Insights
Five key lessons for corporates from an Entrepreneur in Residence
The hardest part of being the lean engine inside a large organisation is convincing the people in it that small things are worth paying attention to.
Opinion
Don Draper and The Lean Startup
To a black man in 1960s America, being heard – his valued and counted – must have meant the world. In startup language, that is proto customer development. Don Draper would have given Eric Ries a run for his money.
Insights
Wyatt Roy is the Taylor Swift of Australian politics: a reflection on last weekend’s #PolicyHack
My role at #PolicyHack was very clear – I was the lead facilitator for Team 3: tasked to improve gender equality in the ecosystem. The biggest lesson from #PolicyHack was how harrowingly hard it is to combat a systematic problem like gender equality in tech in one blow. For all the noise I make about this issue, I was truly humbled by how challenging it is to get anyone, let alone the government and the private sector, to agree on what to do first.
Insights
‘Startups are human’: Lessons I learned from Phil Morle and my eternal gratitude
Along with being a champion and catalyst of the Australian innovation ecosystem through Pollenizer, Phil Morle has been a great teacher to us all. More than the technical learnings around lean tools and the testing methodologies, Phil has taught me that startups are, above anything else, human and therefore have a beating heart that should be enable and empowered. These lessons I learned from Phil Morle live with me every day.
Insights
It’s time the government started testing and validating their ideas towards a better future for Australian startups
It is painfully apparent that even though this is the third iteration of Labor for Innovation, nothing really has been done since the first. The panel was very eager to let us know about what their ideas are, but we have not seen any action or even plans come out of these sessions. My concern here is not that these conversations are not useful, because they are, but that they stop when the events are over. There is no speed to action or testable MVPs that come out of these dialogues.
Insights
Fashion and technology: A reluctant but inevitable match
This year has seen a boom in wearables. From the flop of the ill-timed (and ill-designed) Google Glass to the recent launch of the Apple watch, fashion and tech seems to be an inevitable match. We can no longer avoid being snobs around the fashion industry, leaving it to designers and manufacturers to figure it out.
Insights
Australian startups’ fetish with fundraising is the French Bulldog equivalent of artificial insemination
Our local fetish with funding rounds are the French Bulldog equivalent of artificial insemination. We are keeping companies alive that perhaps should not be around. With over 100 incubators in the country, we are fast reaching saturation point for synthetically created companies.
Profiles
Sydney’s latest tech event Daze of Disruption was not my kind of circus, but it highlighted a bigger industry problem
Unfortunately, Daze of Disruption does not make a good case for itself. After the long series of keynotes and panels, it was hard to determine whether we were meant to feel threatened, encouraged, or any sense of urgency around this mystical “disruption”.
Profiles
That Startup Show’s latest episode reminds us of the human side of being a founder
That Startup Show celebrated its Sydney launch last Friday with a popcorn-fuelled soiree hosted by BlueChilli. This was unlike any other industry event I have been to in the last year – there was no pitching, no sponsors to over-thank, no Powerpoint slides. Everyone was there to have a good time. And a good time we had!
Profiles
Startmate Demo Day: We’re back to focusing on real world businesses
PItching season in Sydney comes around just like hunting season. But instead of Elmer Fudd with a shotgun, we have eager founders with powerpoint decks. Pitching season is the engine of our growing startup ecosystem – it injects money into growing businesses, it propels good ideas forward and showcases the best our local founders have to offer.
News & Analysis
Mike Cannon-Brookes is the Beyonce of tech events
Do you remember that Beyonce Superbowl Halftime Show where she killed it so hard that she literally broke the power in the New Orleans Superdome, leaving tens of thousands of football fans in the dark for the 17 minutes following her kick-ass performance. That is the closest thing I have to compare Mike Cannon-Brookes’ panel presentation at Slattery IT’s Rewind/FastForward event this past Wednesday. Mike is the Beyonce of tech events.
Profiles
Australian startups and immigration policy: A victim of the popular vote?
Last week I wrote a column on the growing limitations our retrograde immigration policy presents on the startup community. This issue is not only a matter of urgency in terms of talent migration, but it presents a huge challenge on the growth front. We are facing a policy checkmate where new startups are prevented from acquiring talent and, with it, access to diverse ideas and markets.
Profiles
Startups and immigration: The fuzzy end of the lollipop
What really makes my blood boil is that, even with the kicks and screams from the general public, this government seems to be in deep denial to what our economy needs and what growth actually means. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the current talent vacuum.
Profiles
Are you a startup vampire or a werewolf?
The question I get asked the most, other than “Are you dancing?” is “How can I get a job in startup?” Many people ask me how I got started; they want my “foot-in-the-door” origin story. Unfortunately, there is no fairy tale, boy-meets-girl, tie-it-up-with-a-bow story behind it.
Profiles
Hakuna Ma-startup: Fighting for diversity in our startup jungle
My latest #flearn was attempting to convince my theatrically-impaired boyfriend to come see The Lion King musical with. It was an comically heated argument….He could not understand why I was so adamant to sit through the show again.
