Cape Town-based startup, Sugarbird Gin, has smashed South Africa’s crowdfunding record, previously held by hard rockers Fokofpolisiekar, to raise over R1,086 million on Thundafund for the launch of their debut gin offering.

The craft gin brand is pitched as a quality local product, but at an accessible price point; and is premised on the painfully simple principle of offering the gin connoisseur nothing more than #justgoodgin.

Last month we attended the super slick launch party of the brand on the Media24 rooftop, which kicked off the campaign in grand, classy style.

What does Sugarbird Gin taste like?

With an infusion of locally sourced floral fynbos this gin is distilled as a gentle bodied gin, reminiscent of a London Dry, easy but with more floral flavour.

Sugarbird Gin includes extracts of juniper berries, rose geranium, orange peel, lemon peel, grapefruit peel, honey bush, Angelica root, rooibos, cardamom, Cape May (which is sourced by botanists of the slopes of Table Mountain), coriander and a tiny dash of cinnamon.

A new era of crowdfunding in South Africa?

Unlike many other parts of the world, crowdfunding has enjoyed mixed success in South Africa as a tactic to fund an entrepreneurial venture. But what the successful funding of Sugarbird Gin does indicate, is that a completely unknown entity can successfully go from nowhere, to a significant financial stretch target, off the back of a decent value proposition, some passionate multidisciplinary collaboration and lots of energy by the drivers of the business.

Business development is usually perceived as such a serious endeavour.

Traditional attitudes towards the art and practice involve constructs of ‘power dressing’, elevator pitches and dream teams, who are skilfully proficient at twirling a business card on one finger and venture out into the complex melee of industry competition armed to the teeth with watertight NDAs and an attitude that would frighten a wild honey badger.

But for freelancers and smaller businesses – this kind of Wolf of Wall Street pantomime is simply not necessary.

In many cases, if you want to grow your business network – the best thing you can do is just go to more parties…and when you are at the party, make sure that you spend time talking to people that you don’t know.

This might be ultra painfully obvious for folk from Joburg, but this style of reckless social behaviour does not come naturally to the native Capetonian. Extending a foot outside of our well-entrenched comfort-zones is not an encouraged practice.

However, with very little effort, and perhaps just a slightly sore head now-and-again the next morning as an annoying consequence of these reckless actions – it is really magical what a casual chat with a random stranger can do for your long-term professional prospects. No pitches, no cards, no fancy dress.

Give it a go.

About 50kms out of Cape Town – straight down the R27 – you’ll find the Atlantis Dunes. If you have a half decent 4×4 you will most likely know the area rather well. A municipal permit grants you access to the couple of square kilometres of adult sandpit, which you can then drive your vehicle all over – or haul out a proper snowboard and ride the sand monsters to your heart’s delight.

The ongoing Cape Town water crisis is not news, but what is – is a breakthrough device developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which literally pulls water our of the atmosphere and is powered only by sunlight.

The water harvester is big enough for domestic use and at this stage, is capable of producing 2.8 liters of water over a 12 hour period. That doesn’t equate to being able to fill your swimming pool thanks to its efforts to easily now, but considering that this is a completely off-grid machine and is essentially producing clean water out of thin air – that’s damn impressive.

“This is a major breakthrough in the long-standing challenge of harvesting water from the air at low humidity,” said Omar Yaghi, one of two senior authors of the paper, who holds the James and Neeltje Tretter chair in chemistry at UC Berkeley and is a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “There is no other way to do that right now, except by using extra energy. Your electric dehumidifier at home ‘produces’ very expensive water.” via

As we have said before, the water issue in the Western Cape is not a one off problem that we are facing now. As urbanisation increases in the decades to come and climate change affects us as a region, water scarcity will be the new normal. Technology like this device could be the difference between the long term feasibility of the existence of a city like Cape Town being possible or not.

It certainly won’t be the only solution, but it might be a good idea for somebody at the City of Cape Town to shoot an email through to MIT so see how this kind of technology application can be tested at scale over here – sooner rather than later.

Tucked away, upstairs to the left of House of Machines on Shortmarket Street in Cape Town – you will find Outrage of Modesty.

