DevReady Podcast: Recent Episodes
Aerion Technologies
We started the DevReady podcast to help non-techs build better technology. We have been exposed to so many non-techs that describe the struggle, uncertainty and challenges that can come with building technology.
The objective for the DevReady podcast to share these stories and give you the tools and insights so that you to can deliver on your vision and outcomes.
You will learn from non-tech founders that have invested their time and money into developing technology. We will discuss what worked, what didn’t and how they still managed to deliver real value to their users. These stories are inspirational – demonstrating the determination, commitment and resolve it really takes to deliver technology.
Throughout the DevReady Podcast we also invite subject matter experts to the conversation to give you proven strategies and techniques to successfully take your idea through to delivery and beyond.
Enjoy the Podcast, it will challenge you, inspire you and provide the tools you will need to deliver real value with technology.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our host Andrew Romeo is joined by Bert Verhoeven, Program Director Innovation and Entrepreneurship, University of Newcastle and Founding Director, VES. Listen to the episode to understand the integration of AI into the curriculum, the evolution of critical thinking, and the challenges and opportunities facing academia in the age of technology.Bert shares his diverse journey from entrepreneurship in Holland to academia and social entrepreneurship in Australia. Bert reflects on his experience founding a social network for international students, highlighting the challenges of competing with platforms like Facebook and ultimately pivoting towards teaching entrepreneurship.One significant aspect of Bert's career is his passion for skill development, evident in initiatives like training sports teachers for underprivileged youth in Brazil and Africa. This commitment to creating shared value resonates throughout his career, leading to his current role at the University of Newcastle.Bert discusses the integration of AI education into the curriculum at Flinders University, starting in January 2023. Despite initial skepticism, they embarked on a startup-like endeavor to prepare students for the transformative impact of AI, emphasizing responsible utilization and problem-solving skills. The shift in mindset over time underscores the importance of adapting teaching methodologies to incorporate emerging technologies effectively.The impact of integrating AI education is evident in improved student outcomes and critical thinking skills, reflected in enhanced proposal pitches and problem analysis. This shift highlights the evolving demands of the 21st-century workforce, emphasizing critical and creative thinking as core competencies across disciplines.As the role of knowledge workers evolves in the age of AI, Bert emphasizes the importance of co-creation and creative adaptation alongside artificial intelligence. He discusses AI's diverse applications, from research to enhancing writing skills, while cautioning against plagiarism and promoting originality and critical engagement.Bert underscores universities' challenges in integrating AI into teaching and assessment methodologies, emphasizing the need for authentic, real-world problem-solving approaches. He highlights the urgency for educational institutions to adapt their curriculums and teaching methods to meet future demands, predicting a significant shake-up in the education sector. Finally, Bert draws parallels with historical examples to illustrate the potential for societal perceptions and norms to evolve, emphasizing the role of socialization in shaping collective thinking and fostering positive changes.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, host Anthony Sapountzis is joined by David Strybosch, Co-Founder, Attivare.com.au. David explores innovative financial strategies for startups and then delves into the Early Stage Innovation Company (ESIC) program, discussing its substantial tax benefits for investors and how Attivare supports this initiative. Tune in to learn about unique investment models that ensure minimal risk while fostering startup growth.David shares his extensive background in financial services and investments, discussing his innovative methods to help families expedite mortgage payments and his work in the intellectual property sector with IPrenewal.net. He explains how IPrenewal.net offers affordable trademark and patent renewals, which significantly benefit startups. The conversation also covers the Early Stage Innovation Company (ESIC) program, detailing how it offers substantial tax incentives for investors in qualifying startups. David elaborates on how Attivare supports the ESIC initiative by maximizing tax benefits and supporting early-stage ventures.David provides an in-depth look into the ESIC program and its substantial tax benefits for investors. He describes how investors can receive significant tax offsets and potentially avoid capital gains tax, illustrating the process with a detailed case study. He also addresses the stringent vetting process by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to ensure compliance. David emphasizes how Attivare simplifies the investment process for both startups and investors through its platform, which offers a structured investment model to ensure minimal risk and maximum benefit for all involved.Further, David explains how the Attivare program enables investors to secure significant tax offsets while supporting innovative startups. He mentions that by investing a minimum of $500,000, investors can obtain up to $200,000 in tax offsets and substantially reduce their capital gains tax. David shares a success story where a client effectively reduced their capital gains tax by over $107,000 through the program. The program's structure also provides a safety net, allowing investors to evaluate the startup's progress over three years before making additional commitments. This approach ensures minimal risk and fosters startup growth.Lastly, David elaborates on the mechanics of Attivare's investment program that supports startups while protecting investors. The program allows startups to raise funds by securing loans from investors, who benefit from tax offsets and have three years to assess the startup's performance. During this period, the invested capital is managed to generate revenue, mitigating risks for both parties. David highlights a scenario where a startup raised $1.5 million from three investors, ensuring stable funding and operational runway for three years. This innovative approach guarantees startups access to necessary capital while offering investors structured risk management.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, join host Anthony Sapountzis sits down with Lucas Meadowcroft, Co-Founder, CEO & Innovation Consultant of CROFTI. From his humble beginnings in I.T. support to pioneering advancements in artificial intelligence and sports technology, Lucas shares invaluable insights into navigating the ever-evolving landscape of tech innovation.Lucas explores his 20-year journey in the tech industry. He traces his roots from I.T. support to innovation consulting, culminating in the founding of CROFTI, a company dedicated to enhancing organizational efficiency through streamlined processes. Throughout the past decade, CROFTI has been at the forefront of innovation, particularly delving into artificial intelligence by developing Trippy, an AI platform targeted at MSPs. Despite encountering challenges in finding product-market fit, Lucas has diversified investments into sports applications like Run With and Pivot Sports, catering to various sports communities.Central to Lucas' approach is the focus on outcomes, emphasizing the significance of automation and efficiency improvements for businesses. He shares insights into recent ventures, including launching sports applications to enhance community connections and player experiences. Lucas also discusses the challenges faced in selling AI products within the MSP industry, highlighting the importance of integrating traditional foundational systems with AI solutions to optimize processes effectively.Moreover, Lucas delves into the complexities and opportunities of leveraging AI for business transformation. He stresses the need to address the most pressing frustrations or pain points in a business and leverage AI to unlock opportunities for expansion and innovation. Reflecting on his experience of selling a support company, Lucas underscores the newfound freedom from reactive tasks and the potential for growth when AI streamlines operations.Additionally, Lucas shares insights into the journey of raising capital during the pandemic, emphasizing adaptability and effective communication in pitching tech startups to investors. He reflects on lessons learned from the investor journey, cautioning against blindly following investor advice and highlighting the value of bootstrapping for sustainability in uncertain economic landscapes. Lucas also discusses the dynamics of raising capital in the fintech sector and the challenges of being ahead of the curve in technological advancements, particularly in the AI and MSP industries. Throughout the conversation, he expresses excitement about upcoming launches and the progress of projects, underscoring CROFTI's goals of building and investing in new ventures for scalability and innovation.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our host Andrew Romeo, sits with Stuart Dalrymple, Commercial Operations Manager at franklin.ai to explore his journey through the tech and startup landscape. From managing project scopes to navigating tender processes, Stuart shares invaluable insights from diverse career experiences. Tune in to uncover his strategies for effectively solving customer problems and competing in the ever-evolving market.Stuart begins by tracing his journey from a childhood fascination with technology to his current role in the tech and startup landscape. He emphasizes the importance of managing project scope, understanding customer preferences, and recognizing the timing of innovations. Despite encountering challenges such as financial constraints and market misalignment, Stuart's ventures have provided invaluable lessons that have shaped his entrepreneurial approach and management style.Reflecting on his diverse career experiences, including roles in software companies and the hospitality industry, Stuart discusses strategies for navigating tender processes. He highlights the significance of building relationships and delivering value early on. Stuart also advocates for further education, such as pursuing an MBA, for both knowledge acquisition and networking opportunities. Drawing parallels between business fundamentals and software development, he underscores the importance of creating products that either generate revenue, save costs, or optimize time.Stuart delves into the complexities of product development and sales, stressing the need to intimately understand customers' businesses to effectively solve their problems. He emphasizes the value of avoiding isolated problem-solving approaches and instead suggests identifying and addressing issues within one's own sphere of knowledge or experience. Stuart also explores the strategy of competing on features with a market research angle, urging companies to consider customer biases and evaluate various criteria that influence purchasing decisions.Furthermore, Stuart discusses the importance of understanding customer segments and preferences when developing products or solutions. Using the hypothetical example of IKEA competing with Tesla in the electric car market, he underscores the necessity of thorough research to understand why customers choose certain brands. Stuart suggests that companies do not need to excel in every aspect compared to competitors but should focus on key dimensions where they can offer value or differentiate effectively.Lastly, Stuart shares insights into his current role at Franklin.ai, particularly focusing on the health tech and MedTech space, specifically pathology and AI. He highlights the challenges posed by the shortage of pathologists and the increasing demand for cancer screening post-COVID. Stuart explains how Franklin.ai emerged from witnessing challenges in the local health system in Vietnam and successful ventures like Harrison AI in Australia, leading to partnerships with companies like Sonic Healthcare to efficiently detect cancer.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, host Anthony Sapountzis is joined by Greg Twemlow, Executive Director of SEVENmile Ltd and Founder of Future Skills Studio, who also serves as an Innovative Educator and Ethical Thought Leader. Greg discusses the transformative impact of AI integration and the importance of ethical leadership in the tech industry.Greg wears multiple hats, leading initiatives to support local entrepreneurs in Sydney through SEVENmile and spearheading experiential learning programs, particularly aimed at high school students, through Future Skills Studio. His journey with AI began in late 2022 with the introduction of ChatGPT, leading to the integration of AI into various educational endeavors, where he has observed the potential for AI to exacerbate societal inequalities, a topic he actively addresses through articles and discussions.Greg emphasizes the positive impact of AI on education, particularly in high schools, noting its ability to enhance learning pace and depth when utilized effectively for problem-solving. He underscores the importance of parents considering access to paid AI services for their children to mitigate potential disparities in classroom learning. Additionally, Greg introduces the concept of "breakout autonomy," highlighting AI's potential to empower individuals with newfound autonomy and agency.The discussion further delves into the evolving landscape of AI tools for content creation. Greg explores various platforms and their strengths and limitations, advocating for using post-processing tools like Grammarly to refine AI-generated content. He then transitions to the transformative potential of AI in business operations, stressing the need for companies to adapt job roles and integrate AI capabilities across research, business planning, and marketing content creation to unlock significant growth opportunities.Greg also addresses the responsibility of all generations, including grandparents, in promoting technological literacy within families, noting their potential as leaders to foster interest and learning in technology among younger generations. Finally, the conversation touches upon the challenges faced by non-tech entrepreneurs when seeking tech partners, highlighting the importance of reliable and ethical technology partners in navigating the complex landscape of AI integration.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, host Anthony Sapountzis sits down with Jess Dahlberg, a certified performance coach and startup mentor, to explore the intricacies of building a scalable culture within startup environments. Listen to Jess's invaluable insights and personal journey of reinvention to gain practical guidance on optimizing performance, fostering collaboration, and navigating the challenges of entrepreneurship.Jess, drawing from her journey of reinvention after a divorce and her corporate background, identified a need for tailored support for tech founders in managing teams and optimizing performance. This realization led her to develop the Guest Collaborative Program, offering practical guidance to drive startup growth and efficiency.Throughout the discussion, Jess highlights the unique challenges tech founders face, emphasizing their propensity for continuous learning and adaptability, which are crucial for success in the dynamic tech landscape. She underscores the importance of collaboration between tech and non-tech founders to leverage resources effectively and achieve milestones, navigating the delicate balance between innovation and progress.Reflecting on her own transformative experiences, Jess emphasizes the role of intuition in guiding life decisions, drawing parallels to the intuitive nature of successful startup leaders. She advocates for creating a supportive startup culture that celebrates achievements and fosters resilience, which is essential for weathering the inevitable challenges of entrepreneurship.Jess outlines four fundamental principles for startup success: performance, prioritizing founder well-being and productivity; people, cultivating an operational culture based on employee input; potential, aligning individual roles with the overall roadmap for focused direction; and pinnacle, guiding founders in leading their teams through the scale-up journey while maintaining positivity.Lastly, Jess delves into the distinction between mentoring and coaching, highlighting the value of personalized coaching in empowering individuals to find their unique problem-solving and leadership approaches. She stresses the importance of recognizing individual talents and fostering a culture of continuous improvement, which is essential for sustainable growth in startup environments.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our host, Anthony Sapountzis, is joined by Youssef Jalloul, a seasoned Tech Entrepreneur, Venture Builder, and a Mentor. Tune in to this episode as Youssef takes us on a captivating journey through his diverse entrepreneurial experiences – from founding hydroponics farms to navigating the complexities of the tech industry. Youssef also shares valuable insights and reflections on the Lebanese financial crisis and unveils his latest venture, "Actively," a groundbreaking approach to air travel and activity planning in the web3 era. Get ready for a narrative filled with innovation, resilience, and a wealth of wisdom for startup founders.Youssef’s journey unfolds as a dynamic narrative of entrepreneurial ventures and technological innovation. From founding hydroponics farms during university to navigating the challenges of the tech industry, he shares a diverse array of experiences. Youssef's journey encompasses social projects, a tech company in Abu Dhabi, and diverse investments, including medical systems, e-learning, and e-commerce platforms. The interview delves into the complexities of the Lebanese financial crisis, the establishment of an innovative accelerator, and its unfortunate closure due to economic challenges.The discussion seamlessly transitions to Youssef's relocation to Sydney amid the COVID-19 pandemic, narrating the two-year process to ensure stability for his family. Youssef's focus on self-discovery in the past year and a half culminates in his exploration of new opportunities, particularly in the realm of web3 technology. This exploration leads to the introduction of "Actively," a groundbreaking air travel and activity planner that utilizes AI and QR codes to bridge the gap between traditional and modern practices, emphasizing sustainability and personalized user experiences.The narrative takes an introspective turn as Youssef reflects on his entry into the tech industry through his parents' development company. The journey involves an award-winning Arabic reading and writing software, its evolution into a web platform, and the impactful effort to address literacy gaps in the Middle East. Youssef's insights for startup founders become a focal point, emphasizing the "build fast, fail faster" mindset, the significance of experiments before substantial investment, and the critical role of a diverse and collaborative team.The interview concludes with Youssef's current endeavors, including the pursuit of pilots for his innovative projects and the imminent launch of YJ Ventures. This platform aims to combine a venture builder with a scale-up program, showcasing Youssef's passion for guiding founders, navigating the challenges of convincing clients to embrace change, and leveraging the supportive startup ecosystem in Australia.
In this engaging episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis sit down with Sam Saltis, Founder & CEO of Core dna. Join the conversation as Sam takes us on a captivating journey through his tech evolution, sharing insights into the inception and growth of Core dna, reflections on international experiences, and a visionary outlook on the future of technology and entrepreneurship. Sam's wealth of experiences provides a fascinating backdrop for discussions on building, scaling, and navigating the dynamic landscape of the tech industry.Sam takes us on a journey through his tech evolution, starting from his teenage experimentation with bulletin boards to becoming the driving force behind a global tech company. The conversation delves into Sam's experiences at ANZ, the pivotal decision to pursue an MBA, and the inception of Core dna, an enterprise cloud platform now recognized globally.Core dna operates with a distributed team across multiple countries, emphasizing its unique selling points such as affordability, adaptability for various business sizes, and challenges convincing larger enterprises to transition from established platforms. Sam provides insights into diverse client needs, ranging from complex integrations for extensive websites to mid-market enterprises seeking efficient content management.The episode unfolds Core dna's innovative solution for the challenge of integrating and transferring content across different platforms. Sam shares the entrepreneurial journey of transitioning from the banking sector to founding a tech business, identifying opportunities in connecting shopping centers and retailers to the internet. The evolution from agency to a product-centric business, rewriting systems, and launching the "Expect Factor" platform are discussed in detail.Sam reflects on his international experiences in India and the United States, emphasizing cultural differences, challenges during the tech boom in India, and diverse business mindsets in the U.S. He critiques the cutthroat mentality in some parts of the U.S. and highlights the collaborative, win-win approach he prefers in business.The episode concludes with Sam's future plans, including giving back to startups, exploring innovative business models, bringing software development in-house, and global expansion. Sam underscores the importance of recognizing unique strengths in the tech industry, advocating for trust-building through relationships and outcomes over financial competition.The conversation also touches on the changing dynamics of social interactions, engagement with interesting people, and the transformative role of AI in various industries. Sam's insights offer a comprehensive view of Core dna's growth, the tech industry's challenges, and his forward-looking vision for the future.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Steve Grace, Founder, TNG Media & The Nudge Group and CEO, Balance The Grind. Steve also hosts a podcast, Give It A Nudge Show, and is the Director at YBF Ventures. Join hosts as they dive into Steve's 28-year adventure in recruitment, unraveling the secrets behind his transformative media strategies and the art of balancing startup success.Steve delves into his 28-year journey in recruitment, tracing his origins in London, a detour through a government-focused recruitment company, and the subsequent creation of Knowledge, an education-focused recruitment agency tailored for startups. The timing was fortuitous as the company expanded globally, just before the onset of COVID-19, benefitting startups and paving the way for the birth of media platforms.Steve shares profound insights into the critical decision of choosing the right co-founder for a tech startup, emphasizing the need for non-tech founders to consider acquiring a tech co-founder early in the startup journey. He highlights the rarity of finding a skilled engineer with both technical expertise and business acumen, cautioning against hiring from larger organizations. The discussion extends to the dynamic nature of startup teams, the evolving roles of founders, and the necessity for founders to anticipate shifts in team composition as the startup progresses.The podcast explores the impact of COVID-19 on the recruitment landscape, with Steve shedding light on the newfound ease of global recruitment and the evolving ability to assess candidates effectively through video interviews. A game-changing strategy is unveiled—using media to recruit for startups. Steve explains how "Give It A Nudge" YouTube channel reversed the traditional recruitment approach, significantly increasing success rates, impact, and candidate retention in startup roles.Steve passionately expresses his love for the startup world, highlighting the positivity, excitement, and relentless work ethic of individuals within it. He contrasts the startup environment with corporate life, emphasizing the openness, lack of competition paranoia, and the sense of being part of something impactful as key reasons behind his affinity for the startup world. The episode concludes with Steve discussing the accidental evolution of "Balance The Grind" and "Startup Life Unscripted," both becoming impactful media assets.In summary, the episode provides a comprehensive journey through Steve Grace's entrepreneurial ventures, offering valuable insights into startup dynamics, recruitment strategies, and the transformative power of media in the business landscape.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our host, Andrew Romeo, joins Carmen Williams, Co-Founder & Director of Global Teams. In this episode, Carmen shares the secrets behind leveraging her Global Teams’ Virtual Assistants (VAs) to not just elevate but truly amplify your business potential. Join us on a journey through Carmen's insights, a game-changer for entrepreneurs navigating the landscape of the digital era. Discover how her expertise transforms businesses and unlocks the full spectrum of possibilities in this compelling exploration of global teams and virtual mastery.Carmen shares the unexpected journey of her business, originally rooted in healthcare consulting, that organically grew into a thriving virtual assistant company supporting over 100 professionals in the Philippines. Highlighting the diverse qualifications of her team, including individuals with backgrounds in science, mathematics, law, and engineering, Carmen emphasizes their role in different stages of business growth.Carmen delves into the crucial aspects of effective communication and collaboration between business owners and virtual assistants, offering insights into marketing strategies. She underscores the importance of business owners owning the strategy and content creation for social media marketing while virtual assistants contribute through distribution and enhancement tasks. The discussion extends to recruitment challenges, delegation practices, and the nuanced methods for motivating virtual assistants.The conversation shifts to understanding the cost considerations of managing virtual assistants, with Carmen acknowledging that while doing tasks independently may be cheaper, many seek additional support for tasks like scoping, candidate selection, and ongoing communication. Carmen distinguishes between clients with mature businesses willing to invest in quality and those new to the process, seeking extra support to ensure success in integrating virtual assistants.Carmen's approach extends beyond business relationships to fostering mutual understanding between business owners and virtual assistants. She shares a popular training module focused on helping virtual assistants comprehend the unique aspects of Australian business culture. Carmen invites listeners to explore resources on globalteams.com.au for a deeper understanding of virtual assistant capabilities and improved communication strategies.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our host, Anthony Sapountzis, is joined by Monica Rosenfeld, Founder of the Global Stories that Stir Movement. Listen to the episode to discover the art of crafting authentic narratives, mastering personal branding strategies, and leveraging impactful storytelling for business success, in addition to the invaluable insights and expert tips on creating engaging content and fostering meaningful connections in the digital age.The Global Stories that Stir Movement revolves around monthly storytelling events where individuals share raw and personal stories related to significant themes. With a goal to break down barriers, initiate conversations, and inspire positive change, the movement has organized 15 events since its inception in February 2022. Moreover, the concept is expanding globally through licensing arrangements. Alongside these events, Monica assists various businesses, both small startups and large corporations, in defining their unique narratives, catering to the distinct needs of each.Monica shares insights into her journey, emphasizing the significance of authentic storytelling in building connections and driving positive change. With a wealth of experience in public relations and media, spanning over two decades, she highlights the power of crafting compelling narratives that resonate with audiences and attract clients aligned with shared values and vision. Monica introduces the "Tree Step" process, guiding businesses in defining their core values, expertise, physical appearance, and content creation strategies, ultimately enhancing their personal branding efforts. She also presents the REAL Storytelling Framework, empowering individuals to unearth their unique stories and add a human touch to their brand.Moreover, Monica delves into effective content creation strategies, introducing the "Seven REASONS to Create Content" acronym, which outlines various avenues for engaging content development, including real-life stories, entrepreneurial backstories, awareness days, statistics, opinions, news of the day, and snappy tips or myths. She underlines the role of personal narratives in elevating content quality and subtly demonstrating expertise, enabling businesses to naturally attract clients through valuable and engaging content. Monica emphasizes the transformative impact of storytelling, drawing parallels between its success and effective marketing, underscoring its ability to drive motivation and deepen audience engagement. Lastly, she provides valuable tips for impactful storytelling, advocating for a narrative-driven approach that captivates audiences from the outset while adapting to the context to ensure maximum relevance and resonance.