Most small businesses are invisible.
Founded April 2026 — Drikus Botha
Drikus Botha
Founder, KiesSlim
Serial entrepreneur. Builder of businesses online and offline for over three decades. Based in South Africa.
Not bad. Not dishonest. Not poor quality.
Just invisible.
Think about the businesses you already know
- The lady baking cakes from home.
- The man fixing lawnmowers in his garage.
- The retired mechanic who's forgotten more about cars than most people ever learn.
- The weekend flea market seller with genuinely beautiful work.
- The home-based nail technician every client swears by.
- The guy making biltong the whole neighbourhood keeps coming back for.
Google barely knows they exist. Facebook buries their posts. They cannot afford marketing agencies.
That is the problem KiesSlim exists to solve.
The real problem is not reviews.
The biggest problem facing small businesses is not a lack of reviews. It is a lack of visibility. Many small businesses sell to a customer once and never see that customer again — not because the service was poor, but because there was no way to stay in front of people who already trusted them.
Business owners are forced to constantly chase new customers because they have no effective way to remain visible to the local communities around them. This creates a cycle where genuinely good businesses remain small simply because people do not know they exist.
KiesSlim exists to break that cycle.
How it works.
Anyone can nominate a local business they know. The business appears immediately — a real page, visible to the community, searchable online. The owner can claim it, update it, and start building an audience of people who follow them and want to hear from them.
No subscription. No payment. No barrier. The lady baking cakes from home gets the same online presence as a restaurant with a marketing budget. That is by design.
A real example
Tannie Sannie runs a small bakery in Vryburg. She has 84 followers on KiesSlim — locals who loved her koeksisters enough to tap Follow. On Friday morning she opens KiesSlim, types: “Fresh soetkoekies out the oven — only until 12 today” — and hits Post. Thirty seconds.
By 10am her soetkoekies are sold out. Not because she paid for an ad. Because 84 people who already love her bakery got a nudge on their phones and came in.
The long-term vision.
KiesSlim will become South Africa's small business network. A platform where consumers discover local businesses, follow businesses they love, receive updates and specials, and continuously support local entrepreneurs.
The goal is simple: when someone needs a product, a service, a deal, or a recommendation — they open KiesSlim before searching anywhere else.
For consumers
- Discover local businesses
- Find trusted providers
- Follow favourite businesses
- Receive specials and offers
- Support local entrepreneurs
For businesses
- Become visible
- Gain customers
- Retain customers
- Build a local audience
- Grow sustainably
We launched in April 2026. We are still young — and the mission is enormous. Our current campaign is to map 100,000 small businesses across South Africa. Anyone can nominate. No payment. No friction. Because every business that gets found is a business that can survive.
KiesSlimmeans “choose smart” in Afrikaans. The name says what we are here for: helping South Africans find and support the businesses that deserve to be found.
Questions or feedback? Get in touch.
— Drikus Botha, Founder, KiesSlim