Doing Words

Joining Pollenizer Ventures: Australia’s newest tech seed fund

// December 18th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Funding, Industry, My work, Startup

Mick Liubinskas at Pollenizer is “Mr Focus” — much of the value he brings to clients is his ability to create and maintain laser-like focus; on the problem a startup needs to solve, on finding customers, on raising capital, on recruiting the right team.

Me? I’m more “Mr Shutterspeed”, “Mr Aperture”… basically, anything but “Mr Focus”. I wield my firehose-like lack-of-focus on many projects, many products, many problems and many ideas. Not all of them at once, either, it’s more of a wild spray across from the first to the last and back again.  Sometimes this frustrates me, I know it can frustrate Mick when we work on something together. But it’s who I’ve always been and I’m making progress, really I am.

But enough about me, let’s talk about what I’ve been doing lately…

Earlier this year I snuck in as one of the mentor/investors participating in the early-stage tech startup seed fund Startmate.com.au but, since I’m Mr Shutterspeed, how could I possibly stop at just one early-stage tech startup seed fund? So now I’m delighted to say I’m also a mentor/investor in Pollenizer’s new Pollenizer Ventures fund (no separate website for it but here’s Pollenizer’s announcement).

The $500k seed fund is made up of some of Australia’s most experienced technology veterans including:

Scott Farquhar, Atlassian
Mike Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian
Matt Macfarlane
Stuart Richardson, Adventure Capital
Adrian Vanzyl, Adventure Capital
Matt Dickinson, Growth Angel
David Cooper, Deloitte
Mark Greig via Elevation Capital
Adam Broadway
Rob Antulov & Nick Gonios via 3eep Ventures
Chris Hitchen, Getprice.com.au
Domenic Carosa, Dominet Digital
Phaedon Stough, Mitchell Lake
Tony Faure

…and yours truly, Mr Shutterspeed.

Whereas Startmate is a seed fund for technical founders looking for business advice, Pollenizer Ventures is a seed fund for business founders looking for technical advice, so the two ventures are quite different and compliment each other nicely. After all, how else could Mr Focus also be involved in both funds?

Missed Groupon deal could be Google’s Stalingrad

// December 6th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Industry, Startup, strategy

The news today is that Google’s attempt to acquire GroupOn for a massive US$6B has failed. Ten years ago, I was working for an industry-dominating technology giant when a similar thing happened to us: we tried to buy our way into a smokin’ hot new web startup category way too late, only to be roughed-up and shown the door by a team of young punks a couple of years out of college. Why did this deal fail, and what could it mean for Google? It could mean the beginning of the decline.

All the tell-tale signs are there: Google, whose next-biggest acquisition was for online advertising powerhouse DoubleClick for a mere US$3.1B back in 2007, has US$33.4B in cash and securities with which to rule the world, and yet was prepared to throw a reported US$6B at the deal. That’s 18% of Google’s money pile. For a startup only three years old which earned an estimated US$350M in the past year. A 12x valuation. Why? (more…)

Startmate seeks startups: apply now!

// October 16th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Industry, Me, My work, Startup

Are you a technically-focused startup founder looking for a little funding and a lot of advice to help you get to that crucial point of a Minimum Viable Product and then on to an introduction to investors in Australia and Silicon Valley? Startmate.com.au wants you (or someone just like you).

Startmate is a new early-stage startup seed fund initiated by Niki Scevak. I’m an investor and mentor in the program, and there’s many more impressive names than mine on the roster.

Our first program will fund five startups and begin in January, 2011 in Sydney. We’ll spend three months helping you launch your company and win your first customers.

Applications are open now and interest has been very strong so far, so please do your best work and give us all you’ve got.

Drop me a tweet if you have any questions. They better be good ones…

Why I don’t sign NDAs

// September 29th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Industry, people, Startup

Not my lawyer, but a dead-ringer.

I don’t do NDAs, for a few reasons:

• I’ve learned not to sign things without my lawyer reading it first. He’s a great lawyer, so he’s not cheap. Spending a couple of hundred dollars before I’m able to have a coffee with someone isn’t a viable operating model.
• I work with too many businesses every year to be able to manage and abide by the aggregate terms of an archive of NDAs.
• You may be trying to protect the wrong thing. If your idea’s awesome, it’s probably not unique. The value is not in your idea, it’s in your execution.
• If I couldn’t be trusted with your ideas, a quick web search would make that clear, since I’ve been doing this since 1995.
• A big part of the value I bring is my communication skills and the network of people I know. When the time is right, you need me to be able to talk about this.

