Transitioning to enterprise software. Services live now. First product, RAG Studio, ships Q4 2026. See the roadmap →
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sonofgraig
Founding Customer Programme

Five seats. All available.
One platform you'll shape.

The sonofgraig founding customer programme exists for a reason: five South African enterprise organisations get to be the people the platform is built around. RAG Studio ships in Q4 2026. Agent Builder beta lands in Q1 2027. Founding customers commit early, get steep discounts, get direct line to the founding team, and get to make their use case the use case the roadmap optimises for. The risk is time, not money.

70% off your first year. R5,999/month on Growth instead of R19,999/month.
Direct line to the founder. Tumiso is on your account, not a CSM proxy.
Your use case shapes the roadmap. Direct quarterly input on what we build next.
Service credits convert. Active R45K+ engagements credit against the first three months.
Apply for a founding slot See the qualification criteria
POPIA-native by architecture
AWS af-south-1 residency
ZAR pricing, no FX risk
Cancel anytime, year one
Total slots
5 founding
Strict cap, never raised
Year-one discount
70%
Off Growth-tier list
Window closes
RAG Studio GA
Q4 2026 target
Waitlist depth
247
Organisations registered
01 · What founding customers get

Three benefits worth far more than the discount.

The 70% discount on year one is real, and worth roughly R168,000 on a Growth-tier subscription. But the discount is the third-most-valuable thing about being a founding customer. The first two are below.

Benefit 01 · Influence
Your use case shapes the roadmap
Founding customers attend a quarterly roadmap-shaping call with the founder. The product features that ship first are the ones that solve your problems first. We do not promise to build everything you ask for — we promise that the team building the platform knows exactly what your specific operating environment needs.
Quarterly roadmap call with the founder
Benefit 02 · Access
Direct Slack Connect with the founder
A shared Slack Connect channel between your team and Tumiso. Not a CSM proxy — the founder, who has personally built the first version of every product in the platform. Bug, feature request, architecture question, integration question, escalation: it goes to the same human who can do something about it.
1 hour typical first-response on critical
Benefit 03 · Economics
70% off year one, locked through year three
Year one: R5,999/month instead of R19,999/month on Growth. Year two and year three: founding-customer pricing locks at 50% of standard — R9,999/month. From year four, standard ZAR list applies. Total saving across the founding window is roughly R408,000 versus standard pricing — before any service-credit conversion.
~R408K total saved over 3 years
02 · Founding vs standard

Same platform. Different relationship.

A founding customer gets the same software a standard Growth-tier customer gets in 2027 — but a different commercial structure, a different access pattern to the team, and a different role in shaping what we build next. The table below is the honest difference between the two.

Feature
Standard customer
Founding customer
Year-one Growth pricing
R19,999/month
R5,999/month · 70% off
Year 2–3 pricing
Standard list
R9,999/month · 50% off, locked
Account contact
CSM (Phase 2 onwards)
Founder · direct Slack Connect
Quarterly roadmap call
Read-only release notes
Yes · with the founder
Roadmap input weight
Customer-survey input
Direct prioritisation say
Onboarding
Self-serve in 2–5 days
Guided session with engineer
Service-credit conversion
Not available
Yes · first 3 months credited
Cancel anytime, year one
12-month commitment
Month-to-month, no penalty
Logo & case study
Optional
Optional · never required
Data residency & POPIA
af-south-1, full POPIA controls
Same architecture, no concession

No founding-customer concession compromises POPIA, residency, encryption, or any other security control. We do not run a "beta" with weaker compliance posture — the platform is the platform.

03 · Who qualifies

Five slots. Five very specific organisations.

Founding-customer slots are not awarded by application order. They are awarded by fit. We pick five organisations across legal, financial services, and professional services where the founder can be operationally close to the work and where the use case is genuinely repeatable across other South African enterprises — because the goal is to make the platform better for everyone after you, too.

Strong fit
If your organisation looks like this
  • South African enterprise — mid-market or larger
  • Real production AI use case (not a sandbox or PoC)
  • POPIA compliance is a board-level concern
  • Internal champion at director level or above
  • Engineering, legal, and risk teams that engage with software, not buzzwords
  • Comfortable with a Q4 2026 GA timeline — risk is time, not money
  • Sectors: legal · financial services · professional services · healthcare · public sector
Probably better elsewhere
Founding programme is not for you if
  • You need a finished, GA-stable product immediately
  • You need certified SOC 2 Type II in writing today (Phase 2 deliverable)
  • You are evaluating cheap-as-possible commodity AI and only price matters
  • You are not based in or serving customers in South Africa
  • Your stakeholders cannot commit to quarterly roadmap engagement
  • You expect a logo-wall trophy logo and no real product engagement
  • For these cases — consider a service engagement or wait for GA

If your organisation does not fit cleanly into either bucket, the right next step is a 30-minute conversation. We will tell you honestly whether the founding programme makes sense for you — and if it does not, point you to a service engagement or recommend you join the waitlist for GA.

