Alphatise is back, but this time the cockiness has been dialled down a few notches

July 13, 2015, 10:01 pm

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Untitled design (6)

Last month, Alex Heber from Business Insider reported that Alphatise, a highly publicised online ecommerce startup that went into administration earlier this year had been sold to a company owned by one of the original co-founders of the platform, Paul Pearson. Today, Alphatise officially announced that it was relaunching the platform as Alphatise Corporation and will be led by Pearson, now the sole founder and CEO of the company. The new corporate structure also includes some of the company's original advisors and investors like Hugh Bickerstaff and Zhenya Tsvetnenko. The platform which has been offline since June this year is expected to be functioning and transacting again within days according to this morning's release to the media. For those who are unfamiliar, Alphatise creates a unique marketplace in which consumers drive deals on items they want and suppliers sell items based on market demand across eight different categories which includes electronics, fashion and household goods. This re-launch feels quite different to the original. For one, there is a distinct absence of the cocky attitude and bravado that came with its initial debut into the Australian market. Even Pearson admits that he has been humbled by the events over the last few months. "When we launched the business last year, we probably tried to be all things to all people," says Pearson. "Hindsight is a very humbling experience and there’s certainly a lot more perspective and circumspection now. I firmly believe we have a strong and viable business, a competitive, patented product, which is being driven by leading technology." Unlike when it first launched, Alphatise is re-entering the market with a new competitor, Bidz Direct. Founded by Phil Tran and Zaven Matevosian the company has just received a fresh $400,000 funding round bringing the total of its seed funding to $550,000. While this may seem small in comparison to the millions that Alphatise has behind it, Bidz Direct has opted for a more understated launch with very specific targeted marketing to promote its platform. As I have stated in previous articles, the biggest challenge for Bidz Direct was always going to be the infamous downfall of Alphatise; and the fact that users may have lost faith in such a business model after its collapse. Incidentally this will also be the biggest challenge that Alphatise will face once the platform goes live again. Those who have read my previous articles on Alphatise and Bidz Direct, will know that I have not been backward in putting my opinions forward. I was of the view that Alphatise was selling false hope to users and had somewhat embellished the extent of its relationships with some retailers on the platform. This caused some investors involved with Alphatise to reach out to Startup Daily, and more specifically contact me directly to express their outrage at my words essentially telling me that I would be eating them and would need to apologise upon the re-launch of Alphatise. While I stand by my past commentary 100% about these kinds of businesses, if I am eventually proved wrong by Alphatise V2 and it goes on to be the landslide success that Pearson is aiming for, I will be the first to admit I was wrong. For now I remain firm in the belief that at the very least Alphatise faces a long hard road towards scalability because its brand is damaged and customers won't be as willing to hop back on that train so quickly. Pearson said in a media release today that over the last few months there has been a lot of inaccurate information that was presented about the company and that he wanted to set the record straight: “The facts are that during FY 14/15 Alphatise Limited spent 30 percent below forecasted expenditure levels and our revenues were 150 percent above forecasts." Even if that is true, the spend was still more than the incoming revenue, hence the reason for the collapse in the first place. At the end of the day actuals mean a lot more than forecasts. “This restructure is us drawing a line in the sand to take the company forward once more," says Pearson. "We are confident in our refined business model, the scalability of the offering, the team we have assembled to grow the company and the strong demand emerging for the technology both locally and overseas".

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CargoHound launches its platform into the growing freight technology space with $800,000 in seed funding

July 14, 2015, 9:16 pm

≫ Next: The muru-D Roundtables

≪ Previous: Alphatise is back, but this time the cockiness has been dialled down a few notches

CargoHound

Over the last two years the freight industry has been a popular space to launch new technology solutions. Some more notable examples to come out of Australia include Loadmax, Temando, Zoom2u, and more recently Telstra backed FreightExchange. CargoHound, another newcomer to the market which aims to reduce the time, cost and risk of shipping products internationally, announced today that it has secured $800,000 in seed funding from investors from Australia, the United Kingdom and United States to support its expansion strategy across Australia and New Zealand.

The platform was founded by industry veterans Kim Mauch, Pete Johnson, and Ian Smith and developed over three years in close consultation with the industry.

It works by connecting exporters and importers with 'community rated' freight providers. Buyers can compare quotes from multiple providers, and quickly identify the freight service that best suits their requirements and budget. Sellers - freight forwarders and carriers - are in turn able to reduce the time and cost of developing new business.

The cost of freight is a major pain point for Australian companies looking to trade overseas - a 2014 survey found that 63 percent of Australian exporters believed freight costs were affecting their competitiveness.

Co-founder Kim Mauch said that, as a long term buyer of international freight, she could see where the efficiency and transparency was lacking in the sector and knew exporters and importers were crying out for a better way.

“Teaming up with co-founders and industry veterans, we have been able to develop a user friendly website that we know the industry needs, not what we think they want,” she said.

With total merchandise trade totalling $525 billion in 2014 in Australia alone, and the number of importers and exporters growing to over 105,000, Ian Smith, co-founder and CEO of CargoHound, said that if the startup is able to capture just 0.75 percent of this market for air and sea freight, it will see revenues of over $100,000 per month within 12 months.

“If our recently completed BETA testing is any guide, the demand is definitely there. The response from our 40 importers/exporters and 10 freight forwarders was overwhelmingly positive, which bodes well for future growth,” he said.

Also boding well for future growth are the strategic partnerships CargoHound has already developed with the Export Council of Australia, Corporate Traveller, and OzForex.

It will be looking to get its name out into the market by sponsoring the national roadshow Managing Freight Costs, which is hosted by the Export Council of Australia.

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The muru-D Roundtables

July 16, 2015, 4:18 pm

≫ Next: Australian startup founders need to stop breaking the law when it comes to internships

≪ Previous: CargoHound launches its platform into the growing freight technology space with $800,000 in seed funding

muru-D roundtable

A few short months ago ten startups graduated from the muru-D accelerator in Sydney. Startup Daily sat down with some of the founders in those businesses to reflect on their experiences during the six month long program.

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Australian startup founders need to stop breaking the law when it comes to internships

July 16, 2015, 9:56 pm

≫ Next: Flirtey beats Amazon to market, launching the first medical drone deliveries in the US