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Steven Lewis, the Director of Copywriting and AI Copywriting Speaker and Trainer at Taleist Agency. Listen to the episode for a captivating discussion on the power of effective communication and engaging content to uncover the secrets of persuasive copywriting and storytelling and gain valuable insights into crafting compelling narratives. Steven emphasizes the importance of understanding the distinction between copywriting and content writing, highlighting the need to engage audiences and drive specific actions. He illustrates the common tendency for businesses to focus on self-promotion rather than addressing customer concerns, emphasizing the need to prioritize the audience's needs and desires.Steven underscores the significance of tailoring social proof to address customer objections effectively, stressing the importance of testimonials that resonate with customers' core worries and desires. He delves into the barriers to sales, such as pricing and communication clarity, highlighting the necessity of ensuring a company's website effectively communicates its offerings. Additionally, Steven debunks the misconception of broad demographics in marketing, emphasizing the need to understand the nuanced needs and fears of individual customers within the target market, even in B2B contexts.Further, Steven emphasizes the importance of understanding clients' emotional needs and desires, showcasing the effectiveness of using language and narratives that evoke positive emotions and resonate with clients' aspirations. He also discusses the significance of leveraging pain points and fear in marketing, highlighting the psychological tendency of individuals to avoid losses more vehemently than pursuing gains. Steven emphasizes the critical role of persuasive and effective copywriting in driving conversions on websites, debunking common myths about copy length and stressing the importance of captivating content.Moreover, Steven underscores the importance of the research process in uncovering valuable insights about businesses and their unique value propositions. He emphasizes the necessity of effectively conveying these value propositions in various marketing channels, encouraging businesses to move beyond conventional sales-driven email newsletters to establish genuine connections with their audience. Finally, Steven highlights the significance of communicating a business's unique philosophy and approach to establish meaningful connections with the right customers, illustrating this through a discussion on CRM and the importance of clearly articulating a company's target audience and unique approach.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our host, Anthony Sapountzis, is joined by Kylie Chown, a certified LinkedIn Strategist and a Social Media Trainer. Listen to this episode to understand how to leverage LinkedIn for business growth, establish a strong online presence, and navigate the evolving landscape of this professional networking platform. Discover invaluable tips and strategies for effective content creation, networking, and brand alignment in the digital world.Through the episode, Kylie emphasizes the significance of leveraging LinkedIn as a powerful tool for businesses, highlighting its professional focus and the benefits it offers for networking and brand establishment. She discusses the changing landscape of LinkedIn, emphasizing the importance of providing valuable and educational content that resonates with the audience to overcome the recent decline in engagement. Chown also addresses the challenge faced by professionals transitioning to new industries, stressing the importance of building a relevant network aligned with their goals through targeted outreach and in-person interactions.Furthermore, Chown underscores the importance of understanding the audience's preferences on LinkedIn, emphasizing the need for tailored communication strategies and a well-optimized profile. She highlights the significance of maintaining a positive brand reputation and making a strong first impression by focusing on quality interactions and targeted networking. Chown also discusses the common issue of individuals underselling themselves on LinkedIn and emphasizes the importance of accurately positioning oneself online to align with their capabilities and business goals.Additionally, Chown discusses the significance of maintaining brand and business alignment on LinkedIn, advocating for a balanced approach that reflects the organization's values while allowing individuality to shine through. She underscores the need for a well-defined social media policy within organizations, emphasizing the importance of clear guidelines for content sharing and the framing of discussions around policy adherence. Chown also highlights the distinctions between personal profiles and company pages on LinkedIn, stressing the value of both for fostering engagement and connections based on individual interactions and brand awareness.Finally, Chown delves into the importance of understanding audience content consumption preferences on LinkedIn, emphasizing the need for content formats that engage effectively and encourage platform retention. She discusses thematic content development and data analysis as essential elements for optimizing content performance and audience engagement.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Chris Ellis, Founder of Ellivate Consulting. From simplifying commission schemes to mastering CRM for scalability, Chris shares invaluable insights into revenue operations, helping businesses navigate growth challenges and unlock their full potential. Tune in for expert guidance on enhancing performance, aligning teams, and building a high-impact sales organization.Chris shares his extensive experience in the corporate world and highlights his consultancy's role in helping scale-up organizations enhance their systems and processes for improved performance and revenue retention. He discusses the various services his firm offers, including consulting, training, coaching, and the unique "virtual rev-up" process, aimed at resolving revenue cycle pain points.Chris emphasizes the significance of early adoption of revenue operations within organizations and provides insights into his consultancy's framework for optimizing revenue operations and revenue enablement. He underlines the importance of strategy in this framework, which consists of 12 steps focusing on critical aspects such as performance, sales processes, data measurement, and aligning sales and marketing teams.Additionally, the episode explores the challenges faced during the scaling process, with Chris highlighting the need for organizations to shift their focus from the "what" to the "why" and effectively equipping teams with the necessary tools and strategies to achieve desired outcomes. The role of reporting and analytics, particularly within CRM systems, is emphasized as a crucial factor in achieving scalability and informed decision-making.Chris concludes the conversation by emphasizing the essential role of revenue operations within organizations, particularly during the scaling phase. He encourages businesses to invest in strong individuals for revenue operations to drive success, underlining the importance of a well-defined operating model and a carefully selected technology stack to support growth and efficiency.Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady PodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologiesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aeriontech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvtYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AerionAuTech
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis, are joined by Jeff Jaraved. He is the Co-Founder & Director (Engineering), CAASie.co, an online ad platform that brings Facebook-style advertising to digital billboards. Get ready to dive into the world of digital advertising and technological innovation with this podcast episode as the three explore the challenges, triumphs, and intricacies of building a self-service ad platform and navigating the complexities of the advertising industry.Jeff talks about the journey of the company's evolution from a design agency to a comprehensive online ad platform for digital billboards. He also sheds light on the initial struggles of reconciling high billboard costs with affordable advertising, which led to the innovative approach of selling 10-second ad slots at reduced rates, thereby providing flexibility and cost control for advertisers. The platform's emphasis on serving small businesses in a niche market, often overlooked by larger players, is highlighted, along with the challenges of managing creative content and integrating dynamic creative solutions into the platform.Jeff delves into the complexities of managing user-generated content, emphasizing the need for efficient triage processes and the implementation of measures to regulate and optimize the creative uploading process. The discussion also focuses on CAASie.co's plans to enhance internal management processes and systems to better regulate content on the platform, along with the significance of implementing an abstraction layer for automatic content rejection. Furthermore, the company's emphasis on achieving self-sufficiency and transitioning to a more structured business model, while contemplating potential acquisitions by larger entities, is discussed.The challenges faced by CAASie.co in attracting investors, managing financial risks, and ensuring sustainable growth are some of the key points of discussion, emphasizing the company's cautious approach to loans and the preference for utilizing existing funds. Jeff emphasizes the significance of fostering partnerships in the online advertising industry through transparent communication and the building of trust between businesses. Lastly, the importance of effective teamwork and the human-centric aspects of the business are underscored, along with the challenges associated with managing internal operations and addressing internal technological requirements.Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady PodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologiesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aeriontech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvtYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AerionAuTech
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Anthony Sapountzis, sits with Caitlin Budge, CEO and Founder of Clarified Solutions. Tune in to the episode as Caitlin provides comprehensive insights into navigating the world of government grants, tenders, and investment documents, offering valuable guidance for businesses seeking success in these areas.Caitlin delves into her expertise in helping businesses secure government grants, tenders, and investment documents. She emphasizes the importance of thorough research and clarity in grant applications, highlighting the detailed nature of grant guidelines. Caitlin provides insights into the time and effort required for grant applications, underscoring the need for long-term commitment.Caitlin also discusses the strategic approach to business development, starting with clear pitch decks, then grants and tenders, while repurposing application documentation for broader purposes. She sheds light on the challenges of securing government contracts as a startup, emphasizing competitive pricing and service quality.Throughout the conversation, Caitlin offers valuable tips on creating effective pitch decks, standing out in presentations, and maintaining professionalism in business endeavors. She maintains a long-term commitment to her clients, even after securing grant opportunities, and shares her criteria for working with businesses.Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady PodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologiesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aeriontech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvtYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AerionAuTech
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis, are joined by David Hauser, CEO of Silicon Beach Australia and Founder & Director of THNK.innovation. David shares his fascinating journey, from early ventures in exoskeletons and movie equipment to his role in shaping the future of purpose-driven entrepreneurship and technology customization. Get ready for a conversation packed with insights and entrepreneurial wisdom.David's path into startups was initially influenced by encouragement in high school, but societal pressure led him to become an engineer in Germany. His journey included involvement in exoskeletons for body motion and even contributing equipment to the first Matrix movie, though an IP dispute led to challenges in that venture.David reflects on the importance of due diligence and trust in developers during his startup experiences. He also discusses his transition from a corporate environment back to the startup ecosystem, highlighting the challenges faced by large organizations in terms of innovation.His involvement with Silicon Beach Australia is a significant part of the conversation, and he emphasizes the community's shift towards purpose-driven entrepreneurship and alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. He also touches on crowdfunding challenges and the importance of moving quickly and staying user-centric in the world of innovation.Additionally, David discusses the need for collaboration between universities, industry, and startups in Australia and advocates for AI-powered customization of user interfaces. He underscores the value of learning from feedback and embracing an iterative approach to product development.Overall, David Hauser's journey and insights provide valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and those interested in the dynamic world of startups and innovation.Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady PodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologiesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aeriontech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvtYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AerionAuTech
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis, are joined by Gavin Reddrop, Founder & CEO, Tactix AI and Co-Founder & CTO, Cedar.Earth. Gavin takes center stage to share his extensive insights into the rapidly evolving world of AI and automation. Gavin's credentials as a Business Innovation and Automation Expert, Speaker, Mentor, and Author underscore his expertise in this dynamic field.Gavin begins by discussing the challenges of writing a book on AI due to the breakneck pace of technological advancements. His book is designed to assist business owners in embarking on their automation journey, simplifying processes using AI APIs, tapping into AI's potential as a brainstorming tool, sales enhancer, and aiding startup founders preparing for pitches.The conversation delves into Gavin's fascinating journey through the tech landscape, from military communications to the corporate sphere, and ultimately, his leap into entrepreneurship. Gavin reflects on the evolution of AI, emphasizing its initial applications in content creation and social marketing, leading to his deep immersion in AI, including a recruitment tool for unbiased resume analysis. Presently, he is focused on a climate tech startup that employs AI to address environmental challenges.Gavin's mission to help enterprise-level companies manage their climate data throughout the supply chain takes center stage. He highlights the transformative impact of AI in the enterprise space, even prompting industry giants like Google to embrace startup-like agility and innovation. Gavin underscores the importance of incremental steps in automation and innovation, advocating for breaking complex tasks into manageable components to enhance efficiency and productivity across industries. Gavin's remarkable military experience further enriches the discussion, showcasing his adaptability and ability to integrate diverse technologies and systems.Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady PodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologiesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aeriontech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvtYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AerionAuTech
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Ahmed Reza, Founder & CEO of Yobi. The episode covers the world of AI, entrepreneurship, and the future of communication. Ahmed takes us on a journey through his tech career. He begins with his early involvement in projects like the Denver Grand Challenge and AI development for unmanned aerial vehicles in the Department of Defense, which laid the foundation for his valuable experience. Ahmed's entrepreneurial spirit comes to the forefront as he discusses his successful startup that utilized AI for optimizing dental marketing.Transitioning from geek to entrepreneur, Ahmed stresses the significance of merging technical and business skills. He highlights the importance of self-awareness and recounts how he stumbled upon the idea for his startup while helping a friend. The impact of his app on the dental industry, doubling some dentists' incomes, showcases its success in marketing optimization.Ahmed's journey also delves into his transition to private equity and the insights he gained into business efficiency. He recognizes common challenges across industries and the untapped potential in analyzing marketing calls. Amid the evolving tech landscape, Ahmed discusses the importance of caution regarding industry hype, emphasizing the need for practical applications. He shares his vision of a unified communications app that caters to busy entrepreneurs, underlining its simplicity and value.Moving forward, Ahmed explores the development of synthetic clones and their applications, emphasizing the need for ethical AI development. He envisions a future where AI empowers entrepreneurs to engage in more meaningful interactions and drive progress.Lastly, Ahmed underscores the importance of finding purpose beyond wealth and living a meaningful life. His mentor's wisdom resonates as he expresses gratitude for his journey, motivated by the opportunity to make a positive impact through technology.This episode is a captivating exploration of Ahmed's tech career, touching on entrepreneurship, innovation, and ethical AI development while emphasizing the importance of living a meaningful life.Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady PodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologiesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aeriontech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvtYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AerionAuTech
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Finbar OHanlon, the Co-founder of APAC Innovation Institute. Fin is also a Corporate Advisor, Strategist, and Company Director specializing in Digital transformation (Ai) and Human Capability. In this episode, Fin gives insights on challenging norms, embracing curiosity, and fostering innovation across music and technology.
Fin shares a remarkable journey marked by defiance of conventions and an unquenchable thirst for innovation. Starting as a rebellious student in a Christian school, he transitioned into the realm of technology from a successful career in music. Despite societal pressures and challenges, his innate curiosity and passion for learning guided him towards remarkable achievements. Notably, his early interest in digital audio technology led him to a pivotal role in a prominent music store and eventually to Apple as a digital audio specialist, where he tackled industry-defining challenges.
Fin's narrative centers on embracing the unknown and pushing boundaries. He discovered that his greatest successes emerged when he challenged established norms and fostered innovation. His transition to the tech world involved unconventional approaches, such as creating an enterprise-grade video-switching system for banks, despite not fitting the traditional software developer mold. His experiences span multiple countries, emphasizing the importance of continuous learning and the value of questioning norms and embracing change. Throughout the episode, Fin highlights the significance of structured thinking and validation regarding innovation. He stresses that ideas alone are not enough; they must be transformed into well-defined opportunities with consideration for pricing, development costs, timelines, and success probabilities. Moreover, he advocates for a blueprint approach in innovation involving identifying unmet needs, customer segmentation, pricing strategies, and preliminary business plans.
Fin's journey is an inspiring testament to the power of curiosity, resilience, and a willingness to challenge conventional wisdom. His story underscores the idea that innovation is a continuous process that requires effort, creativity, and the courage to think differently.
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In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by the guest, Marina Ritchie, a versatile professional with a background spanning diverse industries such as telecom, gas and oil, and events management, who shares her wealth of experience. Currently serving as a Business Growth Manager at Smart Business Accelerator, a ChatGPT Educator, and a Launch Lead at Moonshots Innervation, Marina is a dedicated advocate for optimizing business processes, especially in marketing and sales.Marina delves into the intriguing concept of technology democratization, passionately guiding business owners on leveraging emerging technologies for scalable growth. She identifies two distinct groups in the technology landscape: those who approach with caution due to fear or time constraints and those who eagerly embrace the potential benefits. Marina primarily collaborates with the latter group, offering invaluable guidance and strategies for harnessing these innovations.The episode also explores the dynamic world of Ai adoption in businesses, a continuously evolving landscape. Marina emphasizes the importance of readiness and understanding, dispelling the myth of Ai as a magic solution. She addresses the challenges of staying current in this rapidly evolving technological realm. Marina highlights the prevalence of misinformation and the importance of guiding clients through the Ai workflow, ensuring effective communication and structured data handling.Marina Ritchie's expertise extends to the emerging landscape of conversational Ai prompts, where she explores the untapped potential of Ai users and the collaborative magic that can unfold when they harness vast amounts of data for comparisons and enrichments. Her insights make this episode a valuable resource for anyone navigating the intricate world of technology and business.Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady PodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologiesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aeriontech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvtYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AerionAuTech
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by the guest Milton Collins, Certified Business Coach, ActionCOACH and Managing Director, Glenbroch Pty Ltd. Join us in this insightful episode as the three explore Milton’s journey from equestrian excellence to strategic business growth.
Collins shares his remarkable journey from growing up on a rural farm to becoming an accomplished performance horse expert and international competitor. He highlights the pivotal role of coaching in refining his innate talents.
Collins also delves into his career trajectory, detailing his experience with Price Waterhouse and his passion for equestrianism. The challenge of balancing his equestrian pursuits with a burgeoning professional career led him to an innovative accounting firm in Gippsland. His contributions played a crucial part in transforming the firm into a thriving powerhouse with multiple offices and a substantial team.
Throughout the discussion, Collins emphasizes the power of strategic collaborations, the importance of client alignment, and the art of effective salesmanship. He shares insightful anecdotes of businesses navigating the pandemic successfully, transforming challenges into opportunities. Collins underscores the significance of systems, strong teams, and nurturing long-term relationships for business growth. His holistic perspective, drawing lessons from equestrianism and diverse ventures, adds a unique dimension to his coaching philosophy, emphasizing versatility and collaboration.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our host, Anthony Sapountzis, is joined by Mira Mikosic, Founder & CEO of Simple Chic. Simple Chic is revolutionizing the fashion industry by offering an on-demand and circular marketplace that empowers women to customize their clothing experiences. With a commitment to sustainability and ethical practices, Simple Chic connects customers with independent designers and makers for tailored clothing solutions, including made-to-order pieces, alterations, upcycling, repairs, and recycling.
Mira highlights the urgent need for change within the fashion industry, addressing issues like overproduction, overconsumption, and the environmental impact of synthetic textiles. Simple Chic's approach focuses on reducing waste, advocating for natural fabrics, and addressing labor exploitation. By shifting toward a customer-centric model, the platform aligns clothing choices with individual needs and life stages, offering a more meaningful and sustainable fashion experience.
The conversation delves into the pitfalls of the profit-driven fashion industry and the rise of fast fashion brands that prioritize sales and cost-cutting over ethical practices. Mira emphasizes the necessity for industry-wide change to counter these trends. She also discusses the adverse effects of excessive consumption driven by design trends and social media influences, leading to a culture of overconsumption. Mira introduces Simple Chic's circular fashion concept, which emphasizes personalized clothing while also extending the life of garments through repairs and upcycling. The episode underscores the brand's mission to make fashion simpler, more ethical, and more resonant with individual preferences.
Topics Covered · Eco-friendly fashion transformation · Breaking down fast-fashion’s pricey profit paradigm · Fashion industry and choice overload · Sizing standards and styles · Fashion with a purpose · Tech-driven fashion evolution · Customer-designed couture · Need to empower women in fashion · Fashion industry’s economics and ethics
Important Time Stamps · Empowering Women and the Planet: Simple Chic's Triple-Fold Solution (0:17 – 3:15) · Fashion's Dark Side: Profit-First Industry Exposed! (3:16 – 5:43) · Fashion’s Vicious Cycle of Overconsumption (5:55 – 8:33) · Fit or Miss: The Sizing Struggles We Face (9:14 – 10:56) · Style on Demand: Mira Mikosic on Simple Chic's Sustainable Approach (10:57 – 13:14) · Fashion x Technology: Shaping Personalized Style with Simple Chic (13:35 – 17:51) · Fashion's New Fit: Mira Mikosic on Revolutionizing Personalization (18:15 – 20:43) · Putting Customers in the Designer's Seat (21:54 – 25:19) · Breaking the Mold: Quest for Inclusive Fashion (25:26 – 28:34) · Cost of Clothing and Fashion’s Offshore Struggle (28:59 – 30:33) · Fashion for All (30:59 – 34:30) · From MVP to Masterpiece: Mira's Evolutionary Tech Tool (34:42 – 38:48) · From Need to Solution: Insights into Fashion Innovation (39:35 – 42:58)
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In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our host, Anthony Sapountzis is joined by Santiago Santa María Morales, Product Director at NTT DATA Europe & Latam. From enhancing customer service through AI to deciphering the future of communication, this conversation is a deep dive into the world of technology innovation. Don't miss out on Santiago's insights that could reshape how we interact with brands!
Topics Covered • Leveraging AI to Elevate Brand-Customer Connections • Tech Evolution: From NLP to GPT-3 to Beyond! • Improving Customer Connections through Streamlined Communication • Secrets to Near-Perfect Service through Ai • Crafting Hyper-Personalized Solutions • How GPT’s Magic Works • Inside the Ai Loop • Emergence of Skills for Ai • AI's Multisensory Breakthroughs • Navigating the Digital Deception
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In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by the guest Slaven Drinovac, Managing Director, Coaching Centre, a virtual coaching platform that helps individuals and organizations achieve their goals through coaching, training, and development programs. Slaven delves into problem-solving and its relevance to his journey, unveiling the nuances of the coaching landscape and its hurdles. He addresses the paradox between recognizing coaching's benefits and the scarcity of opportunities for organizational leaders, attributing it to funding challenges. Fuelled by a passion for impactful leadership, Slaven shares his drive to democratize coaching accessibility.
The conversation navigates through the inevitable integration of technology, the iterative process of refining ideas, and the transformative power of AI in coaching. Slaven's reflections echo the evolution of his project, the pivotal role of collaboration with developers, and the valuable lesson of thorough communication. He discusses his vision for the future, outlining Coaching Centre's expansion from Australia to international landscapes while harnessing AI's potential to reshape coaching dynamics. Tune in for an insightful journey through problem-solving, coaching, and the intersection of technology and leadership.
