🎧 Greatest Startup Hits of 2023…

Plus: Space cylinders, Apple-tinted goggles & a piece of the big tech pie.

December 22, 2023

Hi there,

Space to breathe? Since Jeff Bezos plans to move humanity into massive cylindrical space habitats, have a treat and watch an actual physicist with almost 1 million followers explain in the most sci-fi way possible what other insanely cool things we could do in space cylinders. (Plus: check out his other vids for crazy futuristic tech ideas.)

In this Open Letter:

Greatest Startup Hits of 2023

Well, it’s (almost) a wrap. 2023 is done and dusted. 

And we’re getting ready to take a little break ourselves:

  • Today, 22 Dec will be our last newsletter for the year – we hitting the beach soon. 

  • Don’t worry, though, we’ll be back in the first week of Jan.

So we thought it’s a great time to highlight some of the most interesting movements in the startup space in SA this year.

The future of startup news….very blue 📨

FinTech in SA is alive and kicking

The financial services sector is big in SA – it contributes some 14% to our GDP — ±R650 billion per year. Now, it’s hard to build a FinTech, and it needs a lot of money, but pull it off and you’re building something massive. 

And the space has seen some big rounds of fundraising this year:

This space is heating up, and we’re excited to see what’s gonna go down in 2024. 

Did you miss our fintech feature? Read it here.

A silent unicorn

African startup bros love talking about unicorns. And they often list and talk only about VC-backed unicorns (a tech startup with a $1 billion valuation). 

But, without too much VC hoo-ha, SA mobile network operator Rain has quietly become a unicorn in less than 6 years of operating. 

It’s a great example of what can happen when you go all-in on new tech (5G) in an established industry.

However, Starlink is coming (eventually) and is said to be rolling out plans for satellite-to-phone networks, meaning you don’t need them towers. 

This space is only set to get more interesting.

Missed our Rain feature? Read it here.

The informal economy is pumping & perhaps we’re not all that unemployed?

GG Allcock set SA abuzz with some research he did on the size of the informal economy – R750 billion a year. And whilst many claim they don’t pay tax unless they’re selling counterfeit products (those fake lemon twists that recently hit the news), they’re likely still paying VAT. 

But will we see the government making moves to introduce more taxes here after the 2024 elections? Won’t be popular, but a competent government can do a lot with that tax money to improve services in the informal sector.

What’s more, there are major opportunities for tech to play a big role in supercharging these informal businesses.

Did you miss our informal economy feature? Read it here.

The new insurance companies are here

Big data is any actuarial scientist’s dream. And as these models and processing power get better and better, more innovative insurance models pop up. Not to mention how LLM can improve customer service and operational efficiencies.

All this means more competitive products, better margins and all-around better value for everyone (if more people have insurance, insurance can get cheaper for us all). 

With 70% of cars on the road being uninsured, there is a lot of opportunity here – ±7 million customers in waiting.

And it does make sense that there are some big rounds of funding in this space:

Did you miss our neo-insurance feature? Read it here.

It’s all coming down to 60 minutes

Checkers Sixty60 has recently set the pace for grocery delivery in SA – which others like Woolies Dash, PNP Asap and Spar2u have had to follow. 

Finally, a Bok jersey we can all afford.

The challenge for the newcomers is that grocery delivery typically competes with smaller convenience stores (think PNP Express, QuickSpar or The Woolies Food at Engen garages) which is traditionally not a market Checker’s focussed on. 

So, whilst Checkers is pulling in new customers they otherwise didn’t reach (quick, small-basket convenience buys), the other retailers joining in are simply serving their existing customers in a new way (likely just to stop the bleeding caused by Sixty60). 

So we’d say it's round 1 to Checkers. But don’t expect Woolworths, PNP and Spar to take this lying down – things are likely to heat up in this space in 2024.

Did you miss our Sixty60 feature? Read it here.

The Open Letter

As for us? We were up to a whole lot in 2023. Here are some stats:

  • 100k+ words written over 77 Newsletters.

  • 160k impressions on our emails.

  • Grew our active subscribers from a few hundred to 4200+.

  • We maintained an average open rate of 39% and click-through rate of 9%.

  • Our podcast, How Would You Build It, had 43 episodes generating 748+ hours of listening in total.

  • And we created and shared roughly 198 glorious memes across all our publications and channels.

All and all, we had a great time. Thanks for reading and listening. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a highly successful 2024. 

Want to give us (or a friend) a Christmas gift? Share the newsletter with someone you think will enjoy it.

See you in 2024 🥳 🚀

IN SHORT

🚗 Tesla Recall. Over 2 million Teslas in Murca & Canada have been recalled (nowhere else), for an over-the-air software update. Seems like some drivers think Tesla’s Autosteer is an Autonomous System (it’s not). It’s a semi-autonomous system meaning that while Autosteer can handle accelerating and vehicle steering – it still requires a human to keep an eye on things.

🥧 Piece of the Pie. Tired of Google, Apple and Meta making ad revenue from your content? The Competition Commission has invited comments on its investigation into the imbalance between large digital platforms like Facebook, Google and Apple, and South African news publications. We might just fill this one in.

🥽 Apple-tinted Goggles. Production of Apple’s mixed-reality headset, The Vision Pro is running full steam ahead, with the launch set for February 2024. Said to be one of the most complex launches – the headsets come in multiple sizes and configurations that need to be fitted to the specific user’s head - not to mention the additional accessories needed.

✈️ Flying High. With over 4’000 airports in the global database of AirHelp Inc., together with survey data compiled from nearly 16’000 passengers, we now know the world’s best and worst airports. And what do you know, SA is in the mix.

🛰️ Starlink-ed Africa. Eswatini is beating us. It has become the 8th African country to have Starlink launched. And from only R1’070 per month, the low-orbit satellite fleet is offering wide, fast and stable internet connectivity to folks in rural areas where network operators have found it difficult to service.

THE RESULTS

We asked where you get your hair cut, and the mall barber/salon still takes the crown – now go build some tech for it…

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✂️ I cut/shave myself (20.5%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💇‍♂️ My wife/husband (18%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💈 I got a guy in Ekasi (20.5%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🪒 Fancy barber/salon at the mall (41%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧔 I don’t cut my mane, ever. (0)

Your 2 cents…

“I get a cut from our fellow Mozimbiquen brothers, those who pluck their tents by the side of the road with mirrors, combs and a battery set up; even when there is load shedding you can still get a cut.”

Gift

Nice one, Gift! Any unique problems you think you could help them solve to help their businesses grow?

Selected ✂️ I cut/shave myself and wrote:

“Occasionally my daughter will correct some of the more egregious mistakes. On not being fired for SAP installations – most of them in RSA have been horrendous failures or required massive reworks, leaving users with only half of what they wanted in the original spec – apparently Nissan, Spar, Department of Labor, Tshwane, Joburg and COCT Metros to mention a few. Just saying.”

Chris

Heh-heh, ja, Chris, Spar’s R1.6bn SAP implementation fiasco’s what inspired us to put that comment in there – Merry Christmas!