≪ Previous: The muru-D Roundtables

interns

As our startup ecosystem has grown over the last few years, it has become common practice for startups facing financial constraints to 'offer' unpaid internship opportunities to, more often than not, younger people. A lot of the time these 'internships' are built on the hope that it will lead to a paid job in the company or, at the very least, give the incumbent 'free worker' some really great exposure on what it is really like to work at a startup. The irony here is that the founder hiring the intern is actually doing and learning the exact same thing. Last year, I wrote a short opinion column 'Australian startups should stop thinking they're American startups'. Here I stated that, if Australian startup founders continue to build their teams based on the US intern culture, within the next couple of years those founders are going to find themselves up the proverbial creek without a paddle, being forced to backpay those unpaid interns. This is because these interns will eventually wise up to the fact two or so years down the track that, while it may have been inadvertent, they were exploited by your startup and are entitled to be paid for the work they carried out for you. A deep-seated lack of understanding The Fairwork Ombudsman announced in 2012 that it would be producing what is now known as the Exploitation or Experience Report, with Adelaide University Law School Professor Andrew Stewart and Rosemary Owens conducting the research and delivering their findings on unpaid work in Australia. The report identified that 'internships' within the Australian business landscape were a 'growth industry' - what this means is that there are two sides to the industry. The first is employers exploiting (intentional or otherwise) unpaid workers, and the second is a growing industry of businesses that exploit people by placing them into unpaid internship arrangements, many of whom are migrants that have a lack of understanding around such legislation as the Fair Work Act. Ironically, one of the biggest industries to exploit unpaid workers is the media and broadcast sector, with these types of unpaid work arrangements often acting as a prelude to paid positions within a company; however, no industry is untouched by this phenomenon. Unfortunately the startup ecosystem is one of the major growth areas, and that presents a real challenge for the space as we move towards the future. In part, the government need to shoulder some responsibility around the lack of awareness business owners have about what is or isn't an acceptable internship arrangement. Unpaid vocational placements play a critical role for young people, but they should be short term, ideally run via some form of educational institution, and run to benefit the intern more than the employer. The issue the startup ecosystem faces is that, whether founders are aware of the legislation around internships or not, the onus of liability around the activities that take place within their business are on them. There is also a big misconception around people volunteering to be part of a business as an intern and that being ok, because the unpaid worker is the individual seeking the opportunity and the startup is the entity assisting them with their endeavours. According to the Fair Work Act, volunteering can legally only take place within a not-for-profit organisation - not many startups fit this description. Startups need to understand that, when a business takes on an intern, it means that the organisation is committing to educating that individual for a short period of time. The intern should benefit first and foremost from the relationship and the experience should have a largely observational aspect to it. Unpaid working arrangements are ok when they seek to educate a person about an industry, test a person's job skills prior to making a hiring decision (usually a period of one day) or, as previously mentioned, volunteering for an applicable NFP organisation. Volunteers also can not be under any obligation to actually turn up to a workplace or perform work either. The moment a startup organisation expects an intern to start making a valuable contribution to the business, which could take the form of various tasks like marketing duties, social media activities, customer service, or any other responsibilities that would usually be paid for by an employer, then that person has to be paid for doing those tasks by law, because the benefiting party in the relationship is the startup. The longer you have had an intern working for you as a startup - and if a commitment exists that they are doing any type of activity that will benefit the business - the more likely it is that they are actually an employee. As Tasnuva Bindi stated in an a previous feature last year, simply put, an internship is a learning experience; it’s a supplement to, and not a substitute for, paid employees. Exploitation vs. Experience When it comes to startups in particular, there is a lot of irony in the fact that quite often the 'intern' being used to fulfil a particular gap in the business is often more experienced in that skill then the startup founder themselves. From the perspective of the intern, the value in the partnership is that they get to start building their portfolio and resume, but for the startup the commercial benefit somewhat outweighs this. Therein lies the mental struggle for entrepreneurs - on the one hand helping a younger person achieve their dreams and experience working within a new growing venture relatively risk-free is seen as somewhat of an altruistic intention; on the other hand, however, the system does not recognise 'good intentions' when it comes to Australian employment law. Using unpaid workers in startups has become the employment equivalent of illegally downloading television shows: we all know that perhaps we are not "technically" meant to access these skill sets for our business in the way that we are doing it, but because everybody else in every other industry is doing it we just do it anyway. In fairness, when you have major platforms like Pedestrian.TV among many others that enable businesses to search for unpaid interns, it sends a mixed message to the wider public about what is or is not acceptable. The report prepared by Stewart and Owens made recommendations that the FWO begin to form relationships with institutions and organisations that are in positions to influence particular industries in order to educate businesses around the risks and repercussions of not abiding by the law in regards to unpaid work. I am of the opinion that StartupAUS, StartupVIC, and StartupQLD etc. should be part of those outreach activities. Startup founders need to really understand that following the Fair Work Act is protecting the long term interests of their businesses as opposed to it being 'red tape' hindering the short term growth. There are many startups that are between one and two years old now in Australia that have had 'long-term interns' within their business that operate for all intents and purposes as an employee minus the paycheque. It is very likely that startups could find themselves embroiled in legal battles with these people further down the track whereby the startup will have to payout a lot of money to these individuals that legally have been exploited. In addition to that, the FWO can fine businesses up to $51,000 for each individual breach of the Fair Work Act, and that means that every single day that intern works for a startup is in fact a new breach. The more successful a startup becomes, the more susceptible it will be to scrutiny. Planning for long-term success means following the law.

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Flirtey beats Amazon to market, launching the first medical drone deliveries in the US

July 19, 2015, 6:32 pm

≫ Next: Ninox Robotics is using drone technology to track feral animals

≪ Previous: Australian startup founders need to stop breaking the law when it comes to internships

drone

The weekend marked a significant milestone in not just Australian startup Flirtey's journey, but the US drone industry as well, with the startup and NASA both conducting the first Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved deliveries by drones on US soil in Wise, Virginia, as part of an event labelled ‘Let’s Fly Wisely’. Two types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) delivered pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies at a free medical clinic in Wise, Virginia – one was a fixed-wing aircraft operated by NASA in Langley, and the others will be multi-rotor delivery drones operated by Flirtey, which can safely be called the world’s first autonomous aerial delivery service ‘Let’s Fly Wisely‘ was a collaboration between Flirtey, NASA, The Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership at Virginia Tech, The Health Wagon, Remote Area Medical, Rx Partnership, Seespan Incorporated and Wise County. The FAA selected Virginia Tech in December of 2013 as one of six national test programs to conduct research about integrating unmanned aircraft into the nation’s airspace. There is a huge gap across the country in the medical space where many citizens across Virginia and rural America are outside the reach of essential health services. Each year, Remote Area Medical USA and Health Wagon organise a clinic at Wise County fairgrounds that provides free eye, dental and healthcare services to those in the community in urgent need. In fact, this is the largest healthcare outreach program in America. On the day, a remote piloted NASA plane flew the packages of medical supplies from the Tazewell County airport. These medical supplies were then placed onto the small Flirtey drones for the short flight to the Wise County Fairgrounds. Throughout the course of the day, the Flirtey hexacopter made six trips to the Remote Area Medical Clinic delivering its payload without touching down. The Flirtey delivery drone is a hexacopter constructed from carbon fibre, aluminium and 3D printed components. It is a lightweight, autonomous and electrically-driven unmanned aerial vehicle. It has a range of over 10 miles return and lowers its cargo via tether. It has built-in safety features such as low battery return to safe location and auto-return home in case of low GPS signal or communication loss. Flirtey was established in Sydney in 2013 and is today based in Nevada, USA. The Australian startup has beaten both Google’s Project Wing and Amazon Prime Air to market, making them a legitimate competitor to the two tech giants in this space.

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Ninox Robotics is using drone technology to track feral animals

July 21, 2015, 3:09 pm

≫ Next: Banqer is integrating financial literacy into New Zealand classrooms

≪ Previous: Flirtey beats Amazon to market, launching the first medical drone deliveries in the US

Ninox Robotics1

The invasive pet industry is a billion-dollar problem in Australia, especially in vast remote areas where foxes, feral cats and wild boars roam free destroying the ecosystem killing off flora and fauna native to the Australian landscape. However tracking these pests and hunting them down may have just become a lot easier with the official launch of startup Ninox Robtics and its new military grade unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also commonly referred to as drones. Although there have been many different types of drone trials (specifically civilian drone trials) that have taken place in Australia - one of the leaders in civilian drone technology, Flirtey, also happens to be an Australian company - the trial conducted recently by Ninox Robotics could perhaps be the most ambitious yet. Its drones use advanced real-time thermal imaging to detect invasive pests in rural areas. Regulatory approval for the trial for the drones has included a number of firsts for a non-military operator in Australia including an enhanced flight height of over 400 metres which enable the drones to cover more ground, flight range beyond visual line of sight (all autonomously) and the ability to fly at night meaning the thermal camera can be at its most effective. The night flight capabilities are particularly important because most of the 'pests' that cause issues in rural areas are in fact nocturnal. Night is not only the time they are most active, but also when they are doing the most damage to farm land and other nocturnal native animals to Australia. “Australian landholders and managers have been struggling against the problem of invasive pest species for decades, including feral dogs, pigs, deer and rabbits," says Managing Director of Ninox Robotics, Marcus Ehrlich. "The issue has caused cumulatively billions of dollars in damages and lost revenue, as well as significant destruction to the country’s unique biodiversity." "With the application of UAVs, we have a new weapon in this fight, which will provide unparalleled effectiveness in pest detection and enhance existing control techniques. It’s a quantum leap over any of the current pest intelligence gathering methods currently available.” Usually aerial detection methods have had a heavy reliance on the human eye via cameras essentially making drones like this ineffective during the night. Ninox Robotics drones, however, are using state-of-the-art duel payload cameras that can switch easily between normal visual spectrum (RGB) and far infrared (thermal) sight.