Topics Covered
Empowering leaders through leadership coaching Technology-powered solutions for maximum impact Journey from concept to reality Automating the repetitive process for efficiency gains From simple to robust through iteration Need for clarity and detail when communicating with developers Future Ready: AI-Powered Coaching and Global Expansion
Important Time Stamps
Making leadership coaching accessible (0:32 – 1:47) Future-proofing Leadership through technology (2:10 – 4:22) From spreadsheet to innovation: Slaven’s tech journey (4:35 – 6:32) Translating vision into tech as a non-tech founder (8:40 – 9:46) Shaping perfection through iteration (10:05 – 11:49) How developer discussions shape project success (11:51 – 13:10) The power of clarity and detail (15:03 – 17:16) The Development Playbook: lessons in effective tech engagement (17:33 – 20:05) Elevating tech collaboration (22:29 – 26:10) Bridging gaps with tech: AI-powered coaching and global expansion (32:30 – 34:47)
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In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Shanif Dhanani, Founder & ChatGPT Consultant, Locusive, a platform that provides the complete infrastructure and applications to connect your proprietary data to ChatGPT. It allows you to build Slackbots, chat servers, and other services so your employees and customers can get the most out of your data. Having founded a successful start-up, pioneering as one of the world's first mobile advertising companies, Shanif has been at the forefront of tech innovation and digital marketing. Get ready to dive into the world of data science and mobile advertising as we explore his insightful journey and valuable expertise.
Topics Covered: The evolution of Shanif’s tech brilliance From startup to mobile advertising powerhouse Lessons in startup success Tech trends and the next big thing How AI is transforming industries with predictive technology What founders think about ChatGPT Leveraging ChatGPT to enhance efficiency The impact of contextual information retrieval Overcoming challenges like rate limits and acclimating
Important Time Stamps A Data Geek's Rise to Mobile Advertising Stardom (1:01 – 1:58) Building a Million Ad Request Powerhouse for Twitter (1:59 – 3:30) Tech Success Secrets: Build, Sell, and Pivot (3:49 – 4:59) Tech Disruption and ChatGPT: The 100 Million User Phenomenon (5:44 – 7:27) Debunking myths & embracing possibilities with ChatGPT (8:03 – 10:41) Optimism and excitement for ChatGPT (10:50 – 12:39) Finding the sweet spot between people and ChatGPT (15:13 - 16:54) How Chatbots transform business from data conversations to revenue generation (22:10 – 25:08) Navigating the stages of ChatGPT implementation for business success (25:43 – 28:01) Balancing visionary goals with tangible outcomes (30:30 – 33:27) Success stories and trends in small-scale projects (33:40 – 35: 46)
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In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by the guest JP Tucker, Co-Founder of Copydash.ai, who discusses his journey in the e-commerce space. He talks about how a need within his business led to the creation of Copydash.ai, a platform that helps businesses and brands create content 100x faster than other platforms and reduce project costs by up to 80%.
Topics Covered: • The inspiration behind creating copydash.ai • Challenges faced in the e-commerce space and the need for compelling content generation • The role of AI in content creation and its impact on businesses • Differentiating copydash.ai from other content generation platforms • Strategies for optimizing product feeds and improving rankings • The importance of trust and building credibility in the market • Integration of copydash.ai with popular platforms like Shopify and WordPress • Expansion plans and reaching out to larger e-commerce brands • The value of local talent and minimizing turnover in tech teams • Managing team dynamics
Social Media Clips (Time Stamps): • Journey from a liquor business to an AI startup (0:37 – 6:30) • Challenges in content creation and the ultimate power of user feedback (5:49 – 8:35) • Empowering teams for success (9:20 – 11:59) • AI as an empowering assistant (12:00 – 12:37) • Navigating development challenges and the value of communication (12:38 – 16:58) • Building engagement in virtual teams (17:04 - 19:33) • How is copydash.ai different from Chat GPT? (19:35 – 21:24) • Expanding platform integration (21:30 – 22:33) • Overcoming the awareness barriers (23:24 – 24:13) • What the future looks like for copydash.ai (24:23 – 27:03) • Team dynamics and the power of values (27:16 – 28:51)
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In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Andrew Grant, Director of Tirian Innovative Solutions and the Author of two highly acclaimed books, The Innovation Race and Who Killed Creativity. Andrew recorded a three-part Creativity Series with the DevReady Podcast, centered around his book, Who Killed Creativity and, in this episode, he talks about The Innovation Race. In this book, he and Gaia Grant take the latest academic research and present it in an accessible way to make a compelling case for forging a sustainable future driven by innovation. Listen to the episode to understand how to ask critical questions like - Why do we innovate? Are we at risk of innovating for the sake of innovation? What could we be doing better? – and to know why ambidexterity is vital in leadership.
Topics Covered: What is sustainable innovation? The two leadership styles: exploration and preservation Need for ambidexterity Understanding tension and managing it well Learning from ancient cultures Is AI the future?
Important Time Stamps: From uncovering creativity to decoding innovation (0:48 – 3:26) Ambidexterity as a balance between exploration and preservation (3:37 – 6:24) Nested dimensions of exploration and preservation (6:25 – 8:28) Overcoming the natural bias in leaders (8:33 – 11:52) Leaders need to balance the tension in the team (11:53 – 15:37) Learning ambidexterity from ancient cultures (18:26 – 19:13) Collaborative Canvas (19:31 – 22:03) Leader needs to be purpose-driven (23:55 – 26:56) Is the future AI? (28:24 – 33:50) iCLi assessment (43:30 – 44:38)
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In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Chris Tran, Founder & Managing Partner at CapConnect; and Board of Directors at TiE. Chris talks about the Southeast Asian market and the founders' elemental role in shaping a better tomorrow by solving today's problems. Chris compares the markets in the West with the emerging market of Southeast Asia and explains how solving problems and gaining traction are essential, regardless of the market. Topics CoveredChris’s work in the South East Asian MarketWhat founders need to consider when moving into a new marketGovernment’s vital role in making Singapore a tech hubAustralia’s underutilized opportunities in the tech spaceInconsistency in policies can be problematic for foundersHow do the founders tap into the South East Asian market?Understanding VCsWhy do founders succeed?Important Time StampsFactors to consider when entering the South East Asian market (1:20 – 5:29)Why is money coming to Singapore? (5:49 – 7:36)The Australian Advantage (7:38 – 8:09)Founders navigating the inconsistencies in policies (8:35 – 11:34)Move towards AI? (13:36 – 15:12)How do the founders tap into the South East Asian market? (17:06 – 19:59)What types of start-ups/businesses are funded in Singapore? (21:13 – 23:19)Evolution of the Fintech market in Singapore and new opportunities (23:49 – 27:20)Market for the VCs (27:58 – 30:03)What fuels Chris’s passion? (30:39 – 32:36)Who are the ones that succeed? (33:55 – 35:54)Building support for the Founder (36:39 – 39:06)Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady Podcast:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologiesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aerion_tech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AerionAuTechSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvt
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Guy Brunsdon, Founder and Managing Director of Sazoma Systems. Guy is a technologist and a product leader with global experience—from Silicon Valley (USA) to Cambridge (UK) to Australia. In this episode of the podcast, Guy talks to our hosts about his extensive networking and product management career and how he strives to help people discover and create cutting-edge products, services, and solutions from conception to launch that solve their most critical customer problems.Topics Covered:Background in NetworkingProduct ManagementSales-led growth as opposed to product-led growthChallenges facedThe secret to Cisco’s successDon’t find a solution that fits a problemFocus on the discovery processWhy do products and digital transformations fail?Jobs TheorySystems ThinkingImportant Time Stamps:Guy’s Background and Learnings in Networking (0:56 – 4:38)Entering the start-up space with Context Relevant (12:41 – 13:40)Going back to Cisco (13:41 – 15:13)Australia and product management (15:15 – 16:45)Challenges when launching products (17:18 – 22:09)What led to Cisco’s success? (24:30 – 26:03)Move from a problem space to a solution space (26:56 – 28:14)Why do products and digital transformations fail? (30:20 – 36:07)Systems Thinking (43:16 – 47:38)Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady Podcast:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aeri...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aeriontech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvtYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AerionAuTech
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis, are joined by Stuart Thornton, Founder of heros.xyz, a membership club of athletes and fans committed to inspiring and investing in each other. Listen in to understand Stuart’s journey—of how he co-founded hoolah (now Shopback), Asia’s omnichannel ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ ecosystem headquartered in Singapore, and how he then went on to found heros.xyz. Topics Covered• Stuart’s background and how hoolah was founded• What are the elements for a start-up?• How to form the right team at the right time?• Understanding merchant engagement models• Need for MVP• Value of communicaton in a team• How heros.xyz was foundedImportant Time Stamps• Setting up the ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ ecosystem (1:51 – 5:12)• The Start-Up Allure (5:13 – 7:38)• Working With the Right People at the Right Time (9:08 – 12:33)• The Sales Process (15:21 – 19:09)• How to Build Traction (20:51 – 22:47)• We Made a Sale in 10 minutes (22:48 – 25:00)• Value Communication in the Team (31:21 - 33:05)• How heros.xyz came to be? (33:17 – 39:32) Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady PodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aeri...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aeriontech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQSoundcloud: https://bit.ly/2Uz6CLLSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvt
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Jordan Green, President Emeritus/Founder of Melbourne Angels. Jordon has spent decades focusing on doing things that have never been done before and is passionate about investing in a future driven by creative and responsible technology development. In this episode, he talks about what fuels his work and how he realizes his vision through action, leadership, investment, education, and collaboration. Topics Covered•What fascinates Jordon about the start-ups. •Introducing cutting-edge technology in the market. •How investment works. •How Jordon started Angel Investment in Australia. •What matters when investing in a start-up. •What motivates Jordon. •Jordon’s advice to start-up founders.Important Time Stamps•It is exciting to be living in a world of constant change (1:06 - 3:13)•Use cases of introducing technology in the market (2:22 - 9:39)•Introduction of new technology (9:49 - 11:17)•No one wants to be the first to take a risk (16:24 – 19:00)•How Angel Investment started in Australia (19:01 - 23:07)•Jordan's investment thesis (26:35 - 33:34)•What keeps Jordan going? (40:02 - 40:50)•Jordon’s advice for start-up founders (43:04 – 49:44) Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologiesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aerion_tech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQSoundcloud: https://bit.ly/2Uz6CLLSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvt
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis, are joined by Neville Christie, Future Maker at STEEP Renaissance. In this episode, he talks about STEEP Renaissance and the need to change mindsets and practice gratitude. Neville has been an entrepreneur since the age of 12. During his 69 years in innovation, entrepreneurship, and research, he always found that the biggest problems in the world are the source of the most significant opportunities. When in 2018, he sat down and spent time researching the social, technological, economic, ecological, and political trends, and he came up with two firm conclusions:1. The decade will see substantial structural changes in the social, technological, economic, ecological, and political fabric2. As a result of the changes, most nations will experience 40 tsunami-like events (pandemic, recession, financial crisis, war, changes in supply chains across the world, among others)Topics Covered• With chaos come opportunities • What is the STEEP Renaissance?• Importance of changing the mindset• Need to practice gratitude• Need to form communities• Importance of understanding valuesImpoortant Time Stamps• A decade of great destruction and great opportunities (2:02 – 4:58)• Need to reinvent (5:03 – 5:53)• How STEEP Renaissance came into being (5:55 – 7:28)• What is the STEEP Renaissance? (10:35 – 15:00)• Need to change the mindset (15:03 – 19:56)• Psychology of gratitude (19:57 – 22:02)• The power of communities (23:53 – 26:35)• Advice for those entering business (32:09 – 35:42)Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady PodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aeri...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aeriontech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AerionAuTechSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvtPrevious DevReady Epiosde with Neville: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50rcY0qb4DY&t=291s
In this fun episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Rex Kelly, General Manager & Manager of Marketing and Sales at Aerion Technologies. The conversation centers around the parallels that can be drawn between business and the movie in the spotlight for this edition of the Podcast—Ocean’s 11.Danny Ocean assembled an A-Team in the movie. And there’s so much to learn from the movie if you are a start-up founder or the owner of a business. Read Anthony’s Blog on Ocean’s Eleven here 👉 How to Assemble the Right Team like Danny OceanFollow & Subscribe to the DevReady Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTech LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aeri... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aeriontech/ Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AerionAuTechSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvt
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis talk to Rick Maré, CEO and Co-Founder of SHAZAMME, and Nicole Clarke, Co-Founder of SHAZAMME about how they created the Canva of recruitment websites. The episode is about all things business and how a business can be grown and scaled.Topics Covered:· How Shazamme came into being· Catering to the needs of the recruitment industry· Different silos of clients· Offering services that no one else offers· Challenges faced and lessons learned· Evolution from the first MVP to now· Benefits of operating in a niche marketImportant Time Stamps:· The Rolls Royce Solution for Recruitment (4:32 – 5:03)· SHAZAMME and the Use of Cutting-Edge Tech (5:10 – 5:58)· What Sets SHAZAMME apart from Competitors (6:00 – 11:11)· Lessons Learned (15:09 – 20:08)· Benefits of Low Code, No Code (27:50 – 28:59)· MVP is crucial (29:01 – 32:45)· Benefits of Operating in a Niche Market (32:51 – 36:26)Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologiesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aerion_tech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQSoundcloud: https://bit.ly/2Uz6CLLSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvt
In this fun episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts, Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Rex Kelly, General Manager & Manager of Marketing and Sales at Aerion Technologies. The conversation centers around the parallels that can be drawn between business and the movie in the spotlight for this edition of the Podcast—Ocean’s 11.Danny Ocean assembled an A-Team in the movie. And there’s so much to learn from the movie if you are a start-up founder or the owner of a business.Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTechLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologiesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aerion_tech/Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQSoundcloud: https://bit.ly/2Uz6CLLSpotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvtRead Anthony’s Blog on Ocean’s Eleven here 👉https://aerion.com.au/blog/movie-business/how-to-assemble-the-right-team-like-danny-ocean/
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis talk to Mark Luhovy, Founder & Principal at BioEnginuity, which provides strategic digital healthcare & biotech consulting. Listen in as the conversation takes us through Mark’s medical career, the possibilities in the digital health space, his start-up experience, and the exciting world of robotics.
Mark has spent most of his career in the medical device sector. Towards the end of his medical school journey, he decided not to pursue additional clinical training. Instead, he rolled up a lot of his experience into his own consulting business, which is what BioEnginuity. And since 2018, he has been doing really several different consulting projects with clients as large as Johnsons & Johnsons but also small as emerging medical health companies in the digital health space. When working in the US, Mark fell in love with the practical side of engineering: from product design to product implementation to sales. To him, it brought together the best of both worlds: sound fundamentals of a scientific discipline and the actuality of making tangible things.
Topics Covered • Mark’s career in the medical sector • Foray into the digital health space • Possibilities for start-ups in digital health • Surviving a major failure • The highs and lows of running a start-up • Challenges faced • Key Learnings • The exciting world of Robotics
Time Stamps • Foray into the digital health space (2:51 – 4:57) • Possibilities for start-ups in digital health (4:59 – 6:39) • Why do start-ups fail? (8:27 – 11:42) • The start-up experience is a roller coaster (15:34 – 17:43) • Roadblocks along the way (17:44 – 20:25) • Key learnings (24:03 – 25:42) • Exciting world of Robotics (29:29 – 31:55) • Connect with Mark (39:25 – 40:51)
Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTech LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologies Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aerion_tech/ Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQ Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/2Uz6CLL Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvt
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis sit with Kavita Nadan, Co-Founder & Director at Locumate. In this episode, the discussion centres around the platform, how it has evolved since its launch and what are the plans moving ahead. With Locumate, Locums can find the perfect shifts, get paid on time, and get access to additional educational resources to help them grow their career as Pharmacists.
Something that Kavita has always been passionate about has been helping the students. She shares how, as a student herself, she did not have the answers and thinks that through platforms like hers, she can help students look beyond the obvious. She wants to invest in students because they are the future. If we don’t start at that student level and get them passionate about the opportunities, they will not be passionate about it down the track.
Topics Covered • Working in the community • Career opportunities for students • Locumate: from idea to execution • Listen to your customers • Opportunities in the Pharmaceutical Industry • Learnings
Time Stamps • Working in the community (2:50 – 3:21) • Students and career in Pharmacy (6:47 – 9:15) • How Locumate was conceptualized (9:20 – 15:00) • The execution of Locumate (16:21 – 19:28) • Listening to your customers (23:53 – 24:33) • Different opportunities (27:33 – 28:17) • Key learnings (29:20 – 32:33)
Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTech LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologies Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aerion_tech/ Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQ Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/2Uz6CLL Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvt
For this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis welcome Stewart Marshall, Senior IT Executive, SaaS and Commercial Software Advisor, Best Selling Author. Stewart talks about what drives him and how he wants to help purposeful businesses yield better outcomes. He also talks about his upcoming book, Kick Some SaaS: The leader’s guide to purposeful software and global impact.
A third-time guest to the podcast, Mr. SaaS thinks that the industry is seeing interesting changes and a difference in the world can be made with software. He calls software the great leveler and says that everyone has an equal opportunity to make the world a better place.
Topics Covered • Delivering better value • The chicken and team member analogy • Articulating value as a vendor • Calculating and communicating value to customers • Undercutting in SaaS • Understanding the outcome
Time Stamps • Delivering better value (5:38 – 6:27) • The chicken story (6:58 – 8:37) • What happens when good people leave? (8:39 – 9:47) • Articulating value as a vendor (12:30 – 13:46) • Calculating and communicating value to customers (13:47 – 17:15) • Understanding the value of your business (28:15 – 30:31)
Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTech LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologies Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aerion_tech/ Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQ Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/2Uz6CLL Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvt
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis are joined by Philippe Guichard, an Industrial Designer and a serial entrepreneur. Philippe is the Founder, Creative Director & Manager at D2 Designs and Development, an industrial design studio based in Melbourne, where the team helps businesses simplify and de-risk hardware ventures. In this episode, we learn about Philippe’s journey, his three steps methodology and designing for the triple line (people, planet, profit).
Topics Covered The triggers for becoming a designer A good design needs to be invisible Challenges faced Three Steps Design Methodology Designing for the Triple Bottom Line Considering the impact on the planet
Time Stamps Journey from France to Australia (10:15 – 14:04) A good design is an invisible design (14:37 – 16:44) How to design physical products? (17:59 – 22:45) Talk to the market (25:27 – 28:14) Three Steps Methodology (31:29 – 36:20) Designing for the Triple Bottom Line (36:33 – 39:02) Considering the impact on the planet (40:41 – 46:02)
Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTech LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aeri... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aerion_tech/ Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQ Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/2Uz6CLL Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvt
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis chat with The Dung An, Co-CEO/CTO at adash, a platform that connects accomplished food creators with their right audience. Listen in as the three of them talk about the journey of creating the platform from ideation to delivery, the challenges faced along the way, and what it takes to make one’s mark in the world of start-ups.
Topics Covered: Getting Investors Networking with like-minded people Envisioning a start-up Challenges faced
Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTech LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aerion-technologies Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aerion_tech/ Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQ Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/2Uz6CLL Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvt
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis chat with Jeremy Streten, CEO at Business Legal Lifecycle. Jeremy is a returning guest to the podcast as he was also featured on the 54th episode of the DevReady Podcast and talked about legal agility in developing tech. In this episode, he brings to the listeners, information on an educational platform where he helps businesses assess where they stand and how they can grow by educating them on thirteen business phases (conception, startup, initial clients, bringing on employees, protecting intellectual property, maximizing business and bringing in investors, expansion, estate planning, investing in property, litigation and dispute resolution, sale of whole or part of the business or listing on the stock exchange, retirement, and insolvency and winding up)
Topics Covered • Legal education for business owners • Business Legal Lifecycle (BLL) Course • Lack of agreements as a major concern • Free Business legal lifecycle assessment
Follow & Subscribe to the DevReady Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTech LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aeri... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aerion_tech/ Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/36XdTFQ Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/2Uz6CLL Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2uaqDvt
Our guest in this episode of the DevReady Podcast is Ann Pocock, Marketing Strategy Consultant, Marketing Coach and Executive Coach for high growth businesses at Kinetic Effect. She joins our hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis as the episode explores how purpose-built and tailor-made coaching and marketing consulting could help unleash the potential in not just an individual but also his/her organization. The key is to focus on one’s strengths and align the mission with the core values.
Brand positioning and value proposition are critical to any business. Having a clear message helps you across all touchpoints, right from the very first version of your website to your proposal deck to the phone calls that you have to make, the pitch deck that you might want to do on a sales call, how you work the room in a networking event, the list goes on and on. The emphasis here is to say the right things to the right people in a right place and at the right time.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis talk to Judy Celmins, who is not just a marketing genius and a startup mentor but also hosts her own podcast, ThriveableBiz Podcast. Judy was, in fact, DevReady Podcast’s first-ever guest and she comes back to the podcast to talk about her book ‘Marketing = Customer + Heart’. The book is not just a book on marketing, it’s a way of doing business and you want to get your copy asap. (Note: 100% of the profit from the book would go to helping a Ukrainian family).
Here are some of Judy’s insights: · Understand that marketing applies to pretty much every segment of any business · Create the customer · Ask the right questions · Understand what is missing from competitors’ product/service · Understand the specific customer needs first and then focus on creating · Continue to evolve with the change in the market
Join the hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis in this episode of the DevReady Podcast as they have an insightful conversation with Tim Bishop, CEO and Founder of NXT LVL Group, a people-performance business that builds high-performance leaders and teams.
Tim has donned many hats but the one thing that he has always been passionate about is helping people and businesses take themselves to the next level. Talking about his life’s Marvel-esque arch, Tim recounts how he who grew up in Papua New Guinea ended up having a military career where he held positions of leadership and was told he had a knack for lighting a fire in people and getting them focused. He calls the military the place where he was forged—a place where he learned who he was and who he wasn’t. It was there that he became passionate about human excellence and high performance. He understood that what he enjoyed the most was helping and serving people. That is what drove him to build two successful companies and to impact 1000s.
