Entrepreneur
Any way you slice it, 2017 has been a blockbuster year for zipMoney. The Sydney-based fintech startup – a provider of point-of-sale credit and digital payment services – has been onboarding around 1200 new customers per day, with CEO Larry Diamond attributing this growth to traction with millennials. Significantly, Zip landed the two largest fintech deals […]
It’s a fact that women feel pressure in the workplace, both consciously and unconsciously, to “act like a man” in order to be a successful leader. But there is a growing notion, one which I’m a personal advocate of, that we need to embrace our unique selves to form our own successful leadership style. Whether […]
Although SafetyCulture’s technology has put safety into the hands of workers worldwide, earning it an enviable pool of clients and investors in the process, founder Luke Anear knows he can’t afford to be complacent. For him, the ongoing success of his high-growth tech company will require everyone involved, including himself, to “personally grow to be […]
Great sci-tech innovations are trapped in the university system because there has been a failure to properly test them with potential customers in mind, according to Steve Brodie, the new Managing Director of CSIRO’s ON Accelerator program. Established in 2015, ON assists researchers from the fields of science and technology to validate – and discover a […]
The number of dads using flexible working arrangements to care for their children has doubled since the mid 90s, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Changing gender roles have meant more dads are opting for flexible work arrangements or turning to entrepreneurship, for a greater work-life balance. When I left the safety and security […]
Over the next 10 years we’re likely to see the greatest wealth transformation occur in Australian history as ageing baby boomers pass on their estates. Of the 2.1 million businesses in Australia, about 70 per cent are family owned, according to Family Business Australia and they employ more than 50 per cent of the workforce. […]
Just as computers and IKEA furniture can be hacked, so too can brains. In fact, NYC-based researcher and entrepreneur Patrycja Slawuta is in the business of helping entrepreneurs ‘hack, rewire and upgrade’ the human operating system to survive in a ‘faster, leaner, smarter world’. Slawuta is the founder of SelfHackathon, a boutique consultancy in New […]
When influencer marketplace TRIBE launched with a requirement for social media influencers to own, or be willing to buy, the products they’d be recommending, there was ‘push back’ from those who were used to freebies. Believing authenticity to be paramount, founder Jules Lund stuck to his guns. A good thing too – today, the marketplace […]
For many people, the ‘big dream’ is that of entrepreneurship. We are a tenacious and creative nation and it is maybe that unique combination of quirky and clever ideas and the guts to see a job through that tempts so many of us to step out of the world of steady salaries and into less […]
Providing female startup founders in rural, regional and remote areas with access to face-to-face and virtual capacity-building opportunities, including mentorship, will help build Australia’s entrepreneurial muscle, according to Retha Wiesner, founder of WiRE. Launched in early 2017 out of the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) – where Wiesner is Professor of HR Management –WiRE (Women […]
Just as Spotify and Apple have transformed the way people listen to music, Brisbane-based entrepreneur Andrew Barnes envisions his edutech startup GO1 as the way forward for corporate training. Since launching in 2015, GO1 has amassed over 500,000 users for its SaaS platform, which enables companies, across all sectors, to find, book and track […]
Despite being a $50 billion industry, the amusement and leisure sector has been ‘starved of advancements’, according to Luke Finn, the CEO of Melbourne-based tech company ROLLER. Determined to be at the forefront of the industry’s tech evolution, Finn along with his co-founders – brother Mark Finn (CFO) and Will Nicholson (COO) – have seen […]
Founders often ask me ‘how do you know when is the right time to leave a corporate role and start your own business?’ Despite the fact I have a strong accounting background and am very much a numbers person, life experience has taught me this initial decision often needs to be based more on a […]
Networking with influential door-openers, eager to help female-led startups, helped the brains behind UrbanYou – an on-demand platform for household services – fast-track business growth, with their most recent feat being a $1m capital raise within the space of two weeks. To date, UrbanYou has facilitated over 20,000 services, totaling $3 million, for its 5000 […]
I spent all of last week travelling around Australia with one of my clients. She heads up innovation at a top tier law firm and I’d been brought in to deliver innovation keynotes at all of the firm’s offices. In one of our taxi rides, the conversation turned to email. She told me she gets […]
Four years ago, Sydney’s Frank Andrews began to transition away from a nearly 20-year career in the banking sector, where he was earning a six-figure sum, to pursue his passion for coffee roasting as a legitimate business. With limited hospitality experience, he faced an uphill battle – especially considering the fiercely competitive nature of the local café […]
Sydney-based fintech startup Spriggy has closed a $2.5 million funding round, which it will invest in evolving its educational pocket money app and bank card and growing out its user base of more than 35,000 parents and children. As part of the round, which was led by Alium Capital with additional funding from Perle Ventures […]
Leadership is a skill that everyone should learn. Saying “everyone is a leader” sounds like a platitude, but it’s true: you don’t need to be a manager to be a leader. If you do manage a team, however, being an effective leader is even more important. Good leadership is probably the single most important skill […]
Esports, also known as competitive video gaming, is – in the words of GAMURS co-founder and CEO Riad Chikhani – a “ridiculously big industry… still in its infancy”. Worldwide, there are 191 million esports enthusiasts plus another 194 million occasional viewers… and it’s forecast that by 2020, this combined audience will have risen 53% [1]. […]
If Dr Stephen Snowdy had listened to the sceptics who told him “it can’t – or shouldn’t – be done”, he wouldn’t have made the leap from being a high school dropout to being the CEO of Visioneering Technologies (VTI), a US-based, ASX-listed contact lense maker. The venture capitalist and former US Navy serviceman spoke […]