Video from the camera is streamed live to ground control stations that are manned by highly trained drone pilots, as well as passive screens viewed by landholders and other relevant stakeholders, enabling the viewers to determine the location, number and type of targeted pests. Ninox Robotics will begin a three-week trial period using its drones at selected sites in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales. The trial will be to test the effectiveness of the drones' thermal imaging camera to spot invasive pests and domestic animals in a variety of terrain types both at night and in the daytime. During the trial, the information gathered will be combined in real-time with existing control techniques in order to measure the efficacy of the system and its application. Last week’s trial in southern Queensland succeeded on all fronts, proving that the military-grade drones could detect invasive pests from the air and provide that information in real-time to a pest management officer. It also demonstrated the versatility of the Ninox Robotics system in a number of roles, including a successful mock rescue of a person lost in the woods, searching for small brush fires from over 5km away, and cataloguing a mob of sheep. This week, the trial will be conducted across farms and national parks in Moonie, Queensland, and will be followed by another trial week in New England in NSW. The upcoming open day on 22 July in Moonie will enable farmers, government officials and other stakeholders to see the drones in action. “Implementing this trial has been a massive undertaking, working with Australian aviation regulators to test our UAV’s capabilities above and beyond what has been done in this field to date. A drone-related project of this scale has never been conducted by a civilian company in Australia, and we believe it’s the first application of its kind for UAV technology in agriculture anywhere in the world," says Ehrlich. Pending the planned outcome of the trial and additional regulatory approval, Ninox Robotics intends to commercialise the service in the coming months, with its first team of fully trained UAV pilots able to be deployed across the country. Ninox Robotics is also exploring additional uses of the technology. “We are confident that come commercialisation, Ninox Robotics will be able to offer an array of smart, high tech options for Australian government agencies and landholders in dealing with a variety of problems afflicting our continent,” says Ehrlich.

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Banqer is integrating financial literacy into New Zealand classrooms

July 22, 2015, 7:39 pm

≫ Next: An update on how Startup Daily is tracking and where it is heading

≪ Previous: Ninox Robotics is using drone technology to track feral animals

Banquer

Most startup founders agree with the view that STEM (Science and Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects should have a greater focus within the Australian and New Zealand school system.

When it comes to mathematical education specifically, what's lacking is real-world mathematics being taught in schools. Real-world mathematics teaches kids about managing income, taxes, loans and all the other financial issues individuals face once they leave the safety of school and are no longer under the care of a guardian.

Wellington based startup Banqer is an online platform that facilitates the teaching of financial education in the classroom in a fun engaging way, creating a virtual 'classroom currency'. Children have their own bank accounts and get a rich understanding of what it means to be in charge of your own personal finances. In addition to this, teachers can enable 'modules' to allow students to transact with other students in the classroom. The platform also allows students to take out and pay back loans and pay tax. Banqer will be adding other modules in the future that will allow students to learn about insurance and real estate.

The origin of Banqer dates back to when co-founder Kendall Flutey, who used to be an accountant and at the time was studying software development, went back home during in her mid-term break and was having a conversation with her 11-year-old brother. Typically conversations with him were around topics like sport, but during this particular weekend Flutey found that a lot of his questions were regarding starting a company, company structures and other business related topics.

Impressed by the level of conversation that she was having with her younger sibling, Flutey quizzed him on where all this terminology and line of questioning was coming from, and it turned out his teacher, Micah Hocquard was running a really cool financial program in his classroom. Flutey was only home in Christchurch for the weekend and so decided to contact her brother's teacher and meet him for coffee the next day and discuss what he was doing in more detail. With her coding knowledge Flutey saw an opportunity to merge what he was doing with technology, creating a scalable platform for the classroom.

Less than two weeks later, the pair took the idea to a Startup Weekend and Banqer was born. The team currently consists of four co-founders, with an extended team of advisors and a couple of ad hoc contractors.

Banquer's monetisation model is pretty simply: the company charges per student per classroom a subscription fee. There are currently 150 classrooms signed up to the service across New Zealand.

On the challenges of penetrating into the school system, Flutey confirms that early traction has been a challenge especially when dealing with schools and teachers who are so committed to a system that's been around for a long time.

"It has been challenging at times because in a sense we're competing against those entrenched subjects like traditional science, english, and maths. Then we come along and spurt that 'engaging financial education is the most important thing'," says Flutey.

Flutey recognises that parents are going to be one of the biggest drivers in helping the company assist that penetration into the school system, particularly because the platform has been designed to work best replicating a 'greater economy', which is usually 15 or more students. With parental buy-in increasing, the schools have become much more receptive.

Flutey says the best results are achieved when Banqer is used throughout the whole school day (replicating a real-world economy) as opposed to just being taught during the time when mathematics is being learnt.

While there is definitely global potential for the startup, the Banqer team is currently focusing on reaching a high saturation point within the New Zealand school system. Part of that process is working with the government and education sector to highlight the need for financial literacy in young students. After that, locations like Australia and the United States are definitely in the expansion plans.

The venture has been completely bootstrapped to date, and has won some prize money from local startup competitions. Flutey says that in order to grow the company, and have its product used in thousands of school classrooms, a seed funding round may be required, though who is attached to that money and the doors they can open will be more important than the money itself.

"For us it's not just the money, it's also who's attached to the money," says Flutey. " What is really important is to have a relationship with our investors and make sure they care as much as we do about the vision we have for Banqer and for financial education as a greater purpose."

Startup Daily is currently in Wellington touring the startup ecosystem as a guest of Positively Wellington.

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An update on how Startup Daily is tracking and where it is heading

July 23, 2015, 11:41 pm

≫ Next: Has Wellington created the most feminist tech ecosystem in the world?