I have signed NDAs in the past, and I wish I hadn’t, because I have no idea where my copy is now. I take comfort in the knowledge that the other party has almost certainly mislaid their copy too. Making the whole exercise expensive and pointless. Who wants to do expensive and pointless?

Corporates and big brands, that’s who — they specialise in expensive and pointless, many of them devoting whole departments of people to making things more expensive and pointless. I will sign NDAs when I work for corporates and big brands because they will pay me good money and I know I’ll get paid.

Whereas you with the great idea, the back of a napkin and a sharpie pen? I want to like you, and you want to like me. Don’t ask me to sign something that can best be summarised as “we don’t trust you” before we even get to know each other.

I will, however, abide by the terms of a FriendDA.

Do you have what it takes to be a Micro-Venture Capitalist?

// September 24th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Industry, Startup

Think it takes millions of dollars, an MBA and a few board seats to become a VC? You’d be wrong to think so. I’ll tell you why, but first, answer this question: what is a startup?

We’d probably agree that startups are lean, cash-poor, energy-rich adventures, that startup founders are mavericks, dreamers and misfits, driven by the belief that there must be A Better Way. But do startups have to involve new technology or new business models? Do they have to be built on the hope of massive profits at some future date? Can we scale the whole model down and still be talking startups?

I bet the husband and wife who decide to leave their corporate careers to start the bed-and-breakfast they’ve dreamed about feel like they’re on a lean, cash-poor adventure, doing something they’ve never done before. In my book they’re startup entrepreneurs just as much as, say, the pair of software engineers with a new web platform.

The sums invested might be smaller but the financial risk is likely to be huge. The business plan will seem just as unfamiliar and full of holes. And they’re doing it because they have a passion for something. They feel like misfits, renegades and dreamers.

So it doesn’t take the promise of $50 million to make it a startup, and it doesn’t require some new gizmo. We’ve proven a B&B can be a startup. Can we scale it down further?

(more…)

Startmate: Australia gets a new kind of startup capital

// August 19th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Industry, My work, Startup

I’m part of a new technology venture launching today at Sydney’s Tech23 conference. I’m one of many startup founders who’ve bemoaned the lack of Y-Combinator-style investment in Australia, so when Niki Scevak asked if I’d like to get involved in something similar (with tweaks for the local market) and told me how he’d already done the bulk of the difficult strategic thinking, I was keen to get on-board.

Startmate wants to help technically-focused founders get started, with a small amount of capital, advice and a mission to Silicon Valley.

Startmate is a pool of funds and a roster of mentors who’ve all built hands-on successful web startups that began in Australia. We’ve been where you’re going and most of us are still on the journey, so we think we bring some useful perspective and experience to the challenges of getting an Australian tech startup up-and-running.

Our first program will fund five startups and begin in January, 2011 in Sydney. We’ll spend three months helping you launch your company and win your first customers.

Startmate is a bit different because:

Interviewed on E-Marketing Insights podcast

// August 2nd, 2010 // 0 Comments // As featured in..., Content, Industry, My work, platform, Social Media

This week I was interviewed by Owen of the E-Marketing Insights Podcast. Listen in for a little background history of Doing Words, as well as my perspective on what happened in the early days internet content publishing, how the Web 1.0 bubble grew and burst, why social media has changed the content publishing industry irrevocably, the continuing democratisation of content, and which brands I believe are best-equipped to succeed in future content markets.

Surgeon-General’s Warning: I hadn’t taken my brevity medication before the interview so you may find I rattle on for quite some time.

You know what’s great about this podcast episode? It’s only episode four of a brand-new podcast. It was recorded on a portable digital recorder, in my car, and the total post-production probably took Owen only an hour, from importing, editing and through to hosting on Soundcloud.

Despite the market-dominating power of iTunes and News Corporation and Facebook, more unique new content is being published every year by the people who would have been considered “the audience” twenty years ago.

Check out Owen’s E-Marketing Insights podcast, it’s early days yet but shows great promise, and that’s the best kind of content there is.

Last tickets: Lower North Shore Coffee Morning tomorrow

// June 8th, 2010 // 0 Comments // My work, Other news, people

What do you do when you know you should be attending a weekly industry meetup but just can’t seem to get there, week after week?

As the crow flies, the nearest industry meetup to my home is North Shore Coffee Morning (#nscm) held each Thursday morning in Mosman, on Sydney’s leafy lower north shore.

