Hi {{ FIRSTNAME | there, }}

Come on, Elon? One of the only ways to get Starlink in SA, ICASAsePush 😝, who’s been selling those “Sparkling” devices and accounts (i.e. roaming Starlink bought in neighbouring African countries and, uhm, illegal) is in hot water after ICASA ratted them out to Elon’s actual Starlink, who sent them a letter saying please don’t do that, guys. Ja, but when is our real Starlink coming?

Not in time for this new Fast-Five Friday: 5 things in startup you must know, in 5 minutes. Let’s go!

1. GET A GOOD DEAL

How much is that car really worth?

In South Africa, around 30’000 used cars are sold every month at an average price of around R417’688. That’s a R12.5 billion a month market (R140 billion+ per year). But are all 30k at the best deal possible?

Unlike new cars, with manufacturer-listed prices, a number of factors impact a second-hand car’s price: make, model and mileage, yes, but the seller's short-term needs also play a big role — desperation can drive sweeter deals.

Every day that a second-hand car is on the floor, it costs them money, eating into margins. What’s more, sales agents work on commission; they need to move stock. So there’s a good chance, at some point in the month, they’ll mark it down.

Finding those bargains is quite hard, unless, of course, you have the data.

And that’s what local software developer turned entrepreneur Jason Wallace built. CarPriceValue is an easy-to-use website where you simply paste the link of the second-hand car you are interested in buying, and it’ll let you know the instant the price drops.

Jason built his own dataset and machine learning model to estimate the market/retail value of used cars online, which then ultimately reveals whether a deal is likely a good one or not.

Go on, give it a spin, and if you end up saving a lot of money, buy us a coffee.

2. LEGALAIS IT

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong

Lawyers. Gotta love ‘em. Until you get the bill, of course. But with AI around, do we still have to pay those steep fees?

Now, you might be tempted to hit up ChatGPT, but it’s risky – remember that local law firm alleged to have used AI to cite and refer to nine cases of which only two actually existed. (Hello HalucinationGPT.)

We need something better…

Murphy’s Law is a local AI-powered LegalTech startup that’s built specifically for the South African legal system. Its AI-powered assistant is trained on real, curated local case law, available 24/7. Meaning more accurate answers, fewer hallucinations (no 25-year sentences for a traffic fine), and up-to-date legal insights at your fingertips.

We see it helping startups draft shareholder agreements. Individuals check lease terms or write a will. Or legal professionals speed up research, automating compliance and reviewing documents in seconds. Mooi.

A Harvey Specter in yo’ pocket…

3. BEEFY SKILLS

Get trained the African way

Tech advances keep rocking the world, driving the need for lifelong learning. But Africa still lags in education and training participation rates — our youth has a low 45% engagement rate compared to Europe and Central Asia’s 66%-plus.

And then (sadly) many training programmes serve up generic, globally-produced content that doesn’t reflect the African context or day-to-day realities.

Zydii is a Kenyan startup offering Africa-centric digital training in bite-sized, mobile-first content via WhatsApp SMS, USSD and web. Built for teams across the continent, it has over 70 localised courses on topics like sales, leadership, communication, customer experience and personal branding. 

They’ll also digitise a company’s existing content into more engaging digital courses and virtual programs, run expert-led live sessions pulling from their pool of 40+ experts across an array of business topics, or plug in their AI-powered knowledge tool to support learning on the job via chat-based access to key company info. Noice.

4. GET CONNECTED

Exciting news about our founder community…

When The Open Letter launched our founder community 10 months ago, we wanted to create a space for our readers to connect, network and build together. But it’s more than just “The Open Letter Community”. It’s a place where we all help one another build smarter, faster, together. 

And it’s time that it gets its own space in The Open Letter Ecosystem (with a fresh new look to boot). Introducing The Founder Collab…

With over 100 founders and builders of some of SA’s most exciting startups, including ones from Jem, Namola, The Awareness Co, Fintr, Thrif, Prepaid24, Troygold and many, many more, The Founder Collab supports early-stage tech founders and side-hustlers in SA with the one thing they actually need: a community that helps them move faster, better.

If you are an:

🚀 Early-stage founder (from idea to scale phase)

🚀 Sidehustler working on your startup while still working full time

🚀 Or just passionate about early-stage startup building

Then, The Founder Collab is the community you need.

5. SOMETHING COOL FROM ABROAD

The end of doomscrolling?

Around the world, people spend an average of 6 hours and 40 minutes staring at a screen each day. But that’s NOTHING compared to (World Champions in seemingly every destructive habit) South Africans who clock in at 9 hours and 24 minutes.

This leads to brain rot: a state of mental decline caused by overexposure to low-effort, mindless or overstimulating content, especially from social media and other short-form videos.