≪ Previous: Banqer is integrating financial literacy into New Zealand classrooms

Startup Daily Team

One thing I have always been transparent about with our readers is Shoe String Media's growth. Those of you who have been avid consumers of our content since early 2012 would know that, with the maturation of our business as well as the Australian and New Zealand startup ecosystem, we have undergone many changes from an editorial perspective and as a platform. The past 12 months have been particularly transformative for Shoe String Media. The team has grown; we've partnered with companies like Pinstripe Media to leverage our offering to advertisers; and we have entered a high-growth period from a commercial perspective. Below I break down what we are doing as a business and how that feeds into our overall goal of being the number one platform for news and data in the Australian and New Zealand startup ecosystem. Traffic The growth of our monthly unique readership has been one of the core metrics of Startup Daily since the publication launched. Our readership has grown 100% month on month since July last year and we expect to accelerate that growth this financial year. Aside from editorial, which is critical to our traffic numbers, our team has put a lot of time and effort into building a platform that makes it easy to navigate content in a way that is both seamless and engaging. Our mobile platform has been a critical part of this build due to the increased number of new readers accessing our content through social media like Facebook and Twitter on their smart phones. At the moment, a majority of our traffic comes from Australia, with the east coast (Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane) being our strongest performing cities. We expect to see continued organic growth from this part of Australia but will also be placing greater emphasis on covering the Southern and Western Australian ecosystems. A national approach is important and there will a number of activities and initiatives we will be running internally to ensure that our editorial team get their feet on the ground across our state and territory startup communities so they really get the grassroots experience of what is happening. This will naturally feed into these communities becoming more engaged in our platform. In addition to Australia, we have identified New Zealand as a market that Startup Daily should be more engaged with. Our publication has been covering New Zealand based tech companies for a while now, however after spending time in the country and immersing myself in the local ecosystem this week, it is clear to me there is a lot of activity happening there, and being based in Australia does not allow us to be fully aware of that activity. Startup Daily is currently in the process of finding a talented individual based out of Wellington to join the editorial team and cover the New Zealand startup ecosystem for us. This will be a major market for us in terms of traffic growth and give our readers a more accurate view of what is happening in both Australia and New Zealand, as well as identify cross-country opportunities for startups and technology businesses. Content As a team we have been very deliberate in the way we have put together our content strategy for the site. Startup Daily's editor, Tasnuva Bindi puts a lot of time and effort into making sure that we deliver a premium product to our audience each day; based on our audience feedback, a majority of the time we get things right, but there's always room for improvement. We know that we need to achieve similar traffic numbers and page views to be commercially competitive with the likes of Private Media and Fairfax who have publications that play in the same space as us. As a small team we are well aware that if we tried to compete based on quantity of content we would never win against these media companies that are far more resourced than us. Therefore, we focus on the quality of content and choose to approach every story we tell from a unique angle. Rather than being the first to publish something, we try to focus on being the site that publishes the more analytical or deeper version of the story. This is an approach that works for us and it has drawn in an audience that is more attracted to long-form, thought-provoking journalism and commentary. This, mixed with some key news and analysis pieces, has become our publication's 'sweet-spot' and has made us a product that can easily sit beside the likes of StartupSmart, BRW, AFR and Anthill as complementary rather than a regurgitation of the sites that already own the news cycle. In particular, I am proud of content like the podcast we did on Racism in the Startup Scene, the in-depth article we created on Queensland's political support for startups; and our article that raised a question mark around deal terms Australian VC's were offering startups. These are examples of the type of content we are working towards producing for our audience on a daily basis as we work towards, from a commercial perspective, a stage where we're able to afford to dedicate editorial resources to work on them. Like any high-growth technology platform, our product is always evolving and we expect that our content will continue to do the same, especially as we begin to cover other markets, recruit new writers with different experiences and writing styles, and as we continue to strive towards reaching the goal of having a 'perfect front page' every single day. Data In the last 12 months, we have placed an emphasis on our 'data'. We see this as one of the most important aspects of our platform moving forward. Startup Daily uses data in two ways. First, we collect and measure data about our users and this helps to form our commercial strategy when speaking to potential partners and advertisers. In addition to our analytics, we also conduct regular readership surveys, which help us work with partners to deliver messages to our users in a way that feels native and non-invasive to the platform. It also ensures that we don't waste our clients' money, working only with brands that we have identified via our data are a perfect match with our readership. Using data in this way enables Startup Daily to build long-term brand partnerships that enable us to pay our staff to produce all that great content. It also means that we can avoid constructing a paywall around our content. The second way that we have been using data has been pretty under the radar, however will launch publicly on the site late August or early September. Because we think of ourselves as a platform first and foremost, it has been important to us to create something proprietary and of value to our organisation. That feature will be our Startup Daily Insights section. Our organisation is tracking over 3,000 high-growth technology startups across Australia and New Zealand, everything from who is running them to who is investing in them, how fast they are growing and many other data points. We will be making this information available to the entire ecosystem for free, helping to make it easier for startup founders to understand their industry verticals better, give investors a clearer picture of what is happening on the ground and to make it easier for media to access information about the ecosystem in the hope that the space begins to be covered in a more realistic fashion. Events Up until now we have purposely avoided events at Startup Daily. This has partly been due to the fact that we needed to develop some street cred in the startup space first; and it also has allowed us to focus on one thing (the website) and build an online community that we love and who love us. This year in November (as you might have seen from the ads on the site) we will be holding our first ever event / conference. This is not only a new stream of revenue for our business, but a way to bring our online audience offline and interact with them. From our data, we have come to realise that although our readership in the startup space is strong (around 51%), the remaining audience (around 49%) actually work for SMEs or the corporate space. This has guided our event strategy, which is all about bridging the gap between startups and corporates. Specifically, our events will focus on introducing startup methodologies and techniques to an audience of primarily corporate folks (although startups are welcome). The price point for these types of themed events, which we intend to run across multiple locations in Australia and New Zealand annually, is targeted accordingly. While this may seem like we are excluding startups, the fact is we have developed a premium schedule that is specifically targeted towards corporates and companies with a corporate infrastructure. Off the back of these events, however, we will be holding smaller fireside events throughout the year with the same level of speaker talent for the startup community and will be inviting startup founders to come along to our post-conference corporate / startup mixers to discover potential opportunities. Another reason we have chosen to focus on the corporate end of town as part of our strategy is so we don't compete or cannibalise existing startup focused conferences that are already in place and working well for the ecosystem. Sydstart, Southstart, Above All Human, The Sunrise and Slush are perfect of examples of conferences focused on producing content for startup founders that are working well. Rather than compete with them, I would rather our organisation support them and partner with them to bring the best talent into Australia. For corporates reading this and are interested in coming along to our November Data Day event and want to purchase a number of tickets, please contact us to see if you qualify for a wholesale discount. Your support It is easy to lose yourself in the business sometimes and that is why I find writing pieces like this so enjoyable. It is a great opportunity for me to step back and see how much Startup Daily has matured as a product and how much every single individual has grown within our current team of six. But most of all, the thing that me and the team feel most blessed about is the fact that you guys, our readers continue to engage with us, continue to share your stories with us and continue to be our best form of marketing and most reliable engine for growth. Thank you for your support.

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Has Wellington created the most feminist tech ecosystem in the world?

July 26, 2015, 3:25 pm

≫ Next: The only Uber of anything is Uber

≪ Previous: An update on how Startup Daily is tracking and where it is heading

thewomen

New Zealand has a long history when it comes to gender equality. In fact, back in 1893, it was the first country in the world to allow women to vote. It was also the first country that ever had all of its highest offices chaired by women at the same time; the Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II, the Governor General, Dame Silvia Cartwright, Prime Minister, Helen Clarke, Chief Justice, Dame Sian Elias and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Margaret Wilson all served together between 2005 and 2006. It shouldn't have been surprising when I found myself sitting in front of so many women in tech during my visit to its capital Wellington last week, yet I did. The reason I found it surprising is because although Australia is only three hours away from this beautiful windy city, what I found was an ecosystem that was light-years ahead in terms of its diversity and celebration of its female founders and employees. If you can't see it, you can't be it In May last year, editor of Startup Daily, Tasnuva Bindi wrote an article 'If you can't see it, you can't be it: Female founders crushing stereotypes', which made a good point about the role visibility plays in the normalisation of female-led technology companies.

Awareness is key to change. It’s about visibility. The more women we see thriving in their careers, the less unusual a ‘women in technology’ becomes.

The piece not only explored why sexism exists in the technology sector, but how things like language, even if unintentional, reinforce stereotypes in the startup ecosystem.

Language also plays a role in promoting subtle sexism ... women tend to be pigeon-holed into marketing and communications roles. There have been discussions around how men call it ‘growth hacking’ when they do it, but when women do it, it’s regarded as PR. When you’re male, you’re a ‘developer evangelist’. When you’re female, you’re a community manager.

