The CRIISP Podcast: Recent Episodes
CRIISP Pty Ltd
Talking all things founder, investor, raising capital and closing deals.
What is CRIISP?
CRIISP, powered by Wholesale Investor, is an end-to-end, SaaS platform for raising capital, accessing investors, engaging in Q&As, managing and tracking investor interest, and operating your investment deal room.
Interested in being a guest? Email patrick@criisp.io or Click here: https://forms.gle/7iZAqE5BoLieBp717
In these unique times, Founders are learning very quickly that leading teams who are working remotely presents a unique set of challenges. In this session with talent expert Alicia Lykos we explore the fundamental habits that Founders can implement to create engagement and performance. We also discuss the more sensitive task of letting team members go
Over the last few years, if you have spent any time looking at business or personal development online, you are likely to have come across Kerwin Rae. His content around resilience, perspective and leadership during times of crisis, I personally have received value from. For many Founders and Investors, this is an important topic right now.
Kerwin and I have known each other for nearly 20 years and I asked him to join me to discuss these topics. During the interview, he talks about his recent experience of having to take a live physical event to online streaming (because of COVID-19), in the middle of it. We finish with an incredible story of when he unexpectedly had a gun intently pointed at his head by Ukrainian special forces.
https://www.criisp.io/podcast
https://wholesaleinvestor.com.au/
THE SEARCH FUND CONCEPT
A search fund is an investment vehicle, which allows aspiring entrepreneurs the opportunity to search for, acquire, manage and grow a company. The search fund concept originated in 1984 in the US and has become increasingly well known among business schools and private investors.
AUSTRALIAN SEARCHERS
Entrepreneurship is not just about startup or developing the next best app or product. It’s also about growing value by thinking differently in any business, including one that you buy.
In Australia there is a unique opportunity, the estimated market value of businesses with baby-boomer owners that will need to change hands in the decade is ~$3.5 trillion. This is a massive shift in control and value which will impact the prosperity of the Australian economy (Dr Richard Schrapnel, Pitcher Partners (2014)).
ABOUT SECOND SQUARED
We are an accelerator for Search Funds in Australia. We work with searchers, investors, business owners and industry mentors to create and nurture an eco-system in which search funds thrive. Our range of services and acceleration programs enable “talented-entrepreneurs” to find, buy and grow an existing business that is ready to be taken to the next level.
Steve Torso chats with renowned investor Steve Baxter from Transition Level Investments and Shark Tank fame to discuss how Founders and Investors can collaborate effectively during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and the investment opportunity which has been created
Founders usually leave their legals to the last minute. Steve Torso speaks with LawPath CEO, Dominic Woolrych, on why you should be proactive throughout any stage of your business, especially for your capital raise.
Offer
Already using CRIISP? Get LawPath to generate your legal documents free for 3 months! Head to http://try.lawpath.com.au/criisp
About LawPath
Lawpath was founded in Sydney, Australia to change the way that legal services are provided in Australia and Asia. We use technology to offer a new type of legal platform, one that can provide quality legal solutions – for a fraction of the time, cost and complexity of the traditional system.
https://lawpath.com.au/
Focusing on sales in growing businesses is hardly brought up. Today, we have Steve Torso speaking with JD from Sales Director Central, on why we should be paying more attention to our business development within our own business.
Who is Sales Director Central?
Our passion is changing the way Founders, Owners and Directors create Revenue and Scale to realise their dreams.
We help Founders, Owners and Directors scale through excellence in Sales Leadership become the sales leader who drives scale in your business.
Stop "Sales" being a dirty word in your business. Leverage our proven experience to your advantage. Make better use of your time.
https://www.salesdirectorcentral.com/
Steve Fanale, now onto his biggest challenge yet, drops in on the podcast and discusses how previously being an athlete and veteran founder has set him on the road to success.
About Drive Yello
Yello focuses on providing services and software that will revolutionise how drivers in last mile delivery are sourced, managed and paid. Our aim is to build a business here in Australia with the aim of raising funds to take our platform to the ever-growing global last mile delivery market.
About Steve Fanale
Steve began his career in the interactive and digital media industry in 1997. After initially working in senior exec roles at Young & Rubicam and APL Digital he decided to take the plunge and start up his own interactive agency, MassMedia Studios, in 2000.
MassMedia Studios was an Australian leader in the provision of digital and interactive services and moved on to the international stage when he opened offices in London and New York in 2006, and grew the team to more than fifty employees with global brands like Audi, Cadbury, Unilever, Diageo, Vue Entertainment and Yahoo!7 on its key client list.
Early on it became apparent that a digital agency's success could be enhanced with the inclusion of a product offering. So in 2003 work begun on the development of Traction, a relationship marketing platform that helps brands interact, learn and effectively target their customers across all marketing channels. Highly regarded across the digital marketing industry, Traction has grown into a global platform with clients across North America, Europe and Asia.