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, 2022, the host of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew Romeo talked to Yupin Robson, Director of OBSID Pty Ltd and Edify Medical Pty Ltd. Edify Medical is a company based in Australia that creates a digital ecosystem designed to break barriers of language, cost and access to information for health care providers across the globe.
Listen in as the two discuss Yupin’s journey and how it impacts not just the health care professionals but countless individuals across the globe.
Topics Covered: · Need to Communicate · Be Solution Oriented · Equity Split and Exit Strategy · Women Entrepreneurs and Access to Capital · Radical Generosity · Owning the IP
This episode of the DevReady Podcast features Matthew Whyatt, Co-Founder and Technology Sales Specialist at Tech Torque Systems—the first integrated, purpose-built, precision growth system for the tech sector.
Listen to the conversation as host, Andrew Romeo and Matthew talk about how tech businesses can be better positioned to sell more products and benefit more people.
Topics Covered: · Marketing Fuels the Sales Engine · Building a Team of Talented People with Specific Roles · Challenges When Selling and Marketing · B2B and B2C Marketing Strategies · 3 Key Areas for Growth (Branding, Marketing, Conversion) · How to Engage Customers
This episode of the DevReady Podcast, features Greg Smith, Founder & CEO, of Send Handwritten along with the hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis.
Greg is a Customer Experience Expert and in this episode, he shares with us all how a remarkable and memorable marketing campaign is designed and delivered to tell the customer that you care.
Customers want a tool that is the most cost-effective, easy to understand, and simple to implement so that it can be implemented the day before and ROI got on a coming day. People remember experiences and that’s what the company provides.
Topics Covered: · How to Stand Out in the Crowd · Using Humor to Create Impact · The Memorable Marketing Blueprint · Know When to Iterate and Pivot · Build Human Relationships
Simon Madden joins hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis in this episode of the DevReady Podcast. Simon is the Founder of Simon Madden Consulting and now helps organizations understand what it takes to achieve a sustained high-performance culture.
The ability to ‘get good and stay good’ is vital for success, as per Simon. Many people become successful and then they get comfortable there. Simon says that it is important to realise that the work still remains—there needs to be continuous improvement.
Topics Covered: · What is That Extra Thing That You Are Doing? · Learning from Mistakes · People are the Best Resource · CARE (Consideration, Affirmation, Respect and Empathy) · Differences between Leadership and Management · Qualities of a Great Leader
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis talk to Robert Coorey, Co-Founder ArchiStar and Chris Clark, Head of Consulting at Archistar.
Archistar creates cutting-edge technology that revolutionises the way property professionals plan, design, and build and in this episode the hosts and the guests interact about how technology has transformed the ways of finding property and development sites and how there are limitless possibilities of leveraging data to meet the goals of the end-users.
Developing a property is a task that can take a toll on anyone—from finding sites to assessing the needs to actually designing and building—a lot of resources are needed.
Robert talks about how Archistar helps people do that in a matter of minutes—the customers are helped with finding sites and when doing due diligence; they are even given access to some real-time building designs to show exactly what will fit on that block of land in conjunction with the local government rules.
Topics Covered: · Bringing Value to the Marketplace · From a Humble MVP to Catering to Growing Needs · Evolution of a Team · Doing Too Much Too Quickly · Niche Userbase
Ever since AIP Technology was set up, Stephen and his co-founders, have had a goal of catering to the needs of the customers. Multiple plugins and their unique features often make the job of maintenance of WordPress a challenging issue—it is much like finding a needle in a haystack.
But having realized that WordPress powers around a third of the internet, Stephen believes that aiming to solve the problem for the customers have been worthwhile.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, our hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis talk to Stephen Wilson Downey, CEO & Founder of AIP Technology. AIP’s technology automates website maintenance, keeps sites up-to-date and secure, and identifies and fixes bugs so that customers can utilize their time elsewhere.
Listen in as the three of them talk about the endless possibilities that the world of WordPress has to offer and how customers’ needs and requirements are of utmost importance.
Topics Covered: · Possibilities in Website Maintenance · Finding Solution to a Unique Problem · Building a Team and Having Enough Funds · Focusing on the Needs of the Customer
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis talk to Surge Singh, Co-Founder of Locumate, a platform, the aim of which is to create a community dedicated to Locums in Australia.
Listen in to this insightful conversation to learn more about the platform that is looking to bring about the much-needed technological disruption in the pharmaceutical industry to ensure that Locums can find the perfect shifts, get paid on time and get access to additional educational resources to help them grow their career as pharmacists.
Topics Covered: · How Locumate Built a Transactional Platform for Locums and Pharmacists? · How to Balance Domain and Technical Expertise? · Building a Product and Developing a Business around it. · Creating a Feedback Loop with End Users. · The Key to Stick to Your Core Values. · The Best Way to Find a Great Tech Partner.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis have an insightful conversation with Alan Smithson, Co-Founder at MetaVRse which is a proprietary, code-optional web platform that makes it easy to create and share interactive 3D experiences instantly.
Know of the iconic performance by the French DJ and pioneer of electronic music, Jean Michel Jarre on the 31st of December, 2020 where he performed live in a 3D visual reconstruction of the emblem of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris?
Well, that immersive event that was available on the social VR platform VRChat, accessible via a personal computer or in virtual reality for those who have a VR headset was made possible courtesy of Alan and his team.
Topics Covered:
· Touch Screen Technology · Virtual Reality · Overcoming Challenges Faced · Building World-Firsts · Working in Training and Marketing · Creating Value · Being Creative
This episode of the DevReady Podcast, features hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis with Nathalie Taquet, CEO & Founder at eBottli & Bottli.
While the former company provides all information about the bottles (description of the winemaker, the origin of the bottle...) for B2C and all tracking and traceability of the bottles (statistics, strategic marketing, counterfeiting, geolocation…) for B2B, the latter connects customers to small vineyards with unique batches. Listen in while the three of them talk about technology and the digitization of processes in wineries.
Use of technology being the core of the business, Nathalie feels that there is a disconnect between start-ups and IT. She emphasizes that their role is to bridge the divide and make sure that real data is used for the proof of concept to ensure that better solutions are not only developed but also optimized.
From her experience, she highlights three key things to keep in mind when introducing a technological solution in any industry:
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Listen to your customers: work with the potential customers and identify what they need
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Make what they want to buy: don’t provide a solution that people don’t want to pay for
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Make the journey simple: don’t add another step in the journey and make it complicated
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew Romeo is joined by Jodi Woelkerling, author of “World Class Leadership” and a trusted authority on building enduring, resilient cultures and building personal resilience and the two talk about change that technology can bring about within the workplace, the impact that it might have, and how to ensure that the change is positive for all concerned stakeholders.
Jodi emphasizes that the modern workplace is filled with constant challenges, both for the business at large and for the individuals within the business, and resilience is a key component of effectively navigating these challenges.
And because humans are fundamentally hard-wired to resist any kind of change, for any business, it is paramount that they manage the process of change so that neither the business nor the individuals in the business suffer.
Topics Covered: · Building Resilience at Individual and Corporate Levels · Strategies for Staying Calm · Dealing with Technology Change · Need for Stakeholders to Accept Change · Engaging Stakeholders to Have a Positive Impact on Acceptance to Change · World-Class Leadership
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, hosts Andrew Romeo and Anthony Sapountzis talk to Mark McCormack, Co-Founder, Design Posse.
Mark has had a pretty long and eventful career, from being in a cover band to designing digital strategies for various advertising agencies to supporting start-ups and innovation in entertainment-related technology—he has surely done it all.
Having worked in different industries, Mark strongly believes that two things are key to success in any industry, no matter how disruptive a product or service is:
- Ability to build networks
- Ability to solve a problem
Topics Covered: · Moving into the Software Industry from Music · Struggles of being the Pioneer · How to educate your customers · Taking Risks · Building effective Networks
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew Romeo sits with his coach, Alexandra Andrews, Managing Director and Executive Coach Director of My Personal Coach and over the duration of a little more than half an hour, they discuss the difference that getting the right coach can make to not just one’s business but also to one’s other projects and relationships.
Many in the business are either driven by ego or are victims to paralysis by analysis, and Alex’s advice to those is, first and foremost, to work out the ‘Whys’: why are you making a certain business decision, why are you thinking a certain thing.
She furthers, the key then is to never settle for the first answer because that is the ‘safe answer’, the filter that we all use, either knowingly or unknowingly. She emphasizes that there is a need to dig deeper and to keep on asking until one gets to that fundamental, heartfelt ‘Why’.
Topics Covered: · Overcoming ‘Paralysis by Analysis · The Process of Building a Happy-Team · Understanding Team Dynamics · Right People for the Right Roles · Assessing and Reflecting
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew Romeo sits with Amanda Fay, Founder & CEO, The Pitch Portal, a platform through which she helps connect business ideas and opportunities with expert service providers who have the skills to make them fly.
During the course of the episode, the two cover a lot of ground: connect between venture capitalists and startups; vetting of experts and also the pitches, tools used by The Pitch Portal to ensure an efficient and effective support system; access to information and mentors early on in the startup journey, among others.
While the three tools (the lab, the interface, and my pitch) have been put to use since The Pitch Portal was set up, the survey tool is a new addition and would help startups and businesses have a much-rounded idea of their goals before putting in all they’ve got into something that might or might not yield the returns they seek. Having seen people lose everything in the startup journey, Amanda’s goal was to expand the support economy and make profits along the way—basically, a win-win for all parties involved.
Topics Covered: · The life of venture capitalists and startups · The process of vetting the experts · Tools used by the Pitch Portal · The importance of flexible payment arrangements for service providers · How to vet the pitches
Andrew starts by adding on to the topics of the previous podcasts and how the book and game can be used as a diagnostic tool to try and discover what blocks our creativity. By using a crime scene investigation, he wants users to play detectives to hide behind safe characters to try and work out what the things that block creativity are. He believes that understanding the blockers to creativity is a pre-requisite for creative thinking.
Having left the listeners with a question to ponder over: ‘Why are children not CEOs of companies when they are great at creative thinking?’, he answers the same by saying that children might be great at creative thinking but they are not good at critical thinking—a balance of which is needed to run successful businesses. While creative thinking is the thinking we do when we generate ideas, critical thinking is the thinking we do when we judge those ideas. He believes the problem here lies in the fact that not many people have both.
Topics Covered - If children are so creative why are they not the CEOs of companies? - The ability to think both creatively and critically. - Connecting two seeming unrelated things to create something that is spectacularly creative. - Prototyping and implementation. - Playing the devils' advocate. - Importance of embracing diversity
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony continue their conversation with Andrew Grant, Director of Tirian International Consultancy, and co-author of ‘Who Killed Creativity?... And How Can We Get it Back?' and ‘The Innovation Race’.
Andrew talks about how our workplaces are not built to foster creativity and are in fact characterized by blockers. So, in order to deal with the blockers of creativity, the suspects as he calls them, he and his team developed a game, not necessarily a competitive game, but one with a theme and a metaphor that people can hide behind so that they have a safe place to talk about some of the issues they are facing.
Topics Covered - Need to set up an environment that encourages creative thinking - How to use the CSI board-game and digital-game to understand creativity blockers - How to ask the right questions and find ambiguity within the questions - How to ideate, brainstorm and map out creative ideas - How to connect seemingly distant things and find solution to a wicked problem - How to figure out what works and then implement it
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Andrew Grant, Director of Tirian International Consultancy, and co-author of ‘Who Killed Creativity?... And How Can We Get it Back?' A keynote presenter at TEDx (HK), in this episode of the podcast, he talks about what kills creativity and how to get it back, much along the lines of his acclaimed book. Andrew talks about his being in the business for over 2 decades along with his partner, Gaia Gates and how they started in Asia working with cross cultural teams, expats and locals. Both of them often got invited to attend conferences and soon discovered that such gatherings were very boring in the mornings with lots of keynote talks and childish in the afternoons with silly team building games and everyone getting drunk.
Thinking that continuing to do so was a waste of people’s money, they came up with lots of creative ideas on how to make the mornings more interactive and afternoon sessions more intelligent. That got them started on the importance of how creativity can help solve problems. That’s what later went from being the contents of a book to workshops to a game around who killed creativity. (To find the CSI Board-game, go to https://whokilledcreativity.com/game-board/intro-game/) When researching on why people would want to read yet another book on creativity, they came to a conclusion that the actual issue of what’s blocking people’s creativity was something that wasn’t explored. There was no diagnostic tool to explore one’s journey from childhood to adulthood and to fill that gap they partnered with a neuroscientist and psychologist to try and really understand all that was going on inside a person’s brain, and from that was born the book-‘Who Killed Creativity?... And How Can We Get it Back?'
Andrew then goes to explain why he decided to use the metaphor of a crime scene where creativity is killed. That’s what makes the book memorable; these questions: who killed creativity, with what weapon, and how do we get it back? In the book, the authors basically, distil it down to seven key suspects. (To read more on the suspects, go to https://whokilledcreativity.com/articles/csi-7-suspects/) The Control Crew The Fear Family The Pressure Pack The Insulation Clique The Apathy Clan The Narrow-Minded Mob The Pessimism Posse
The essence of the podcast being that creativity doesn’t happen magically over a hack-a-thon, that people first need to be aware of the fact that there’s much in their culture and environment that can block creativity, and use this diagnostic tool allows people to talk about issues in a safe environment.
Topics Covered:
- Need for creativity in the workplace.
- The memorable concept of who killed creativity, with what weapon and how to get it back.
- Difference between creativity in the artistic sense and business sense.
- Why does creativity decrease as one grows up?
- The seven suspects that block creativity
- The growing importance of creativity in the workplace as AI becomes more prevalent.
- How to foster creativity?
We often don’t know where a “gut decision” comes from, but the feeling is unmistakable.
This episode of DevReady demystifies that little voice in the back of our heads that can so influence our choices, for good or ill. Sunil Godse explains why we should listen, but not without doing the work to understand fully the elements of intuition. As an “Intuitionologist,” he has learned to decode the many ways in which life experience impacts our brains and shapes a whole spectrum of decisions, particularly in the realm of business.
An author, branding expert, coach and consultant, Sunil has devoted thousands of hours to researching the neuroscience behind the reflexive choices we make. He traces the roots of trust and shares real-world case studies that reveal the influence of powerful subliminal signalling, including:
○ Experiential Intuition ○ Situational Intuition ○ Relational Intuition ○ Creative Intuition
When properly leveraged, intuition (and the trust upon which it is based) can transform entrepreneurial ventures, employee morale and customer experience alike. Sunil takes us from his early career path (often dictated by influences that didn’t align with his gut) through the many examples of intuition as a tool for honouring core values and building sound relationships based on self-awareness and understanding.
Enjoy the many “knowledge bombs” Sunil has to share in this episode, including additional reading and further resources.
Topics Covered: - What differentiates entrepreneurial success from failure? - Follow your instinct. - 4 types of intuitive signalling that impact decision-making. - How to define your signals?
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony sit down with David Pillinger, a serial entrepreneur who took his experience running a surfboard company and transitioned it into managing multiple software companies.
David started out making and selling surfboards when he left school early, eventually launching an online real estate company called Property Gallery and then a software company called Safesoft in 2018. David now heads up his software as a service company, Venture Capital Exchange (VCEX).
Throughout their conversation, David tells Anthony and Andrew about how he started VCEX and the practical side of running the company technology-wise. Together the three discuss how David sources talent from LinkedIn, David’s motivations for getting up and continuing to innovate every day, and how the internet is changing the way we do business.
David believes that anything is possible for anyone—a mindset he draws from his own life and struggling with school, only to go on to become a successful business owner.
The episode wraps up with a look at where David sees himself in five to ten years, and how leaders have to be constantly looking out for “icebergs” on the horizon that could hinder their progress and continued innovation. David’s childlike wonder at opening up the “present” under the Christmas tree that is waking up every day serves as a motivation for all entrepreneurs and innovators alike to keep moving forward.
Topics Covered: • The story of surfboard seller turned to software innovator. • How do some regulations tend to make expanding software technology harder? • How David developed the technology platforms for his different businesses. • Building the best team.
On this episode of the DevReady podcast, Andrew engages Leigh Eggins, founder of the Million Dollar Business Club, in a fascinating exploration of holistic coaching.
In what amounts to a paradigm shift, Leigh asks clients to reconsider assumptions and dig around in the shadows to unearth self-limiting beliefs. The result? Tremendous growth not only from a business perspective but in myriad other aspects of life. “At the end of the day, it is a person running the business,” says Leigh, “and if that person’s not performing at their best then the business won’t be performing at its best.” Makes sense!
The question is: How do we get there? Leigh shares some of the tools he recommends to clients, including out-of-the-box ideas like meditation and “heart set.”
If you’re ready to break with received wisdom and get comfortable being uncomfortable, then this is the episode for you. It’s all too easy to get “addicted” to outmoded systems or patterns of thoughts long overdue for re-examination and change.
But we don’t have to stay locked into counterproductive stressors or false beliefs. Leigh and Andrew share tips and illuminate a path towards not only business success but also personal growth and fulfilling life.
Topics Covered: ● Leigh unspools how he came to his coaching philosophy. ● How to get out of our comfort zones? ● What is heart-set and how does heart-set affects brain function and outcome? ● When stress goes up, intelligence goes down. ● Leigh shares the art and science behind a transformational tool “Smile-Posture-Breath/Thank-Trust-Receive.”
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony interviewed Rashid Kotwal, a sales coach and mentor, about how companies can optimize their teams for proficiency and profitability.
Through his consulting firm, Revealed Resources, Rashid is sharing lessons gleaned over 30 years. He has over his career executed complex deals, bringing to bear expertise in both tech engineering and identifying key patterns of human behaviour.
While technologists love to sell technology, Rashid explains that it’s “a huge mistake” to shift the focus away from what is ultimately the heart of solution selling: Making the business case.
Sales cycles can be short or long, but in all cases, it’s important to identify the right decision-makers, articulate their pain points and propose a strategic response.
Enjoy this fascinating conversation about all things sales. Rashid Kotwal provides a template, explaining what it takes to set the stage for your company’s long-term growth and bottom-line numbers that will keep improving … year over year.
Topics Covered: ● The importance of buy-in. ● The art of identifying opportunities and key players to accelerate sales cycles. ● Marketing and sales: Two sides of the same coin. ● Are salespeople born not made? ● The 3 pillars to growth ● Go to strategies for engaging stakeholders, locating pain points and creating a win-win-win scenario that closes sales.
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony speak with Nicola Steel, IT recruiting expert and founder of JJP Talent Solutions.
During the conversation, Nicola shares her knowledge about how to bring your talent scouting resources in-house to build high-performing teams.
At the heart of building good teams are the people themselves. In order to build a high performing team, you need to attract high performing people. But what a lot of companies get wrong is that they don’t have their own values nailed down first.
The best teams are driven by values and principles, so you must design the values of the company as early as possible. If you have the foundation of principled people, your teams will be set up for success.
Nicola believes in the power of a people-first attitude. When companies place the emphasis on their own people first and their fears, their personalities, their strengths, they will be much more capable of guiding their teams through to victory.
Topics Covered: ● How High-performing teams are values-driven. ● Why being people-first is better than numbers first. ● Creating psychological safety. ● How to celebrate wins as a team. ● Why remote work needs to be looked at on an individual basis. ● The rise of Zoom fatigue.
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, we talked to Jonathan Callinan, business coach, co-founder and marketing strategist at the Online Business Accelerator.
Jonathan discusses the subscription economy, why trust is better than “tribe”, and why you should be building your own communities.
Human behaviour and the world at large is moving toward lifestyles that favour a subscription model for consumer services, it only makes sense that all businesses that want to survive need to think about how to build that into their business plan.
At the heart of Jonathan’s message is the idea that people are drawn into opportunities for networking and community. He explains to us that because of this, your brands are more likely to succeed if they feel they are part of a community.
Topics Covered: ● What underpins successful subscriptions. ● People ultimately want to be connected in the community. ● Trade tribe for trust to be connected to like-minded people. ● Why businesses should be trying to create their own communities. ● The challenges of transitioning a free community to a high-value paid service. ● How to build communities around a target audience.
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony speak with Matt Wolach, SaaS expert and former guest on the show.
During the conversation, Matt explains his philosophy behind The Perfect DEAL process and how to successfully scale SaaS platforms.
The key to a successful sales model is that it is easy to understand and easy to transfer to someone new. Matt talks about how a lot of early wins in the software space are a direct result of the passion of the founders, which is not a bad thing. But that passion isn’t easily transferred to new hires.
This is where the simplicity of the perfect deal process comes in. A repeatable process helps the sales team to grow seamlessly.
Matt explains that the DEAL stands for four key things that must happen on a sales call in order to close. He boasts a 63% close rate on his team after using the Perfect DEAL strategy.
The process is not intuitive, Matt repeats, but it is worth the time to help your SaaS companies really grow.
Topics Covered: ● The Perfect DEAL helps you sell and scale SaaS companies. ● Why existing sales models need to be moulded to fit SaaS. ● A repeatable process to scale your business. ● Getting prospects to feel bad enough about the problems that they want to fix them. ● Cater your SaaS products to specific customer needs and you’ll win. ● How to demonstrate expertise in your niche
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony welcome Kate Tiller, Chief Brand Officer at A Perfect Space. Identifying a niche within the entertainment industry, this experienced startup founder set out to develop a searchable database that eliminates much of the legwork involved in scouting film locations. But as with so many startup origin stories, there have been some painful lessons learned along the way to delivering this invaluable service to production teams across North America, Australia and Europe.
Kate generously shares her experience with bringing A Perfect Space from conception to execution, including the disappointments she suffered after partnering (more than once) with tech developers who made promises on which they couldn’t deliver. Short of industry regulation to ensure that coders perform to standard, it’s up to entrepreneurs to protect their vision and the large sums required to turn an innovative idea into a robust web-based solution. Kate explains why both business and tech sides need to be in sync with clear communication, accountability and mutually understood milestones. A Perfect Place couldn’t have realized its potential without a clearly defined, disciplined development framework – something Kate has learned is most efficiently established by hiring an effective CTO from the outset.