For a startup ecosystem to thrive and be globally competitive AND diverse, there are two things that are important. The first is role models and the second is congruency - that is, congruency across language, opportunity and recognition. Wellington and indeed New Zealand have worked hard to make sure both these things are present within its ecosystem. Based on my conversations last week with prominent women in the technology space like Kendall Flutey (Banqer), Anna Guenther (PledgeMe), Jessica Manins (StarNow), Kristen Lunman (Wipster), Zheng Li (Zing Design, Founders Exchange) Toni Moyes (8i) and Kat Lintott (STEM Creative), seeing women in prominent leadership positions throughout their formative years has played a pivotal role in their own success. In addition to having such strong political figures to look up to, they have also been witness to strong female tech founders building and selling tech companies like Victoria Ransom who has built and exited two companies; Access Trips in 2006, and more recently, Wildfire Interactive, which was acquired by Google in 2012. Ransom is currently Director of Product at Google in Mountain View. Then there is Claudia Batten, again with two exits under her belt, having sold her first company Massive to Microsoft in 2006, which was then followed by her next company, crowdsourcing advertising agency Victor and Spoils being acquired by French company Havas in 2012. Whether it has been deliberate or not, stories like the above have played a critical role in the female tech community in Wellington so much that an average "women in tech" meet up group like Female Founders Exchange can quite regularly see up to 300 members turn up for talks and drinks each month. In comparison to pure tech-focused female meet ups in places like Sydney and Melbourne, this number is quite frankly epic. A unique city layout As a city, Wellington has something unique about it that actually makes it the ideal breeding ground for a strong, cohesive tech-startup ecosystem. It has been deemed the "coolest little capital in the world", according to quality of living based surveys, with a population of just under 500,000. Interestingly and perhaps key to its feminist vibes, the female population is a good 10,000 people stronger than that of its fellow male citizens. The city centre is also only two kilometres in diameter, meaning that you can walk to every meeting that you have in 20 minutes or less - something I believe is critical for startups. I remember in the early days of starting my own venture that I would quite often delay meetings because taxi money was an issue getting across from one end of Sydney to the other within a certain time frame. Easy access to everywhere in the CBD provides founders with more opportunities to close deals, form partnerships and develop their businesses. Because the city is wedged between the mountains and the harbour, it is impossible for the CBD to expand any further. This has meant that the sense of community in the business precinct has a very distinct "village-like" vibe to it - perfect for fostering the launch and growth of startups. This makes it easier for female founders to not only find each other, but also to help support one another. Equality and inclusion seems to be something that is at the forefront on everyone's mind in Wellington, with every tech-hub from BizDojo to the Enspire Dev Academy specifically talking to me about their statistics around female founders and the importance they place on equality within their organisations. Forced to 'export' overseas Unlike in Australia, where founders are able to grow their digital businesses (to a certain point) by staying onshore and maintain a strong hold of the local market while making quite a comfortable living for themselves, startups in New Zealand don't quite have that luxury. Wellington is only 492,000 people strong and the entire addressable market for New Zealand as a country is only around 4 million people. This has meant that by default the real-world education that all founders of any venture in New Zealand receive is to think global from day one. Yes, the Australian startup ecosystem does promote that same focus, but the reality is a startup in a place like Wellington has to find a global market from day one, otherwise the chances of survival decrease much faster than that of an Australian-based startup. Therefore, it is in the city's interest and the national interest to support and promote everybody that is building a technology based business; and because the pool of talent is significantly smaller than that of a Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne, female founders are front and centre with their male counterparts. I am not saying that the technology ecosystem isn't dominated more by males in Wellington, because it is, but female led startups are more visible there, which has given women an advantage that fellow women in other parts of the world struggle to attain. And let me assure you the opportunity is being grasped with both hands. As a city, Wellington has the most educated workforce in the country; 47 percent of the workforce work in what is known as 'knowledge intensive' industries like technology, creative and media, game development, financial services, science, health, education and professional services, as well as government. What this means is that it needs to have a successful 'digital' export strategy, and both men and women in the startup ecosystem play an equally critical role in the city and country reaching that goal. Although I wouldn't go as far as saying Wellington has gotten everything right in the diversity stakes - no city or country has - it should be acknowledged that city has created a culture that could indeed see it become one of the top performing cities for startups in the next 10 to 20 years. While that is an achievement in and of itself, one of New Zealand's standout features will be the environment it has created where female founders can excel alongside their male counterparts with equal visibility and without tokenism. Startup Daily was touring the Wellington startup ecosystem as a guest of Positively Wellington.

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The only Uber of anything is Uber

July 28, 2015, 4:26 pm

≫ Next: PledgeMe is eating its own ‘dog food’, using its equity crowdfunding platform to raise capital

≪ Previous: Has Wellington created the most feminist tech ecosystem in the world?

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We are at that point in the “on demand economy” cycle. The very few breakouts-- Airbnb, Lyft and Uber are pretty much it, and Uber dominates the field in users, valuation, and funding-- can raise billions each and are being encouraged to grow as fast as possible. [Source: Pando.com]

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PledgeMe is eating its own ‘dog food’, using its equity crowdfunding platform to raise capital

July 28, 2015, 6:17 pm

≫ Next: Will Melbourne’s new Eastern Innovation Business Centre be able to lure startups away from the city?

≪ Previous: The only Uber of anything is Uber

PledgeMe

One of the regional leaders in the crowdfunding, specifically equity crowdfunding space, Wellington based company PledgeMe announced this week that it has raised more than NZ$360,000 to continue its growth, helping New Zealand-based creators run both project-based and equity campaigns on the platform. This is the company's second round of capital raised through its own platform. In November last year, within 23 hours, PledgeMe had raised $100,000.

In the latest round, PledgeMe set itself a minimum goal of $250,000 with a maximum cap of $750,000. There were 137 equity investors compared to the 50 that invested in the company's first round, and out of that there are nine shareholders with founder class shares.

The new funds will be used to support more project and equity campaigns, in addition to the company concentrating on further growth and development of the platform.

“We are extremely happy to be able to grow crowdfunding in New Zealand with the help of our crowd,” said PledgeMe Founder and CEO Anna Guenther.

“The extra $116,000 means we’re going to be able to hire in-house tech wranglers, investigate crowdlending in New Zealand, and start looking across the ditch and potentially put our thinking forward around their proposed legislation changes around equity crowdfunding."

While no plans are finite, the company has been exploring the opportunity of launching in Australia sooner rather than later, although there is still a lot of red-tape within legislation around equity crowdfunding in Australia in comparison to New Zealand, where the government seems to be quite innovative and forward-thinking in relation to this.

In the past year, PledgeMe has experienced rapid-growth. Prior to raising its first round of funding last year, the company had NZ$2.8 million in pledges processed through the platform. However in the months since,, over NZ$7 million has been pledged, securing the startup's place as the place Kiwis go to fund the things they care about.

Overall on the site, equity-based campaigns are starting to gain some significant traction, especially in terms of the money being raised by the process. PledgeMe has held 14 equity campaigns on its platform, with 9 of them being successful and 4 of those hitting their maximum goals. A craft brewery company called Yeastie Boys actually raised half a million dollars in half an hour through the platform.

In terms of expansion, PledgeMe are currently looking at a number of initiatives. The first is to keep on developing the product in New Zealand. The second is figuring out how the platform can work within the Australian licensing framework, and the third is centred around looking into the "next phase of crowdfunding", which is known as debt crowdfunding - something that is beginning to take place in a few European countries right now.

Considering the startup's penchant for being one of the first in the region to try and make different types of crowdfunding available - traditional, equity, and soon debt - educating the current and potential PledgeMe audience is a critical factor in what the startup does via tips, content creation and, of course, face-to-face style workshops around New Zealand.

"There's three of us on the team that go out and do education stuff regularly, so we're probably doing between three and five talks a week," said Guenther.

"When it comes to specific workshops, we actually run something called Pitch Kitchens with companies, where two or three of them pitch their campaign and then they get feedback from a crowd of people they don't know on what resonates and what's confusing in what they're saying. However our focus is on giving feedback like friends, not 'dragons'. [It is important they feel like] we're not trying to remake their business model, we're just giving them feedback on their proposed campaign and where they could fix elements in order for it to be more successful."

PledgeMe's business model is a simple one: the company takes a 5 percent success fee for campaigns that hit their goals by the deadlines they have set. Deadlines typically run anywhere between two days and three months.

