New guidebook on Cape Town’s startup scene to launch

Startup Guide, a European publisher that produces guidebooks on various startup scenes around the globe, will next week launch Startup Guide Cape Town — a directory and guide to Cape Town’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.

The guide — which was created in collaboration with Silicon Cape and sponsored by SAP Next-Gen and Amazon Web Services (AWS) — is packed with expert advice, insightful interviews and essential resources.

The Cape Town guide will be launched next Wednesday (4 September) at 11am at Workshop17 at the Watershed in Cape Town. Ventureburn is the official media partner.

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 Cape Town contains all the tools you need to build your business in this vibrant ecosystem

The guide costs €20 (R340 at the current rate) but those that place a pre-order now can save 20% on the book before the launch date.

Ann Rosenberg, SAP’s Next-Gen senior vice president and global head, said the partnership between SAP Next-Gen and Startup Guide inspires entrepreneurial communities around the world to innovate with purpose.

“We share a joint mission to foster collaboration and provide access to resources for businesses that leverage technology for profit and purpose,” she said.

Nominations process

The book follows a call Startup Guide put out in August last year at an event at Silicon Cape to mark the start of
nominations for the guidebook (see this story).

Over the course of two weeks, members of the local startup 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, who last year called it the “first-ever entrepreneurial handbook dedicated to Cape Town’s startup scene”.

The publishing and media company has books in over 25 cities across Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East, as well as a regional guidebook spanning the Nordics.

Thus far it has produced guides for 18 different cities in Europe and the Middle East — including among others Berlin, London, Tel Aviv, Stockholm, Vienna, Lisbon and Paris.

Among others, it plans to launch guides on Cairo and Bangkok soon

In October last year, the company launched a media website, startupguide.com, which was born out of the desire to explore diferent types of content and reach a wider audience.

It also has physical stores in Berlin, Lisbon and Copenhagen that double as offices for the company’s 20-person team.

The idea behind the Startup Guide books 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.

Event to feature panel discussion

The event will feature a panel discussion moderated by SAP Next-Gen’s Africa director Kwena Mabotja and a mix of corporate and startup entrepreneurs that will share their diverse perspectives.

These include Startup Guide’s Hansen, SAP Africa’s Mervyn George, Amazon Web Services’s Cobus Bernard and Silicon Cape chairperson Sumarie Roodt.

The event is being sponsored by GreenTec Capital Africa, a non-profit organisation founded to promote investment in African entrepreneurship.

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 to be launched on Joburg’s startup scene
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

Featured image: Startup Guide Cape Town image (Supplied)