Welcome to the first in a series of video interviews taking you inside the offices of SA’s leading internet startups. We had the pleasure of visiting local internet entrepreneurs (and newly found Capetonians) Vincent Maher and Nic Harry of Motribe.

The experienced duo launched Motribe just over two months ago to great fan fair. We explore their thinking on using the Amazon cloud to build Motribe, how they reached millions of pageviews within two months (we also get into their latest figures), how they raised capital and why they settled with 4Di Capital for their first round of funding. We also look at their competitors in the mobile social networking space, how they acquired such an awesome top level domain and their thoughts on competing with the well funded startups of Silicon Valley.

Want answers to these questions? Click Play after the jump.

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About the Founders

Until recently Vincent Maher and Nic Haralambous were the team behind Vodacom’s The Grid and the massively multiplayer mobile game Legends of Echo, which was widely recognised as one of the most innovative products to emerge from the growing mobile applications industry in South Africa.

Maher has a long history of innovation in the web and mobile industries in South Africa. Prior to taking control of The Grid at Vodacom SA, he was one of the founders of products such as Thoughtleader, Techleader and Amatomu as well as redesigning the Mail & Guardian’s website. While Haralambous has worked for organisation such as The Sunday Times, Financial Mail, Mail & Guardian, Zoopy and Vodacom SA before founding Motribe with Maher.