The debt crowdfunding or crowdlending exploration by PledgeMe is particularly interesting. This type of crowdfunding campaign typically works a little differently to a typical equity campaign. Instead of issuing shares, companies can issue bonds, meaning they would repay the backer the money lent plus interest as opposed issuing an ownership stake in the business. Guenther told Startup Daily that this type of crowdfunding model could be used in a number of interesting ways.

"It might not just be companies that would use crowdlending," said Guenther. "It could be organisations. For example if a school wanted to put solar panels on the roof, they could issue bonds that repay over time, and repay it with interest but still save money on their energy use."

Overseas, other examples include some more out-of-the-box campaigns like the one run by Mexican food chain Chilango in the UK, where they issued backers "burrito bonds" in which those participating in the campaign got their money back and then their interest paid back in burritos. The campaign did really well, raising millions of pounds.

"Given that, this type of crowdfunding model would easily make a nice extension to our existing platform," said Guenther.

Startup Daily was touring the Wellington startup ecosystem last week as a guest of Positively Wellington.

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Will Melbourne’s new Eastern Innovation Business Centre be able to lure startups away from the city?

July 29, 2015, 10:56 am

≫ Next: Jack Dorsey’s blunt talk cost Twitter investors $5 billion. And he said nothing new.

≪ Previous: PledgeMe is eating its own ‘dog food’, using its equity crowdfunding platform to raise capital

EIBC 2

The $5 million project to build the Eastern Innovation Business Centre (EIBC) is finally complete and the organisation is now accepting expressions of interest from innovative startups, specifically in the areas of technology, medical and science. The EIBC is located near Monash University's Clayton campus, and has been designed with state-of-the-art features in the hope that is becomes an environment where innovative ideas can be turned into highly scalable commercial entities. The core focus of the EIBC will be on accelerating the commercial side of the startups within the centre, creating an environment that is collaborative, inspiring and supportive through its network of expert mentors. There has been no formal mention as of yet about who these expert mentors are, however in order to pull off similar success to that of other university-centred programs like Flinders University's Venture Dorm, Innovation NSW at UNSW or INCUBATE at Sydney Uni, the EIBC will need to attract top tier active entrepreneurs, not just academics for the startup community to be drawn to base themselves out of Clayton as opposed to Melbourne city. Right now, the facilities seem to be the EIBC's major selling point; the organisation boasts cutting edge environmental assets - the building itself is surrounded by green walls and features the latest in built form sustainability in terms of natural light and heat, air flow, and energy conservation - as well as high speed fibre internet, cloud collaboration, video conferencing facilities and both wet and dry lab spaces. In a statement prior to commencement of the project, former Monash Mayor Geoff Lake said the businesses that base themselves out of the EIBC would benefit from being in Melbourne's 'hi-tech scientific zone'. "These businesses will benefit from being in the heart of Melbourne's hi-tech scientific zone, near CSIRO, Monash University and the National Synchrotron, to name a few local organisations," he said. The Monash Council built the centre using $4.75 million of Federal Government funding from the Regional Development Australia Fund. The State Government then provided $245,000 towards the project from its $50 million Living Victoria Fund. The space is designed around a flexible platform of active and progressive zones that accommodate a changing world and workplace. Tenants' ‘office spaces’ can expand and contract according to your needs, keeping in theme with the scalability of high-growth technology businesses.

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Jack Dorsey’s blunt talk cost Twitter investors $5 billion. And he said nothing new.

July 29, 2015, 12:16 pm

≫ Next: Accelerating the government: Why Creative HQ is more than just another incubator space

≪ Previous: Will Melbourne’s new Eastern Innovation Business Centre be able to lure startups away from the city?

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'Twitter may not yet be a broken company, but it sure is a hapless one. For most of its history, Twitter has been decried by its most ardent users as The Company That Is Not Facebook and thus something of a failure, despite its 83-percent revenue growth over the past 12 months.' [Source: Pando.com]

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Accelerating the government: Why Creative HQ is more than just another incubator space

July 30, 2015, 7:44 pm

≫ Next: How a Chinese Billionaire Built Her Fortune

≪ Previous: Jack Dorsey’s blunt talk cost Twitter investors $5 billion. And he said nothing new.

Stefan Korn

Last week, while touring the Wellington startup ecosystem, the one thing that became glaringly obvious was the forward thinking of the government over there - particularly, the local government. It's not that New Zealand governments don't experience the same slow moving bureaucratic processes that other governments around the world experience; it is just that they have a willingness to experiment with changing those stoic processes that many other governments around the world don't.

Creative HQ is a startup incubator and accelerator space/program based out of Wellington, New Zealand. It was launched back in 2003, which could perhaps be described as the formative years of incubation for the region. Ironically, the space was originally set up by a local politician who thought it would be a great way to stimulate the local early-stage startup ecosystem.

Throughout the years, the space and accelerator program has matured and there are many New Zealand success stories that have been born out of the space like StarNow which has over 3 million users worldwide; SilverStripe, a global content measuring system; and Optimal Usability, which was acquired by PwC.

Stefan Korn heads up Creative HQ and has been with the organisation for around two years. He told Startup Daily that there were some issues early on when they were trying to figure out the 'model' that Creative HQ should work off.

"We realised that incubation is a lot harder than it looks and that it requires a lot of effort. This initial idea of trying to make money out of the incubator didn't quite pan out because there are long timelines involved," says Korn. "We all know there's also a lot of fast fails, so spending a lot of money and time on a company that falls over can take its toll on the business model."

"As a commercial proposition for Wellington council to (sort of) make money with an incubator the government realised that startups are effectively a part of infrastructure that we have to invest in just like school and universities. So then they decided to move Creative HQ into the local economic development agency."

Because of the cultural differences between government departments and startups, it was realised about four years ago that Creative HQ needed to be its own entity to be successful, so it separated from the government again and moved into an economic development agency called Grow Wellington. Creative HQ still receives about a third of its funding from Grow Wellington and the rest comes from the Callaghan Innovation and revenue generated by Creative HQ itself.

Creative HQ is also the only holder in New Zealand of the Techstars Acceleration License, meaning that it is also part of its global acceleration network. The acceleration program that it runs is called Lightning Lab and it runs these in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. Recently, it also announced a new Lightning Lab program in Wellington that would be focusing on manufacturing and the IoT space.

The program works within a similar format to most other accelerators around the world from an investment perspective. Successful applicants give up between six and eight percent of their companies. The funding for the teams is paid for by the investors involved in the program and is traditionally NZ$20,000.

So far, Creative HQ has had 27 teams complete its program with another two programs about to kick-off in the coming weeks, a total of 18 more teams between them, bringing that total to 45.

One of the most interesting initiatives that Creative HQ has been involved in though recently would have to be the accelerator program that it ran for employees of the government.

This is actually one of the first times globally that the government has put departmental projects through a traditional 'startup accelerator' format. The program ended up being extremely successful because the incumbents realised they achieved a whole lot more in three months than they usually would in a year on similar projects.

While that is great from an internal efficiency perspective for the government, what also came out of the program was that the solutions created by these government departments ended up being a lot more customer centric, had more buy-in from taxpayers and clients, and the people involved in the program were completely infused in the process.

"People didn't just see it as doing their day job" says Korn. "They became immersed in what was a hugely transformative and infectious culture, it was a lot of fun and very eye opening accelerating the government".

The solution that was created is a tool that will be trialled by three councils. During the period of the accelerator, the stakeholders in the project worked out what the actual problem was, worked closely with all the councils, came up with a solution and built and tested that solution. Even by effective government standards, that is something to boast about within that particular timeframe.

Imagine if all levels of local, state and federal government in the region put some of the projects on their plates through a similar program. Not only would they be more effective in their output, they would gain a real-time insight into how startups work and an understanding of the infrastructure required to grow a successful technology ecosystem.

