Dr Catriona Wallace has an amazing story around her Flamingo journey. With some amazing insights. She was genuinely inspiring, eye-opening, frank, charismatic and energetic.
Ash is a very successful Aussie who has been living in the heart of the US startup and venture scene for many years now. In this chat we held at the Equitise launch of their Syndicates product, I chat to him about this investmentmodel and his observation on the Aussie startup sector.
Kate Cornick is the new CEO at Launch Vic, the Victorian Government's $60m investment vehicle. We cover a very wide range of topics here. What is launch Vic? What does success look like? How did Kate get this role? She's a fascinating lady in a very cool job.
GregMoshalis an entrepreneur with over 12 yearsexperience in entering new markets across diverse industries. Greg knew firsthand the difficulties faced by small businesses in accessing money to run and grow a businessand foundedProspain 2011to change the way small business owners experience finance. Using a proprietary technology platform and a fast, simple online application process, Prospa can approve loans and provide funding in as little as 24 hours. TodayProspais Australia'sleading online small business lenderand in 2015 was named Australia'sfastest growing technologycompanyat Deloitte TechFast 50 Australian awards having secured a phenomenal 6971% growth! Since 2011, Prospa has lent over $130m to thousands of small businesses in Australia. We chatted to Greg about how his experience in fast-moving unpredictable environments has sharpened his focus on innovation. He is a champion of agile, holistic design thinking, where disruptive change can make things that are difficult, eas...
He might be the youngest minister in Australia's history, butAssistant Minister for InnovationWyatt Royshows no signs of inexperience. An impressive speaker, and a passionate advocate for innovation and the entrepreneurial community, when Mr Roy sat down with Innovation Bay Co-founder, Ian Gardiner, he suggested it might not just be a cultural shift that's needed, but a generational one. Mr Roy began by defining innovation as'the output of a deeply entrepreneurial culture', and continued by outlining what he sees as the role of government:'as a Liberal, I'm someone who feels the government should generally get out of the way. The questions I ask myself are: "How do we act as an enabler? And "How can we be a facilitator between sectors, such as the University sector and the private world?"' While 'getting out of the way' of business may be his ideal, Mr Roy concedes that placing innovation on the agenda (through the Government's aptly named Innovation Agenda) will involve a fair bit ...
James came along to an Innovation Bay event in late 2015. He was a remarkable CEO. Very young, very dynamic and utterly competent. Whilst at the same time very humble and soft-spoken. Here's an excerpt from the Innovation Bay blog post after the event: James Spenceley (http://www.innovationbay.com/past-speakers-single/james-spenceley) has overseen the incredible success of Vocus Communications (http://www.vocus.com.au). In 2009, Vocus was Australia's fastest-growing technology company, which led to James winning the prestigious Deloitte Technology Fast 50 award. Today, Vocus Communications is a member of the ASX200 with a market capitalisation of more than AU$1.493 Billion - a staggering achievement for a start-up that James originally funded through refinancing his home mortgage in 2008. He joined us for our Innovation Bay speaker breakfast in Sydney on November 11, to share what he's learnt so far from his journey and what he hopes to achieve in future. Quick to stress that succes...
One of the luxuries that US VCs have over Australian ones is that with the size of their funds, range of investments and sheer size they can afford to employ crazy-smart technologists like Adrian. Adrian was in Australia for a few days and I managed to catch up with him and grab this interview. It's probably the most teccie interview I have done. On the edge of my comfort zone :0 Adrian worked at Netflix in 2008 when it made the decision to go all-in on AWS as a scalable cloud platform. It makes sense now, but back then this decision was pretty surprising to many people. He now works at one of the US's best VCs, Battery Ventures where he advises the firm and its portfolio companies about technology issues and also assists with deal sourcing and due diligence. He graduated from The City University, London with a Bsc in Applied Physics and Electronics, and was named one of the top leaders in Cloud Computing in 2011 and 2012 by SearchCloudComputing magazine. He can usually be found on ...
I hosted an Innovation Bay Breakfast with Luke and Scott in Sydney in October 2015. As I said in my opening, we really were in the presence of startup royalty. These guys are the Real Deal. And they treated us to an awesome event with some amazing insights. Innovation Bay wrote a blog post on it, which you can see here: http://www.innovationbay.com/baywatch/2015/10/15/breakfast-with-luke-anear-safetyculture-scott-farquhar-atlassian
Rod Drury is the founder and CEO of Xero, a New Zealand accounting software business. Rod joined me for a chat at the launch of Innovation Bay's Melbourne chapter. He's an amazing guy with an incredible story. Remote location and a perceived scarcity of growth capital have certainly not been a handicap for Xero as it has grown into the $3bn software powerhouse it is today.
I moderated a panel on the Australian Startup Ecosystem as part of The Big Pitch in Melbourne. Fascinating discussion. On the panel with me: - Doron Ben-Meir from University of Melbourne - Bronwen Clune from Culture Amp - Scott Handsaker from Startup Victoria - Peter Bradd from StartupAUS