New guidebook to be launched on Joburg’s startup scene

South Africa’s commercial capital Joburg is fast becoming the country’s next big startup city.

A survey by Ventureburn in November last year revealed that the city’s home province Gauteng is now home to 55% of tech startup founders, ahead of the Western Cape’s 37%.

It’s fitting then that Startup Guide, a European publisher that has already produced guides on the startup scenes in over 25 cities around the globe, will launch its next guide on Johannesburg.

The launch will take place next Monday (9 September) at 6.30pm at the Tshimologong Precinct in Johannesburg.

A Startup Guide on Cape Town will be launched on Wednesday (4 September) at Workshop 17 in Cape Town (see this story).

Startup Guide Johannesburg contains all the tools you need to build your business in this vibrant ecosystem

The Johannesburg guide was created in collaboration with the Tshimologong Precinct and sponsored by SAP and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Ventureburn is the official media partner.

The guide is packed with expert advice, insightful interviews and essential resources.

Whether you’re looking to get connected with an entrepreneur, startup, investor, programme, school or co-working space, the guide has all the tools you need to build your business in this vibrant ecosystem.

Startup Guide Johannesburg costs €20 (R310 at the current rate) but those that place a pre-order now can save 20% on the book before the launch date.

Nominations process

The book follows a community kick-off event that Startup Guide held in November last year at Tshimologong Precinct to mark the start of nominations for the guidebook (see this story).

Over the course of two weeks, members of the local community were then able to submit their recommendations for the organisations in the startup ecosystem that deserved to be featured.

At the end of the nomination period, a local advisory board, compiled by Silicon Cape, considered each nomination before ultimately deciding who should make it into the book.

In the months following this, the guide’s production team conducted interviews, gathered information and designed the guidebook.

Over 25 cities already

Startup Guide was founded in 2014 by Danish entrepreneur Sissel Hansen.

The idea behind the guidebooks originally came to Hansen when she moved from Copenhagen to Berlin to start a business and discovered how difficult it was to find useful information and local advice about that process.

Despite being rejected by multiple investors, she bootstrapped the project and launched the first Startup Guide book in Berlin in 2014 – and it sold out in less than 48 hours.

The event will include remarks from Startup Guide’s Hansen, as well as from the Johannesburg guide’s sponsors.

For more details on the event see the event’s Facebook page or Eventbrite page.

Ventureburn is the official South African media partner of Startup Guide.

Read more: New guidebook on Cape Town’s startup scene to launch
Read more: Startup Guide launches call for nominations for Joburg edition
Read more: Startup Guide calls on those in Cape Town to be part of new guide

*Correction: We incorrectly referred to SAP as “SAP-Gen”. This has been corrected.

Featured image: Startup Guide Cape Town image (Supplied)