We need a brain hero…

brainrot is a screen-time app that lets you see a visual representation of your brain rotting based on time spent, number of pickups and what apps you were watching*. 

Then it helps you set limits, blocking rules and schedules to do away with distractions during times of focus. And, hopefully, over time, you’re able to turn your brain rot levels from “pile of gross mush” to nice, supple and healthy again.

*Ironically discovered whilst brain rotting…

IN SHORT

Serve hot takes, without the homework…

💅 Polish them Pitches. The 2025 edition of Nedbank's Pitch & Polish competition is in full swing. Now in its 15th year, the comp sees 16 entrepreneurs go head-to-head for a cool R1 million grand prize for the winner, not to mention the 2-day pitch bootcamp for all 16 participants by Raizcorp. Pssst: Wildcard entries are still open.

👍 Senior Simplicity. Uber is rolling out a special account type for senior citizens with a simpler app experience and features like ride updates for family members, saved destinations, and the ability to use a family member’s card for payments. Only US so far, but cute, man.

🍪 Keep Your Cookies Safe. Not even our cookies are safe anymore, as South Africa ranks 35th out of 253 countries on NordVPN’s leaked cookie leaderboard, thanks to the 546-million cookies linked to South African users found on the dark web. Flippen Prawns…

💰 Sygnia Soars. JSE-listed Sygnia’s assets under management and administration have jumped nearly 19% for the six months ended 31 March 2025, taking it to an eye-watering R405.6 billion. Jinne.

🕹️Funding Kohort. UK-based startup (which has a bunch of Saffas as founders and employees), Kohort, just completed a major funding round led by Raine Group. Their platform helps game developers and studios forecast revenue in intelligent ways — learn more by reading this piece we did on them back in Nov 2024.

✅ The Stack. Founders need tools and suppliers they can trust. Check out our Founder’s Stack with the best in IP offshoring and global market access with Finance Isle of Man, your own CFO for a fraction of the cost with OCFO, and loads more vital startup tools & services.

DON’T MISS THIS

Coming Up in SA’s Most Vibrant Tech Founder Network

Next up in our members-only founder network — The Open Collab.

6 June 12:000 — Dev Hiring Masterclass: The team from SA’s largest dataset and hiring platform, Offerzen, is here to share the latest in technical team hiring and trends.

13 June 12:00 — The Art of Strategy Masterclass: How high-growth founders think & win: Cut through complexity and create a scalable strategy for profitable growth with Jason Goldberg, Art of Scale author and co-founder of Edge Growth.

20 June 12:00 — Operationalising AI Masterclass: Learn how to deploy AI to power productivity across multiple layers of your business, with OfferZen’s VP of Product, Stephen van der Heijden.

PLUS: When you join The Open Collab get access to expert sessions, more than 90 SA founders to network with and weekly online and offline network engagements.

JOBS IN TECH

Now hiring. Or as we like to call it: levelling up!

💼Senior Product Manager (Growth) @ Simple Life App

👨‍💻Solutions Engineer @ Yoco

🎨UX Designer I @ RELX

😎Marketing Manager @ Vault22

Hiring? Get in touch, and we will feature it here.

GAME TIME

Find zen with today’s ZA startup haiku

No fuel, just a hum.

Deliveries without smoke.

The hustle rides green.

WHAT YOU SAID

Going to town…

On Tuesday, we asked if you’d build a township-focused product, and most say this is the way to go…

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 💥 Absolutely, it’s a huge untapped market (46%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📊 Maybe, but I’d need better data (17%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🔥 Already building something in the space (15%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤔 I’d need to learn more first (13%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏙️ Only after cracking the formal market first (9%)

Your 2 cents…

Ha ha, exactly, Clive — know your user and you’re A for Away. 🚀

Oooh, now we’re curious, Abdul. Build it, and then, when you’re ready, we showcase it to the world. 🏆

Can’t wait to see what cool things will come out of that, Kgailemosa! 💪

Defs feel like a step in the right direction, DT: opportunity’s knocking. 🔥

HOW DID WE DO?

BEFORE YOU GO

Here are 3 Ways We Can Help You

Advertise or Partners — Engage {{active_subscriber_count}} South African professionals that read The Open Letter. Partner with us or run an ad campaign — reply to this email to get started.

Grow with Content — Love The Open Letter? Want to build a newsletter just like that for your brand? Want to grow your brand with content? We can do it for you. Check out Stream.

Startup Community — Join 100+ SA founders in our SA startup founder community called The Open Collab. Weekly online masterclasses, in-person and online meetups and a network like never before.

Until next time,
Elvorne, Renier & Jason

Squad