I find myself returning frequently to the concept of (tech) small businesses versus startups. A lot of that is because it seems like everyone in the ecosystem – founders, businesses, suppliers, partners, investors and larger stakeholders (government) – seems to forever be confused about the differences. At the same time, we’re seeing a huge rise… Continue reading
Every now and then I see this weird confusion about why people buy stuff. People buy stuff to solve problems. They buy stuff for a “job to be done”. Startups are no different – people choose to buy (or not buy) their products based on whether they (a) experience the problem the startup aims to solve,… Continue reading
One of the sayings I feel I have to tell young founders over and over again is that you should never outsource core competencies. I’m a bit of a weird case. I am a solo founder, but I’m also not fully “tech” nor am I fully “not”. It’s tempting for a person who becomes passionate… Continue reading
I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about how the Australian (in particular) investment market is segmented. This is mostly in response to talking to people who are thinking about raising money, and wanting a better way of easily communicating my perspective and philosophy as it develops. In the last few years, Australian venture… Continue reading
Twice now over the last couple of weeks I’ve found myself talking about the concept of synchronicity and modern communications (social/digital etc), and what that means when choosing what should go where. Ultimately every network is either asynchronous or synchronous. Some may have elements of both, but almost all fall one way or the other. Synchronous networks are when ‘stuff’… Continue reading
Today’s gripe comes from everyone’s favourite buzzword du jour, growth hacking. As defined by the wizards at Wikipedia: Growth hacking is a marketing technique developed by technology startups which uses creativity, analytical thinking, and social metrics to sell products and gain exposure Now, you might think, that sounds quite a lot like marketing? A good marketer uses… Continue reading
Big news – Twitter just launched Periscope, their video live-streaming app, a few weeks after Meerkat, a competitor doing the same thing, made massive waves (although Twitter acquired Periscope in January for $100m apparently, so no surprise that Twitter will kill Meerkat). This also comes on the back of Instagram launching “Layout from Instagram”, which is wholly… Continue reading