In 2007 MassMedia and Traction were sold to the publicly listed BlueFreeway group. During his time within the group, Steve was asked to move into an interim COO role to improve the groupʼs internal processes and stabilise its financial position. With new investment in the group and solid strategy for long-term growth in place at BlueFreeway, Steve then returned to MassMedia to manage a very successful phase of the business within the IPMG Group.
In 2010 Steve left the business to take some time off but his interest in digital innovation brought him back into the world of apps in 2012. As the founder and creator of AppVillage, Steve believed he had developed an incubation model to meet the needs of innovators, designers, developers, investors and consumers who love being part of the app world.
In 2014 founded Drive Yello which drew him back into building enterprise platforms for global businesses again.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fanale/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/yello-pty-ltd/
Sidney Macdessi joins in on the podcast being real about pitch decks, why they're important and why you should be paying more attention to them.
About Sidney
Working in capital markets to find, showcase as well as connect high quality emerging and established companies to high calibre investors (Family Offices, VCs, PE firms & High Net Worths).
Responsible for sourcing great opportunities, collaborating with industry experts and actively promoting THE RIGHT opportunities to our investor network.
Links:
sidney@wholesaleinvestor.com.au
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidney-macdessi-957140a4/
The bonus podcast for this week involves explaining the significance of our upcoming flagship event, Emergence 2020.
For more information, details on the event can be found below:
https://www.emergence2020.com.au/
Steve Torso dives into where Capital Raising began, where it is now and its place into the future.
Steve Torso speaks with Garry Visontay, Partner at Right Click Capital, about the Venture Capital landscape in Australia and with both participating as judges for the CEBIT PitchFest, discuss what makes a captivating pitch to investors.
About CEBIT
CEBIT Australia showcases the dynamic merger of business with technology, where it’s going and how it can help you in your daily job.
The themes that will shape CEBIT this year:
Transformation and disruption
Driving business growth
Data privacy and trust
The future of work
Changing lives with technology
Applications of emerging technology
As a member of our network, you automatically qualify for 20% off tickets using this code: INV20 - simply head on over to this link here, and get your ticket today - they are running out fast.
From the 29th October until the 31st October, we'll be taking part in CEBIT, with our Managing Director and Founder, Steve Torso joining the PitchFest as a judge. Take a full look at the CEBIT agenda here.
About Right Click Capital
We’re passionate founders and investors who back ambitious technology businesses in Australia, New Zealand, and South East Asia.
We support founders who are building remarkable businesses and work with them to make their vision a reality. The Right Click Capital team has over seven decades of combined experience in starting, scaling and selling businesses. We’ve experienced each step of the journey, and know what it takes to build a great business. We are the Australian member of the Draper Venture Network.
https://www.rightclickcapital.com/
Recorded on our launch at WeWork Pyrmont in August, Steve Torso provided founders with unique insights on the capital raising process and best practice when working with investors.
We've created additional resources on our website that breaks down capital raising into four topics:
https://www.start.wholesaleinvestor.com.au/resources
Dimitri Galanis unapologetically drops truth behind why founders need to be strategic in their marketing. We discuss the roadmap from launching their business to seeking capital in an upcoming raise and what startups and scaleups need to do to be successful in this ever-changing landscape that is marketing.
Who is Point Dot Media?
Dimitri founded Point Dot Media in 2016 whilst working for Australias largest media publishing company. Dimitri’s vision is to align small to medium-sized brands in Australia with skilful and passionate media talent as a team to deliver timely, reliable and quality work.
Want to get in touch? Reach out to him on info@pointdot.com.au
Socials:
https://www.facebook.com/pointdotmedia/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/pointdotmedia/
In today’s podcast we discuss the exciting startup Active8me, digital health and wellness, the investment landscape in Asia, and what drives Olympian and ex VC Jeremy Rolleston.
Not only is Jeremy Rolleston a two-time Olympian, and ex VC, he is also the founder of Active8me - an exciting startup tackling chronic disease and wellness with a digital SaaS health & wellness platform. (Check out this video here => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zde4HjzApc0).
And it is clear there is a need as the epidemic of preventable chronic disease increases rapidly. Did you know that by 2020 75% of deaths are estimated to be caused by chronic disease? Yes 3 out of 4!
The Active8me platform provides a range of targeted programs with customised plans incorporating exercise + nutrition + mindset + tracking + DNA + coaching and more. It offers a scalable, cost effective way of addressing costly chronic conditions. Plus an all-in-one convenient mobile solution for aspirational consumers who increasingly care about their fitness, health and wellness. Significantly, as a SaaS offering, the entire platform can be white-labelled to provide branded solutions for insurers, health companies, HMOs and other partners. Active8me’s focus is primarily in Asia where the opportunity is huge and at early stages, and where there is very little like it in SE Asia. However it can be scaled elsewhere.
