Cape Town-based digital agency Supernice is set for a record 2014/15 financial year, with revenues increasing by 35 per cent off the back of working with clients such as Red Bull, Kalahari, Adidas and Ogilvy.
Founded in May 2012 by Daren Fuchs and Johann du Bruyn, Supernice builds web and mobile apps for brand, advertising agencies and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The startup’s vision is to be a global business that creates premium interactive digital products and enables the world’s leading brands to emotionally engage with their audiences. Currently predominantly operating in South Africa and the United Kingdom (UK), it is planning on increasing its client base in Europe.
Fuchs told Disrupt Africa Supernice, which has been bootstrapped until this point, had spotted a niche in terms of producing high-quality software for UK and European clients.
“Building up credibility and finding the right team members have been our biggest challenges. Both challenges have been overcome,” he said, adding the company had been fortunate enough to be engaged on some exciting products.
“We built a social media aggregation product for Red Bull, which collects selected content from Twitter + Instagram via accounts and hashtags and displays them on the central website and at live events,” he said. “The aim is to connect the online and offline experiences, and generate user conversation around events.”
Other Supernice products include a community of bucket list achievers, as well as Founded in South Africa, which aims to showcase local startups to the world via a simple platform and global network.
Fuchs said the biggest difference the startup had noticed between working in South Africa and Europe was the level of client education around technology.
“As South Africa is supposedly a few years behind with tech adoption, UK customers are more educated around technical abilities and thus more comfortable with buying technology solutions from us,” he said. “We’ve also found UK budgets to be slightly higher than local ones.”
