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Selecting your start-up funding source
One of the things that drives me up the wall is hearing the local start-up community complain that the Venture Capital market in Australia isn’t like the US. Of course its not, we are in Australia, a much smaller market, with a completely different culture. The general complaint is that “Venture Capital is so risk…
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Some Initial thoughts on the iPad
Once again Apple will export California chic to the rest of the world. Certainly Apple is likely to carve out a “new” niche with style and an interface that just works with its new iPad. The success of netbook has proven that most users don’t need much more that email, web and multimedia display. The…
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Time & Materials V’s Fixed Price billing
Just before Xmas I had one of my coffee/mentoring sessions with a vibrant young Victorian entrepreneur and an interesting question came up around how she should invoice her services. Although not an expert in the area of pricing models (I generally recommend Jon Manning of Sans Prix for some hard core consulting), I have owned…
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What would a Sales 101 course look like?
Something that drives me mad is that in my humble opinion, our Universities are undermining the success of Australian business. I say this because from my observation the number one skill required for success in business, regardless of profession, is the ability to sell. To sell your product, yourself as the right candidate for the…
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Keeping Smart Productive People
So after last weeks post on looking after smart but lazy people, I got some interesting feedback from a friend who’s a Human Resources Manager in a national organisation with a couple of thousand employees in what seems like hundreds of locations. She agreed with me, but extended my idea either further with a number…
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Cherish Smart but Lazy People
So last time I posted, I discussed dealing with lawyers – lessons learned from my long lunches with a Barrister/Army friend. Another interesting discussion we had was around the need for stupid or lazy people. Ian’s point of view was that in any organisation, you have people who are smart and people who are stupid.…
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3 keys to no bullshit plans
Pretty much on a weekly basis I get sent ideas, business plans and/or Information Memorandums for capital raising. Everyone who sends me one, tends to think its an expertly crafted, zero risk proposal to achieve a massive return with a world changing idea. I don’t. So when a couple of weeks ago, Justin Brow asked…
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Scammers, Spammers & Spivs
I got emailed yesterday by a journalist who wanted to know about scams and dodgy websites. Basically the questions was “is there a resource you used to understand whether something was right, wrong or just a scam?”. Well there wasn’t any particular website, but if there was it would be likely to be instantly out…