Alan Jones Archives

VC partner Alan Jones on sophisticated investor changes: ‘I won’t be the only one wondering if I’m a downturn away from being excluded from investing in the fund I run’

Alan Jones - January 17, 2024 5 MIN READ

My venture partners and I are raising money for new venture funds at the moment and there’s an awkward moment every time I have an initial conversation with anyone who’s considering investing in VC for the first time: the moment when I have to raise the question of holding a sophisticated investor certificate. When I… Read more »

Business strategy

How to quickly choose a ‘good-enough’ name for your startup

Alan Jones - March 1, 2023 4 MIN READ

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 »

Business strategy

From confetti showers to milestone gifts: the art of variable rewards

Alan Jones - February 15, 2023 4 MIN READ

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 »

Investing

How getting your startup’s valuation right is about supply and demand

Alan Jones - December 21, 2022 4 MIN READ

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 »

Leadership

An investor and startup mentor explains why he sets his alarm for 5:10am to build his resilience

Alan Jones - December 7, 2022 5 MIN READ

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 »

People

Why you should hire for culture-fit, skills and experience, in that order

Alan Jones - November 23, 2022 4 MIN READ

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 »

Business strategy

Bot’s up Doc? How an AI-generated tweet made me think deeply about how the worst VC could be the best one for you

Alan Jones - November 9, 2022 6 MIN READ

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 »

Business strategy

Here’s why you shouldn’t be in hustle mode right now to launch your startup by the end of the year

Alan Jones - October 26, 2022 3 MIN READ

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 »

Business strategy

The 5 whys of customer research

Alan Jones - August 31, 2022 3 MIN READ

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 »

Leadership

How to make yourself an industry leader

Alan Jones - August 17, 2022 2 MIN READ

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 »

Business strategy

Maybe your startup’s offboarding process is more important than its onboarding one

Alan Jones - August 3, 2022 3 MIN READ

(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 »

Advice

Here’s what you need to think about if you’re going to write your startup’s marketing

Alan Jones - July 20, 2022 2 MIN READ

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 »

Advice

How to best reward startup advisors for their contribution

Alan Jones - July 6, 2022 2 MIN READ

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 »

Advice

Why you’re never the customer when your startup is solving a problem

Alan Jones - June 22, 2022 2 MIN READ

I hear this a lot from founders: “I don’t need to do more customer research because I’m focused on solving the problem I experienced myself. I AM the customer!” Except you’re not, not any more. You haven’t been the customer since the time you first started thinking about solving this problem for others as a… Read more »

People

Alan Jones takes over as Fishburners CEO

Simon Thomsen - June 20, 2022 2 MIN READ

Sydney startup hub Fishburners has changed its leadership with CEO Nicole O’Brien standing down, replaced by entrepreneur and investor Alan Jones as interim CEO. The organisation marked a decade of operation last year, and has received strong support from the NSW government to help it survive the pandemic lockdowns. Earlier this year it launched theTech… Read more »

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