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There has been a LOT of chatter all over the South African Internet regarding First National Bank in discussions to bring PayPal back to South Africa.

WHAT??!! You don’t know what PayPal is? I don’t blame you, since the South African e-commerce environment has been hamstrung by not having this worldwide international standard stripped from us for so long.

PayPal is a USA-based wallet system for making and receiving payments safely over the Internet. PayPal protects you most of all as at no time do you need to divulge any of your financial information. FANTASTIC!

PayPal became especially famous on eBay and has now become *THE standard * in online payments.

Today PayPal has more than 153 million accounts worldwide across 190 markets and 24 currencies.

A few years ago due to some decisions made by the reserve bank as well as increased rate in fraud. But the genera consensus is that’s all a bit of “he said, she said”.

A bit of online digging revealed the following article on one of South Africa’s best known blogs, mybroadband – It’s a common consensus that something does stink to high heaven here.

Here is another article on MoneyWeb siting the exact legislation.

Here is a good podcast covering the issue with JP van der Spuy from Mytrade.co.za

Th two major considerations that have really held back e-commerce in South Africa are the South African Postal Service (So bad it sent the world’s largest shopping portal Amazon.com) running for the purple mountains) coupled with the lack of PayPal.

I know that the lift of this ridiculous restriction will completely change the way that companies like Springleap.com will do business not only in South Africa, but with the international Internet community that has become used to PayPal as their go-to payment method.

Despite what you may have heard to date the deal has not yet been sealed, but yesterday Virginia Magapatona – the head of corporate communications at FNB – confirmed that FNB is indeed in discussions with PayPal and the South African Reserve Bank – but that’s where the information and communication trail ends. That’s the FNB official story.

Te rest is hype and conjecture.

And hope.

Springleap.com featured in the social media March issue of Entrepreneur Magazine’s Small Capital (A practical guide for business owners). The social media issue includes a case study of Springleap, co-founders and co-owners Eran Eyal and Eric Edelstein gives insight into building online communities, crowdsourcing, and social media.

The Springleap case study delves into past achievements as well as future plans the entrepreneurs have.

Read full Springleap case study below:

Small Capital
Issue fourteen March 2010

A practical guide for business owners – The Social Media Issue

CASE STUDY: Springleap

To Eran Eyal and his partner Eric Edelstein, the sole purpose of their Springleap.com website is to enable the crowd.

“Our core business and intellectual property is building online communities and harnessing their power. We are all about crowdsourcing; t-shirts are how we chose to express it.”

The t-shirt business

The t-shirt side of Springleap.com’s business is deceptively simple. Every two weeks the Springleap.com community votes for their favourite t-shirt designs, submitted by other members of the community. The creator of the winning design wins R7 482, 18- half in t-shirts baring the designer’s name. T-shirts with the winning designs are printed and sold via the Springleap.com website, the Springleap store in Sea Point, Cape Town, and via preferred reseller partners such as Big Blue, Rockabilly, Idols, SKA, Lover and others. The artist also earns royalties on every t-shirt sold.

Apart from voting, subscribers to the Springleap.com website can browse through previous designs and buy t-shirts8 whenever they like. 8Springleap t-shirts are manufactured from high-quality South African cotton and delivered to their fans’ doorsteps free of charge.

The real business
As Eran and Eric point out, Springleap.com’s purpose is to empower its community and to keep the members coming back for more.

On the one hand, it is hugely empowering environment for artists. “They submit their designs and receive feedback not only from so-called ordinary people, but also from other artists,” says Eran. “In the two years of the website’s existence, we have seen numerous instances of artists collaborating, mentoring each other and commenting on each other’s work.”

On the other hand, Springleap.com is a hive of activity for all members. They can blog, comment, converse with other Springleap.com users, submit creations, win all sorts of prizes, photograph people wearing Springleap clothing and submit those pictures – the list is virtually endless. The trick, as Eran points out, is to keep the community busy and give then new and interesting reasons to visit the site.

One of Springleap.com’s success stories is the daily special. Every day at 12:00 noon, they announce a special offer on a specific (t-shirt( on their Twitter account (@Springleaping). With discounts ranging from 5% to 70%, buyers have only 24 hours to submit their orders. It is not surprising that the daily special is the cornerstone of their marketing strategy. “That is where our marketing budget is. To date, we have not spent a cent on advertising.”

Understanding that community building, and not t-shirts, is the heart of their business, has allowed Eric and Eran to diversify.
Springleap.com now works its crowdsourcing magic for all kinds of design projects for corporate clients in a variety of industries. In fact, this is the real money-spinner for the business. In 2008, Springleap.com was named the second most innovative company in the retail sector in the world, and in 2009 won the Jump.co.za *e-commerce award for best online clothing and accessories store.

Eran explains: “In 2010 we will relaunch Springleap.com and introduce a few other new brands. Even more exciting is that w will launch the platform as SAAS (Software as a Service). This means that anyone will be able to have their own free ‘Springleap-like’ crowdsourcing e-commerce social media community site in a matter of minutes, by simply dragging and dropping the elements into place. We will also have more advanced features for purchase as well as full-blown corporate models.”

The secrets behind Springleap’s success

1. Time and effort. Social media, community building and crowdsourcing have been Eric and Eran’s way of life for a decade. “We understand the platforms and how traffic is generated, directed and converted.”

2. Perseverance and very hard work. From developing the website to coming to grips with textile production, postage and delivery, the birth of Springleap.com was anything but painless. “All I can say is that sharks patrol these waters!” comments Eran.

3. Business common sense. Eran believes that three things make a business work: always be nice, make calls and network, and deliver what you promise.

4. A sixth sense. “In this business, you need a feel for what will work, much like a surfer senses a good wave.”

The Springleap.com team would like to thank Small Capital

For more information on crowdsourcing watch videos below

One of the reasons I love Springleap is that I’m allowed to be so locally relevant here with my thoughts.

While the rest of the world might wonder what the heck this image means, we all have heard the story of the man who’s the father of the nation , right?

Yep I know, it’s another Vader design, but hey I bet you never saw THIS joke before :)

Freedom, cultural harmony, and multi-racial democracy are things many of us take for granted. Mandela said, “I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself”. When I hear his name, I immediately think of the word courage.

This is a stylized drawing of Mandela smiling. After trying every color combination known to man, it looked best in a single ink. Royal blue or black would work nicely on the green shirt.