across some founders who were so frustrated, that they committed to finding better alternatives.

Here are some options

1. All the power of GA4, just simpler: Matomo

Everything GA4 has, plus full data ownership (the data doesn’t sit elsewhere, it’s self-hosted with you), you can even deploy it on your own server. You also get way more flexibility in reporting and no data sampling (did you know GA only samples and shows predicted/modelled data, not the real numbers?). Check out Matomo.

2. Just basic website tracking: Plausible

For those who just want all the good-ol’ data you got from Universal Analytics for website only, check out the totally open source, self-hosted and dark mode-enabled Plausible.

3. For business, sales and conversion: Usermaven

Recommended for performance marketing, sales and conversion tracking, with native sales funnel tools etc., all while still being plug & play, check out Usermaven.

4. For tracking everything: Heap

Remember how Universal Analytics used to track everything? Well, that's basically what this one does – it tracks even more than before and you can drill down on whatever you like. See Heap.

5. Loads of tools and templates: Piwik PRO

Basically, the proprietary version of Matomo, what makes Piwik PRO unique is that it has all the same advanced events, tracking and reporting features as GA4, but instead of having to manually set them up, they have templates, so it’s basically plug & play on Piwik PRO.

6. For powerful extras, free for life: Microsoft Clarity

Advanced stuff like heatmaps, session replays (watch videos of user sessions on your platform), scroll tracking and features you’d normally pay for, but for free. That’s Microsoft Clarity (shoutout to Ahren from Momint for this recommendation).

Oh, and if you (or your technical partner) are just looking for a GA alternative that still needs Java to deploy and set up, try Mixpanel (great if you can code) or Amplitude (powerful user insights for products, great even for importing data from other analytics tools).

Got a tracking tool we should know about? Hit reply and let us know…

THE RESULTS

Last week, we asked how you store value, and would you believe most are still in stocks and shares?

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧈 Physical Gold (8%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📱 Digital Gold (8%)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ ₿ Bitcoin (28%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💎 Ether (8%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💰 Cash (4%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 📈 Stocks/Shares (36%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤷 I don’t store value (8%)

Your 2 cents…

Great point Martin, we love it when founders back themselves!

Well, thank you, Chris.

FOR THE MEMES

Got some startup memes? Send them our way or tag us on socials.