It’s very early in your startup’s journey. You and your cofounders have a good mutual understanding of what you think your startup should be, but you can’t agree on what to call it. You don’t have time for this right now, but you know you need a brand name. Here’s how to just get it… Read more »
Whether you just closed your rings on your Apple Watch, got an alert saying someone liked your tweet, or stepped out to buy yourself a hot chocolate because you’ve worked hard on a spreadsheet model all day, we all rely on rewards (big and small) to motivate us to engage with technology products. Personally, my… Read more »
How many times have you picked up the entertainment section of a newspaper to read a restaurant review that begins with something like: “The owner of this aspiring Michelin Guide restaurant, which is opening for the first time this week, says they’ve not only never started a restaurant before, they’ve actually been in hospitality for… Read more »
The “pre-money valuation” of your startup is the total value of your company before an investment is made: it determines both how much equity an investor will receive in exchange for their investment, and therefore, how much equity you, your team and existing investors will retain once the new round of investment is completed. Pre-money… Read more »
When my alarm goes off an hour before sunrise, I’m always deeply asleep and I never spring out of bed, full of energy, ready to face the day. But I get up, change into my exercise gear, and drive to meet my personal trainer, Maddie, no matter how I feel. I don’t do it because… Read more »
One of the stupid things I did when I first made money was start an indie music label. It was the early 2000’s, online music was just beginning to take off, and I wanted to learn more about it from the inside. I thought I could see many parallels between the tech startup industry and… Read more »
This is gold, I would read this blog post pic.twitter.com/vdPbq7n6YW — Jarrad (Moose) Lawrence (@JarradLawrence) November 3, 2022 I was playing around with a new AI that attempts to tweet like the author (you can try it out here) and Moose Lawrence posted this example, meant to be something that I’d be likely to tweet.… Read more »
Around this time of year, almost all of the startup founders who pitch me or ask for advice will start saying, “…and we’re [hoping/planning/must be ready to] launch by the end of the year. Here’s the thing: “end of the year” is an artefact of the calendar system we use in the West, unchanged since… Read more »
You can’t build a great team if you can’t recruit a team. Think about what you have to offer a potential cofounder or team member, and what that must look like to them vs not working in a startup. No wonder persuading people to join a startup is hard: Working for a startup Working… Read more »
Industry dinosaurs like me can still remember when there was no such thing as a startup pitch competition. But times have changed: the glaciers have retreated, bipedal mammals have become the dominant life form, and there are now more startup pitch competitions each year than coffee shops near Wynyard Station. Good for startups, right? Yes… Read more »
The goal of customer research at the earliest stages of a startup journey is to help us validate/ invalidate the assumptions we have made when believing we that we know what customers want. Chances are, in the first few years, your tech startup is more based on a hypothesis than the satisfied paying customers you’re… Read more »
Want to create a perception that you’re a leader in the customer community your startup serves, or in the professional startup field you work in? It’s not rocket surgery: become the person who creates a regular meetup and community about it. Say you’re a [professional] in [startup category], like [product manager] in [aged care SAAS].… Read more »
(Author’s note: This story begins with the death of a friend and mentor. It is also about something I only just figured out last week — unusual for a ‘wise old sage’ of the Aussie tech startup community. Please bear with me and I promise it’ll be worth your time.) Last week I was on… Read more »
As an early-stage tech startup founder you will often have to write your own startup’s marketing copy, and you may find it difficult if the brand’s tag line is the first line of marketing copy you’ve ever written. Because you spend so much time with your head focused on how to solve the customer problem using… Read more »
Should I offer cash or equity to a startup advisor? Cash whenever possible, and equity only if you truly must. As a general principle, offer cash/commission to people helping you close a one-off deal (like raising a round) and only offer advisory equity to people you’re confident are going to be ongoing advisors to the… Read more »
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This vertical farming startup is growing fast – and you’re next with the 2024 evokeAG. Startup Program 
A new angel investment syndicate is backing Australia’s Techstars founders 
A newspaper created an AI version of Sam Kerr holding a trophy and it’s a lesson in why humans still matter 
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