The Unicorn Farm - turning startup horses into billion dollar unicorns: Recent Episodes
The Unicorn Farm
The Unicorn Farm was conceived to help transform startups from horses to billion dollar unicorns. It’s tough being an entrepreneur and if this collection of interviews and insights helps in any way at all, it will have served its purpose. As well as his role helping the startup sector in Australia and New Zealand for AWS, Ian Gardiner helps to run Innovation Bay, a networking group whose mission statement is to help technology startups succeed. It runs Angel investment dinners and speaker events for entrepreneurs, investors and senior executives in the technology sector. Previously to all of this he was the CEO and founder of Viocorp, an Australian video software startup. At the dawn of the internet age (1997), he was the founding employee of newsbase.com, a successful news, analysis and business intelligence service from emerging markets. He also founded and ran lastorders.com in the UK. In November 2009 Ian won the NSW Pearcey award for ICT Entrepreneur of the Year. Ian holds a Master of Engineering from the University of Oxford where he also won two rowing blues in the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race. In his spare time he is a competitive cyclist, avid computer gamer, husband and father of two boys (not in that order).
Dr Catriona Wallace has an amazing story around her Flamingo journey. With some amazing insights. She was genuinely inspiring, eye-opening, frank, charismatic and energetic.
Ash is a very successful Aussie who has been living in the heart of the US startup and venture scene for many years now.
In this chat we held at the Equitise launch of their Syndicates product, I chat to him about this investment model and his observation on the Aussie startup sector.
Kate Cornick is the new CEO at Launch Vic, the Victorian Government's $60m investment vehicle. We cover a very wide range of topics here. What is launch Vic? What does success look like? How did Kate get this role? She's a fascinating lady in a very cool job.
Greg Moshal is an entrepreneur with over 12 years experience in entering new markets across diverse industries.Greg knew firsthand the difficulties faced by small businesses in accessing money to run and grow a business and founded Prospa in 2011 to change the way small business owners experience finance. Using a proprietary technology platform and a fast, simple online application process, Prospa can approve loans and provide funding in as little as 24 hours.Today Prospa is Australia’s leading online small business lender and in 2015 was named Australia’s fastest growing technology company at Deloitte TechFast 50 Australian awards having secured a phenomenal 6971% growth! Since 2011, Prospa has lent over $130m to thousands of small businesses in Australia. We chatted to Greg about how his experience in fast-moving unpredictable environments has sharpened his focus on innovation. He is a champion of agile, holistic design thinking, where disruptive change can make things that are difficult, easy. His specialty is partnering strategically with the best people to achieve excellence in developing and bringing business ideas to life.
He might be the youngest minister in Australia’s history, but Assistant Minister for Innovation Wyatt Roy shows no signs of inexperience. An impressive speaker, and a passionate advocate for innovation and the entrepreneurial community, when Mr Roy sat down with Innovation Bay Co-founder, Ian Gardiner, he suggested it might not just be a cultural shift that’s needed, but a generational one. Mr Roy began by defining innovation as ‘the output of a deeply entrepreneurial culture’, and continued by outlining what he sees as the role of government: ‘as a Liberal, I’m someone who feels the government should generally get out of the way. The questions I ask myself are: “How do we act as an enabler? And “How can we be a facilitator between sectors, such as the University sector and the private world?”’While ‘getting out of the way’ of business may be his ideal, Mr Roy concedes that placing innovation on the agenda (through the Government’s aptly named Innovation Agenda) will involve a fair bit of hands-on work. ‘We’ve announced 24 policies to date. The Prime Minister wants to add to them if we can, but he is also willing to review them if any aren’t working.’However, to properly embrace this process of testing ideas and seeing what works, Mr Roy acknowledges it will require not just the politicians who are willing to risk being criticised, but for Australians generally to shift their thinking about business success and failure: ‘In many ways we need a cultural change in this country. We need to be willing to accept failure and embrace risk if we are truly going to be a leader in innovation.’‘Innovation is not about how many zeroes you can add to a government cheque, it’s about the cultural changes we are trying to make so the next generation feels like Australia is a place where they can build their businesses and have their ideas embraced.’Despite the work that needs to be done, Mr Roy remains confident that the future is going to be a positive one: ‘I’m actually quite optimistic about the change we are going to see in this space. I’m excited that we are going to see a shift.’It’s a shift he believes will need to be lead by his generation: ‘When you look at Super fund investment in start-ups, it’s the younger generation who have many years of investing ahead, who are more willing to take greater risks. They have an appetite for it.’Being young is something the minister can’t escape. When asked about what would lead such a young person to choose politics as a