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How a Chinese Billionaire Built Her Fortune

August 2, 2015, 2:07 pm

≫ Next: What’s holding you back? Australian business owners are not taking as many risks as our U.S. Counterparts

≪ Previous: Accelerating the government: Why Creative HQ is more than just another incubator space

Chinese Billionaire

Zhou Qunfei is the world’s richest self-made woman. Ms. Zhou, the founder of Lens Technology, owns a $27 million estate in Hong Kong. She jets off to Silicon Valley and Seoul, South Korea, to court executives at Apple and Samsung, her two biggest customers. She has played host to President Xi Jinping of China, when he visited her company’s headquarters. [New York Times]

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What’s holding you back? Australian business owners are not taking as many risks as our U.S. Counterparts

August 2, 2015, 2:13 pm

≫ Next: UK startup truRating chooses Australia as its next launch location as it begins to expand globally

≪ Previous: How a Chinese Billionaire Built Her Fortune

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Data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor shows us that when we compare Australian entrepreneurs with US-based United States, our American neighbours are outperforming us - especially those within the 18-to-24-year-old age group.

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UK startup truRating chooses Australia as its next launch location as it begins to expand globally

August 3, 2015, 5:45 pm

≫ Next: This physical space for creatives has birthed a soon-to-launch collaboration platform

≪ Previous: What’s holding you back? Australian business owners are not taking as many risks as our U.S. Counterparts

M&C - Team Marketing Resource - Headshots & Bios - Headshots - Georgina (2)

UK based startup truRating, whose technology makes it easier for customers to give small business operators feedback, announced its official plans to launch into the Australian market today. The startup offers a point-of-payment rating system, which has experienced significant growth since launching into the UK market in February this year. Founder and CEO Georgina Nelson told Startup Daily that the Australian market represents an opportunity for truRating in the consumer analytics space, which she says is ripe for disruption. truRating allows customers to provide feedback to businesses in a quick, simple and unique way at a point during a sale when their 'feelings are strongest' - that is, when they are making the payment for their goods or services. To date, truRating has processed more than 400,000 ratings; Nelson claims ratings are growing at 40% week-on-week. “Our goal is to make it as simple and quick as possible for customers to give, and merchants to gather, honest feedback," says Nelson. "We know that customers want to provide thoughts on their retail and hospitality experiences but to date, the methods available to do so have been cumbersome, time-consuming and are often not entirely anonymous. All of these factors deter customers from letting retail and hospitality providers know how they feel.” There are already a number of Australian merchants trialling the technology in Australia; and if the stats coming out of the UK are any indication - 88% of people provide feedback using the startup's method - truRating should see a significant take-up of its product. In addition to the rating question asked at the point of sale online or on the eftpos terminal, truRating provides its subscribers with a quick and simple way to gauge customer sentiment via its analytics dashboard. In the back-end, the client can set up a set of five rotating questions to be asked to customers during the payment process based on different aspects of their experiences. Most of the questions usually revolve around topics to do with service, value, experience, atmosphere and product. "Merchants also have the opportunity to add two questions of their own to the system in order to gain feedback for a specific element of their customer service such as a new marketing campaign or store layout. The information collected through this process allows merchants to obtain crucial data collected during the customer’s interaction with the business, rather than hours or days after their experience," says Nelson. "What we are trying to do is give everybody a really simple, easy way to give feedback to businesses when they pay. We realised that essentially two markets are broken. First, businesses are not really hearing the mass majority of their customers. Businesses hear from one in 1,000 customers on average and most of those are complaints several days or weeks after the event. So if businesses knew how to get better, then their revenue will increase and there would be better service for everybody. The second market is an online consumer review website. I thought if we could pair every rating with a payment then we would know that every rating was a validated customer." This second point in particular makes a lot of sense. When you look at review sites like Trip Advisor or Yelp, it is often hard for business owners to determine the exact customer, time or date an issue has taken place because there is no data that ties it to a specific moment that can be assessed. Whereas with truRating you can, and that type of data is powerful. Most of the businesses truRating currently works with are multi-channel, meaning they have bricks-and-mortar and online stores. The bricks and mortar solution happens at the payment terminal, but the startup has created a widget that businesses can use on the confirmation page for an e-commerce website, and so it works in the exactly the same way. truRating makes its money through a monthly subscription fee of roughly AUD$25.00 per month. It will be interesting to see whether or not Australian small businesses engage in a service like this. The data feature is a massive selling point, and tech savvy business owners will embrace this, but as many studies have shown - the bulk of Australian small business owners would not be considered tech savvy with less than half of them even having a website attached to their brands. However, that still leaves an addressable market of about a million potential operators for truRating to go after.

Australia will serve as the Asia-Pacific base for truRating; and by the time operations go live here, Nelson estimates that there will be 10 people hired for various roles so the startup can hit the ground running.

truRating has currently raised £4.2 million to date and Nelson has revealed to Startup Daily that the startup is in the process of closing off another round the amount of £6 million.

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This physical space for creatives has birthed a soon-to-launch collaboration platform

August 4, 2015, 7:43 pm

≫ Next: Domain and RealEstate should worry about startup NationMaster because its service may eat into their critical revenue strategies

≪ Previous: UK startup truRating chooses Australia as its next launch location as it begins to expand globally

In Good Company

It was while she was travelling around Europe that Mariya Kupriyenko met her cofounder Zoe Platt-Young, a fellow design creative. The pair were both freelancers, and visited and worked from many coworking spaces across Europe as they travelled. At the time, neither had any finite plans to return to Wellington, New Zealand, but eventually both did and were inspired by their experiences freelancing around the world.

Kupriyenko and Platt-Young thought that the startup culture they had experienced in places like Berlin would start to be replicated in New Zealand. The pair also wanted their own place to continue freelancing from, and so together they decided to launch their own coworking space called In Good Company. As the initial focus was on creating a flexible coworking environment, people didn't have assigned work stations. In fact, everything was quite fluid, enabling people to hot desk for as little as an hour. Then the space introduced 'residents' who had more of a permanent set up in the space.

Initially, the space attracted a lot of creative and artistic types. This is what has created today's culture within the space: there is a certain boho chic-type essence that you get when you enter the building, different to that of a space that was perhaps housing primarily tech-startups. The space is financed by a membership model which is paid by residents on a monthly basis. There is also a 'timecard' system for people that want to be super mobile in their work and only need to use the space for a couple of hours here and there, which allows them to pay for a number hours in advance.

The space launched a year and a half ago. Since then, Platt-Young has moved away and currently works for a Melbourne startup called Clouding Around. Kupriyenko now leads the company, though Platt-Young is still involved as a cofounder.

The independence of In Good Company and the way it has naturally attracted the creative community has seen it become somewhat of a platform as opposed to a stock-standard coworking space. In fact, Kupriyenko told Startup Daily that she now often finds herself recommending creatives within the space to startups and businesses outside the space who are looking for help on with short and long term projects - this has spawned the creation of a technology platform that automates this connection process. When launched, this platform will be called The Great and will seek to systemise and amplify what Kupriyenko has already been doing for the past year and a half. "We meet so many artists, makers, and designers that are really, really good through this space," says Kupriyenko. "And we get a lot of people email us asking, 'Do you know a developer? Do you know any designers? We want to take advantage of that." "It's obviously something we can help people with and we do it well. It's the kind of social capital, or whatever you want to call it, that we have built through the space. We want to connect artists and designers to projects, and eventually even project manage interesting things as well."

The platform is still under construction but will be launching publicly soon. In addition to connecting creatives to projects, the site will also house an online art gallery, promoting new and up coming artists and selling their works in a similar spirit to what Adelaide startup Bluethumb is doing.

"I want to promote artists that we come to know through this space to a wider audience beyond physical exhibitions and to allow art sales to happen," says Kupriyenko. "The goal is to expose these guys and hopefully get some nice commissions for them as well. We are in a perfect position to be able to manage that."