Active8me has just opened up the last remaining part of its seed capital raise to CRIISP.
So we took the opportunity to speak to Jeremy about a range of interesting topics related to his startup, his background, Asia, digital health and more.
Steve Torso speaks with Amanda Cunanan from Aequo Partners to get her perspectives on deal-making as an advisor.
Amanda joined Aequo Partners in January 2018 and has over 12 years’ experience in mid-market M&A, corporate finance and business strategy
Amanda has an extensive background in FMCG having spent five years in M&A and strategy roles at one of Australasia's largest food and beverage companies, Lion Co. Prior to Lion Co, she worked at Miles Advisory Partners and commenced her career at Deloitte Corporate Finance
About Aequo Partners
Corporate finance advisory boutique specialising in mid-market M&A, providing corporate finance and strategic advice across all aspects of transaction-based projects.
Services include:
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Divestments
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Acquisitions
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Mergers
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Leveraged buyouts
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Equity / debt growth capital
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Strategic reviews
http://www.aequopartners.com.au
We speak with Chris Rolls, Managing Director of PieLAB, on what every founder needs to know.
During the past 20 years, Chris Rolls has built from scratch four different businesses across four different industries, making him one of Australia’s leading entrepreneurs. Three of these businesses – Rental Express, SCODY Performance Wear and First Class Accounts – have become among the largest of their kind in Australia.
Through Rental Express, (a technology enabled property management business) Chris built the largest privately owned residential property management business in Queensland with more than $2 billion of residential investment property under management across 300 suburbs. Chris sold Rental Express in 2015 in what has been widely regarded as the largest sale of a privately owned rent-roll in Australia.
Chris is considered one of the most influential people in the Australian Real Estate Industry and has presented keynote presentations at every major real estate conference in Australia and New Zealand, on the subjects of property management, real estate business growth and entrepreneurship.
Chris is regularly requested to offer media comment on entrepreneurship and property-related issues. He’s appeared in “Your Investment Property” and Australian Property Investor” magazines, “The Courier Mail” and “The Australian” newspapers, and is the resident property management expert for Brisbane’s 4BC radio show “Real Estate Talk”.
Chris has Bachelor in Sports Science and an MBA from Melbourne Business School and has studied private equity and venture capital investment at Harvard Business School. He also previously worked as the Operations Director at ASX-listed investment group Arowana International.
What is PieLAB?
PieLAB Venture Partners is a venture capital business established in 2016 to invest in late-stage startups. We invest our capital, experience and unrivalled network in the Australian Real Estate Industry to help dedicated founders to reach their full potential. We take a hands-on, direct approach as we become an extension of your company. We help businesses to make real world impact with our team of experienced founders and entrepreneurs by your side.
https://www.pielab.com.au/
Jenny Morel, Founder and Managing Director of Morgo, walks through her twenty years of Venture Capital with Steve Torso. Jenny discusses what she has seen throughout the landscape and the founders and companies through various stages of raising capital.
What Is Morgo?
Today’s Australia and New Zealand are a vibrant mixture of self-assured, flexible, resilient people, great cafés and restaurants, film and fashion industries that are world-class, and a rapidly increasing number of exciting high growth companies building global businesses.
Morgo is where the people building these high growth companies from New Zealand or Australia get together.
Morgo provides an annual re-charge, an opportunity to re-connect with the other people building high growth companies and to get re-excited about being in business.
A mix of international and local speakers stimulate the discussions: successful entrepreneurs to learn from, offshore entrepreneurs to challenge us, and science speakers to expand our thinking with workshops to encourage sharing experiences and to learn from the maestros present.
See more at: https://www.morgo.co
Sam Riley, Co-Founder and CEO of Ansarada speaks with Steve Torso on the nuances of the capital raising process.
Alicia Lykos from Red Wolf Group breaks down why founders should strive for high-performing teams, what it means and why it builds strong teamwork.
Interested in learning more about Red Wolf Group? Reach out to alicia@redwolfgroup.com.au
What will you learn?
- Build high-performing teams by understanding the diverse behavioural drives and needs of your team members.
- Use team data to decode and leverage the unique dynamics and work styles of organizations of any scale, from project teams to large units.
- Develop and apply practical organizational management strategies that maintain team members at their peak performance and engagement.
What impact will you see?
- Increased productivity driven by improved interpersonal relationships and positive team dynamics
- More effective communication and enhanced collaboration, within and across teams
- Greater employee engagement fostered by more effective management and leadership practices