career (he was first elected as a 20-year-old), he seemed to have a view beyond his years:‘You have to have a balance, and a bit of perspective. I believe I can be good at what I do and still be able to go out occasionally and have a good time with my mates. The thing with politics is, we are all better served if we have diversity. Age is just one area.’His youth is perhaps what fuels his idealism, and his critics have been quick to suggest that like the Prime Minister, more action and less articulation is necessary for real change to occur. But, acting in an environment where governments are elected and ousted on public opinion and the general population is yet to really understand or embrace the value of innovation, requires some selling—which Mr Roy seems well equipped to do.He explains: ‘We are starting from a foundation where there’s not the political will and the public support for this. We need parents around the dinner table to think this is very important for their children’s future.’Mr Roy also acknowledges that taking action may cost him his job: ‘You have to have the political will to risk a little bad press in order to promote risk culture. You actually have to have politicians who are brave enough to ride against the media.’And, if his recent actions in writing to Australia’s Vice Chancellors regarding an education technology start-up teaches us anything, it’s that Mr Roy is willing to take action, regardless of the negative coverage it may attract. He is clearly an advocate for the innovation sector and sees the need to push for cultural change.Speaking to our Innovation Bay members, he was among the like-minded. But, he was not afraid to address criticisms of the NBN and even the government’s immigration policy. Here again, he felt that public opinion fuelled by a reactionary media was playing a role: ‘People say “they are coming to take our jobs” and it’s completely wrong… we want to make it as easy as possible for entrepreneurs to come and work here; for students who want to start businesses to stay after they have finished their studies. We are prioritising digital skillsets.’Time will tell whether the policies put in place by the current government will bring about the cultural change needed to foster a strong innovation culture, but the message that this government recognises innovation’s value as an industry is clear. As is what Mr Roy regards as the ultimate measure of success:‘When the next generation of Australian children feel that they can be an entrepreneur and can be a success, that will be the measure of our success.’If Mr Roy is an example of what the future leaders of this country value, then innovation appears well placed to gain the focus as an industry we believe it deserves.We’d like to thank the Minister for his candour and open participation in our Q&A, as well as our hosts Macquarie, for making it such a special event. If you missed out, make sure you sign up as a member, follow us on Twitter or join ourLinkedIn page to stay up-do-date on our upcoming events.
James came along to an Innovation Bay event in late 2015. He was a remarkable CEO. Very young, very dynamic and utterly competent. Whilst at the same time very humble and soft-spoken. Here's an excerpt from the Innovation Bay blog post after the event:
James Spenceley (http://www.innovationbay.com/past-speakers-single/james-spenceley) has overseen the incredible success of Vocus Communications (http://www.vocus.com.au). In 2009, Vocus was Australia's fastest-growing technology company, which led to James winning the prestigious Deloitte Technology Fast 50 award.
Today, Vocus Communications is a member of the ASX200 with a market capitalisation of more than AU$1.493 Billion - a staggering achievement for a start-up that James originally funded through refinancing his home mortgage in 2008. He joined us for our Innovation Bay speaker breakfast in Sydney on November 11, to share what he's learnt so far from his journey and what he hopes to achieve in future.
Quick to stress that success is never by chance, James reflected on his meteoric rise with a sense of humour: 'the harder I worked, the luckier I got.' He also puts the key to customer service equally plainly: 'don't screw the customer.'
But, he also realised there was more to building a strong company. Early on, he learned the importance of having a great organisational culture: 'You need really clear, concise goals to create culture and provide direction. You also need tangible values, which are about how you want to achieve those goals, like "no muppets".'
'When you're looking for people to invest in, look for people who have a thirst to understand all parts of the business.'
His philosophy for sustained success is a simple one, yet not traditionally common in the industry: 'We want Vocus to become the telco of choice. To do this you have to look after your customers, ensuring the contract is fair.'
While there is still a way to go yet, he is seeing positive signs that the Australian government is starting to move in the right direction: 'Government backing for start-ups is really important. They could do more in terms of support, funding and grants, but the government now wants to do something, which is great.'
James wasn't afraid to share his views on the #NBN, either. He provided his opinion on problems with the prior plans behind the NBN, such as the budget; and his sense that Malcolm Turnbull's current scheme - which makes productive use of the existing copper network - is feasible.
Despite having achieved so much already, there is a still a hunger in James to go further: 'I have the desire to prove people wrong. I'm always seeking to learn, and I'm driven by new challenges.'
