Tips | Advice
To lay the foundations for future success, the are some key boxes all startups need to tick in the early growth stages, regardless of the nature of their business. Having participated in Y Combinator’s seed accelerator program, my co-founders and I gained some fantastic insights that helped put our edtech startup GO1 the right track right from […]
Thoughtful, committed and brave… startup founders have a problem to solve, solutions to test and a vision of what they seek to achieve. Launching and running a business requires a suite of skills to succeed. With limited time, and the need to spend carefully, how can founders access strategic guidance, high-quality expertise and a sounding board? […]
In the ten years since I started my technology consultancy WebVine, I have made mistakes and learned a lot of lessons. There are still challenges as we have grown and flourished, but hopefully today’s new entrepreneurs can benefit from my experience with these potential pitfalls: Proliferation, not Perfection A common mistake I see startups make […]
A lot of start-up founders I’ve met believe that if they can raise money from professional early-stage investors such as The Sharks from Channel 10’s Shark Tank or a Venture Capital (VC) fund, then they’re guaranteed success, a large exit, and early retirement. But this is dangerous thinking. These investors are almost always only investing […]
Hot on the heels of an $8 million Series B funding round, Cloud-based HR, payroll and benefits platform Employment Hero has recruited former Google executive Alex Hattingh as its inaugural Chief People Officer. In Conversation with Dynamic Business, Hattingh – an HR specialist who has also served CBA, Yahoo!, St George Bank and Lendlease in […]
There are many reasons that increasing numbers of entrepreneurs across Australia and beyond are starting their own business. They may not want to spend their lives in the rat race working for others, they may realize that they can potentially make much more money running their own enterprise, or they may want a career that […]
The recent trials and tribulations of Australian tech startups Big Un and Get Swift should serve as a timely cautionary tale for many aspiring businesses. Both have recently fallen foul of the ASX’s continuing disclosure requirements and face uncertain futures. While both have earned the ire of shareholders and the regulator for different reasons, their […]
Australian startups are raising millions of dollars of venture capital funding, with recent high profile raises including Canva raising $50.9 million in January 2018, Hyper Anna raising $16 million in August 2017 and Culture Amp raising $26.4 million in June 2017. Hundreds of Australian startups are raising smaller amounts in seed and series A capital […]
If 2018 is the year you want to take your business to the next level, you might be considering bringing investors on board. For startups, the world of investors can be a scary but necessary for growth and success. [Related: Let’s Talk… Founder/investor fit, Let’s Talk… Raising Capital (part 1) and Let’s Talk… Raising Capital […]
Fail in high school and you are usually graded an F; the same is true of startups. Depending on who you ask, there are a multitude of reasons why startups fail. Each strand of startup DNA contributes its own reasons for failure, but all of them relate directly to one of the ‘3 Fs’: Founder […]
We’ve all read the stories about people running their businesses from far-flung places or from a beach, but the reality is that most small businesses in Australia today still operate from a physical location or office, for a minimum of 5 days a week. For most businesses that means staff having to show up day […]
It’s a startling experience to arrive at work, only to realise that my entire team had suddenly taken two weeks of undeclared leave. I was working in Cambodia, and had I been more aware of the culture, I would have known that my team was celebrating their New Year. It’s not an official holiday, hence […]
Recently, Matt Berriman – the co-founder of fast-growth adtech startup Unlockd – wrote an open letter explaining why he was stepping aside as CEO. This shone the media spotlight on the intensity of co-founding a fast-growth company and started a valuable conversation about issues and solutions. This article discusses how to lay strong legal foundations for […]
Startups with good a business plan give comfort to entrepreneurs and investors in part because the plan details the objectives, strategies and tactics along with the anticipated profits. There is however a wide variation in business plans. Some are voluminous demonstrations of thorough research, while some exist as a mere template borrowed from the internet to meet the formalities. Others, […]
Ah, future success so close you can almost touch it. The realisation that your idea could actually become a viable business is electrifying. You’ve crunched the numbers, drawn up a plan, got the ball rolling and may even have secured vital angel funding. You’ve also decided to tackle the world of startup head-on with a […]
Whether you have started a technology business, or have a startup that uses technology (i.e. many startups), there are three common stumbling blocks to avoid. Coming up with a business idea is exciting. But the journey of taking your idea and turning it into a thriving business is one filled with obstacles as well as […]
Over the past seven months we’ve been on an incredible roller-coaster of a journey – the kind that only an early-stage startup is capable of experiencing. We’ve hired, fired, experimented, failed, and ultimately succeeded in getting Found to that magic milestone of $83,333.33 of monthly revenue – more commonly known as $1m per year annualised […]
Whether you plan on becoming the next Atlassian, or the next big thing in the share economy, many people, at some stage, will have their own new business dream. And in 2017, the startup space to be in is tech. Hundreds upon hundreds of adventurous and enthusiastic minds are venturing into the tech space with […]
There’s no doubting that the world of business is changing. The traditional model of large international corporates functioning in a singular, closed-door fashion is fast disappearing, with companies now open to collaboration or outsourcing. While previously big corporates, protected by expensive barriers of entry, were responsible for all “business problems” in-house, technology has now made […]
For those entrepreneurs who envision their business as the next big thing, it will pay dividends to take cues from forward-thinking leaders, such as Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk, and surround themselves with inspirational peers. Likewise, it’s incumbent on entrepreneurs seeking to both disrupt the market and avoid being disrupted to continually leverage – […]
