River City Labs First Friday Bytes!

Last Friday, I got out of the house again! I attended Group Mentoring with Llew Jury (which I wrote about in more detail in a different post) and the newly revamped River City Labs Pitches, which are now called River City Labs First Friday Bytes.

The big change was that the first talk of the afternoon was a from an entrepreneur who had “made it”. Last Friday the found was Bradley Rasmussen of Sizztech. He shared some tips and tricks he learnt along his journey. He explained that his current business grew out of his first business. He also explained that Sizztech was self-funded. I think a lot of people miss opportunities when they become too focused on their current business. Also, too many get caught up in raising capital, when they can create a perfectly viable business by bootstrapping. So it was great that River City Labs highlighted a business that opted not to raise money.

Finally, we went onto the pitches for the night, and AI was over-represented. We first AI pitch from a founder who has created a sleeve that is looking help people with upper limb loss to have fine motor control of their robotic prosthetics. It’s interesting, and I am keen to see how the startup grows and evolves.

The second AI pitch was from Red Realities whose pitch is that they want to free creatives from doing low-value artwork. So one way of putting it is that “AI is now after artists jobs!”

The AI heavy pitches prompted a man with a gorgeous beard to go up and pitch his business Blue Life AI. He offered those in attended a free trial of his training program. During the questions, he mentioned that he has already taught millions of people online and mentioned his main business is called SUPER DATA SCIENCE!

It was then that the penny dropped and I realised the speaker was Kirill Eremenko, or as he is known to my brother and I “the R guy”. I clearly blanked out when they announced his name. So yes, I got to meet that man whose online course my brother and I took to learn R. It was like meeting a minor celebrity. It was fun; I took a selfie. 10/10 would go to another First Friday Bytes!

Group Mentoring with Llew Jury

Last Friday, I attended the Group Mentoring with Llew Jury, at River City Labs. It was a great event that sent me home with some essential tools. The first one was the correct way to fill out the business model canvas. For me, this was a refresher. Still, it’s always good to remember that your focus should be a problem -> customer - > unique value proposition -> solution before moving on to other things. Many startups make the mistake of either trying to start with the solution and looking for a problem. Alternatively, having problems, solution and customers but not having a unique value proposition.

The other concept Llew Jury talked about was market product fit, instead of product-market fit. I think this is a very venture capitalist way of thinking about it. I have heard Steve Corlett express that he isn’t as concerned about a business’s product beyond it can effectively address the problem for which there is a market. I don’t think inventors and innovators want to hear, but it’s true. You can have the greatest product in the world, but if no one is willing to pay you for it, you can’t make a business out of it.

The completely new concept I learnt during the group mentoring was the SaaS Mission Matrix. Llew Jury credited Edward Ford’s Advance B2B Blog post on the topic. The matrix posits that the same sales strategy does not work on businesses of all size. You can’t be hands-on and in-person with a small business who have a meagre customer lifetime value. Likewise, you can’t be hands-off and automated with huge enterprises who are injecting millions of dollars into your business. So you need to work out what you are and focus on the sweet spots. I would like to kickoff a SaaS business one day, and I know that marketing can make or break, SaaS. So getting introduced to the SaaS Mission Matrix made the trip to attend worthwhile.

Following the SaaS Matrix, Llew went on to discuss marketing. It wasn’t anything new per se. But I liked how Llew laid it out (see photo). I need to start marketing Start with Tinni. So I need to start thinking about personnas, marketing channels, brand positioning etc.

One of the last things Llew covered was how to raise money. It flew by quickly. But the biggest take away was that sales speak louder than anything. But he also mentioned team building, and once again, personality tests made an appearance. Llew said that his venture firm uses the Belbin model of personalities. I am currently working on writing an article for Medium on personality tests. So I’ll talk about Belbin more there. But it fascinates me how big personality tests are in startup land.

Llew Jury ended the session with some book recommendation. He recommended Good to Great, Scaling Up and Secrets of Sand Hill Road. I will be adding them to be Audible list, Overall, it was a good session, and I would recommend attending the next one!

SheEO Australia Simulcast, If the Shoe Fits, Big Ideas Competition & Small Business Expo

Last week ended in a flurry of activities! I started Thursday early with the SheEO Australia Simulcast, where I got to listen to how SheEO has progressed in Australia since I attended the launch event last year. It was an inspirational way to start the morning, where I also put myself forward by asking for people to contact me if they need my services as a consultant CTO.

During the morning I found out about the “If the Shoe Fits”, a pop-up shop from The World’s Biggest Garage Sale. I ended up buying two shoes, both of which turned out to be Shoes of Prey shoes! I was thinking that they had unusual looks. But I didn’t realise that they were unusual because they were custom made! Shoes of Prey was a very successful startup that died trying to scale-up. As a startup enthusiast, I am glad I got a chance to get a hold of a pair of this part of Australian startup history.

Thursday ended with my regular meeting with Josari at the QUT Foundry, which is when I discovered that the Foundry was hosting the Big Ideas competition. I stuck around for two pitches. I wish I could have heard all of them but I had to get going. But the two ideas I got to hear were pretty cool. One was a robot that can be a companion to stressed university students. The other was about a shampoo bar with minimum packaging that can be sold by the homeless. I think both ideas are worth exploring further.

