Question 1 of 7
Why small businesses, and why now? What about this problem space actually interests you - beyond wanting a job?
💡 We're building for South African entrepreneurs in a moment where AI is rewriting what one person can run. Convince us you've thought about what that means.
Your answer
Question 2 of 7
Tell us about something you built, designed, or figured out that nobody asked you to. What was it, why did you do it, and what happened?
💡 A side project, a uni assignment you took way too far, a tool for a family business, a redesign of something that annoyed you. We care about the pull you felt, not the polish.
Your answer
Question 3 of 7
Describe the last time you had to learn something genuinely hard from scratch. How did you go about it, where did you get stuck, and how do you know you actually learned it?
💡 Year One is mostly this, on repeat. Show us your method, not just the outcome.
Your answer
Go meet a real small business owner.
Let's be upfront about the job. Whether you're engineering, design, or marketing, you'll talk with small business owners. You'll get your hands dirty. That's not a side quest here - it's the job. So every applicant does this, no exceptions:
Record a 3–5 minute video conversation with a real small business owner. You'll drop it in your shared folder in the final step below.
What to talk about
1
Their businessWhat they do, who their customers are, why they started in the first place.
2
Their battlesWhat's genuinely hard about running it - admin, cash flow, customers, whatever they bring up.
3
What they've learntThe lessons they'd hand to someone starting tomorrow. Let them talk - your job is to listen well.
How to do it
1Find a real small business owner - the corner café, your aunt's salon, the guy who fixes phones. Ask nicely; most people love talking about their business
2Record 3–5 minutes of conversation - short and real beats long and polished. A phone propped on a table is perfect. No editing skills required
3Save the file as interview.mp4 (or similar) - you'll upload it alongside your intro video in the final step
💡 We're not grading production value. We're watching how you ask, how you listen, and what you draw out of them.
⚙️ Section 3 · Engineering
Question 4 of 7
stub connects to systems we don't control - banks, SARS, payment providers - and they go down, change without warning, and return nonsense. How would you design an integration so the business owner never has to care?
💡 No experience with this required. Reason from first principles: what can go wrong, what should happen when it does, and what should the user see?
Your answer
Question 5 of 7
stub is AI-native. Pick one place in a small business owner's financial life where you'd apply machine learning - and tell us how you'd know, with real numbers, whether it's actually working.
Your answer
Question 6 of 7
Our customer is a business owner doing admin at 21:30 on a mid-range Android phone, on mobile data, after a 12-hour day. What does building for that person change about how you build software - from the interface all the way down to the backend?
Your answer
Question 7 of 7
Show us the piece of work you're proudest of - a repo, a project, a system, anything. What was the hardest technical decision in it, and would you make the same call today?
💡 Link it if you can (GitHub link in your details above, or paste one here). If it's not linkable, describe it well enough that we can picture it.
Your answer
Question 4 of 7
stub needs to be in front of thousands more South African entrepreneurs, and you have almost no budget. Where do you show up - and why those channels and not the obvious ones?
💡 Think about where small business owners actually are, not where marketers hang out. Defend your picks.
Your answer
Question 5 of 7
Explain stub to a busy restaurant owner in three sentences - no jargon, no buzzwords. Then tell us where that message should live so owners like her actually see it.
Your answer
Question 6 of 7
A campaign lands - signups spike - but almost nobody becomes a paying customer. Walk us through every reason that might be, and how you'd figure out which one it actually is.
💡 Think like a detective. Good marketing is mostly finding the leak, not pouring more in at the top.
Your answer
Question 7 of 7
Tell us about something you've grown - an account, a society, an event, a side hustle, anything with numbers attached. What actually moved the needle, what flopped, and what did you learn?
💡 Scale doesn't matter. Taking a campus event from 30 to 300 people counts. We want to see cause and effect.
Your answer
Question 4 of 7
Small business owners are careful about who touches their money - and software has to earn that trust before it earns a subscription. How would you design for trust in a financial product? Be concrete.
Your answer
Question 5 of 7
Design that customers love and design that makes commercial sense are sometimes in tension. Tell us about a design decision - yours or one you've studied - where that tension showed up, and how it was (or should have been) resolved.
💡 The job is a commercially robust product customers love - both halves, at the same time. We want to see you can hold both.
Your answer
Question 6 of 7
Pick any product a South African small business actually uses - banking app, invoicing tool, WhatsApp, a spreadsheet. Choose one flow inside it and redesign it in words: what's broken, what you'd change, and how you'd know the redesign worked.
Your answer
Question 7 of 7
Show us the piece of design work you're proudest of. What problem was it solving, what did you try that didn't work, and what would you push further with another month?
💡 Link it if you can (portfolio link in your details above, or paste one here). Process beats polish - we want to see how you got there.
Your answer
Final step
One last thing. Show us who you are.
Record a 3-minute video of yourself - phone camera is perfect. No edits, no script - just you talking to us. If you want a retake, that's up to you. Then put it and your small-business interview in one shared folder and paste the link below.
What to cover in your 3 minutes
1
Who you areYour name, what you've studied or worked on so far, one thing not on your CV.
2
Why this craftWhy engineering, design, or marketing is your thing - what pulled you to it.
3
Why stubOne concrete reason you want to build for small businesses with us - starting with Year One.
4
How this has beenReflections on the application process - especially interviewing your small business owner. What surprised you, what did you take away?
How to share your videos
1Create a folder on Google Drive or Dropbox named Firstname Lastname – stub
2Put both videos in it: your 3-minute intro and your small-business interview
3Set sharing to "Anyone with the link can view" - on Drive: Share → General access → Anyone with the link; on Dropbox: Share → Create link
4Open the link in a private/incognito window to double-check it works - if we can't open it, we can't watch it. Then paste it below