Cape Town Among World’s Top Cities for Starting Something New
8 October 2020
Want to start something new and exciting in 2021? Choose Cape Town!
That’s according to the team at UK magazine Courier, who in the Oct/Nov 2020 issue ranks Cape Town among the world’s Top Cities For Starting Something New in 2021.
Other cities include Mexico City, Ho Chi Minh City and Tel Aviv.
The magazine describes Cape Town as a dynamic city packed with restaurants, wine farms, coffee shops and co-working spaces – all of which create the work-life balance that Cape Town is known for.
“A combination of lifestyle, community, a culture of creativity, access to funding and the sun, bring people looking to launch new business to Cape Town, in particular,” according to an editorial in the magazine.
A city with the right base ingredients
The article quotes Joshin Raghubar, chairman of the Cape Innovation and Technology Initiative (CiTi), and Nick Dutton, co-founder of Cape Town based surf clothing and accessories store, Mami Wata.
Asked why an entrepreneur should consider living and working in Cape Town, Raghubar told Courier: “There is an existing entrepreneurial ecosystem.”
“In all measures, it is the number one tech ecosystem in Africa; it employs more people in tech than Lagos and Nairobi combined. And it has the right base ingredients: great universities; a sophisticated, cosmopolitan culture; it’s a beautiful city – you can be in the mountains in the morning and the ocean in the evening; and its relatively cheap – to earn in dollars or euros and live in Cape Town is probably one of the best lifestyles anyone could have.”
Drawn by surf culture, idyllic lifestyle
Dutton, who was born in Johannesburg and raised in England, moved his family to Cape Town to co-found Mami Wata in 2016, after being drawn by the city’s surf culture and idyllic lifestyle.
About Cape Town, Dutton says: “Here you can work really quickly. Everything we’ve needed to create the brand is within four miles of the shop. And when you’re in those early phases when someone is offering you a sample, you can drive to go and see them.”
According to Courier, you should consider Cape Town because: “Along with the idyllic lifestyle, Cape Town offers a foothold on the African market”.
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