To call it a cocktail bar would be to do what goes on here, an utter disservice. Luke Wheatley and his band of culinary pirates are on a mission to perfect the elegant art of pairing taste sensations, that defy logical reasoning. And from our brief experience last night, they are well on their way to finding that gastronomic holy grail.

But we weren’t at Outrage of Modesty just for the delicious cocktails. The real intention for our visit was to learn something from Luke and his team about how they go about creating a delightful and memorable customer experience. Believe it or not, whether you are in investment banking or manufacturing – there’s a lot you can learn from a visit to a good cocktail bar.

Here are some of the insight we took away from the outing:

• Collaboration

Nobody can make a significant impact alone. Luke understands this, and actively seeks local partners to collaborate with to leverage the opportunities that those relationships bring. He recently teamed up with our friends at the Oranjezicht City Farm as a partner for the provision of the fresh produce. When in doubt, team up.

• Creativity needs structure

There is a false perception that creative people are ‘flighty’ and prefer total chaos to any kind of order.

This is not true.

Luke feels (and we wholeheartedly agree) that creativity flourishes best housed in the framework of structure.  Within a schema of order, seemingly chaotic madness and originality can bubble up unhindered.

• Avoid adding more when it is not needed

It’s easy to load a plate with more stuff. Many restaurants believe they are offering the customer more value for money by overwhelming a plate with chips and garnish and all sorts of other, unnecessary excess. But a truely remarkable customer experience is one where no additional fluff is needed in a perfectly choreographed touching of all of the senses.

It is very easy to overcomplicate things, what’s hard is simplicity. Reaching a point where you are not able to take any more away without diminishing the value – that’s perfection.

• The quality of your thinking depends on the uniqueness of your inspiration

The saying goes: ‘A desk is a very dangerous place from which to think innovatively’. As a chef, Luke travels to unique places around the world to draw inspiration for his next menu and ensure that he is able to creatively differentiate himself from his competition. The same method should also be used by those seeking to differentiate their business value proposition. It’s not just chefs that should be going on a creative pilgrimage to seek inspiration from everywhere. Everyone tasked with a journey of innovation should be ‘going outside’ to explore and think.

If you’re wondering why your team isn’t coming up with innovative solutions – it’s probably because they stare at four blank walls day in and day out.

Take our word for it and do yourself a favour – head out and pay Luke and his team a visit.

Outrage of Modesty is at 88 Shortmarket Street. Booking is essential.

Years ago we took a trip out to Mzoli’s in Gugulethu, Cape Town to see how just one business has created a vibrant economic hub where many other small business operations can also flourish.

In this age of increasing anti-globalisation – African innovation and natural sensitivity towards social capital could provide an alternative model for the world and the future of sustainable capitalism.

What is social capital? It’s the network of relationships between people who live and work in a particular society or community, enabling that society to function effectively through cooperation for the long term advantage of all.

Globalisation has had a dramatic influence on the world. It has created huge amounts of wealth, but at the same time, it has concentrated that wealth in the hands of the few who are connected enough to exploit the opportunities it offers, while the rest of society is effectively excluded.

It’s not sustainable – and after 35 years of this global experiment, it feels like everything is unravelling quite quickly as the system collapses. A more co-operative system of capitalism needs to be adopted and the model may just be able to draw some inspiration from what already exists in Africa.

What a place like Mzoli’s demonstrates is that no business is an island. It’s just not possible for prosperity to exist for some amidst poverty for others. It’s only together that you can create long-term sustainability for a society.

Cape Town is an easy destination for car companies to shoot an ad of people doing stupid things on the road. Just point the camera on any given day in the direction of a street and you will be rewarded with scenes like this. Instead of the usual flashmob, here’s a driftmob featuring the the new BMW M235i.

For safety purposes they have created a ‘making of’ video just in case.

Apparently this is Sheer driving pleasure, but in our experience – people that behave like this on the road are usually need a stiff shot of Jack Daniel’s and a holiday.

Having said that – thanks to the creativity of this film, BMW have just confirmed for us that it’s just not a brand that we aspire to own. Now we know.