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 »
As someone who has always been a minority in an industry, it was, embarrassingly, only in my 30s that I genuinely began to properly clock how tilted the stage is. Up until then, I was that person who said cringey things like “I genuinely don’t think I have ever experienced sexism or harassment”. Lol. Oh,… Read more »
Venture capital investor Elaine Stead has launched a free handbook on how to address sexism, harassment and other inappropriate behaviours in the tech sector. Dr Stead, the founder of Human VC, said hundreds of Australian tech leaders have contributed to a new crowdsourced resource, “Addressing Sexism in Australian Tech & Investment”. It contains a compilation… Read more »
As remote and flexible work increases, so does a rising trend of employees juggling multiple jobs. As an HR professional, I find this trend both intriguing and challenging. The motivation seems to be primarily driven by the relentless increases in the cost of living. With traditional avenues such as overtime and extended working hours often… Read more »
As one of the founders of Humanitix, I’ve witnessed firsthand how technology can be a powerful force for positive change. From the very beginning, my cofounder, Adam McCurdie, and I were driven by the belief that business, if managed and structured ethically, can play a massive role in solving social problems at scale. Our journey… Read more »
The last decade in corporate Australia has seen a much greater acknowledgement of toxic workplace practices and their impact. In the startup sector in particular, over recent weeks we have seen many women come forward to share their experiences of gender discrimination, sexism, harassment and abuse, a subset of toxic behaviour. I am in the… Read more »
Lived, an app designed to help people with addiction has closed down as its founder deals with her own health issues. Founder Sally Metelerkamp announced the business had shut down on X (formerly Twitter) last week. “With a mix of gratitude and reflection, I share that the company I led, Lived, has gracefully wound down,”… Read more »
It’s hard to imagine there is anything left to say on OpenAI, that hasn’t already been said in any one of the millions of hot takes over the last few weeks. But never fear. In startup land, there is always room for one more hot take that absolutely no-one asked for. Today I was asked… Read more »
About seven years ago, I stood at an art gallery in Sydney in front of a crowd not dissimilar to this one and pitched our startup as part of the first batch of the UNSW Founder 10x program. On that demo day, we did not come across as the best startup, we did not get… Read more »
You’ve heard VC investors say “we back founders” ahead on an idea and it seems that founders are key to the success of a startup, according to a new study into their personality types. The study, The impact of founder personalities on startup success, published today in Scientific Reports, shows founders of successful startups have personality traits… Read more »
Renowned innovators, creators, artists, and explorers across generations all share a profound passion for curiosity. This could be argued as their real key to success, with research confirming curiosity serves as a powerful driver for sparking ideas, engaging and retaining employees. But for startups the luxury of unlimited resources and never ending budgets is non-existent… Read more »
New research from the University of Adelaide demonstrates that being proactive could earn an individual a leadership position, but merely being proactive alone does not make for a good leader. Individuals must be aware of their own leadership competencies to avoid the traps of the Peter Principle, which acknowledges that employees tend to be promoted… Read more »
Transitioning from a tech giant like Microsoft to an early-stage startup can be a daunting but exciting experience. Before joining Tidal, I made this leap to become the fourth employee and founding marketer at hyper-growth startup Dovetail. In this article, I’ll share the valuable insights I learnt along the way, I’ll share my critical realisations during… Read more »
The loss of the OceanGate submersible Titan appears to be an example of warnings ignored. “We have heard the baseless cries of ‘you are going to kill someone’ way too often,” OceanGate chief executive Stockton Rush wrote in 2018, after being told he was putting lives at risk using his experimental submersible Titan to ferry… Read more »
The skills needed to thrive in an uncertain future are often thought to fall under the term “entrepreneurial mindset” but New Zealand researcher Darsel Keane has found that there’s little clarity about what an entrepreneurial mindset actually is. While the phrase is cited with increasing popularity in recent years, Keane, director of the Centre for… Read more »
‘Have I gone too far?’ How founders can beat their startup demons 
Unicorn dehorned: Nasdaq-listed Brisbane EV charging venture Tritium collapses into receivership 
Tassie carbon accounting startup banks $5.3 million Seed round 
The lessons from Uber, Ola and rideshare’s disruption is that in the end, the consumer still pays 
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