One of these exciting challenges might come from what could be his next project. Commenting on rumours of a potential joint venture with NextGen, he said: 'A cable from Perth to Singapore is critical for Australian infrastructure.'
While his work may take him further afield, his focus remains on making the most of local opportunities: 'It's important to know what you're good at. There are lots of opportunities in Australia and NZ to focus on.'
In reflecting on his leadership philosophy, he remarked: 'My role is to find the right answer, what's the right way to do something, rather than to just impose an answer on everyone.'
One of the luxuries that US VCs have over Australian ones is that with the size of their funds, range of investments and sheer size they can afford to employ crazy-smart technologists like Adrian.
Adrian was in Australia for a few days and I managed to catch up with him and grab this interview. It's probably the most teccie interview I have done. On the edge of my comfort zone :0
Adrian worked at Netflix in 2008 when it made the decision to go all-in on AWS as a scalable cloud platform. It makes sense now, but back then this decision was pretty surprising to many people. He now works at one of the US's best VCs, Battery Ventures where he advises the firm and its portfolio companies about technology issues and also assists with deal sourcing and due diligence.
He graduated from The City University, London with a Bsc in Applied Physics and Electronics, and was named one of the top leaders in Cloud Computing in 2011 and 2012 by SearchCloudComputing magazine. He can usually be found on Twitter @adrianco.
Thanks for being on the show, Adrian.
I hosted an Innovation Bay Breakfast with Luke and Scott in Sydney in October 2015.
As I said in my opening, we really were in the presence of startup royalty. These guys are the Real Deal. And they treated us to an awesome event with some amazing insights.
Innovation Bay wrote a blog post on it, which you can see here: http://www.innovationbay.com/baywatch/2015/10/15/breakfast-with-luke-anear-safetyculture-scott-farquhar-atlassian
Rod Drury is the founder and CEO of Xero, a New Zealand accounting software business. Rod joined me for a chat at the launch of Innovation Bay's Melbourne chapter. He's an amazing guy with an incredible story. Remote location and a perceived scarcity of growth capital have certainly not been a handicap for Xero as it has grown into the $3bn software powerhouse it is today.
I moderated a panel on the Australian Startup Ecosystem as part of The Big Pitch in Melbourne. Fascinating discussion. On the panel with me: - Doron Ben-Meir from University of Melbourne - Bronwen Clune from Culture Amp - Scott Handsaker from Startup Victoria - Peter Bradd from StartupAUS
I was invited by the team at Melbourne's Oxygen Ventures to help curate and moderate a live panel just before the Big Pitch event in June 2015 in Melbourne. We pulled together a great panel to discuss "What Corporates can learn from Startups". On the panel with me were: - Alan Noble from Google - Geoff Gourlay from Impact Investment Fund - Patrick Barrett from ECAL - Mark Drasutis from News Corp
As part of the Sunrise conference this year I had the chance to interview the amazing Jost Stollmann from Tyro. Thanks to Niki and the guys from Blackbird for pulling the conference together. Really valuable for the whole sector and great fun too.
Tony Surtees is the co-founder of Zeetings, an amazing tool to make presentations and meetings more engaging and interactive. For both the presenter and the audience.
I visited the hotbed of Canberra startup innovation, the CBR Innovation Network. One of their hottest startups is Instaclustr, which offers cloud access to the remarkable Apache Cassandra database. Only about a year old this startup has delivered an amazing product, expanded overseas and raised over $2m in funding. I sat down and chatted to Doug Stuart, their CEO.
Luke is the founder and CEO of Safety Culture, one of Australia's most promising startups.
Darcy was one of the co-founders of the remarkable starup factory, York Butter Factory. Hear the story behind this and an insight into Melbourne's startup scene.
Justin Kan is an American Internet entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder of live video platforms Justin.tv and TwitchTV, as well as the mobile social video application Socialcam. He is a partner at venture capital firm Y Combinator.
Neil is the CEO of OzForex, a recent entrant to Australia's ASX stock exchange after a successful listing in 2013. Neil talks frankly about what the process of listing your company is like. Plenty of pros and cons in that story and lessons in there for all of us.
Toby runs Australia's first financial-sector focused accelerator, AWI Ventures. Now on their second batch of 6 startups, Toby discusses why he has focused on this sector and what to look forward to from the startups.
Alexis is the founder and CEO of Madpaws, an Airbnb-for-pets startup based in Sydney. We talk to Alex about how he has managed to build his technology without a full-time CTO.