Category Archives: Startup

Startup Financing Options

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Startup Financing Options

Looking at starting a new venture and need to sort out the financing? In a recent webinar Jana Mathews from the ANZ Innovyz Start program in Adelaide went through the five main startup financing options.

Bootstrapping

The goal of bootstrapping is to generating enough money inside the company that you do not need to find other sources of funds. All expenses are minimised and pursuit of cashflow is critical. Not all companies can bootstrap – large initial CAPEX requirements can often preclude it. Continue reading →

The Reputation Economy

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The Reputation Economy

Rachel Botsman on how online reputation is becoming a currency

AMP Amplify Festival 2013

Online reputation is becoming a bigger and bigger problem (or opportunity) for organisations and individuals. Rachel is here to open our minds to where this could be going. First, a little on Rachel:

Named by Monocle as one of the top 20 speakers in the world to have at your conference, Rachel Botsman has already presented at high profile events including The Clinton Global Initiative, TED, HP, Google, and No.10 Downing Street.

She received her BFA (Honors) from the University of Oxford, and undertook her postgraduate studies at Harvard University. Her work has taken her to every continent, except Antarctica.

Rachel opens by stating that she thinks reputation will become a currency more powerful than our credit histories. To help paint the picture of what might happen, she asks – what is reputation?

Continue reading →

Gamification – Complexity and Engagement

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My third session of AMP’s Amplify Festival is Marigo Raftopoulos (@Marigo), speaking on ‘The Game has changed: How to cut through complexity and engage employees and customers through meaning’

A little on Marigo:

Marigo is a strategic business advisor specialising in innovation using gamification, systems thinking and experience design. She is also co-founder and co-chair of Games for Change Australia-New Zealand, advisor to several technology incubators and start-ups and is researching her PhD in enterprise Innovation.

 

Gamification – Complexity and Engagement

Mario starts us off by getting us all off our seats to play Rock Paper Scissors. I lost, but it was still fun. Marigo explains what occurs in the brain whilst playing games. Behaviour and attitude improve after game playing – it can be a really powerful tool.

Continue reading →

Emerging Shifts for Money and Wealth

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This year I was lucky to attend AMP’s Amplify Festival in Sydney. My first session is ‘Emerging Shifts for Money and Wealth’ with Dr Tim Jones. Some notes on Tim:

“Tim is Founder and Program Director of the Future Agenda – the world’s leading open foresight project… Tim is a recognised expert in innovation and future growth. He is the author of numerous articles and eight related books and is a regular speaker at corporate events and public conferences on innovation leadership, growth platforms and future trends. He has a PhD in Innovation Performance and Masters Degrees from Cambridge, Imperial College and the Royal College of Art in London.”

Dr Tim starts off his talk, focusing on the difficulty of predicting and anticipating future changes and trends:

Continue reading →

ANZ Innovyz Demo Day Live Blog

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The ANZ Innovyz Demo Day, 18th of April, 2013. The ANZ Innovyz Start is an accelerator program for innovative startups located in Adelaide, South Australia.

This blog post is my live blog of the ANZ Innovyz Demo Day.

What is demo day? See http://www.innovyzstart.com/what-is-demo-day-jana-matthews-explains

I thought all the companies did a great job! To read how it all happened, see below!

Continue reading →

Minimum Viable Product – You’re getting it (partially) wrong

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MVP. Minimum Viable Product.

Terminology from the startup world is finding its way into the language of Business. Managers are latching onto the key words such as pivot, disrupt and the idea of the minimum viable product.

Unfortunately, few managers fully understand what each means to the startup world. The idea of the minimum viable product is widely misunderstood. It’s pretty easy to get most of its meaning, but unfortunately the point gets missed.

About the Minimum Viable Product, Eric Ries in his book ‘The Lean Startup‘, says: Continue reading →

Social Media Marketing – Mal Chia

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Social Media Marketing

This is the second in a series of posts from Adelaide University’s MBA Entrepreneurship Intensive program.  Professor Becky Ruber has kindly allowed me to sit in on the guest speakers arranged for students in her course.

On Friday the 1st of March, the guest speaker was Mal Chia from NoQ:

Mal Chia – Digital Marketing Manager@ NoQ (noq.com.au)

Mal Chia is working as the Digital Marketing Manager at the Adelaide startup NoQ.  He has a Masters in Commerce (Marketing) from Adelaide University and is one of South Australia’s most respected digital marketers. Continue reading →

MBA Reading List

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MBA Reading List 2013
From a studying perspective, the more widely read you are, the more possible sources of information and references you will have. But the reason to read is bigger than just better marks or an easier time finding references-

Reading is one of the ways you can level-up

By level-up, I mean, improve yourself, to be and contribute more. Think and grow.

Are you reading something currently? There are so many books that finding the right one to start reading can be hard. So if you’re currently without a read, don’t worry here’s my reading list. I’m sure you’ll find something worth your time.

The MBA Reading List

1. The Startup Owners Manual – Steve Blank and Bob Dorf Continue reading →

Adelaide Startup Ecosystem and ANZ Innovyz

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On the weekend I attended an interesting talk by Dr Jana Mathews at Adelaide University. She touched on many facets of innovation and entrepreneurship  but of most interest to me was her discussion on the Adelaide Startup Ecosystem and ANZ Innovyz’s work in South Australia.

Firstly, on Dr Jana Mathews. She is an expert in her field of entrepreneurial leadership and business growth. She has a doctorate from Harvard, is co-author of several books (such Lessons from the Edge and Building the Awesome Organization). From Colorado, she has recently been spending significant time in Adelaide as the Managing Director of ANZ Innovyz START program – a 13 week startup accelerator modelled after the US TechStars. Continue reading →