While A Perfect Space caters to a very specific sector, the lessons Kate has learned in building out, debugging and populating her platform are universally applicable. With candor and humor, she shares the journey to realizing her vision for “the google of location scouting” -- a searchable database designed to drastically reduce the travel, expense and spade work associated with identifying far-flung locales for all manner of film and television productions. Join Andrew and Anthony in exploring with Kate the many ways in which technologists and entrepreneurs must intersect on the way to turning a business dream into reality.
Topics Covered: ● The challenges associated with scouting locations. ● How specifically A Perfect Space streamlines the scouting process. ● Supporting tech is essential to deliver a disruptive vision. ● Millions of dollars lost and overstating of tech developers. ● Why Big-picture entrepreneurial goals are important. ● The value in creating a hierarchy of needs within a business model. ● Defining and targeting a given market drives the tech tools deployed to reach it.
Launched in 2013, linkfluencer started initially as a service – an online course that helped users optimize business marketing and development resources available through LinkedIn. But ultimately Alex found that his customers required something beyond a three-step mentoring program.
They craved community, long-term strategy and, most importantly, support implementing sales plans and measuring for results. After identifying this pain point, Alex partnered with an experienced software developer to design Jayla, a powerful platform that helps SMEs and corporates manage marketing and sales opportunities generated through LinkedIn.
This episode of DevReady explores how Alex Pirouz has transformed an entrepreneurial idea from an online service into an end-to-end solution.
Topics Covered: ● Optimizing LinkedIn: How linkfluencer morphed from a service to a scalable software. ● The importance of metrics. ● Why 99% of entrepreneurs “suck at execution”. ● How a non-tech founder approached the development/build-out of his Jayla application.
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Neel Bhattacharya, commercial software strategist and SaaS extraordinaire.
During the conversation, Neel describes what makes CX (or customer experience) unique from UX in the SaaS space, and why businesses should even care.
To understand how customers experience brands, businesses use a variety of tools to gather meaningful data. This data can then be used to help shape the whole range of customer experience, from tone in an email to the color of an app icon.
Customer experience plays a large part in customer retention, so businesses are keen to pay attention to the methods they can use to boost customer experience.
The customer survey is a popular metric for gauging customer experience. Questionnaires are infinitely customizable and simple to use for startups. These surveys also help to establish what are known as personas. Personas help an organization with the planning process. In the process, Neel says, they fix the marketing messages. In other words, businesses use personas to direct marketing campaigns, and if they are ineffective, they can use personas to figure out why.
Topics Covered: ● The differences between UX and CX. ● Understanding how customers experience our brands? ● Customer service vs customer experience. ● Key metrics to measure customer experience. ● The Net Promoter Score as a useful CX metric. ● Persona trees.
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Ronsley Vaz, founder and Chief Energy Officer at Amplify. During the conversation, Ronsley describes many of the ways that podcasting has helped his business and improved his own quality of life.
In the way of business podcasting, Ronsley explains that understanding who your market is is critical, and it won’t help to send the right message to the wrong audience, so locking in your target is key to business success. This even extends to product launches, which we should use to learn instead of making a profit. “It hurts the ego to have a failed launch, but you can learn so much and not hurt the bank account,” Ronsley says, speaking to the power of embracing failure.
Ronsley als talks briefly about why he thinks podcasting is intrinsically beneficial. He says that the institutions of education didn’t teach us to raise our voices, so there is some trepidation that comes along with this. But at its core, podcasting is about the power of the human voice—a power that we are evolutionarily predisposed to—and how it can help lift the voices of the unheard and give volume to the silenced. In a way, podcasts help amplify.
Toward the end, Ronsley describes what Amplify actually does, which involves bringing the right podcasts to the right people to amplify them. He hopes everyone interested in podcasting could find out how to use it as a platform to share their stories and build in connection with one another, because there’s nothing more rewarding.
Topics Covered: ● The science of creativity. ● The value adds of podcasting. ● How people make use of podcasting within their businesses. ● Reusing content versus intentional volumes. ● Why the Agile methodology works. ● Finding the proper MVP for your business design. ● What we owe to the freedoms of our ancestors.
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony sit down with former editor-in-chief and current content strategy entrepreneur Robyn Foyster to talk all things thought leadership.
Robyn is the founder of InProfile, a thought leadership agency that helps clients curate their online presence through a specialized content strategy.
In the current climate of personal brands and 24/7 news, we’re all thought leaders, no matter the size of our audience. Robyn believes having a strategy behind the content you put out into the world is key to attracting followers to your corner of the internet. Content has changed so much in the past 25 years, but as a former journalist and editor-in-chief, Robyn says she still uses that “gut feeling” instinct to guide content strategy and keep followers engaged. The thing is, we’re all the editors and publishers of our own personal content brands, but just because we have that power, doesn’t mean we know how to wield it—that’s where Robyn and her team come in.
The episode wraps up with the three discussing how much is too much to share when curating your online brand, and the importance of creating consistent content for your audience. In the past, getting on the sofa for a talk show interview was the surest way to get your message out there, now we all have the ability to share our story through personalized social media channels. That power is available to us, but to truly become a thought leader in the online space, we have to create a consistent and engaging content strategy that compels people to stick around to hear what we have to say.
Topics Covered: • Why Robyn started InProfile • How thought leadership is changing marketing • How to become a thought leader? • The strengths of LinkedIn • Tools to create weekly content • Being the publisher and editor of your own content • How content has changed in the last 25 years • Personal branding versus business branding and the crossover • Creating content to become a thought leader • Creating consistent content for your audience
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Stewart Marshall, commercial software strategist and SaaS extraordinaire.
Stewart covers everything from using software to solve problems and implementation. He says that most people just want their problems solved, but devs need to think about it in the context of the system as a whole. As a SaaS expert, Stewart also joins the podcast to talk about some of the hurdles that software services overcome in the developmental stages as well as in going to market.
This is Stewart’s guide to developing a business plan for any startup itching to deliver a tech solution: 1. Articulate the problem. 2. Understand whose problem it is. Get it to a point where you can walk up to a person and say “here’s the problem we have and here’s how we’re going to solve it.” Then you have a business. But remember that technology on its own is not a solution but merely a tool.
A key takeaway from this episode is Stewart’s advice to founders about incorporating technology. He says it’s like looking at a jigsaw puzzle. The commercial side of the business will look at the picture, but the technical side will look at the pieces and how they fit together. When they work together, you get a really good outcome.
Topics Covered: ● How COVID has forced digitization on Australia? ● SaaS experts today and what they have to offer. ● Smart marketing to your target audience. ● Software is only a tool. ● Mistrust in the technology sphere because of pricing structure. ● The AI arms race of the future. ● The distinction between customer needs and the customer wants. ● Why UX & UI are inherently complicated? ● Need to be inquisitive?
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony speak with Julie Starovoitova, People Experience Lead at PaperCut Software.
Over the course of the conversation, Julie describes some of the key initiatives she has helped launch toward building high-performing teams. Some of these strategies include: 1. Making sure that all your values and principles are actually lived. This even informs performance reviews. 2. Job-swapping helps team members understand each others’ roles.
Julie also shares how PaperCut’s performance review questions reflect a desire to build high-performing teams.
The four questions for a PaperCut performance review (adopted from Deloitte): 1. General performance and cultural fitness 2. Performance around values and principles 3. Risk of low performance question 4. If at risk of leaving, what should be done to keep them.
Topics Covered: ● Controlling growing teams. ● Successes in transitioning to a remote work platform. ● Seeing team members adapt to working from home. ● What high-performing culture means. ● Investing in teams as pivotal to growth. ● “Anyone can talk to anyone” as a principle. ● Bringing transparency and openness to decisions like promotion. ● Real-life scenarios are more accurate than abstract performance reviews. ● Codifying the essence of your business.
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Darryl Carr, enterprise architect and professional community builder. During their conversation, Darryl talks about enterprise architecture and how business can architect solutions that deliver results and scale to profit.
Darryl describes how he understands systems and community architecture. He talks about how businesses should work with architects early on in the development process to have them inform all stages. Architects can help businesses plan a software solution that will actually deliver value, empower investors, and scale. Among his most poignant pieces of advice is that understanding architecture is ultimately about scale.
A key takeaway from this episode is that businesses primarily need to concern themselves with creating solutions for real problems. A common problem with tech startups is that they try to create solutions for problems that don’t really exist. Avoid this trap by listening to your clients. Give them your honest ear that will allow you to hear their problems for what they are, empowering your team to develop solutions that affect meaningful change. And that’s the bottom line. Deliver value at the end of the day.
Topics Covered:
● How architecture fits into the agile movement. ● Don’t launch straight into the technology. ● Non-functional requirements. ● How to architect to scale your solutions. ● Advice for building a tight tech team. ● Your main goal should be to create value. ● We need to find problems that actually need solving. ● Why communicating drive and passion matters.
Key Quotes:
❏ “Architects help you make sure, when you’re building something, that it’s built well, that it will run well and that it will scale well.” (4:20) ❏ “Involve your architects as early as possible.” (6:15) ❏ “Architecting a platform, really, is understanding the scale.” (9:30) ❏ “Pivot toward something you can validate in the real world.” (19:45) ❏ “You can impact and create more value by listening.” (22:10) ❏ “What you really want to convey is how passionate you are about the problem you’re solving.” (27:50)
Our guest on this episode of the DevReady Podcast is Tom Dawkins, CEO and Co-Founder of StartSomeGood, the leading home of cause-driven crowdfunding, innovative partnerships and social entrepreneur education. Before StartSomeGood, Tom founded Australian youth non-profit Vibewire, was the first Social Media Director at Ashoka in Washington DC and was the founding Director of the Australian Changemakers Festival. Tom’s varied experience and journey to where he is now has taught him valuable lessons but also gave him the insight he needs to better support the next generation of social entrepreneurs. His passion for innovation and sustainable impact is the basis behind StartSomeGood and has helped countless people find success along the way.
Tom’s journey to a career that didn’t exist when he started out was full of risk but his optimistic attitude and adherence to his vision and purpose has helped him to achieve significant goals. As an early adapter and innovator, he wasn’t deterred by technology he didn’t understand but learned the value of key partnerships and how to leverage them to get to where you want to be. At the end of the day, Tom’s desire to help others better create social change is inspiring and truly accessible. Throughout this conversation he shares useful advice and combines it with tangible action steps, connecting anyone wanting to pursue their ideas with the tools they need to make it happen.
Topics Covered: • How seemingly random events and opportunities paved the way for Tom’s career path • Becoming a crowdfunding entrepreneur before it existed • Youth empowerment is tokenistic, haphazard and deeply biased towards wealth. • Tom’s path as an early adapter and innovator • Building technological companies as a non-tech person • Focus on equipping people • Success stories from the platform • What inspires people to give and invest
Key Quotes: • “My whole life purpose is to try and build… a better democracy and to me that means one where people can participate in making things happen.” (1:22) • “The heart of democracy is not an election. It's every other day of the year; how we participate, how we make a difference, how we create the future that we want (1:43) • “Today you shouldn't know what you want [to do] because the thing you want to be probably doesn't exist yet.” (2:36) • “Create spaces where people can engage in conversation, can share their stories and perspectives, and hopefully come up with new ideas and ways to collaborate together to create a better future.” (8:32) • “I'm an early adapter and so I'm constantly scanning what's around me and then wondering how that might be relevant for the things I care about. (13:00) • “People are always looking for that big idea that fresh idea that they can come out of their own mind, but sometimes we can take a concept that's in one market or another country and then bring it into a different space and create something new and innovative.” (14:58) • “Paying for innovation means paying for failure. The only way you get innovation is by trying stuff that may or may not work and along the way there is risk.” (17:35) • “Burnout is actually one of the great sources of failure for startups.” (34:46) • “One of the things we pitch with crowdfunding is; it's not just an alternative source of capital, it's a source of validation that then helps you get the capital.” (40:39)
Our guest on this episode of the DevReady Podcast is Jeremy Streten, founder of “Business Legal Life Cycle”, a business focused on making legal advice accessible to business owners.
Jeremy briefly started out his career in IT before pivoting to become a lawyer about 17 years ago. After several years in the industry, Jeremy realized that many lawyers tend to speak with their clients in unnecessarily complicated ways that are not helpful to average people who do not have legal training. He saw an opportunity for building a bridge between business owners and helpful legal advice and he sought out a developer to help him create the infrastructure. The basis for the BLL assessment came from Jeremy’s outline of the 13 business phases, which eventually became his book entitled “The Business Legal Life Cycle.”
During the creation of the first version of the Business Legal Life Cycle software, Jeremy experienced plenty of miscommunications with the developer he had hired. This solidified in his mind the necessity for a tech partner and also for the implementation of proper documentation at the beginning of all client and employment relationships. When it came time to work on version 2.0, Jeremy reached out to a Mastermind group that he was a part of in the U.S. and met an interested developer there who eventually became his business partner. He says that having a tech partner continually involved in the business and the evolution of the tech being used is a crucial part of the business.
Topics Covered: • Many lawyers aren’t very helpful because they don’t speak plain English to their clients. • How Jeremy’s legal background helped prepare him to fill in this gap between business owners and proper legal advice. • Keeping in mind what you want to do in the future. • Setting up your documentation the right way from the start. • Finding the right developer and building out the tech. • How miscommunications can lead to misaligned expectations and outcomes. • Changing the targeting of the product based on feedback. • Having a larger purpose: to make legal advice accessible to business owners.
Key Quotes • “It’s to help business owners generally to know what they need to do from a legal perspective.” (1:10) • “People change. Money changes people.” (6:04) • “Every business evolves over time, and if you’re not evolving then you’re probably going backward.” (19:25) • “You get what you pay for.” (25:11)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony sit down with Xsellus founder and SaaS enthusiast, Matt Wolach.
Matt has been into SaaS for about 15 years. On the podcast, Matt shares his insights into how to develop a SaaS company, how to market it to the right people, and how to scale to something big—even in a world dominated by cloud services.
Matt argues that people are usually missing one or more of the four pillars of scaling your SaaS company. He developed these pillars as follows:
- Attract—This is where you guarantee you bring the right people in.
- Engage—It doesn't matter how you do this, but you need to find a way to engage your customers in a meaningful way.
- Close—Once you’ve spent the money attracting and engaging them, you need to close the deal. Focus on emotion.
- Scale—We need to be able to repeat this.
Beyond this, Matt shares key details about what actually works when thinking about attracting and engaging the people who will really allow your company to flourish.
Key takeaways from this episode are that you need to figure out how to remove barriers to your product (both on entry and exit), and that there is a way to use emotion to create buy-in that transforms into real conversion. Matt says the emotional language is about getting people to see services applied to their very own situations. Get them talking about themselves to understand the real emotional value.
Topics Covered: ● SaaS businesses. ● Methods to scale a SaaS business. ● Steps to attract customers for expansion. ● Why you need to pounce. ● How to remove barriers to entry (so you can close). ● Understanding the middle ground.
Key Quotes: ❏ “I help other software founders to not go through those early-stage struggles that I went through.” (3:00) ❏ “It’s really hard to find anything that’s not server-based now.” (4:45) ❏ “Whether or not you do it, your information is still there.” (6:00) ❏ “Everyone is so used to being pitched at for some new software tool.” (7:30) ❏ “We, as founders, still have conversations with our market.” (9:20) ❏ “Competitors will come.” (18:00) ❏ “Free trials are not your closers. Free trials are not your closers.” (21:00) ❏ “Never make it hard for someone to hand you money.” (26:15) ❏ “If they’re not a good fit, don’t make it hard for them to transition out.” (29:30) ❏ “People get emotional about themselves, about their own world.” (31:50) ❏ “They kind of sell themselves.” (34:20) ❏ “Hire three; fire two.” (36:30) ❏ “If you have the right process, it’s all about reining them in.” (39:45)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony sit down with SoftLogic Solution's R&D Director, George Mirabelli.
George got his start designing air-traffic controller systems for the military and various governments around the world. He then started working with R&D in insurance and finance systems. He had a long career in design and software development. Recently, he’s been showing businesses how to really make the most of the R&D tax incentives from a design perspective.
Criteria for the R&D tax incentive: ● Australian company ● High innovation ● New knowledge requires experimentation and risk of failure
George really plainly puts it that with R&D, you’re investing previous profits into developing new products—so it needs to be worth it. The R&D structure of your product design needs to be fully incorporated to reap your maximum ROI. George also explains the difference between the apportionment method vs. the timesheet method.
Topics Covered: ● Understanding the R&D tax incentive. ● The knowledge that can be easily accessed is not new knowledge. ● Core and supporting R&D activities. ● Getting your documentation straight early on is key. ● R&D is an integral part of the product strategy. ● Tracking costs in core and supporting R&D. ● Creating an R&D manual.
Key Quotes: ❏ “With a rebate up to 43%, [The R&D tax incentive] is designed for high innovation, like new knowledge.” (4:30) ❏ “It doesn’t matter if the experimentation is successful.” (5:45) ❏ “It’s really important that people take the documentation process and embed it into the way they think about R&D, which is basically what I do.” (12:25) ❏ “It’s important in software development to separate the idea of Agile development from the iterations.” (15:45) ❏ “It’s just writing it down.” (17:15) ❏ “You want to be able to find [your R&D processes] consistently.” (24:45) ❏ “R&D starts when the product is being conceptualized.” (28:30)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Andrew Bird, director at Foundstone Advisory. During their conversation, they talk about implementing a meaningful business strategy, involving your tech team from the beginning, and how technology and design thinking can transform how you bring value to your customers.
Before working at Foundstone Advisory, Andrew spent eight years at Datacom managing strategy and consulting businesses. At Foundstone, he has done a lot of work with businesses in technology and the digital space. He helped develop technology solutions in healthcare and other industries, consulting them on how to migrate and scale their models with growing IT and digital functions.
Andrew provides some insight into how design thinking can help alleviate headaches downstream from the initial business strategy rollout. He stresses getting into the mindset of the client and spending as much time front-end loading to try to understand their problems and wishes. And of course, do not fall into the trap of thinking that technology itself can stand in as a solution to big industry problems. Ask good questions, but the customer’s needs first, and seriously consider how technology could enable you to do business better.
Topics Covered:
● How technology comes into a strategy in the first place. ● Technology should be used to better customer experience. ● We need to educate senior people on what technology can really do. ● Customer experience and getting into the head of your audience. ● Communicating upfront will greatly increase your ROI. ● People jump into building the product way too early. ● Tech teams are often removed from the business strategy. ● The principle of design thinking. ● Covid changed people’s minds about design thinking.
Key Quotes
❏ “If you’re not asking how technology can better a customer experience, you probably need to question why you’re investing in that technology.” (4:00) ❏ “People on the board need to ask ‘how can technology actually enable our business?’” (6:35) ❏ “Building technology, really, is the easy part.” (8:45) ❏ “Technology is not the be-all, end-all of any solution. (10:30) ❏ “What can we do to make sure we’re building a product that people need and actually want in the first place?” (14:00) ❏ “We try to get as close to the customer as possible. (16:15) ❏ “Explore what you know and what you don’t know, and make the decision after. (22:30) ❏ “Asking good questions is the key.” (28:00) ❏ “The customer wants to be heard, ultimately.” (39:30)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to the CEO of Peeplcoach.com and talent executive, Christine Khor. During their conversation, they discuss thought leadership, the benefits of executive coaching, and how to overcome fear in the marketplace.
At the beginning of the episode, Christine talks about what coaching actually is, and what it is not. She provides her background and discusses why she has a passion for helping people to improve their processes and their work-life balance. Going off the cuff for a moment, she mentions the fact that being a braggart about workaholism is not a virtue, and that Gen Z and the Millennials might actually have that part right.
She shares some industry insight into how executive coaching works, who it might be right for, and how people might get started in the coaching process. Christine believes that all people will ultimately benefit from coaching, and they can take their renewed perspectives back with them into the workplace to enhance their productivity and passion. This means having a diverse team around you to help make tough decisions. It also means not being afraid. It’s not as simple as just choosing not to fear things, though. It takes work, and Christine’s team of coaches at PeeplCoach know how.
Ultimately, the leadership at any startup is trying to create value for their investments, and executive coaching can help to maximize the returns on those investments by preparing leadership for any challenge that may come their way. You can reach Christine at the contact info provided below.
Topics Covered:
● How executive coaching helps you understand your limiting beliefs. ● Managing work expectations against working your life away. ● What should you take in if you want to coach others? ● Diversity ultimately creates better outcomes. ● First, try recruitment matching. ● Coaching yourself through fear—and managing to push you forward. ● Be careful about how much focus you put on money. ● Your startup is looking for value for money, not for what is cheap. ● The kinds of people that are ready for coaching.
Key Quotes:
❏ “Marketing is like psychology but for brands.” (2:00) ❏ “What we think of us impacts us more than what other people think of us.” (7:15) ❏ “A coach is not a friend or a partner.” (10:25) ❏ “Part of what a coach does is to question, to poke, to probe—to get a better understanding of who you are.” (12:00) ❏ “Me being proud to say I’m a workaholic is actually not a good thing.” (17:45) ❏ “By not being a tech person, I am not restricted by what can be done or what can’t be done.” (20:30) ❏ “How do we bring values and goals into the recruitment process?” (29:00) ❏ “It makes you a better father, brother, worker...to be passionate about your work.” (31:30) ❏ “The financial reward isn’t enough of a motivator...you need passion and drive.” (35:45) ❏ “The biggest mistake that I’ve made is with the investment side, the non-tech part of it.” (38:50) ❏ “Being a startup means being frugal, but not being cheap.” (41:00) ❏ “Who is your target? It’s everybody.” (46:45)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to digital marketing strategist Ben Shapira about digital marketing, ecommerce strategy, and how to link your target audience to your product.
