Octoco

🚀 Beyond The Build Sessions For this session, Christiaan, Pieter, and Luke sat down as a panel to share what they've learned from working closely with clients across different projects. Luke has been leading one of our longest-running engagements, Christiaan brings a track record of being proactive and adapting quickly when technical needs shift, and Pieter has been involved in a broad mix of client work over the years. Together, they covered meeting prep, how to communicate effectively, thinking ahead so clients aren't the ones flagging issues first, and the confidence that comes from knowing your work inside out.

There's no single blueprint for a great Project Manager. Armand, Vera, and Henry all approach the role differently. They each bring their own strengths, personalities and ways of working. What they do share is a genuine interest in technology, the ability to bring clarity to complex engineering projects, a sense of ownership, and a drive to continuously improve how teams build great products. That's what we look for at Octoco. We're currently growing our Project Management team and are looking for two new Project Managers to join us: 💻 Software 🤖 Hardware See yourself on this team? Explore our open PM roles: https://lnkd.in/d7J-AGMu

We're excited to partner with The Open Letter for their upcoming Stellenbosch Gathering: Building & Scaling Venture-Backed Businesses at Workshack. Join 150+ founders, investors, and tech leaders for an evening of insights, networking, and conversations. The speakers for the evening include Brett Commaille (Hlayisani Capital), Thalia Pillay (Orca Fraud) and leading startup founders. 🎟️ Tickets are live - secure yours before they sell out! https://lnkd.in/dnhg4zdz

🚀 Beyond The Build Sessions Billi took the team through multi-tenancy - where one running application can serve many different customers, while each one experiences it as if they're the only one. Drawing on recent project work in which he applied these patterns in practice, he shared key lessons from the process. He broke down three common ways to set it up, what each approach handles well, where complexity starts to creep in, and the less obvious edge cases that can quietly cause issues if they’re not considered early on. We wrapped up with a demo and open discussion, where the team shared insights on what they've seen across their own projects.

Congratulations to the TaxTim team on the launch of TimAI and a range of new features ahead of the 2026 tax season. As a co-investor with Twofold Capital, it has been incredibly rewarding to support TaxTim's continued growth alongside an exceptional team with a clear product vision. We're also proud of the work delivered by the teams at Octoco AI and Polymorph Systems, whose technical expertise and hands-on collaboration helped bring these new capabilities to market. Explore TimAI and the new features on TaxTim’s platform: https://www.taxtim.com/za/

On Friday afternoon, the Octoco team traded keyboards for padel rackets for our mid-year tournament. 🎾 Teams were encouraged to get creative with their outfits, and they certainly did. The courts featured everything from SpongeBob & Patrick to Jacques & Claude, along with plenty of other memorable combinations. There was some genuinely competitive padel, a few questionable shots, and plenty of support from the sidelines throughout the afternoon. A great way to wrap up the first half of 2026.

Part 3/3: Access to technical leadership isn't one-size-fits-all. For many businesses, the question isn't whether experienced technical leadership is valuable, but what form it should take and when it makes sense. That's why we often have conversations around what a Fractional CTO does, how the role fits alongside existing teams, and what businesses can expect from the engagement. We've answered some of the questions we hear most often. If there's something we haven't covered, we'd be happy to continue the conversation.

Part 2/3: Most technical problems aren’t just engineering problems. They show up when there is uncertainty around direction, not just execution. Teams typically reach out when they need help making decisions that will shape the product in the long term, but don’t have senior technical leadership in place to guide them. This often shows up as: → A product growing faster than the technical foundation behind it → Uncertainty around architecture, stack, or system design → Difficulty deciding what to build now vs later → Teams needing alignment between business goals and technical execution → Investors or founders needing clarity on technical risk before committing further Fractional CTO support provides a way to step into those gaps and bring structure to the decisions that matter most. Explore some of our previous FCTO projects on our website: https://lnkd.in/eCnC78aH

Part 1/3: Technical decisions shape more than just the technology. They influence how quickly a product can evolve, how effectively teams can operate, and how well a business can manage risk as it grows. A Fractional CTO helps organisations make technical decisions within the context of a broader strategy. Without that perspective, teams can continue to make sensible decisions in the moment while gradually moving further away from the product's long-term objectives. This can include defining the technology strategy, evaluating trade-offs, guiding the architecture, and helping to ensure that technical investments support broader business objectives. ➡️ We've broken down what that looks like in practice, as well as some of the challenges it is designed to address.

James and Christiaan recently attended The Open Letter's "AI in Action" event at Innovation City Cape Town, where founders and enterprise teams shared practical examples of how AI is being used inside their organisations. One thing that stood out to Christiaan during the event: "The most interesting AI discussed throughout the evening was the AI you don't necessarily see." The startups using AI aren't always selling AI. The enterprises benefiting from AI aren't always talking about it. Instead, AI is becoming part of how teams think, build and operate, quietly supporting the work happening behind the scenes. We've been fortunate to partner with The Open Letter for the past few years, from Heinrich speaking at their very first Fireside Chat to co-hosting events, and we're still part of the community today. It's been great to see the community grow into a place where people openly share ideas, challenges and lessons from building technology in South Africa.