Finally, on Friday I checked out the Small Business Expo. I heard mixed reviews for the expo. So I wanted to check it out at least once. There was a good mix of businesses there, including some MLM traps! I didn’t have a game plan for promoting myself to the people there. But I was happy to take the scene in and hang out with Anne-Marie Walton of Kids Wantu, and Paul Buckwell of Josari. I’ll have a better game plan the next time I visit. But for now, I am glad to be enjoying my weekend. Also, Happy Diwali for those celebrating!

Creative3, The Awards

Last Thursday, I had the privilege of attending the Creative3 Awards. It was my first time going to the Awards. But I did get to the Creative3 Dinner last year. Indeed, I believe the Creative3 Awards replaced the Dinners because the Creative3 teams like to keep things fresh by mixing things up. The event was extra special because the team was celebrating ten years of Creative3!

I always enjoy activities organised by QUT CEA because they bring the most interesting speakers. But before we get to the four speakers, here are the four winners from the afternoon:

• The Rising Star, Creative Tech: Creatively Squared

• The Innovator, Creative Tech: Toast VR

• The Rising Star, Fashion: Buluuy Mirrii

• The Creative Trailblazer: Monica Davidson

Congratulations to all the winners! They were a great cross-section of the creative industries sector of Australia. But now, on to the speaker!

The first speaker was Carolyn Miller, the founding director of communications consultancy: The Honeycomb Effect. She gave a fascinating talk about brands and how important and emotive it can be. She also touched on how we often define ourselves by NOT following brands, but that still involves acknowledging brands. As I was sitting there, I was thinking about how I consider myself an Android person and partly define myself by not buying Apple products. I enjoyed her talk that’s partially captured in the article “There Are No Boring Brands, Just Boring Marketers“.

The next speaker was Nick Rakis, who is a business designer and founding Partner of Accelio. He is one of the mastermind CSIRO’s ON PRIME program. His talk focused on the fall of Blackberry, and now Microsoft was heading that way after losing the mobile wars to Google and Apple. But he pointed out that Microsoft had quietly bounced back, overtaking Google and Amazon in market cap during our current cloud and AI wars. He talked about how the current CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, hand changed the culture of Microsoft so that it could better tackle current and future challenges. The central message of listening to customers is one I have heard before. Still, unfortunately, it is a message that businesses just don’t seem to do! After his talk, I added Satya Nadella’s book, Hit Refresh, to my wish list.

And now: A fashion interlude!

(I swear the audience missed it’s cue to clap on the day but that’s another story!)

After a short break and a short fashion show, we were back with Mareile Osthus, who is the Chief Category Management Officer, The Iconic! Her talk focused on “new retail” now that we are no longer bound the old limits of geography. She talked about how, when she was growing up in a small town in Europe, she could tell a classmate who was wearing a particular brand had most likely been to the US recently. You can’t do that anymore. I mean, obviously there are still places where Amazon does deliver or the Iconic is not available. But for the most part, brands are not geographically bound and we can shop any brand, any style and at the price point of our choice. So what becomes the differentiator? Mareile suggested it will be around values, customer experience and aspirations. I agree and I think new retail will be exciting!

Finally, the last talk of the night was delivered by Adam Elliot, the Oscar Award-winning independent stop-motion animation writer and director. Unlike the others, he’s talk was more motivational and less educational. But it was a great way to end the afternoon. I enjoyed all the talks, and I look forward to seeing what Creative3 does next year!

September In Review: A bit slow but got better!

September was a slow month for me as I was very sick! I had to go to the hospital for an iron infusion as my blood haemoglobin had dropped to dangerous levels. But I did do a few things. Given how this month has gone, I decided to make a list of everything that I did as a general life update!

The first thing I managed to this month was on the 16th. That was to attend another talk organised by the Connect Collaborative. I met a few more people, but it wasn’t a good night. I was still suffering from the after-effects of Gastro. But I am glad I went. I haven't completely decided what to do with “the Hub”. But I understand the importance of networks. So I am likely to visit again. Hopefully, I won’t have Gastro the next time I make it to the Hub!

Later that week was my birthday, on the 19th. I started celebrating on the 18th, going out to dinner with my family. But I continued to celebrate on the 19th with cake while relishing the ability to eat without throwing up.

My iron transfusion took place on the 23rd, which was just-in-time for me to be more myself during the Breakfast with the Angels. It wasn’t a great start as my Uber driver did not know the city area. So blindly followed the Wave navigation app to turn what should have been a 15-minute ride into a 45-minute ordeal! But I got there eventually, had smashed Avacado with feta with Brisbane Angel’s Gianni. Inndox’s Andrew, and Energy Lab’s Camille. The conversation was good. I loved hearing about Andrew’s journey with Inndox. I picked up a few tips from Gianni. I had a good morning. My Elevate+ cohort mate Andrew Chow of Shenovi was also there, but I didn’t get a chance to speak with him.

After breakfast, I walked to QUT Foundry and officially joined a team taking on the Alexa Skills Challenge: In-Skill Purchasing. I don’t have a picture of my team yet. But I’ll make a point of snapping one as we undertake the challenge. 43 days to go!

I met my team again on the last day of September at the Precinct. We are all members of the Brisbane Internet of Things (IoT) Meetup. So after our meeting, we head down to Avestix Lab, which yet another innovation hub and co-working space for a pizza and a talk on industrial IoT. Not a bad way to end a slow September.