In the early days, e-commerce was so expensive. But now, almost all companies will benefit from creating an online presence. And it has never been easier. Ben talks about a variety of tools that companies can use to better understand the personalities of their customers and effectively grow their businesses. The more you understand about who your customers really are, the more you can deliver in the way of what they actually want. He provides examples of Target and Costco, and how they combine different marketing tactics to play to the interests of their consumer personas.
Ben also describes attribution methods, which ultimately let business understand the nature of how their customers interact with the brand, as well as how long it took them to become a customer.
Here are the attribution methods described: 1. First-click—When did they first interact with us? 2. Last-click—When did they become a customer? 3. Linear attribution—Tracking all points of engagement between
Breaking into this field of digital marketing may seem daunting, but business owners can use free resources to start experimenting with research on their own. Here are the three main websites for gathering user data:
- Pew Research
- Nielson Data
- Helix Personas
Once you have a handle on what you consumer personas are, it really would be advantageous to bring in an outside professional to help understand what to to next.
The= key takeaway from this episode is how to actually grow your digital marketing. Ben says the best way is to: 1. Educate yourself about consumer personas, who your customer base really is, and other extrinsic data. 2. Bring in someone from the outside to help you analyze and make sense of that data. 3. Create an actionable plan to bring your customers what they really want and turn them into brand loyalists.
Topics Covered:
● The barriers to entry into ecommerce are low today. ● Traditional marketing approaches don’t really apply in the digital space. ● Why you need to understand your audience for digital marketing. ● Understanding market research tools to boost digital profitability. ● How to serve your customers to become brand loyalists. ● “Single-source” models attribute multiple streams of disparate data to one individual. ● Using Google Analytics to boost your understanding of your audience. ● Turning your conversion rates with the right data. ● How Costco has engineered the layout of their floors. ● Less is more: satisfy your customers with less.
Key Quotes
❏ “When I started, Microsoft frontpage extensions were all the rage.” (1:20) ❏ “Just because you have an internet presence doesn’t mean you’re going to have sales in the long term.” (2:30) ❏ “Social media builds a richer story around our customers.” (6:45) ❏ “It’s more important to ask questions than anything else.” (4:25) ❏ “Every business has at least two personas.” (5:00) ❏ “Personas are not monolithic: they are a general best-guess.” (12:30) ❏ “We can make inferences based on a single piece of hardware: your phone.” (13:25) ❏ “The data that’s being collected has both positive and negative connotations.” (18:10) ❏ “Personas are bad for privacy but good for companies and consumers.” ❏ “Even if you don’t have a Facebook account, you are interacting with it, and they are tracking your engagement.” (21:45) ❏ “Investing a little bit upfront in the research side will ultimately return a lot in the long run.” (28:20) ❏ “The way Target markets to mom, she will sacrifice brand names for herself so that she can buy brand name stuff for her kids.” (31:00) ❏ “It’s really important as a business owner to surround yourself with experts in the field.” (33:30)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to the founder and CEO of Primary, a tech consulting firm based in the Greater Melbourne Area. They talk about the challenges of modeling, working with clients, and the art of storytelling.
James talks about his history in the tech world and expresses some of the frustrations he experienced as an early developer. Among these are the problems he saw with the companies that used the agile model. He speaks to why agile doesn’t really provide any solutions for the customer, and what tech companies need to do is create models that address real problems to create real value. Andrew and Anthony share in this frustration because of all the projects they have been on where apps were developed that ultimately did not create any value for the customer.
The key takeaways from this episode iare James’s ideas that modeling is probably the most important step in the early stages of development, and that you can add value to the user’s experience by involving them in the story that the product is telling. In other words, storytelling has the power to create a meaningful experience (and valuable interactions in the real world). By building and model and developing a “scaffolding” of storytelling in your application, you can provide your customers with solutions they actually want instead of meaningless products that offer no value and ultimately hurt your company in the long run.
Topics Covered:
● Getting customers to clearly express their needs in the startup phase. ● The agile approach as a “solution” to real problems. ● The world of use-case models. ● PHP and user-management systems. ● The problems with novel tech and integration of systems. ● Storytelling as a way to connect the user to the app experience. ● Defining what the software actually should be doing. ● How just jumping in will often build the skills you need. ● Start by building a model.
Key Quotes
❏ “We were a hacker shop—we were just making it up as we went along.” (6:00) ❏ “I ended up building a lot of stuff that was beautifully crafted but did stuff that was stupid and that nobody wanted.” (8:55) ❏ “I agree that the agile solution that’s been bandied around--I don’t think it is.” (13:00) ❏ “You want to create a series of stories...that merge the tool and the communication piece.” (15:40) ❏ “A user must end up doing something of value to them in the real world.” (19:32) ❏ “Interfaces as an organizational structure are not great.” (22:35) ❏ “If you have too many conditions in the story, then the story arc is lost.” (25:40) ❏ “You can involve the other dev people [in the modeling process] and they can have real value.” (30:35) ❏ “Sometimes the answer is no dev, not pursuing an outcome at all.” (34:00) ❏ “We link processes that people are already carrying out.” (36:12) ❏ “It’s a massive win if you can take even just one or two iterations out.” (37:55) ❏ “There is this reticence to get started—just jump in.” (39:00) ❏ “The product will evolve over time as your relationship develops with the customers.” (44:10)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Mosstyn Howell, founder and CEO at UbiPark, a startup that streamlines the parking experience for drivers in the greater Melbourne area. UbiPark has completely digitized the entire parking experience. They call it SNAP: search, navigate, access and pay—directly from the app. This allows customers to automate the whole process of parking, removing troublesome fees and interactions with staffers.
Mosstyn shares his experience as a parking lot attendant to eventual tech company founder and how all the work along the way opened him to the idea of automated parking. One thing Mosstyn hammers on in this interview is the importance of the team. That no matter how foolproof your idea is, without the right team, it’s going to be very difficult to translate that to real market value. Andrew and Anthony also discuss funding strategy for business ideas like these, when you only have friends and family to help support the costs initially. Mosstyn is fortunate enough to reflect on the fact the UbiPark has seen delightful returns for his earliest investors.
Finally, Mosstyn and the hosts talk about growing a business in the middle (and wake) of a global health crisis. Mosstyn opines that there has been a trend in the tech world for some time now to move to a remote work model, it just needed a catalyst to set it off. He believes that the world will more than likely transition to more remote work options after analyzing the great cost real estate is to business. He shared one story of a company paying $8M a year for parking spaces alone. Remote work, along with automated parking to ease congestion, could grow the bottom line like we’ve never seen. Mosstyn is excited to be on the frontline of this change to the way we think about parking.
Topics Covered:
● The challenge of finding the right people to come around. ● Raising funds on your own in the initial phases. ● Building the product based on feedback. ● The restrictions that Apple often places on developers. ● What do you do when you don’t have all the answers? ● Bringing development in when you have the funding to do so. ● Clarity is key. ● Remote working as a trend ahead of COVID. ● COVID’s changing mindset around tech and productivity. ● How UbiPark is providing the platform to spring into other value markets. ● Do your due diligence.
Key Quotes
❏ “I needed the best app in the parking industry.” (5:35) ❏ “Every time I took it to a new tech company, they said we had to start again.” (8:25) ❏ “By the time you set it up and get it out to market, it’s probably not exactly what they need anymore.” (13:00) ❏ “We want our customers to search, navigate, and pay for parking right from the car’s touch screen.” (16:20) ❏ “Listening to the customer is the number one thing.” (18:10) ❏ “There’s no right or wrong way to build a product.” (21:35) ❏ “If you don’t have a documented plan in place, it becomes very difficult.” (30:00) ❏ “There are pivots that are required, and there are trends in the thinking.” (38:30) ❏ “They’re going to invest in YOU.” (41:00) ❏ “The key is to make sure everyone on the team is on the same page.” (56:40) ❏ “You have to make sure you’re going into it with the right idea.” (1:00:00)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony have a conversation with Yuriy Tyurin, founder and senior consultant at ConceptAngle Consulting. Yuriy is an expert in automation and process improvement, which his firm, ConceptAngle, was founded to help businesses achieve.
A tried and true software developer, Yuriy made his way into automation and consulting when he realized he could apply his knowledge and experience to a wider set than just construction and army engineering.
Yuriy suggests that awareness is the first step to improving processes. “I don’t need to tell people what their problems are,” he says. You only need to ask more questions. Once someone in leadership becomes aware of a problem, they can then be more susceptible to discussions around process improvement.
Beyond asking questions of his clients, Yuriy urges founders and team members in leadership to question themselves. The only way to really grow and tackle innovation is to keep improving, which is the opposite of settling for “what we’ve always done.” The businesses that fail to recognize this—that fail to see how to address their own problems and innovate in a breakneck world—will ultimately not be successful. ConceptAngle wants to empower businesses to improve their processes and keep a knife’s edge on the competition.
Topics Covered:
● The language barrier Yuriy encountered as a Russian living in Australia. ● Software is merely a tool, and it should be treated as such. ● Purpose is the only intrinsic motivator that can drive people. ● The importance of meaningful impact. ● The value that people bring to business. ● Coaching, coaching, coaching. ● Process improvement through problem solving. ● Questions matter--that’s where innovation happens. ● The danger of building “solutions” that have no problems. ● Why you need to diversify your organization’s knowledge store. ● Keep asking “why” to get a better handle on value.
Key Quotes
❏ “When you come from a management position, it’s very difficult to get back.” (7:20) ❏ “Software by itself doesn’t improve anything.” (9:40) ❏ “Technology is a multiplier. If there are problems in the organization, technology will only multiply them.” (11:00) ❏ “Money is a good goal, but it cannot be a purpose.” (13:30) ❏ “Every activity contributes to something meaningful.” (17:45) ❏ “We’re not human doings, we’re human beings.” (21:00) ❏ “Ideating on a new technology is where innovation sits.” (25:00) ❏ “You cannot deliberately solve a problem you don’t know about.” (26:00) ❏ “We should be questioning the way we operate.” (30:00) ❏ “You need to be adding value.” (32:30) ❏ “If you’re not making a profit, you can’t help your next customer.” (35:15)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Bob Sharon about his journey to building an ambitious cloud-based platform for the management of smart buildings and the built environment. Blue IoT’s globally recognized suite of products and services reduces energy and maintenance costs while increasing human comfort, safety and productivity.
Bob traces a long and varied IT career that has culminated in Blue IoT -- a transformational start-up driven by his passion, vision and the remarkable team he has assembled. He shares both the personal and entrepreneurial challenges he has encountered, from early setbacks to fostering a healthy team culture to understanding client needs to adapting evolving technologies within a burgeoning new space.
Blue IoT has developed a range of leading edge technologies, platforms and sensors of all descriptions combined with data analytics and interpretation, machine learning and AI. The company is driven by Bob’s hunger for excellence, commitment to making a difference and progressing towards a more sustainable future. In this far-ranging conversation, he describes the path, the people and the values that have fueled his company’s rapid growth.
Enjoy a deep dive into how Blue IoT is pioneering the reduction of risk, carbon footprint, energy, maintenance and operations costs for a multitude of built environments – offices and malls, governmental and university buildings – that impact individual lives and the planet every day.
Topics Covered:
Bob shares his tech background and personal history with entrepreneurial trial and error. There’s no failure – unless you fail to embrace and grow from lessons learned. Start-up success depends upon putting together a strong, cohesive, collaborative team. How Blue IoT evolved to become the world’s first building management platform. Bob details some of the nuts and bolts of Blue IoT’s suite of service offerings. Covid19 as an opportunity for Blue IoT to help facilities mitigate risk with bleeding-edge monitoring and environmental management techniques. Developing client interfaces and customization. Answering client questions related to Cloud resiliency and redundancy. How Bob has leveraged seed capital to organically grow his business structure, including staffing, marketing and employee retention. Outsourcing: pitfalls and process. How Blue IoT team members break down in terms of R&D and technical delivery. Pointers for establishing and guiding an advisory team and eventual board. What drives Bob. Hint: Passion is a primary ingredient. Advice from Bob to his younger entrepreneurial self. Hint: Tenacity is key.
Key Quotes
“Data centers are the homes of the world’s data and the amount of energy they consume is the same as aviation (prior to Covid19), so a massive carbon footprint.” (1:38) “I made a lot of mistakes. I took a lot of things for granted. Didn’t consult. Thought I knew when I knew nothing.” (3:55) “One day I’m going to write a book: ‘100 Ways How NOT to Run a Business’ ” (3:48) “What’s most important is that (employees) are psychologically invested, because we don’t want people who just come to work 9 to 5.” (7:01) “In the end what happened was something so much better in that we ended up inventing the world’s first IoT cloud-based building management platform.” (10:28) “We’re the square pegs in the round holes; the crazy ones doing crazy, bleeding edge things like deliver amazing outcomes.” (15:25) “We’re getting under three years to ROI, not counting the savings on unplanned maintenance and staffing and resources.” (22:50) “What happens if there’s a disconnect from the cloud? How is the building going to keep going… It’s a common question from clients.” (24:19) “There’s no impediment to continuous improvement, continuous optimization, because we’re continuously using our machine learning and will soon be using artificial intelligence.” (26:10)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Alex Burrows, founder and CEO of ActiveXchange, a community sports organization that helps people with leisure management. He works with national and international sports organizations to help community outreach with fitness and activity programs.
ActiveXchange partners with a swimming program in Australia. Their partnership allows them to show the local governments the social value that these fitness programs actually have, which can in turn further their financing and sponsorship.
Alex discusses his journey toward developing this kind of software and why it matters to him. The most significant impact that Alex would like to see ActiveXchange accomplish is connecting health fitness programs to the 100 million Australians who need it. ActiveXchange gathers user data that partners can then use to tailor programs and access support from their local government and civic organizations. Ultimately, ActiveXchange seeks to make it easier for more people to get and stay healthy by using smart tech. Alex believes this can only be done with the right team: make your critical hires early and keep those people onboard. It will be so much easier to carry out big visions for your company if you’ve got the right people to deliver them.
Topics Covered:
● Security and operations. ● Leisure markets. ● Integrating fitness systems into the community. ● Focus as a challenge: understand what to do with huge pools of data. ● The value that AI and machine learning adds to massive data sets. ● The benefits of creating a “sticky network.” ● Getting the first hires right is vital. ● Questioning your thinking is hard to do, but it opens up different opportunities. ● The obesity problem in Australia. ● Creating industry partnerships to build healthier, more active communities. ● Improving data processing for gyms.
Key Quotes:
❏ “You are doing a favor to that system provider by giving them fitness usage data.” (12:20) ❏ “How can I best support my franchisee?” (15:40) ❏ “We are trying to positively influence 10 million people on a rolling basis—how they’re active, how they’re healthy—through offering sporting and leisure opportunities.” (17:45) ❏ “It’s important to have a really clear purpose.” (19:00) ❏ “It’s about keeping as flexible [as you can] as long as possible.” (22:15) ❏ “A lot of the time, organizations just want to be connected around more data.” (25:00) ❏ “Hire people that have a passion for the area you’re working—it means they’ll go the extra mile.” (31:30) ❏ “Just having a chat with someone outside your box can open up different ideas.” (34:20) ❏ “Software can be challenging right out of the box.” (37:10) ❏ “A third of leisure centers are at risk in Australia.” (43:30) ❏ “We need a good team to deliver any outcome.” (53:05) ❏ “Maybe don’t jump at every opportunity—you need a plan.” (57:45) ❏ “Sometimes life happens for us.” (59:00)
Contact Alex:
● Connect with Alex on LinkedIn ● www.activexchange.org ● Email Alex: alex@activexchange.org
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Peter Strohkorb about changing the thinking around sales, client engagement, and b2b marketing.
Peter shares his experiences in sales and talks about how the methods of thinking about sales need to change. Even though the bottom line will ultimately be “top of mind” when it comes to growth, there are other metrics that can measure the success of the sales team, and companies should be using them.
Among those assets are engagement. Peter explains that engaging your client on a personal level—figuring out how they think, and what their problems are—can ultimately guarantee you more work. The reason is that your client will see your value proposition. If you and your sales team haven’t worked through what value you can actually bring to your clients, then you’re not going to get very far.
But most important is probably that you understand what your clients’ problems are, that you understand what solutions they’re talking about. You need to put in the work to understand how you can deliver value to the client and get them to trust you on that. Best case scenario, they accept the proposal, you deliver on time, and they say something good about you to a partner. Referral work is the best work, after all, because their guard is already down. Demonstrate that you have a proven sales model, and give the customer a good experience in the beginning, middle, and end.
Topics Covered:
● The reward-oriented structure of sales needs to change. ● We need to rethink selling. ● Shifting the psychology of hitting monthly targets. ● Quality of interactions vs. the quantity of sales. ● You need a proven, structured sales process. ● Why you need a good sales tagline. ● You need to be able to articulate the value that you bring. ● How do you engage the client? ● Shape your conversation around who your point of contact is. ● Talk about how you can avoid risk. ● Creating value for our customers. ● OneTeam and “Smarketing.” ● Give the customer a good experience at all points. ● Referral business is the best kind of business.
Key Quotes:
❏ “When something goes right, people take the credit, but when something goes wrong, they blame others.” (1:58) ❏ “It’s a push conversation that becomes a pressure conversation.” (4:25) ❏ “We need to help our customers make an informed decision to buy from us.” (6:45) ❏ “Every organization needs growth, but we can change how we monitor sales achievements.” (11:00) ❏ “The biggest value we can create is when we’re working with our customers one-on-one.” (15:00) ❏ “You want a tagline that means something to your customer.” (19:45) ❏ “You want a tagline that’s about an experience they can reasonably expect from your business.” (20:30) ❏ “In this day and age, values are not enough. You have to have values, but you have to bring value as well.” (23:50) ❏ “Challenging their thinking can create a conversation that feels sales-y.” (26:35) ❏ “B2b sales is a long, drawn-out process in many cases.” (31:00) ❏ “You don’t avoid the question of risk by showing that other people trust you.” (35:45) ❏ “Once you send a proposal through, you’ve lost control of the sale.” (38:00) ❏ “The worst thing you can do is just send the proposal.” (40:40) ❏ “You want your client to feel like they’re being looked after.” (47:15) ❏ “You don’t want to help them and have them go somewhere else.” (49:40)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony interview Islam Abdullah, CEO and founder of Ylemer—a company that connects entrepreneurs to mentors, which ultimately helps them to grow their community and their business.
Islam talks to the hosts about how technology is a tool but that you need a vision for growth. Oftentimes, we are lacking in direction with regard to that vision. What Ylemer does is set up entrepreneurs with mentors to help them fine-tune and adjust their processes for growth. This is rooted in the idea that we need to lean on the experience of others to make the right choices. And the guidance of a deep network of mentors is invaluable.
A key takeaway of this episode is that no one really knows what the next right move is. And a lot of time, that indecision can actually cripple your progress. What Andrew offers is this idea that decisiveness is the true virtue. You would be better to make the wrong choice and learn from it than to idle in indecision for too long. Islam is also aware of this and builds it into the brand at Ylemer. Taking small actions, building the trust of your clients, and leaning on the counsel of those with more experience can help you to make decisions quickly while offering the tools to help analyze and apply those lessons learned.
Topics Covered:
● Investing in blockchain. ● C-chat in Windows 98. ● Cryptocurrency and entrepreneurship. ● Producing something to be able to attract attention and investment. ● Empowering entrepreneurship to drive impact. ● The concept of the “purpose mountain.” ● Leaning on the experience of others and asking the right questions. ● Filter out what is not adding value to your path. ● Little actions make huge differences.
Key Quotes:
❏ “We have intelligence and we waste it living paycheck to paycheck.” (7:00) ❏ “What is really the vision that you want to do?” (8:30) ❏ “Facebook and Twitter changed the way we have conversations.” (12:20) ❏ “Everyone has their own story...advice doesn’t across the board.:” (18:45) ❏ “Technology allows you to scale and automate.” (22:00) ❏ “No process is set in stone.” (24:13) ❏ “Purpose doesn’t have to be overly complex.” (29:06) ❏ “Businesses have to realize that they are in discovery every single day.” (32:20) ❏ “Working with someone to guide you is very important—what is the road ahead?” (38:00) ❏ “You have no idea where you will be after you take the next step.” (39:20) ❏ “Entrepreneurship is about your mindset and personal growth.” (42:20) ❏ “Knowledge is easily obtained, but action is the key.” (47:45) ❏ “Make decisions fast.” (52:00)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony sit down and talk to Sanne Del, national operations and quality manager at Six Degrees Recruiting. Sanne Del discusses her daily life as an operations manager and how she uses data analysis to drive her company forward.
One of the most difficult problems in operations and data is dealing with change. Sanne shares how she uses her skills as a people person and as a manager to help her team deal with changes as they are rolled out, whether in company-wide infrastructure or in the small details of user interface. She is dedicated to helping everyone on her team to accomplish their tasks more efficiently and with fewer hiccoughs.
A key takeaway of this episode is that companies really do have the power to drive change with thoughtful data analysis. It’s not as simple as just looking at a bunch of collected data and hoping the solutions will come to you. You need sharp people on your team who can analyze data and provide meaningful insights, whether internally or to a client. And with these kinds of tools in your camp, you should be able to weather any changes your company faces. It’s up to, people in leadership, to guide your team through changes and mitigate loss and fatigue. These are the signs of the best teams in the world. Topics Covered:
● Digital transformation ● Operations of a recruiting firm. ● Data analysis for operations optimization. ● Integrating with LinkedIn. ● The challenges in migrating to new systems in operation. ● Identifying problems areas and breaking down solutions. ● Change management and dealing with challenges. ● Working with integrated systems. ● Interface as a barrier to user functionality. ● Continuous learning and puzzles in operations management. ● Delivering meaningful data analysis to your team or client. ● Data without insights is useless.
