Cape Town · South Africa

MATTSW ART

(PTY) LTD

I build commerce on Shopify, engineered with current AI.

Any system, any vertical, any geography.

  • checkout · one tap, on-domain
  • discovery · universal commerce protocol
  • integrations · PMS, ERP, distribution

Plekify · accommodation reservations on Shopify

Booking software that does one thing

I built Plekify to handle Shopify-native accommodation reservations, and nothing else. Fewer moving parts means faster checkout. It integrates live with Apaleo for property management and WETU for distribution across Africa.

measured checkout
19s
LFI
10.9

public friction study · 276 playwright runs · github.com/matthew-swart/plekify-booking-friction-study

Measured cart-to-confirmation, head to head with the field.

lodging friction index · lower is better

SafariNow · 1999–2017 · CEO 18 years

I founded SafariNow in 1999 on a R50,000 loan, about 200 listings, and one thesis: revenue is proportional to products online.
Eighteen years later I'd grown that to 22,718 listings and R2bn+ in facilitated bookings, then sold a majority stake to Travelstart.

  1. 1999

    founded on a R50,000 loan · 200 listings

  2. 2000

    1,492 suppliers online · web-to-SMS quotes + online card payment, SA firsts

  3. 2006

    first SA Google Maps mashup

  4. 2010

    4,500 listings · FIFA World Cup year · Tiger Global in

  5. 2013

    ~17,000 bookable products · #1 supply in 6 African countries vs 9 global platforms

  6. 2015

    peak annual booking value

    R296.8m

    ANNUAL BOOKING VALUE AT PEAK · 2015 · AUDITED

  7. 2016

    22,718 live listings across 8 countries · 105,590 bookings CY2016

  8. 2017

    majority sold to Travelstart · Tiger Global a shareholder for 7 years

The numbers, audited

  • 22,718live listings · 2016listings live
  • 8African countriescountries served
  • R2bn+lifetime bookingsbookings facilitated
  • R50,000founding loan, 1999where it started

South Africa · 2013 · bookable supply

Revenue ∝ Number of Products

South African firsts

  • ~2000web-to-SMS quote notifications + online card payment (SA first)
  • 2006first SA Google Maps mashup
  • 2008EARTHsearch mapping product, Indaba
  • 2000sfirst white-label affiliate program, per-affiliate styling
  • 2010first SA OTA on Garmin devices (World Cup map)
  • ~2011Nokia app preloaded on new Nokia phones
  •  3D Google Earth in-browser search

A pre-Shopify Shopify, built a decade early.

  • Products
  • Collections
  • Pages
  • Blogs
  • Search
  • Customer Accounts
  • Supplier Accounts
  • Staff Admin
  • Affiliate program
  • Agent program
  • Financial Ledger
  • CRM tools
  • Customer marketing
  • Reporting

custom asp.net platform · 2000–2010 · a decade of custom build with a dev team

affiliate, content, channel and device partners · 1999–2017

24.COM · IAFRICA · M-WEB · IOL · WORLD ONLINE · FLYSAA/SAA · NOKIA · GOOGLE · GARMIN · TRIPADVISOR · SITEMINDER · NIGHTSBRIDGE · PICK N PAY SMARTSHOPPER · TRAVELSTART

SA eCommerce Awards 2015 — best eCommerce services platform · 1st runner-up overall

Murmurgo · AI-assisted itinerary design

An itinerary pipeline on current AI

I built Murmurgo to assemble travel itineraries with a Gemini Deep Research destination pipeline, local-LLM hybrid semantic search, and multi-model routing chosen by task, over a curated corpus spanning 23 countries. Builds stream in under a minute, and every claim traces back to a source card.

  • google gemini deep research destination pipeline
  • qmd — local llm + hybrid search (github.com/tobi/qmd)
  • multi-model routing by task
  • curated proprietary corpus · 23 countries
  • sub-minute streaming builds
  • every claim traceable to a card
BUILDING · 41S LIVE PIPELINE OUTPUT · REPLAYED

Day 1, Cape Town: Table Mountain cableway opens 08:00, wind permitting.

Kloof Street breakfast window before the cableway queue builds past 09:30.

Bo-Kaap walking route: 45 minutes, cobbled, moderate incline, guided option available.

Afternoon slot pending — cross-referencing cableway wind closures against alternative

operations, automated

I built and run iRoll's technology

iRoll is an electric-rides business. Invoicing that raises itself, waybills that book themselves, advertising that manages itself.

iroll.co.za ↗
  1. 01
    XERO

    invoices raised automatically

  2. 02
    RAM.CO.ZA

    waybills booked automatically

  3. 03
    GOOGLE ADS

    campaigns run automatically

mobile app · concept

A trade app for reps with no signal

This is a design for the same distributor's field sales team: the full catalogue searchable offline, a barcode or VIN scan that jumps straight to the right product, and orders placed on account terms that queue and sync once signal returns. It runs on the same Shopify B2B engine as the storefront. I design and build this kind of app as a service.

  • works with zero signal
  • scan barcode or vin
  • syncs when reconnected
concept mockup of the trade app — two phone screens

DEMONSTRATION INTEGRATION · LIVE DEVELOPMENT STORE

acumatica ↔ shopify b2b

I built this as a demonstration of B2B wholesale on Shopify: a 3,323-item catalogue synced from Acumatica, per-customer tier pricing, a passwordless OTP hub for invoices, statements and PODs, checkout on net terms, and a staff dashboard covering 19,179 sales lines.

DEMONSTRATION INTEGRATION · LIVE DEVELOPMENT STORE

R11,100 → R3,570

list price → paid at checkout · net terms · trade discounts applied · shown live

ProFilm Connect sign-in backdrop.

DEMONSTRATION INTEGRATION · LIVE DEVELOPMENT STORE

oracle netsuite ↔ shopify b2b

Here I demonstrate 29 price levels across 4 currencies as native Shopify B2B catalogs, with approval-gated buying and pay-on-account terms. Orders post back to NetSuite as sales orders, closing the loop between storefront and ERP.

29 × 4

price levels × currencies → native B2B catalogs

M. Swart, portrait.
M. SWART — FOUNDER

the founder · survey science → production AI

  • 1981age eight, first computer: a Commodore VIC-20
  • 1996building online
  • 1998built kapstadt.co.za, a German-first Cape Town travel guide "You are visitor number: 18 since August '98"
  • UCTBSc Survey Science — statistics-heavy, first-year computer science and statistics
  • final yearleast-squares adjustment solver for over-determined survey networks, written in BASIC
  • thesisfor Toyota — reverse-engineering uniform reflective surfaces via photogrammetry and pixel matching
  • 1999–2017founded and ran SafariNow, 18 years as CEO
  • 2024–building Plekify and Murmurgo

(AᵀPA)x = AᵀPl

Take hundreds of imperfect, conflicting measurements and calculate the one answer they're all pointing to — then trust it.

least-squares adjustment · over-determined networks · taylor linearization · weight matrices · iterative convergence

final-year project · written in BASIC

off the clock

Off the clock, I'm usually on the water or upside down on a yoga mat.