🔎 Threatning Threads, AI Ventures and Cheaper Fuel

Welcome to The Jungle: We are like when you find a R50 note in your pocket - you gotta love us!

Here’s what Tarzan has for you today:

• Threading Twitter: Will Threads really knock Twitter off its high horse?

• AI Autonomy: Using AI to score startups fairly!

• Preposterous Petrol Prices: A cheaper alternative is available in SA!

Will Threads beat Twitter?

Well, here’s the thing. You can make a case for either side - kinda like a university degree! 😛

Hear me out:

Pros of Threads:

• 5 days in and Threads have 100 million users. This makes Threads the fastest-growing product of all time! WITHOUT any promotions yet!

• Instagram has 1.6 billion users. Threads only need to convert 20% of these users in order to be bigger than Twitter.

• Twitter ads product compared to Facebook ads is complete trash. Meaning Threads could optimise waaaay better than its rival.

Cons of Threads:

• Facebook/Meta doesn’t have a great track record of building successful stand-alone products. They failed at creating a TikTok competitor and a Snapchat competitor. They only succeed at buying existing products and adding features.

• 100 million users today doesn’t mean they are going to be there tomorrow. When the hype dies down, churn numbers are expected to be insane.

• The core users of Twitter have already built followings on Twitter. Threads is a copycat application that makes Twitter fans start from zip (unless they have a big Instagram following too).

Soooo.. my final thoughts would be this: Twitter is known as the most abandoned product - basically, over 1 billion people signed up for Twitter but they only have 259 million daily active users. This means 1 of 2 things:

1. the idea of Twitter is not enough to hook people into hanging around; OR

2. the execution of the Twitter team was not good enough to keep people around.

If the first rings true - Threads will melt away like ice in the desert. BUT, if the latter is true, then there is an opening for Threads to dominate the space and destroy Twitter!

What do you think? The best answer wins a R150 Takealot voucher - reply to this email.

Teasers for the office

Office teasers are here for Tarzan to help you stand out in the office or through virtual interaction with your colleagues - it’s a pleasure!

Have you ever been eating breakfast and wondered, “how the heck was Cornflakes invented?” - me too:

Kellogg was working with his brother Will on a new kind of wheat meal for patients at the sanitarium when the process that resulted in Corn Flakes was accidentally discovered. Rolling out wheat dough that had been forgotten overnight, the brothers discovered that instead of loaves of bread, they got thin flakes.

Would you trust AI to invest your money? 🤖

When asking the wealthy “What’s the one thing you wish you could buy?” - the answer almost always is TIME.

With AI being the hot-topic amount venture capitalists, Connetic Ventures has created a more streamlined top-of-funnel process to find startups to invest in. Saving time for investors and founders!

Let me lay it down for you:

• Connetic Ventures (CV) realised that the founding teams of startups are usually what makes or breaks the company.

• So, they built an AI analyst to fairly vet all founders who are seeking VC funding.

• The AI Analyst, called Wendel, assesses the founders according to 13 entrepreneurial traits and claims to be more fair and inclusive than the traditional VC assessment process.

The problem they seem to be solving is traditional founder funding can be biased dependent on founders’ pitch and their background. Their aim is to be accessible to any founder or investor, where all you need is an internet connection.

It’s early days but this could bring a breath of fresh air to VC funding. Tarzan will keep an eye out and let you know if it works out or explodes. 💥

Ja, no - the fuel prices are just on another level hey! 😅

Raise your hand if you have heard a colleague complaining about how high the fuel prices are ✋

Petrol and diesel prices have increased by 54% since January 2021, priced at R22.10 and R21.55 respectively. If only I could go back to the days of moaning about a R14/litre petrol price!

To add to the punches, levies charged by the government have collectively increased over 125% when looking a decade back!

Something has got to give!

Bring in the cheaper alternative:

• Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) - at roughly 40% of the current fuel price, the cost is only R13/litre!

• Isinkwe Energies has partnered with Ergon Equipment and Prins Autogas to establish the first LPG fuel station in SA.

Whats the catch?

Apart from there being only 1 LPG fuel station in SA at the moment, the biggest hurdle to using LPG as fuel, is that you will need a Prins Autogas kit for your car.

The kit costs nothing less than R30,000! Depending on how much you drive, this could be a big win or a massive sunk cost.

The conversion means your car would be able to run on normal fuel as well as LPG and does not affect the power of the car.

Tarzan is just happy there is something being done to challenge the crazy fuel prices!

ICYMI

Less exciting, but still cool:

SA startup, Agrikool, signs a deal with big retailer - Lekker opportunities for the agriculture supply chain in SA!

Uh oh, we’re in trouble! - Stage 8 loadshedding is imminent.

HealthDart harnesses tech to overhaul SA healthcare - “apple a day..” they said!

Meme of the day

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