Key Quotes:
❏ “We track internal and applications.” (02:25) ❏ “I make sure the information is clear and where we need it.” (04:45) ❏ “Our focus is on simplifying our systems now.” (07:10) ❏ “It’s really hard to understand what you need to do and how you need to do it.” (10:45) ❏ “Technology is an enabler; it is not a solution.” (14:22) ❏ “There’s no such thing as a perfect plan.” (18:30) ❏ “If you see a change, and it doesn’t stop you from being able to do your work, then just roll with it.” (19:20) ❏ “Things change, but you can still figure it out.” (21:00) ❏ “Sometimes systems just need tweaking so they’ll talk to each other.” (23:20) ❏ “People use only 10% of the functionality of MS Word.” (32:30) ❏ “Automation allows us to find problems more quickly.” (36:40) ❏ “If you’re not working in the technology space, sometimes it’s really lonely.” (44:30) ❏ “[In data analysis] if you don’t go in with a specific goal, it’s really difficult to find.” (46:45) ❏ “90% of the world’s data was created in the last two years.” (48:36) ❏ “Doing it for technology’s sake is the wrong reason.” (51:30)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sannegr/
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Nathan Kirchner, founder and CTO of Presien, an AI company providing solutions for heavy machines.
Nathan describes the process of working with heavy machinery and seeing otherwise preventable accidents. After spending some time designing his ideas, he presented the solution to VCs who saw its value. Nathan’s vision allows for engineers to build artificial intelligence platforms that give heavy machinery a sense of situational awareness. This awareness can help reduce accidents by sensing blind spots and workers in the way of heavy equipment. Nathan’s company Presien currently develops this platform.
In the episode, Nathan also explains how his concept came to life, how he built his dream team, and how he applied certain takeaways from his time in Silicon Valley. Nathan’s favorite catchphrase he picked up from Silicon Valley: “There are a thousand engineers who are 100% right, but unfortunately, there are 7 billion other people who don’t care.”
Topics Covered:
● Situational awareness in machines. ● Preventing machine-related accidents. ● The hardware and software used in machine situational awareness. ● Founding a tech business without a tech background. ● Picking up the resilience of Silicon Valley. ● You need to get your organization to see the value of your idea. ● Lessons learned in Silicon Valley. ● Structuring your business in the beginning. ● VCs want you to be coachable. ● Develop an MVP with real value and the rest is momentum. ● Talk to customers like they’re real people. ● You can improve the product by learning about the customer. ● Solve a problem, don’t build a product.
Key Quotes:
❏ “It’s all about the machine-person interaction.” (2:40) ❏ “Some 65% of those accidents are related to working with machines.” (4:35) ❏ “If I provide the information, I’ve already got the best control of the machine.” (7:49) ❏ “In the consumer space...you expect it to work, and you don’t care how it does it.” (12:20) ❏ “They have a fear that they [the company] will take it or ignore it.” (17:50) ❏ “It’s better to have a small slice of the pie than no pie at all.” (18:45) ❏ “You’re there to build efficiency, not create a product.” (21:10) ❏ “We had a product, we had traction, and we had some ability to generate revenue out of it.” (24:15) ❏ “If you can demonstrate that you’ve solved a real need, that’s enough to buy you the time for the rest of the things to happen.” (26:40) ❏ “Don’t try so hard...and listen!” (34:40)
Contact Nathan:
● LinkedIn ● www.presien.com
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Rafael Kaluri, founder of NextContract, a digital platform that connects businesses to their next technology contractors. Raf has had a variety of roles in tech contracting in different industries, from business analyst to product development and helping to institute organizational change. Tech contractors are often hired to know, understand, and find problems that you can actually solve.
The positives in contracting include exposure and being able to connect with a multitude of stakeholders across an organization or an industry. There is a network-building benefit to contracting. And the networks grow deeper with more work. Be in the know, stay motivated, and look and create for more opportunities.
The mission of NextContract is to ensure that contractors are employed and are able to go between contracts with minimal downtime.
The three tips from Raf: 1. If you have an idea, validate it. 2. Understand the partners you’re going to select to work with. 3. You are an investor building in your platform, so you need to understand how you’re going to get it to market.
Topics Covered:
● Tech contractors. ● Culture and accepting organizational change. ● The benefits of networking. ● Rewards and challenges of contracting. ● You need to have unparalleled growth on your profitability. ● The importance of branding for your own success. ● You might move between organizations fairly quickly as a contractor. ● Spending time with users and a high degree of planning. ● Brainstorming! ● Struggles in determining the cost of your product. ● Preparing to engage with potential clients and organizations. ● Designing based on use cases. ● Project managing in the software space.
Key Quotes:
❏ “When we try to challenge what has been socially accepted, it doesn’t sit well with those that have been in the business for a long time.” (5:45) ❏ “Being small is an opportunity when you’re innovating.” (8:35) ❏ “You’re delivering an outcome and you’re selling yourself on the next outcome.” (15:00) ❏ “You are your own brand, and you need to build that with intention and purpose.” (15:45) ❏ “It is, predominantly, being in the know and keeping those doors open.” (19:30) ❏ “You’re not applying for a job; you’re applying for an opportunity to deliver an outcome.” (25:10) ❏ “The saying goes something like: we spend three years in planning and one year in building.” (30:10) ❏ “You might get one shot to showcase your platform to the users.” (32:45) ❏ “People are generally open and honest [when critiquing design].” (45:00) ❏ “You already know the solution if there is a problem.” (46:20) ❏ “It’s not just the idea, it’s how you’re going to monetize it.” (56:00)
Contact Rafael:
● LinkedIn ● https://www.nextcontract.com.au ● Email Raf at: raf.kaluri@gmail.com
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Kurt Alexander, founder of Quick Safety, a company dedicated to making electrical regulatory compliance easy.
Born and raised in Wyoming, Kurt describes a childhood that fostered his analytical nature. A Navy veteran, he worked on nuclear submarines while he was in the service. Working in sonar, he learned a lot about electrical engineering before launching careers in consulting, furniture, retail, and eventually the tech space.
Over the course of the episode, Kurt tells the story of Quick Safety and how it has revolutionized the electrical industry in Australia. Beyond just explaining the mechanics and the need for Quick Safety’s digital electrical tests, Kurt offers advice to startups on how to stay focused, why you have to hunt for opportunity, and why you need to empower your business first.
A main takeaway is that you need to know your customers. They have to understand the value of your product. Quick Safety is an electrical regulation compliance company that streamlines the testing process so electricians can determine the safety of systems more quickly, efficiently, and reliably. This all helps the homeowner and asset owner to avoid potentially life-threatening electrical situations.
Topics Covered:
● Kurt’s time in the military during the Cold War. ● The issues that the electrical industry faces. ● The 8 tests that electrical regulators have to conduct on new dwellings. ● You have to actually seek out opportunity; it doesn’t just come to you. ● Founders have an opportunity to connect and make things happen online. ● The difference between incubators and accelerators. ● Quick Safety validates the test information. ● Quick Safety’s tech makes electrical tests easier and protects electricians and homeowners. ● You have to attribute the cost of your product back to the asset. ● People get a little too focused and fixed on the product. ● Data dumping to get the support of tech companies. ● Ensuring all your processes are correct to drive revenue and empower your business. ● People are happy to share, but you can lead the conversation, too. ● The effectiveness of “small teams” and load sharing.
Key Quotes:
❏ “89 days was the longest that we stayed submerged.” (6:32) ❏ “I made the mistake of spending too much time in the business instead of on the business.” (15:00) ❏ “My time on the forklift gave me a chance to think—what do I really want to do?” (19:01) ❏ “The retail industry is more consumer-focused.” (24:15) ❏ “You have to put yourself out there and you have to network.” (36:10) ❏ “Most of the electricians prior to Quick Safety were doing all the math in their heads.” (46:50) ❏ “The real target customer is the asset owner.” (51:05) ❏ “If you’re going to be pushing your product, you have to make it as easy as possible for a customer to come on and off of that system.” (56:25) ❏ “Your vision and product should be developing all the time.” (1:00:10) ❏ “You only have to develop the nucleus of your company once.” (1:10:31) ❏ “You want to get from conception to revenue as quick as you can.” (1:11:05) ❏ “The real drivers in the team are those that will take responsibility.” (1:21:45)
Social Media Clips:
- Kurt’s career experience leading up to Quick Safety. (14:00 - 16:00)
- What the state electrical regulators actually do. (27:20 - 28:51)
- Incubators and accelerators. (38:40 - 40:31)
- Founders and their relationships with tech companies. (1:03:50 - 1:06:45)
Contact Kurt:
● Find Kurt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtalexander/?originalSubdomain=au ● www.quicksafety.com.au
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Brendan Tremble, founder and director of CX consulting at FT Executive. Brendan explains the concept of CX and how it relates to growing your business and customer base. Brendan also shares some of the things startups should expect when structuring their culture, processes, and products around the values that are informed by best customer experience. Brendan leads one of the top consulting firms in Australia.
Topics Covered:
● CX (Customer Experience) Consulting. ● Working with startups. ● The core competencies of customer experience. ● Culture as a driver of customer satisfaction. ● How do you measure customer focus? ● Avoiding transactional relationships in your customer base. ● Attracting and keeping customers with CX-based values. ● Understanding the different life cycles of the customer. ● Collecting data to improve customer processes. ● You need to know WHO your customer is.
Key Quotes:
❏ “Customer needs change every day.” (3:25) ❏ “You need your team around you to be about it.” (6:45) ❏ “It’s a lot cheaper to keep a customer than to go out and get a new one.” (12:00) ❏ “You need to actually have customer-centric values.” (14:45) ❏ “Product development people understand the life cycle of the product.” (20:55) ❏ “It’s not just collecting metrics — it’s how you’re using them.” (22:30) ❏ “Process improvement people make the best CX people.” (25:05) ❏ “Customer experience is really process improvement for customers.” (32:40) ❏ “Trying to do everything doesn’t really serve anyone.” (39:10) ❏ “You have to know which questions to ask.” (43:58)
Contact Brendan:
Check out Brendan’s company: www.ftexecutive.com.au
Find Brendan on LinkedIn.
The Books Brendan Mentions:
● Design Thinking ● Sprint by Jake Knapp ● Outside In by Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine ● Chief Customer Officer 2.0 by Jeanne Bliss
Summary: Our guest on this episode of the DevReady podcast is Matt Vitale, Co-founder of Birchal equity crowdfunding. Matt and the other co-founders combined their knowledge from their different industries to create Birchal with the goal of making the site mainly focused on the companies and facilitating a seamless process for the transaction from beginning to end.
Birchal was an integral part of the lifting of the Australian government’s restrictions on equity crowdfunding several years ago, and they continue to impact related legislation as the company and the industry continue to grow in popularity and scope. The Birchal team has a very specific process for reviewing companies who are interested in posting campaigns on the site which includes both objective and subjective filters to ensure that the idea is viable before it is presented to potential investors. Through the expression of interest process, companies are able to gauge interest and receive pledges before ultimately launching their campaigns.
Birchal is Australia’s leading crowdfunding platform, accounting for more than half of the monies invested through crowdfunding last year. For more information about hosting a campaign on Birchal or if you have further questions for Matt, don’t hesitate to reach out.
Topics Covered:
● How Birchal was formed ● Equity crowdfunding ● How government regulation has impacted and continues to impact the industry ● The process that companies go through in order to post campaigns on Birchal ● Which businesses should pursue crowdfunding ● Getting feedback from interested investors ● Guiding companies to appropriate valuations ● Crowdfunding as a vehicle for fundraising ● Which campaigns are successful during COVID ● How to handle investors who are ready to cash out their investments ● The healthy tension between the company and their investors
Key Quotes
❏ “It took about 5 years for the government to realize it wanted to do this and then pass the legislation to do it.” (2:55) ❏ “Looking back, it was a very effective execution of building technology for what is often a fairly complicated process.” (4:39) ❏ “It’s all about finding the relevant audience for each company and treating each campaign as a discrete project.” (9:47) ❏ “It’s all about momentum.” (15:16) ❏ “When we started the platform, we decided to quite deliberately describe the businesses that we want to work with as those that have a strong consumer proposition.” (18:58) ❏ “It’s about finding an audience that will derive benefit from your success.” (20:58) ❏ “Things are worth what people are willing to pay for them.” (22:38) ❏ “You want to give them enough information so they’re interested in you and then have this opportunity for engagement.” (26:29) ❏ “Every campaign that we host has at least a handful of investors that are investing over $10,000.” (31:27) ❏ “Crowdfunding is still open for business.” (37:24) ❏ “The trouble that we have is with the law.” (44:54)
Contact Matt: https://www.birchal.com/ matt@birchal.com
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony speak with Ahron Young, the founder and CEO of Ticker TV, a Melbourne-based news streaming service.
Just out of high school, Ahron got a job at a local newspaper. There he got his toes wet in journalism. This continued with a job at a local TV station, and the Russian news service, RT then Sky News.
Ahron chose the name Ticker because it scrolls at the bottom of the screen, but it’s also our heart. He describes his time building Ticker as an alternative to morning cable news, targeted directly at millennials. Ahron gives advice for breaking into the field, building value and discovering the market for your idea. He runs a successful TV service with just over 30 people on his team. He intends to grow Ticker into a global company.
He also advises us to look out for our mental health, especially in the tech world. “Don’t expect yourself to be a winner,” he says, “but it’s just as important to learn to forget as it is to learn.”
Topics Covered:
● Ahron’s background in commercial TV. ● The importance of marketing. ● Working at RT and how it was the best and the worst experience. ● Be wary of who you bring in for equity because it’s difficult to get rid of people. ● We really don’t have long attention spans anymore — too many are fighting for it. ● Where Ahron got the idea for Ticker TV. ● Ticker TV is a news service that looks to answer “what do people want from the news?” ● Working in a corporate environment, and how it hurts your individuality. ● As long as you deliver what people want, the rest doesn’t matter. ● You need to understand who you are, and establish your identity. ● The average age of a startup founder in Australia is 54. ● What you forget is just as important as what you learn. ● Structuring the business in its early stages. ● Working in a culture where people take ownership of their work. ● Get bigger, and faster, and better — or someone else will. ● COVID has been difficult, but Ticker’s business has not struggled. ● Identify your brand and really pump it out.
Key Quotes:
❏ “Journalism is a lifestyle choice, and it basically owns you.” (03:30) ❏ “The floor manager at RT pulled out a gun.” (07:55) ❏ “We are members of the business communities to which we are a part of.” (10:05) ❏ “It’s never been an open opportunity: it’s always been something you’ve had to fight for and strive for.” (12:25) ❏ “You can’t fight a fleeing customer base in court.” (16:50) ❏ “It’s all about looking for gaps in the marketplace.” (21:30) ❏ “Every time talent meets the corporate world, something gives: and it’s usually the talent.” (25:35) ❏ “When you love what you do, it’s hard to realize when you need to ask for help.” (28:45) ❏ “In the end, TV is your graphics package, your audio, your presenters, and your studios: nothing else matters.” (37:55) ❏ “It’s up to you to know the time to forget and the time to remember.” (47:10) ❏ “It doesn’t matter how you structure it, you’re not starting a business on your own. You need a team around you. (54:30) ❏ “Don’t ever create a barrier to entry for yourself.” (1:02:05) ❏ “We want to start Ticker in 10 other countries.” (1:14:00)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony speak with Adam Turner, freelance technology journalist who writes for the Sydney Morning Herald.
Starting out working for The Age, he developed a passion for tech and decided to go freelance – writing consumer tech for magazines like PC Authority and MacWorld, along with biztech for publications like the AFR and CRN. He also has his own tech news podcast called Vertical Hold.
Adam dives deep into the world of freelance writing and explains some of the nuances in building credibility. He spends a bulk of the episode breaking down helpful tips as well as scathingly criticizing the cumbersome tech writing of today. His main points here are that writing needs to be concise and engaging. There are tricks, but ultimately it’s a skill.
Topics Covered:
● How to start selling your name and your business in press releases. ● The importance of the brief on a press release. ● Understanding what you want for the outcome. ● It’s all about the hook, for journalism and everything else. ● General advice for making your writing better. ● Why reading a lot makes you a better, more engaging writer. ● You need to understand the style you want to capture. ● It’s all about writing concisely and engagingly. ● The move now is away from academic language to tight, engaging writing. ● You must have something to say — it’s the most important thing.
Key Quotes:
❏ “If you’re writing a thought leadership post, you’re helping them know stuff.” - (12:20) ❏ “If they see your press release and it reads like an ad: swipe.” - (14:10) ❏ “It’s not easy to write about yourself and not about yourself at the same time.” - (15:46) ❏ “When you’re talking to a journalist, you’re talking to them in 5 second increments, if you’re lucky.” (18:20) ❏ “Sometimes you have to throw out the line you worked really hard for.” (21:16) ❏ “Don’t get too bogged down in it.” (24:10) ❏ “Have a look at what your competitors are doing as well.” (28:25) ❏ “Every word and every paragraph needs to be doing a job -- if it’s not, get rid of it.” (34:10) ❏ “I always find more mistakes on a printed page than I do on a screen.” (39:00) ❏ “If I get stuck, I go back to the beginning.” (40:25)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony speak with Mark Milanese, founder at OneLenz, a tech platform that connects startups to VCs and investors.
Over the course of the episode, the guys speak with Mark about how companies should approach investors, what things young startups should consider, and how to avoid common pitfalls when seeking funding.
The main takeaways here are that it’s very hard to build a successful product on a weak platform. Spend the time (and money) hammering out all the details first and you’ll be much more likely to find success when it comes time to seek investment rounds.
If you know the value that your product brings to the market and to your customers, it’ll be much easier to grow. Learn the tech, know the problem that your product solves for your base, and figure out how to fail. Investors will be impressed with your tenacity.
Topics Covered:
Startups need to chase clients, not funding. Where to start if a founder comes to OneLenz for investment. People need guidance in getting the requirements right. Your first version doesn’t need to be perfect, but it needs to be good enough to get feedback on. Founders should definitely bring in a tech consultor to save money in the long run. Global founders are ambitious and relentless. You need to know what your value is to your customer. The best thing to do is to fail fast. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. If someone hands you a big check, they’re going to run right through you. Building a product is a full-time job. People are understanding the value of meeting digitally through Zoom now. Key Quotes:
“Where you start depends on your tech.” (10:50) “You need to know how to link what you want to what you can deliver.” (13:30) “What’s your business, what’s your business model…how big do you want to go?” (18:40) “You’re still on the phone 24/7.” (20:15) “You gotta learn how to fail fast…and move on.” (23:20) “You’ll want to be on the VC’s radar at least six months out.” (27:15) “I’d rather chase sales than chase investor’s money.” (31:00) “Keep your job as long as you can.” (44:00) “It’s all about the kind of business you want.” (48:00)
On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony speak with Saleem Qureshi, investor and CEO of Assessment Fund, based in London. They talk about the need for digital transformation in the wake of COVID, the very apparent digital divide, and the tools (and rationale) for successful digital transformation.
COVID has pushed virtually all companies to consider a work-from-home model, and this is necessarily changing the way we do business. Saleem suggests that companies that want to survive need to lean into those changes and really understand how they can transform digitally. Ultimately, the companies that fail to do this will be left behind.
Saleem also talks about how education is tied intimately to the problems businesses are facing in digital transformation, but there may be tools around the corner. The world is digitizing — and that doesn’t just mean going online — and it’s up to the young companies to have the hard conversations they need to transform.
A new economy is being created, even though we don’t know what it will look like. To best prepare and future-proof ourselves, businesses need to have conversations about who they are, and who they will be going forward. The digital divide will eventually shrink, but only when companies successfully transform into the digital age.
Topics Covered:
● The problems in trying to digitize the world. ● Bringing education up to digital speed. ● The importance of digital transformation in staying alive. ● Focus on the value you deliver to your customers. ● Preparing pre-IPO companies prepare for their IPOs. ● Educating the boardroom on the financial impact of tech. ● Work-from-home models changing the world. ● Unemployment in the future. ● The new economy that is being created. ● Problems in the developing world. ● Some of the issues that work-from-home is bringing to the table. ● Demand to move to the bigger cities. ● The main concerns for digital transformation. ● Volkswagen is transforming itself into a software company. ● Digital transformation is transforming the business model.
Key Quotes:
❏ “We wanted to understand ‘what is intelligence?’” (01:35) ❏ “The people are still analog.” (2:40) ❏ “Turn your data into dollars.” (10:00) ❏ “Digital transformation actually increases your value.” (12:25) ❏ “The boardroom is not tech savvy.” (15:20) ❏ “It’s the vendor’s responsibility to sell the board on the tech.” (18:00) ❏ “We need to talk to people in the same language that they use.” (21:00) ❏ “The stock prices of companies are going up.” (25:25) ❏ “Work-from-home is going to test people’s ability to upskill themselves.” (26:30) ❏ “You can either stay relevant or you can not be counted.” (28:08) ❏ “You don’t really need a four-year degree anymore because the education sector is so far behind.” (28:50) ❏ “It’s easy for small companies to transform; it’s difficult for large companies to transform.” (39:45) ❏ “The real value is in giving the customer the life they want, and the car is just a tool to get there.” (41:10) ❏ “Everybody must be transforming the way they do business.” (44:00)
On this episode of DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony speak with Hamed Ghajarnia, Managing Director and polymer engineer at DreamLaunch, a company that helps people bring hardware visions to life.
During the conversation, Hamed speaks to the processes surrounding idea generation and execution for hardware needs. He also breaks down what it’s like for a new company to wrestle with their software and hardware development needs. They discuss the value of investing in research early on in the design process, and the difficulty in trying to bring a new idea to market rather than capitalizing on the existing competition. Hamed also breaks down the nature of prototypes and how businesses can best use them to develop great products.
