Thinking of starting a small business? Exciting isn’t it? That was me nine years ago. I had an idea for a Registered Nurse led professional ear wax removal business using safe and gentle microsuction. In these nine years we have grown from one clinic opening four hours a week, to a nationwide business clearing the… Read more »
The arrival of Uber and its ilk in Australia has seen more $1 billion in taxpayer funds handed to the what’s now known as the point-to-point transport (ie including taxis) sector in compensation. And users in NSW will continue to be slugged for it until the end of this decade. The entire sector has been… Read more »
Away from the VC mega-round headlines or the hard stories of founders who can’t raise capital at any price, is the solvable problem of how much money a new founder should raise. I’ve participated in hundreds of investments where founders have opted for different answers to this question, and watched the consequences unfold over the… Read more »
No founder achieves greatness without getting spooked along the way. So the challenge is how you vanquish those demons, with the right ghostbusters by your side, that makes all the difference. Funding and customer growth may be the loudest concerns we hear from startups, but there’s a lot more happening beneath the surface that should… Read more »
Much of life is about pedigree. It’s why parents pay insane amounts of money for private schools (aka the old school tie), why VCs back founders 2nd time around (even after previous failures), royals marry other royals, and why a co-owner of champion racehorse Winx paid $10 million for her filly at auction this week.… Read more »
Over the past five years, accelerator and incubator programs in Australia have had their ups and downs. Some have opened, while others have closed, and through it all thousands of startups have applied for a chance to increase their odds of survival and growth. Having now completed three corporate run accelerator programs (with KPMG, PepsiCo,… Read more »
With overseas markets such as America, Europe and Asia providing substantial growth opportunities for Australian startups, overseas government tender opportunities are becoming a popular choice for founders to penetrate new markets and grow. There have been many stories of mixed success – from big contract wins to proposals being binned from the outset. In each… Read more »
Victoria’s (and Australia’s) future prosperity is dependent on knowledge-intensive companies that collaborate, innovate, and commercialise successful products globally. But to survive and reach commercial success, these companies must be able to access funding at key stages of their development. Without this, they will fail. In turn, we will fail to create a self-sustaining human healthcare… Read more »
(Note: the following are general observations only and do not constitute tax advice) News this week of Macquarie Bank writing off its $46 million investment into software company Plutora has once again brought to light the devastating impact that denied R&D tax incentive claims can have on a startup. Whilst the exact circumstances of Plutora’s… Read more »
I often hear founders say “Australian VCs are so conservative, they all want traction before they’ll invest! You have to go to the US!”. While the idea that you must go to the US for funding merits a longer write-up, let’s talk about VCs asking for traction. VCs, like most people, can be bad communicators.… Read more »
In our journey through the business world, we often encounter hurdles that test our resolve, creativity, and strategic thinking. Transitioning from corporate burnout to building a six-figure business within a year, I learnt the indispensable role of essential systems in achieving scalability and profitability. I want to take some time to share with you the… Read more »
The tech sector was one of the only industries in Australia which saw the number of job ads increase over the last month but was also the only sector that saw wages go backwards, according to reports. New data from Seek showed the number of jobs ads posted in the information and communications technology sector… Read more »
More than three-quarters of work meetings in Australia are ineffective and are stopping people getting their actual work done, according to new research. The Workplace Woes: Meeting Edition report, released by Atlassian, involves a survey of 5,000 knowledge workers across four continents, including 1,000 employees in Australia, in partnership with Wakefield Research. The research found… Read more »
How I became a customer of, and then an ex-customer, of a password/security startup, PassCamp What happened (or didn’t happen) at PassCamp that lead to their demise What they could have done differently to (potentially) avoid their fate Lessons to takeaway in what they did well for sunsetting a product Most businesses fail. Of the… Read more »
Australia’s startup world glorifies venture capital as the holy grail—the insider’s ticket to fast scaling and billion-dollar valuations. FOMO sets in when headlines splash record-breaking funding rounds, fuelling a culture that views VC backing as the singular metric for success. As an ecosystem, we fixate on spinning the VC roulette wheel. Even founders who don’t… Read more »
The lessons from Uber, Ola and rideshare’s disruption is that in the end, the consumer still pays 
Here are the finalists in Fintech Australia’s 2024 Finnies awards 
Atlassian cofounder Scott Farquhar steps down as co-CEO 
Unicorn dehorned: Nasdaq-listed Brisbane EV charging venture Tritium collapses into receivership 
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