Being a great startup founder is not just about running focused stand-ups and killing pitch comps. And it’s not just about recruiting a rock-star team and letting them do their voodoo. Neither is it about closing a funding round and then ignoring your investors until it’s time to raise again. An underperforming team member can… Read more »
What’s a SAFE, what’s a convertible note, and are they really better for founders than raising investment in a priced equity round? The short answer is that you can raise investment with a SAFE note or convertible note in Australia, but you might not necessarily find it easier to raise the money if you do.… Read more »
Partners and principals at leading Australian venture capital firms, including Square Peg Capital, Main Sequence Ventures, Giant Leap, Jelix Ventures, and Flying Fox Ventures have signed an open letter to the editor the AFR about what the investment community sees as “an ongoing smear campaign” against colleague Dr Elaine Stead. The letter follows a high… Read more »
If you’re not on a mission to solve a specific problem, how do you choose the best customer problem for your startup to work on solving? Solve customer problems that arise often, every day We have to help our customers develop new habits — to use our product/service to solve that problem, rather than their… Read more »
If you’re certain you understand the business, and you are confident your investment in it will succeed, what you’re doing is not venture capital, it’s banking. Venture capital must have a high degree of risk in order to have a chance of earning the high returns venture capital investors expect from this asset class. Venture… Read more »
Let’s consider whether adding another connection to another stranger is actually going to help you achieve anything, or whether the value of your time is actually all going to Microsoft (which owns LinkedIn). How many contacts can you really stay up-to-date with? LinkedIn says I’m connected to 7,881 people. If they all just post an… Read more »
It’s very common for the startup founders I meet to want to offer the earliest versions of their product or service to early customers for free, or at a significant discount. I encourage them (and you) to not do that. Discounts work best when the customer already has an expectation of what the price should… Read more »
Australia’s universities are in desperate trouble, and their first move has been to cut the entrepreneurship and innovation arms they should be defending at all costs. Sometimes, there’s no satisfaction in being right with predictions; like the time back in early March, when I predicted that the tech startup accelerator programs and incubators being offered by… Read more »
Yes, be honest! Be honest about what you think you’ve learned so far, and what you hope to learn about during the accelerator. No accelerator wants startup founders who pretend they don’t need any help, that believe they are a sure bet for success. Accelerators exist to coach you, and if you don’t need any… Read more »
The three things I have to say that are most likely to offend startup founders are: I’m not interested in investing in your startup because I don’t think it’s going to be successful; I’d rather not accept your LinkedIn request; and I’m not going to sign your Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) You shouldn’t take it personally… Read more »
In a briefing to portfolio companies, A-List venture capital investor Sequioa Capital calls COVID-19 a black swan event — something rare, of significant global impact, and difficult to predict except in retrospect. Uncertain times always come with new opportunities for those in a position to identify and exploit them, but most black swan events are bad news for… Read more »
Telstra-backed accelerator muru-D has unveiled the 10 startups taking part in SYD6, the sixth run of its Sydney program.
Prolific angel investor and BlueChilli advisor Alan Jones will next year join QUT Creative Enterprise Australia (CEA) as entrepreneur in residence for its creative tech accelerator, Collider.
Nearly 9000 taxi drivers just scored $152 million from Uber as compensation for its illegal launch in Australia 
Zip cofounder Larry Diamond backs online death planning startup in $17 million Series B 
3 amazing scientific breakthroughs thanks to 2024 video game research 
Breakthrough Victoria pivots with $7.5 million startup fellowship program to create 50 startups 
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