The key takeaway from their conversation with Hamed is that, like many others they’ve had on the show, listening to the customer is paramount. There is no skill more valuable than being able to hear what a customer’s needs are and allowing that information to inform your processes at every step. That’s how you can guarantee success.
On this episode of DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony speak with Paul Lange, “Business Growth Accelerant”, about working in private equity, the life of buying companies to scale, and the importance of understanding how to grow your business.
When looking to draw investors, what you really need to be able to do is demonstrate that you can sell what you want to sell. “Sweat-equity” is great but investors care about real valuation.
Paul lays out a 9-point strategy for growing your business and prepare for success from the perspective of an investor: 1. Figure out ways to minimize your risks. a. Find out what’s in it for you. b. “Where’s the exit?” c. “Show me the money”: demonstrate the capital-building potential. 2. Taking money (because you cannot really “make” money). a. Structures: get the structures of your company right. b. Systems: the balance of formalized and personable. c. Scalability: so you can grow beyond your local market. 3. Making it happen: all about people. a. Who’s on the team? b. Where’s your niche? (The target market.) c. Traction: Why, what, and how you do what you do
Some tips from Paul: 1. Spend one day writing out your plan, and get it on paper. 2. Iterate, iterate, iterate. 3. It has to be good enough to start — and then start!
The strategy for implementing all nine of his points: ask yourself the question, answer the question, and question the answer. Rinse and repeat until you really like what you have.
Topics Covered:
● Private equity firms. ● Managing buyouts. ● The dizziness associated with taking on a multi-million dollar portfolio. ● Money should be the last thing that’s “in it for you” in your business. ● Your vision needs to extend beyond your business. ● The effectiveness of collaborative campaigns. ● How to minimize the risks in your business. ● The importance of understanding the marketplace. ● Folding a business into yours to mutually grow. ● Understanding how much it costs to scale even a small business. ● Sweat-equity is not nearly as valuable as real valuation. ● There’s no right or wrong about structures: just put some thought into it. ● The result of systems is that they put the focus on your values. ● Small business owners need to divide and conquer. ● Hire based on values not skills. ● Think about who you really want on your board. ● Define very clearly who you add value to. ● Measuring traction. ● The experience is what keeps people coming back.
Key Quotes (Time Stamps):
❏ “I don’t want to fly C-130s: I want to be Top Gun!” - (6:30) ❏ “Before you get into anything, you need to have your exit strategy nailed down.” (8:00) ❏ “I tell most people: ‘how about you try selling your way out of your funding issues.’” (9:45) ❏ “Business is not built to last -- think about where your exit is gonna be.” (15:15) ❏ “At the end of the day, an investor and an business owner are looking to put money into their wealth account.” (19:00) ❏ “Whenever possible, we will put the smallest amount of money on the table.” (22:45) ❏ “I know people who have bootstrapped a business on a grand.” (30:15) ❏ “To really be random and fluid, you need a solid structure underneath you.” (36:40) ❏ “You cannot effectively scale without the systems in place.” (43:45) ❏ “There are different levels of exit.” (47:10) ❏ “Passion is teachable.” (49:50) ❏ “Even the Catholic Church doesn’t have 100% of the religious market.” (55:10) ❏ “If you can’t measure it, you can’t demonstrate it.” (1:02:35) ❏ “A restaurant is only as good as its last meal.” (1:07:45) ❏ “Perfection is procrastination.” (1:10:50)
In this episode, startup founder Anne Miles talks about her journey with her company, Suits and Sneakers — where she started, what has worked and what hasn’t, and where she’s headed in the future. The name “Suits and Sneakers” comes from the essence of her business: the combination of strategic people like project managers (suits) and the technology, creative, and production people (sneakers).
Suits and Sneakers was birthed so that advertising and marketing specialists don’t get lost in the shuffle and was, at the beginning, intended to be a directory. Through a series of events, Anne ended up setting up a format so that people could tell her directly what they need and she has been doing manual matching since then. Anne talks about where her company fits in the market; somewhere between a directory and a PR agency with hands-on services.
The three discuss the advantages and disadvantages of investors and Anne shares why she hesitates to have them and is instead leaning toward an advisory board. They also talk about the pros and cons of Wordpress, how to use technology in light of your customers, beta testing, and IP rules.
At the end, Andrew and Anthony ask Anne what advice she would give herself two years ago and they provide a bit of their own advice as well.
In this episode Andrew and Anthony get to know Philip Nowell of Ontogo. Philip shares his knowledge of entering the medical device industry.
With his experience as a surgeon and passion for medical devices, Philip began working in the private sector. In 2003 he led and developed Cook Medical, a medical device company based in the United States. Once he retired and moved to Australia, Philip saw a demand for guiding others through the regulatory world of medical devices or along the journey of creating new commercial products. That’s how Ontogo came into being.
Ontogo is a network of professionals who have practiced their knowledge base, not theorized it. And with their expertise, they give real guidance to clients struggling to see their product ideas realized.
Philip tells Andrew and Anthony how to start off right, when creating a new product. From testing your product idea, evaluating the market, and preparing for investors, Philip gives detailed steps to save you time, money, and help you avoid common mistakes.
The best take away from this episode: understand your market acceptance. Is there a market for your product? Is there a problem and have you solved it? If not, you are only investing in an idea not a product.
On today’s episode, Andrew and Anthony speak with angel investor Hamish Hughes about how he got his start as an investor, and how the process of seeking investment rounds actually works.
After a short stint in politics, he was drawn to the VC world based on how popular it was in the UK. Moved by how under-developed the industry was in Australia, he took up investing work there.
Hamish discusses the role that investors play in the early stages of startup development and takeoff, and he shares some of his own stories. He explains some of the things that startups really need to consider before even approaching an investor, how to contact investors successfully, and how to scale after funding the founding of the company.
Andrew and Anthony also pick Hamish’s brain about the world of VC investing, what makes companies successful, and how to avoid failure (if you’re in the 10% of companies that succeed).
The best takeaways from today’s episode are centered around demystifying the investment process, as well as some of the tips Hamish offers up to debunk investing myths. Best practice is to have a good idea, don’t worry about others stealing it, and don’t expect investors to buy into something if the potential for return is not high.
And above all: be actionable. There are a hundred million dollar ideas—but only some are executed.
On today’s episode, Andrew and Anthony speak with CEO and founder of FinalCall, Paul Arnost. Paul’s interest out of high school was initially as a heavy metal vocalist, proving you can be anything. Shortly after, he worked his way into a career in the banks before starting a career in the tech world.
Over the course of this episode, Paul and the hosts get into many different topics related to success as a startup. Paul explains the concept of designing processes, business agility, and the need to communicate better.
Paul is the founder of a company that helps real estate agencies connect homebuyers to their respective homes while saving them time and money. He goes into the ins and outs of the conception of that idea, some of the roadblocks he hit along the way, and how he was able to find success, even amid the COVID pandemic.
During their conversation, Andrew and Anthony also get into many of the issues that plague tech startups in general, including workflow, project management, and delivery problems. They also list some red flags to look out for in the beginning phases. Paul laments working with many companies who struggled on the delivery front, and he opines that delivery is paramount to making the client happy. If you can just commit to always delivering the product, a lot of the other things will fall away. They also spend a little time talking about investors and how people manage to get their startups off the ground.
Paul signs off with some advice on how to stay motivated as an entrepreneur. The risks are real, and the stress is high, but the rewards are great. Paul has left us his email for anyone who wants to reach out to him.
On today’s episode, Andrew and Anthony speak with Aurecon’s Digital Futures Leader, Stewart Bird. The three talk about forging client-focused initiatives, dealing with challenges in the corporate world, and looking into the future to adapt for a digital and automated world.
In addition to the world of automation, Andrew and Anthony hear from Stewart about how mindset might be the number one change agent in business. The learning mindset, or the growth mindset, is what pushes business to improve their processes and continue to find ways to add value to their brand. “By doing, you’re learning,” they say. They incorporate McKinsey’s Three Horizons to group and plan their research and development.
Stewart also talks a good deal about this idea called the “Prosumer”: that customers are moving away from business that still happens transactionally. They are instead looking for relationships to connect in a human way with their partners. This kind of thing comes as a challenge, but Stewart spends a good portion of the rest of the interview describing some tactics for how to do that, including streamlining your processes internally and looking for ways to incorporate technology that will make your job easier.
Finally, the hosts ask Stewart to share some parting wisdom. He ultimately says to listen to your customers. If you don’t have a “finger on the pulse,” you’re going to be dead in the water. This means being flexible to adapt to change. It means looking for ways to automate processes and checking for faulty designs. It means going out in the field to see what your customers really want. That’s the only way you can truly add value to your brand. And you have to trust them. Think externally: what will this lead to? Prepare for those changes as your projects develop and your ideas come to fruition, because you’re going to want your customers to keep coming back to your business. Make it easier on them. Show that you care about who they are. And deliver your best work possible.
On today’s episode, Andrew and Anthony speak with William Strange about his company, Sports Performance Tracking (SPT), his history of entrepreneurship, and the future of tech.
From Melbourne, Will got his start in real estate, he saw successes in the industry and moved over to the property development side of things. Not long after, in 2013, he founded a subscription-underwear business for men. He was able to land an investment on Shark Tank for his subscription company Three65. Ultimately, he ended up selling Three65 shortly after his appearance on Shark Tank.
Will explains that in order to be successful, you need to build your processes so that anyone can do it. Create the infrastructure that will allow the buyer down the road to jump on production with little friction.
Andrew and Anthony discuss the stages that an entrepreneur must walk through, including the conception stage, research and development, and testing the prototypes for the initial product delivery. Born out of the idea of GPS tracking bikes and cars, William developed the GPS tech necessary to track the movements of high-performing athletes. Ultimately, this required him to develop his own hardware because vehicle-based GPS was limited in its ability to monitor precision movements.
Unfortunately, Will didn’t have the software, either. So he not only needed to develop the hardware, but the software as well. Trying to deliver this product proved to be more difficult than he imagined at first. Will also goes into how the COVID pandemic has impacted his cash flow and his team. Beyond this, Will discusses how the business world is likely going to be changed by the impact of the COVID-19. Most businesses are going to reevaluate their expenses when it comes to office space and overhead because most are still able to work from home and keep the company alive. There is some concern about monitoring employees, however.
In conclusion, the hosts reflect with Will on the future of business in the tech industry and look forward to more conversations about the marriage of tech and sports.
In this weeks episode of the DevReady Podcast, we spoke to Terry Wilson from Chat Metrics | Conversation as a Service - CaaS | Live Chat | Lead Generation.
When developing a #Saas product, we can sometimes focus all our energy on the building the tech. But in the end, like every other business, we need to understand how to market, nature and convert our leads.
Chatbots is a new piece of tech that many businesses have begun putting in the corner of their websites. If you have a chatbot, have you considered the experience that your customers and prospects are having with the bot?
Terry is an advocate for live chat, having real people talk to your customers and helping them engage and interact with your webpage and service offerings.
Love to hear your thoughts below.
Would you prefer to talk to a bot or a real person?
In this week's episode of the DevReady Podcast, we were joined Miriana Taflaga, Principle - Experience Design from Symplicit.
During this episode, we explored how Human-Centred design can dramatically increase your likelihood of success.
In simple terms...
Work with your users!
Throughout our journey of designing and developing software solutions, we have heard this time and time again.
"We want it to be perfect before we show users."
Are you making the same mistake?
On this week's episode of the DevReady Podcast, we interviewed Adam A. Jacoby, founder of MiVote, Chairman Esport Mogul (ASX:ESH), 2 X Codex World's Top 50 Innovator, Director Global & Strategic Innovation Swinburne University of Technology Innovation Precinct.
This story of a non-tech founder describes what it takes to deliver upon a moonshot idea.
Through MiVote, Adam's objective is to reimagine what democracy could be when delivered through a startup company.
In this episode, you will learn about the highs, lows and everything in between for a startup entrepreneur.
In this weeks episode of the DevReady Podcast, we were joined by Joana Inch from Hat Media Australia talking about all things marketing.
Joana and her team at Hat Media help SaaS businesses better execute their marketing and social media campaigns.
In the episode, we discussed how understanding your niche and buyer personas could dramatically increase your marketing results.
With competition ever increasing in the SaaS space, it has never been more important to create great content that answers your customer's questions and solves their pain points.
Would you like 43.5% of every dollar that you invest in innovation paid back to you?
On this week's episode of the DevReady Podcast, we were joined by Caitlin Harvey and Alexander Paykin from RnD360 Advisory Group.
During this conversation, we took a deep dive into the R&D Tax Incentive.
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What you need to know
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How you need to structure your business
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Assessing your likely eligibility
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The rules and regulations
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And we even explored the significnt benefit of setting your startup up as Early Stage Innovation Company (ESIC)
"Right now, your chances being published in the media and building your profile is HUGE" - Jules Brooke from Handle Your Own PR.
We enjoyed talking to Jules about her tech journey so much that we had to invite her back to explore how PR can help non-techs build their brand and business profile.
Have you ever wanted to be published in the Fin Review or share your story on the Evening News?
In this weeks episode of the DevReady Podcast, we took a deep dive into how to write an article and then get it in the hands the right journalists.
PR is a powerful awareness exercise and it has never been easier to get published. Through the pandemic, the media is getting about 4x as much traffic and half as much content sent to them.
To learn more how you can utilise PR to build your brand, check out the full Episode
On this week's episode of the DevReady Podcast, we were joined by Jules Brooke, founder of Handle Your Own PR.
Handle Your Own PR is a #SaaS and educations business helping small business manage and run their PR campaigns.
Jules discussed the challenges that she faced when running a development project as a non-tech and even how she had to SELL THE HOUSE to continue to fund the development process.
Here is her advice for non-tech building tech: * Always start with a plan * Release in small bites * Have a Roadmap in place * Get a great team around you
"Regardless of the journey, it will be the best thing that you will ever do, ". - Jules Brooke
In the DevReady Podcast this week we were joined by Christina Gerakiteys, CEO of SingularityU Australia, to discuss how they are helping startups and businesses utilise technology to better serve humanity. Christina shared how we can all shoot for that moonshot idea and create new and innovative possibilities with technology to impact a billion people. In this inspiring look at technology, Christina shared many stories the will open up your eyes to the possibilities that are around us.
We are all overload by data. They say "data is the new oil", but does that lend us to capturing data for the sake of capturing data? In today's episode of the DevReady we joined be Jacinta Outlaw from The Fifth Element. During this episode, we explored how startups and businesses can better utilise and collect data to increase their value and solve greater problems. Learn how Jacinta and her team help businesses understand the value of data and how to better engineer your tech products with data partners in mind. A great episode about how we can strategically position of businesses to capture data and solve bigger problems.
“Opportunity is everywhere, except most of us have our eyes closed” – Neville Christie
In Today’s Special Episode of the DevReady Podcast. Neville joined us to talk about the current state of the economy given the coronavirus crisis. 78 years young, Neville has been involved in 44 venture, 41 successful. A profound track record by anyone’s account.
During this episode, Neville shared his amazing journey of how he was forced to become the family breadwinner at the young age of 12. By 13, Neville had begun 3 business, the 3rd of which was collecting and producing Scallop shell ashtrays.
Selling them door-to-door, Neville turned this 5c item into a 75c sale! He then turned this profit into buying and selling newspapers at the local pub, later falling into the business microloans.
At 13, Neville was making 5X the average wage!
In this episode, we take a deep dive into how Purpose has played a major part in Neville’s success and he shared what entrepreneurial life could look like in the aftermath of COVID-19.
In today's episode of the DevReady Podcast, we had Daniel Mumby "That StartUp Guy" join us again. In this episode, we discussed an approach to building a team around you to increase your likelihood of investment and long term success in your tech venture.
Dan's advice for founders; build a team of advisors and ensure that they meet the following criteria:
- Walked the path before and
- are emotionally invested in your success
If you are a non-tech looking build tech consider finding advisors that can help across the following areas:
- Technical
- Industry knowledge
- Sale
- Knows your target customers
- Understand the numbers
In today's episode of the DevReady Podcast, we were joined by Craig McFarlane, Director - Education and Professional Services at Essilor Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Mediterranean-CIS, Russia & Africa at Essilor Group.
In his time at Essilor, Craig has been instrumental in moving the organisational training from face-to-face to blended (online and offline) and now even microlearning approaches.
Craig shared his number one tip from building tech within an organisation.
Keep it simple at the start!
Take it one step at a time and build a robust solution that will allow you to expand your product in the future.
This is great advice for any non-tech looking to build better technology.
In today's episode of the DevReady we had Jamie Skella join us. Thank you, Jamie, for taking the time to share your journey of developing digital products in both corporate and startup environments.
At 13, Jamie first embraced technology as an online gamer and later played for Australia's top-ranked esports teams.
Jamie has now gone full circle, where he now manages Mogul, Australia's first publicly listed esports company.
We first met Jamie when he was running Horizon State, Winner of the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer award, joining the likes of Google, Airbnb, and Spotify. Voted 7 of 100 on a list of world-changing technologies by The Australian.
Thank you Martin Batur for joining us on the DevReady Podcast.
Martin is the Co-Founder of GigSuper, a startup out of Melbourne that is helping the self-employed understand the importance of Superannuation.
Did you know that over 1.3+ million Australians are self-employed and that 75% are NOT currently contributing to Super?
Worst of all 20% have a NO super at all!
GigSuper aims to solve this problem by educating the market and providing an innovative SaaS product to help self-employed folks build their super balance.
In this episode, Martin shared how they approached the development of their product as non-techs.
Learn about what they would have done differently if they had the opportunity to start all over again.
Thank you Brian Ruddle for joining us on the DevReady Podcast this week. Brian is from Impact Innovation where they have been helping startups and corporate with their product innovation for over 13 years now.
Brian has been involved in 4 successful startups, is an advisor in the startup space and is now the Chair of Innovation Management Standards at @standards Australia.
In today’s episode, Brian shares his model describing Idea Complexity. The Idea complexity model provides a great framework to ask the right questions, explore our assumptions and validate ideas and business cases within a structured approach.
This is a great episode for anyone that has had that lightbulb moment and looking for a model to maximise their potential of success.
In this week’s episode of the DevReady, we had Tim Walmsley join us from BenchOn.
Tim shared his story of how he has continued to pivot his business, operations and even target customer to solve a major problem that we can all have in our businesses. Staff under-utilisation.
Tim shared how this non-tech SOLD THE HOUSE and went all-in on his vision.
In 2019, 4 years into the business BenchOn was name the “Defence Connect Australian Defence Industry Start-Up of the Year for 2019”.
In this episode, Tim shared some great insights into what it really takes to create value.
Thank you Stewart Marshall for joining us on the DevReady Podcast this week.
In this episode, we discussed some of the key challenges that a SaaS business can face.
Did you know that 10/11 SaaS businesses fail and that in every SaaS category there is an average of 10 competitors?
Through this podcast, you will learn about how to get ahead in this highly competitive landscape.
If you run own a SaaS business or a looking to build a SaaS product this is a MUST listen.
In today's Episode of the DevReady Podcast we interviewed Cary Gee, founder of BOTTY Limited.
Cary shared his story of how he went from growing and exiting a 200+ stores restaurant chain across Asia to now running his second tech Company.
In 3 short years, this non-tech has grown the Botty team to over 25+ dev and engineers working across contextual AI and Machine Learning supporting 1,000+ clients.
Through the Podcast Cary shared a great insight into how big questions have shaped entrepreneurial journal.
If you are a non-tech looking to convert your ideas into a successful business, this Podcast will provide you with some significant insights.
It is never about the technology.
In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, we interviewed Daniel Mumby "That StartUp Guy" - 15x founder, Startup Mentor, Angel Investor and Author of the book titled, "Before you quit your day job"
In the episode we discussed how focusing on the tech can actually limit your ability to succeed. We looked at the importance of a strategic plan, understanding your business model and how to deliver a product and service that your customers will love, need and desire.
This is a must-listen for anyone that is building a technology product.
In this week’s episode of the DevReady Podcast, we interviewed Robert Venter. Robert, thank you for coming on to the Podcast and sharing your journey.
Robert is the founder and CEO of Eazi-Tender.
In 2015 Robert set out on the journey to develop an all in one platform to solve the problem of having to work with multiple software packages with little integration in the project management space.
Throughout his journey, Robert engaged with several tech partners and was even invited to Silicon Valley accelerator to realise his dream.
However, success wasn’t realised until he discovered that the problem he was attempted to solve needed refinement.
A core focus on a single problem that could add significant value to a large client base.
If you are a non-tech building tech, this episode drives home the importance of understanding what your customers really need.
We have just launched our new DevReady Podcast. Our first interview is with Judy Celmins of Engage4Insights. She shares her story about jumping into the development of their own app, It’s a great story with plenty of interesting takeaways.
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Today's Podcast is with Mellonie Francis, a non-tech founder of Find Book Beauty. Learn about her journey that started out building an MVP with a website builder. This led to engaging technical advisor and dev team which she later had to sack.
If you are looking to take an Idea to Software this is a must listen.
Visit our website, or follow us on social media for more insights Website: https://aerion.com.au LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aeri... Medium: https://medium.com/aerion-technologies Twitter: https://twitter.com/aeriontech Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTech
Validating and Idea can be one of the biggest challenges when building a new product.
Are we solving a problem that our customers actually value? Are solving the problem with the right solution?
Let's face it, we all can fall in love with our ideas and sometimes this can mean we jump into delivery way too early.
In this episode of the DevReady podcast we interviewed Nick Coster. Nick is from Brainmates, where he and his team help product owners deliver products that customers love.
Nick shared a step by step approach to designing and validating solutions with our target customers.
If you have an idea and want to deliver a technology solution, this is a must listen.
Visit our website, or follow us on social media for more insights Website: https://aerion.com.au LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aeri... Medium: https://medium.com/aerion-technologies Twitter: https://twitter.com/aeriontech Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aerionTech