04 · Application process

Four steps. Eight to ten business days.

There is a deliberate amount of friction in the application process. We want both sides to be sure the fit is right before any commercial commitment. The four steps below add up to roughly eight to ten business days from form submission to onboarded-and-live.

Step 01
Submit application
Fill in the form below. Your submission goes directly to the founder — not an intake queue. Confirmation email arrives within minutes.
Day 1
Step 02
Discovery call
A 45-minute call with the founder. Use case fit, integration requirements, POPIA exposure, success criteria. NDA signed beforehand. We are honest if it is not the right fit.
Day 2–5
Step 03
Founding agreement
Standard founding-customer agreement — ZAR pricing locked, year-one cancel-anytime, three-year price protection, optional case-study clause. Your legal team reviews; mark-ups go to tumiso@sonofgraig.com.
Day 5–9
Step 04
Onboarded & live
Your environment provisioned in af-south-1. Guided onboarding session with the founder. Slack Connect channel opens. You are live within 2–5 business days of agreement execution.
Day 10
05 · Apply

5 slots available. Apply.

Submission goes directly to the founder. Required fields are marked. We respond within 2 business days with either a discovery-call slot or an honest "this is probably not the right fit, here is what we suggest instead." We do not ghost applications.

Founding-customer application

Submission goes to Tumiso (founder) directly — not an intake queue. We respond within 2 business days regardless of fit.

About you
We need to know who is asking, who else is involved, and at what level the conversation needs to happen.
We use work emails so we can verify the company.
About your organisation
Helps us understand the procurement profile and identity-provider integration that will apply.
SSO is included on Growth and Enterprise.
Use case & cluster
RAG Studio ships first (Q4 2026). Agent Builder beta lands Q1 2027. Other clusters launch in Phase 2 and Phase 3 — founding pricing applies to all of them.
Tick all that apply — founding pricing covers any combination.
Avoid pasting personal information — consent is recorded for processing this enquiry only.
Submitted via TLS 1.3 · stored in af-south-1
Application received.

A confirmation email is on its way. Tumiso will review your application personally and respond within 2 business days — with either a discovery-call slot or honest feedback if the founding programme is not the right fit. We do not ghost applications.

Back to home
06 · Programme timeline

Six dates that matter.

The founding window is bounded by the platform itself — not by an arbitrary marketing date. The window stays open until RAG Studio reaches general availability. Once GA happens, the discount structure is no longer offered to new customers. The clock is real.

Founding-customer window opens
Now · 5 slots available
Active
Applications open. The founder personally reviews every application. Slots awarded by fit, not by application order.
Founding-customer onboarding begins
Per agreement signature · 2–5 business days
Rolling
Each founding customer is onboarded as their agreement is executed. Environment in af-south-1, guided onboarding session with the founder, Slack Connect channel.
RAG Studio reaches general availability
Q4 2026 target · sonofgraig SaaS Transformation v1.0
Q4 2026
RAG Studio shipped and live. Founding window closes to new applicants. Standard ZAR pricing applies to all customers from this date forward.
Agent Builder beta opens to founding customers
Q1 2027 target
Q1 2027
Founding customers are first into Agent Builder beta. Visual canvas for designing, deploying, and monitoring AI agents. No additional fee for the beta.
SOC 2 Type II + POPIA certification
End of Phase 2 · founding customers get evidence pack
Mid 2027
SOC 2 Type II audit completes. POPIA compliance certification achieved. Founding customers receive the full compliance evidence pack on issue.
Founding-customer 50% pricing locks through year three
Years 2 and 3 · R9,999/month on Growth
2027 → 2028
Year-one 70% discount steps to year-two 50% discount — locked through the end of year three regardless of standard list increases. Standard ZAR list applies from year four.
07 · Frequently asked

Questions procurement, legal and finance ask first.

If your team is preparing a board paper or a vendor risk assessment, the answers below cover most of what gets raised. Anything else, send to sales@sonofgraig.com.

