A comic strip by The Open Letter. Get it every Friday →
Kabelo Dlamini, founder and CEO
Kabelo here. Welcome to the strip. We're building a not-yet-unicorn one Friday morning at a time.
NEW STRIP EVERY FRIDAY
A first look at Season 1

Sharp little
truths from
the founder trenches.

A weekly comic strip about a Cape Town startup that's not a unicorn. Yet. Built inside The Open Letter.

Fridays from 8 May
12-strip season
Set in Cape Town
Read the archive → Meet the cast
First look
SEASON 1 Before the first Friday
South of Series A Season 1 teaser
First look · The season starts Friday 8 May. The archive is queued below.
Week 1
goes live
8 May
12
Season 1 Strips
08
May Launch
01
AI Teammate
∞
Spreadsheets Don't Lie

The Archive

Season 1 is queued here. Each strip unlocks on its Friday, starting 8 May.

The Cast

Five people and their AI. Trying to build something useful before the runway runs out.

1
Kabelo Dlamini
Kabelo Dlamini
Founder & CEO
"Loves a deck."

Optimistic. Sales-led. Great at vision, not great at details. Talks fast. Thinks big.

Olive button-down Avoids details Always pitching
"It's a feature, not a bug."
2
Jess Naidoo
Jess Naidoo
Head of Operations
"Where's the data?"

Pragmatic. Sharp. Carries the company on her back. Lives in spreadsheets and reality.

Questions everything Mug: SPREADSHEETS DON'T LIE Saves them all
"Show me the numbers, Kabelo."
3
Nandi Mokoena
Nandi Mokoena
Growth Lead
"Big on vibes."

Creative. Resourceful. Deeply understands audiences. Finds scrappy ways to grow without burning the budget.

Beige overshirt Long braids Community first
"Reach is cheap. Trust is the moat."
4
Armand van der Merwe
Armand van der Merwe
The Investor
"Seen it all."

Calm. Direct. Strategic. Values clarity over hype. Has been on the other side of the table for two decades.

Black bomber jacket Black rectangular glasses Reads everything
"What does this look like at scale?"
5
Pieter Botha
Pieter Botha
Enterprise Client
"Send a quote."

Risk-averse. Procurement-first. Slow but important. Needs process, proof, and comfort before signing.

Light blue shirt Khaki chinos Loves an SLA
"Can you put that in writing?"
6
Cody
Cody
AI Teammate
"Confidently wrong."

Loyal. Helpful. Fast. Also wrong sometimes — with confidence. Always wants to help. Sometimes gets rate-limited.

White body, green accents "CODY" on the chest Short and stocky
"Based on the latest data, I'd recommend… "
About the strip

Why we draw it.

A SOUTH AFRICAN STARTUP STORY

Most startup writing is either a victory lap or a postmortem. South of Series A sits in the messy middle, where most founders actually live. The pre-Series A reality. The "we have traction but no term sheet." The Friday-morning crisis that doesn't make it into anyone's tweet thread.

It's set in Cape Town, but it could be Lagos, Nairobi, São Paulo, or anywhere the ecosystem is thin and the runway is short. Five people and their AI, trying to build something useful before something breaks.

Expect scrappy office politics, founder math, awkward customer calls, and the kind of tiny Cape Town details that make the chaos feel uncomfortably familiar.

The strip features in Friday editions of The Open Letter from 8 May — a daily newsletter on South African startups, tech, and business, read by 31,000+ people who are also building something south of Series A.

Cadence
One strip a week
Format
Three-panel, AI-drawn
Setting
A startup office, Cape Town
Published in
The Open Letter