It’s a great meetup: small, interesting, diverse group of people, good coffee, and great networking. According to Google Maps it ought to take me about 14mins to drive there, but I find Google Maps is rarely right about trip durations in Sydney, and typically it takes me between 20-30mins to get there, find a park and lob on in. Since I can only afford to spend an hour at #nscm, I’m taking two hours out of my highly productive morning and spending as much time on the road as I am networking with the regulars.

What to do? Why not create my own ‘lower North Shore coffee morning’ instead? I have a spacious living area with a lovely outlook, a great Italian coffee machine, good coffee beans, and enough cups and seats for about twelve people. I enjoy playing barista. Ticketing can be done quickly and easily in the cloud for next to nothing these days (see Amiando, Eventbrite and Eventarc for starters) and I can use a cheap ticket to (a) cover the cost of coffee, milk and muffins; and (b) give people some motivation to actually attend rather than (as I do) say they’ll try to make it. Any money left-over after consumables will be donated to Oxfam via my Trailwalker Sydney 2010 team. Maybe I can have the industry networking event come straight to me.

So tomorrow, in my home, Lower North Shore Coffee Morning will have its debut. If it goes well and people enjoy themselves, it might make a monthly reappearance. Tickets for this first iteration are limited to 12 and as I write this, there are only three tickets remaining.

If you’d like to come, it’s not too late — just use the order form below.

If you come, please bring passion, enthusiasm, good humour and curiosity. Also, please bring either a book, an artwork or some music to lend/give to someone else. Use of the WiFi, fireplace, comfy chairs, garden, huggy old dog and rope swing are included in the ticket price. The Twitter hashtag is #lnscm.

Our house is 10mins walk from St Leonards station, 3mins walk from the 273 and 274 bus route stops at Naremburn shops, and all-day street parking is available in Dargan St and surrounding streets.

Hope to see you there!

- alan (@bigyahu)

Online Event Registration with amiando

If you’re a geek, be proud of being a geek

// May 12th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Branding, Communication, Fun, people, Social Media, Social Media, Video

Why add polish when in today’s society, being so geeky is so credible? I love this intro video for Diaspora. Now it needs to be mashed-up into a music video for some yet-to-break indie band. Call it “OK Go Make A Social Network”.

The thought for today: when branding, be true to who you are. Customers have a seventh sense for these things.

Social Media for Social Good: can social media really make a difference?

// March 31st, 2010 // 0 Comments // Industry, Social Media

I’m moderating a new Digital Citizens Event coming up on Tuesday April 13th, with the theme of “Social Media for Social Good.”

Secret: I’ve never moderated at an event before (I’m usually either speaking or heckling the speakers) so this might be a refreshing change, at least for the crowd and the speakers. Please come along and heckle me — I am a large and slow-moving target.

The one frustration is it’s a topic close to my heart. I’d love to wade in with my own opinions and evidence but I hate it when other moderators do that — it’s not me you’re paying to listen to. But I’ll happy debate it with you afterwards over drinks

The evening begins with an open discussion of “what’s hot on the social web” and then we’ll get into the main topic.

If what’s hot on the social web is you, sweetie, I’d appreciate it if you could be on time.

The four speakers I’ll be wrassling are Karalee Evans, Mark Chenery and Nic McKay. We’ll then take questions and open the debate.

Bring an opinion, bring an idea, bring a question or just bring a good heckle, but please bring yourself.

RSVP and learn more about the panel.

Waiting to go on as Easter Bunny at my son’s childcare centre. A 2m, 100kg man in a bunny suit? Deep emotional scars for everyone.

About the speakers

Working as a communications and public relations professional for nearly ten years, Karalee Evans has developed successful communications models for the corporate and government sectors and most recently a not-for-profit organisation. During three years working for social good at headspace, Karalee developed and delivered a successful social media and marketing campaign (recently awarded Silver and Bronze at the 32nd International Caples Awards) focussed on advocating youth mental health issues.

Mark Chenery is communications manager of anti-poverty agency ActionAid Australia and former digital marketing journalist at AdNews magazine. He’ll be speaking about Project TOTO, ActionAid Australia’s attempt to give poverty a voice through social media tools such as Twitter and blogs, giving Australians an insight into the realities of poverty and to give poor and marginalised people the opportunity to tell their stories on the world stage.

Nic Mackay is currently the Managing Director of The Human Race, a social entrepreneur and a thought leader regarding the future of “corporate social responsibility”. He co-founded The Oaktree Foundation, Australia’s largest and most successful youth-run aid and development organisation, founded an Australian/South African non-profit organisation called Key Change Music, which is creating positive social change through music. Nic recently received the Rotary Club of Melbourne and Sir Albert Coates 2010 Young Achiever Awards.