The products are not GA yet — why commit now?
RAG Studio ships Q4 2026. Agent Builder enters beta Q1 2027. You are not committing to a finished product — you are committing to a founding relationship. Founding customers get 70% off year one (R5,999/month instead of R19,999/month for Growth), direct access to the founding team, and your real-world requirements shape the product roadmap. The risk is time, not money. Year-one is month-to-month with no cancellation penalty — if the platform is not delivering for your team, you walk away.
What if I want to cancel mid-year?
Year one of the founding agreement is month-to-month with no cancellation penalty. This is unusual for enterprise SaaS and is deliberate. We are asking you to take a risk on an early-stage product; the least we can do is not lock you in financially. From year two, the standard 12-month commitment applies — at the locked 50% discount through year three. You always get 60 days' notice of any pricing change at year four when standard list resumes.
How is the 70% discount calculated — what is the actual saving?
Standard Growth tier is R19,999/month. Founding customers pay R5,999/month in year one — a saving of R168,000 over twelve months. In years two and three, founding customers pay R9,999/month (50% off) — saving a further R240,000 over those 24 months. Total saving across the founding window is approximately R408,000 versus standard pricing. Service-engagement credit is on top of this, where applicable.
Can I convert a service engagement into founding-customer status?
Yes — this is one of the cleanest paths in. If your organisation has an active or recently-completed sonofgraig service engagement (RAG Knowledge Base Setup, AI Agent Implementation, Cloud Architecture, AI Governance Audit, Data Analytics), the engagement implementation fee credits against your first three months of platform subscription on conversion. Mention the engagement reference in the application use-case field and your account team handles the rest.
Who else has taken a founding slot?
Two slots are taken. Founding-customer logos are never disclosed without explicit consent — even by sector. We will not name any of the founding customers on this page or in marketing materials. References to qualified buyers are arranged under NDA on a case-by-case basis after a discovery call. The "logo wall" is optional, never required, and not a benefit of the programme.
What does "your use case shapes the roadmap" actually mean in practice?
A 60-minute roadmap call with the founder once per quarter. Each founding customer presents their highest-priority unmet need; the founder commits in writing to which items will be addressed in the next quarter and which will not be (with reasons). It is a direct prioritisation say, not a wishlist. We will not promise to build everything — but the team building the platform will know exactly what your operating environment needs, and that bias shows up in the product.
Does the founding agreement include POPIA controls and a DPA?
Yes. Every founding customer signs the standard sonofgraig Data Processing Agreement covering POPIA processing activities, lawful basis, security controls, sub-processors, and transfer mechanisms. Your legal team can mark up departures from the standard text during contracting. The DPA is the same one signed by Phase 2 standard customers — we do not run a "lite" compliance posture for early customers. Architecture is consistent.
What is the SLA during the founding window?
Founding customers reach the founder via a shared Slack Connect channel. Typical first-response on critical issues is within 1 hour during South African business hours; security incidents are 24/7. Formal contractual SLAs apply once SOC 2 Type II completes mid-2027 and the platform is fully GA. Until then, the SLA is the founder's personal commitment in writing in your founding agreement — which is, frankly, often a stronger commitment than a contractual SLA from a larger vendor's tier-one support.
Are sonofgraig B-BBEE certified and CIPC registered?
Yes — SonOfGraig Digital Solutions (Pty) Ltd is B-BBEE certified and CIPC registered. B-BBEE spend certificates are issued per invoice. The PAIA Manual is published. The Information Officer is registered with the Information Regulator. All commercial documentation is available to your procurement team for supplier on-boarding via tumiso@sonofgraig.com.
What happens if the company fails or is acquired?
A reasonable question, asked openly. The founding agreement contains a data-export and runtime-egress clause: if sonofgraig fails or is acquired in a way that materially alters the service, founding customers have a defined window to export all data and the underlying source-code IP rights for self-hosting. We commit to this in writing because it is the right thing to do and because we expect customers to care about it. Phase 1 funding is from services revenue, not VC; we are not going to disappear quietly.
One last note

If founding-customer is not the right fit, the waitlist is.

If your organisation does not need a founding-level relationship — and if the GA timeline is fine for you — the public waitlist is the right place. We update everyone monthly with progress. Standard ZAR pricing applies from RAG Studio GA in Q4 2026. No commitment, unsubscribe one-click.

Join the waitlist Talk to a person first