[mark_integerdsv]

Howzit bru.

I work at a tech startup in Cape Town (in the data analysis & visualization space.)

In my experience the challenge is that the local market isn't supportive or capable of supporting in some cases, and breaking into the international market with the weak rand is a tough nut to crack when your competitors all have several hundred mil in investment (x 17 for the exchange rate.)

So you sit with a product that fits locally, has some international potential but you can't really get enough sales locally to support an international launch and you kind of end up seeing the end of the runway whilst realizing that you're unlikely to have enough lift to get airborne by the time you reach it.

I'm sure that with enough funding this isn't as much of an embuggerance.

Any investors want to take advantage of the weak Rand? We have good devs and designers here, we speak English and we can get a lot done for about a 20th of what it would cost in the US...

[markatkinson]

Lekker man!

This is a much better analysis of the current environment I would say.

Broforce did a lot better than I was expecting it to to be honest. I think I have just become jaded that SA wont ever have any successful game dev stories, so when I watched the trailers etc my mind automatically (and wrongfully so) just flips over to "Oh that looks cool, pity it will never make them any money."

Maybe I should change that perception...

[my_username_is_]

Could the relative weakness of ZAR be a benefit for international investors? If I'm an American making an investment and I was offered identical investment opportunities in 2011 and today, the investment I make today is at a ~50% discount

[zingar]

We just have to figure out how to take advantage. I think the IT industry is better placed than any other given that we're not trying to build using imported materials (or at least, we can charge a lot more than the cost of our imported computers).

[progressive_dad]

Someone should fly to Notch's fancy offices in Stockholm and convince him distribution channels are way more interesting than his next demo.