The business model for The Great will be a clip-of-the-ticket play, where the startup will take a percentage of each project uploaded to the platform and each sale made through its online gallery. While both Bluethumb (online gallery) and another Australian startup Expert360 (online project management) have proven that both these business models work for each of those focuses, it will be interesting to see if a blended platform that combines both will be able to attract similar engagement and produce equal results.

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Domain and RealEstate should worry about startup NationMaster because its service may eat into their critical revenue strategies

August 5, 2015, 3:15 pm

≫ Next: The founders of Couchelo have launched a new platform QLC.io and it’s getting a lot more traction

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lukemetcalfe

In July last year, Sydney-based entrepreneur and founder of statistics site NationMaster.com Luke Metcalfe, had his last startup NetComber acquired by United States based Profound Networks. Netcomber used its technology to identify the links between websites that appear to be unrelated on the surface. It's proprietary technology scans hundreds of millions of websites identifying thousands of unique features that can be used to correlate website ownership. This then fed into a live query-able database of 253 million sites. At the time, the startup had an established client base of law enforcement organisations that investigated linkage between websites engaged in illegal activities. Yesterday, Metcalfe announced that he had officially launched another big data play: a new real estate platform under his existing NationMaster brand that was designed to make it easier for people to make more informed decisions when it comes to property. The platform has been designed to 'invert' the classic property portal model and focus solely on the buyer. Dominant players in the market like Domain and RealEstate.com.au should be worried about what Metcalfe has created here because it eats into their current business model where their customers, namely real estate agencies, are able to collect lead generation data through "free" property reports on their sites. “Our customer is the customer. We are the automated buyers’ agent," says Metcalfe. "Everything we do is to improve the experience of property buyers. So they can skip inspections that don’t suit them and get their Saturdays back.” “My wife and I were in the property market this year and were staggered by how much data was out there about properties that was hard to get a hold of. Not everyone wants to spend their nights digging through council PDFs. So I thought I’d make a site that puts all the data in one place: one report for every address in Australia.” In 2013, one of the key growth strategies that was introduced across major sites like Domain and RealEstate.com.au was the ability for real estate agencies to 'own' suburbs on their platforms. What this meant is that everyone looking at properties on those platforms with certain suburbs would have their details collected and automatically forwarded to a specific real estate agency every time the opted in to receive a 'free' property report on the area. For real estate agencies, it was the start of a new hybrid form of traditional advertising and lead generation. The model worked, and is currently very lucrative for the two major players. However, they should be worried not only because NationMaster is providing those in the housing market an arguably better online version of those reports, it is also doing so without its users requiring to pay a fee or even opt-in to any sort of lead generation agreement or marketing list. [caption id="attachment_43452" align="alignnone" width="900"]

Screenshot: www.nationmaster.com/n/[/caption] "We go much further in evaluating the surrounds of a property," says Metcalfe. "Buyers shouldn’t just be thinking about the smeg kitchen and the landscaped garden. If that’s all you care about, go build your dream home in the desert. What really determines price is the community you’re buying into: the convenience to things you need every week, like supermarkets, restaurants, fast commutes, cafes and gyms. This stuff is bread and butter for NationMaster.” The platform provides users with scores on areas such as convenience, lifestyle, family, and even out-of-the-box scores on features such as 'hipness'. “We boil down buying criteria into quantitative scores. Different properties have different strengths. These scores make it really quick to determine whether an area fits your needs,” Metcalfe tells Startup Daily. The magic around NationMaster is all around how the in-depth data displays in a very accessible way for consumers; its unique algorithm even allows users to make better decisions about things like schools and daycare by giving them percentage scores. This means parents can make decisions without being bombarded with an array of conflicting information. No property report in the Australian market is currently taking the data and asking these types of questions.

"The site provides demographic data far more fine grained than the usual suburb reports that property buyers are used to," says Metcalfe. “Within a suburb there are distinct markets. A unit right next to Lindfield station gives you a totally different lifestyle to a bush frontage house on Lane Cove National Park. Gladesville has waterfront mansions and also houses on Victoria Rd right on public housing. This is the kind of detail that NationMaster is providing users with right now.”

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The founders of Couchelo have launched a new platform QLC.io and it’s getting a lot more traction

August 6, 2015, 5:15 pm

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team1

Last year Startup Daily wrote about a Sydney-based startup Couchelo, founded by Si-Si Dai, William Fan and Fei Yao, that focused on creating a curated marketplace for unique vintage and designer furniture. The team was accepted into Asia's top accelerator JFDI last year. Part of being accepted into the accelerator program, which is based in Singapore, meant that the founders had to relocate and reset the business, placing more of an emphasis on building a business for Asia in Asia. Two things happened within the first couple of weeks of moving to Singapore. The team discovered that the vintage furniture scene was really quite small in Asia. Even globally, the market is a lot smaller than they thought. The founders realised they needed to find a problem that they were the right people to solve. During this process of self-discovery, Fan and Yao, who decided to remain in Singapore asked themselves why they were launching a startup in the first place. After all, both had held lucrative positions at Accenture before packing up everything and moving overseas. The answer to that question was that both of them had gone through somewhat of a 'quarter life crisis' which was the catalyst for them both wanting to try something different career wise, thus their entry into the startup world. The Couchelo idea now parked, the pair entered the accelerator with a new venture QLC.io (Quarter Life Crisis), a career and lifestyle discovery portal for millennials.

"The reason why we combine career and lifestyle is because in today's era, millennials are always looking for the next thing," says Fan. "They're switching careers every two to three years, jumping 15 to 20 times throughout their lifespan, and they're always looking for new learning experiences, new travel opportunities and meeting new people. The problem we're trying to solve is making that jump between industries a little easier."

Jumping between career paths is actually quite scary: not knowing the right people, not having access to the right network, not having the right skills, and so on. This fear of 'opportunity cost' actually holds a lot of people back from leaving the jobs they are no longer happy working in, and moving on to something different they would find more fulfilling. The goal of QLC is to give people a chance to 'try before they buy' a new career option by way of presenting them with moonlighting opportunities.

"We want people to think of it as a combination of online education and practical up-skilling," says Fan. "Users can spend six weeks experiencing a role in fashion or in food or in travel or in another country, but you actually don't need to quit your job. The typical user case for our platform would be, 'I'm an accountant but I always wanted to learn about the fashion world. I'm not going to quit my job to work for Vogue in New York. But what I want to do is utilise my weekends to learn more about the industry in a hands'on manner'. So we actually connect people like that to innovative early-stage startups, social enterprises and creative projects."

QLC launched in November last year and has been running projects for the past couple of months. Currently most of the candidates are from mature markets like the US, UK, Australia and Southeast Asian cities like Singapore. Fan claims there is just over 5,000 users on the platform at the moment, and that QLC has run a little over 300 projects to date.

From that 25 percent of its customers have returned to partake in another project or have actually moved on from their jobs and continued with that business. There is scalability in the fact that a single project can have multiple users stacked onto it within the same month.

At the moment, most of the projects seem to be technology-related or projects that can be taken part in remotely. This makes sense because the bulk of moonlighting activities usually take place in an online environment, but I also believe that this will create a culture for QLC where particular types of businesses within particular fields begin to join the platform and post projects. I don't foresee a mining company, for instance, placing an engineering project on the platform. The business model that QLC has implemented is an interesting one. Both the candidate and the business pay to be connected to one another. The cost for both is $300. The candidate pays this amount to be connected to a business for a six-week period; and the business pays this amount per placement for a project. Price is something the team have been testing from day one; and this seems to have come out as the preferred price point for both candidates and businesses. From a quality control perspective, it also means that QLC only has serious candidates and businesses using the platform that are obviously committed to exploring the next opportunity or actually hiring a new staff member.

"Our hypothesis, which we have proved, is that even if you don't have the experience or background, you probably have the smarts to pick it up in a very short time," says Fan. "My background was in technology consulting and before that, it was in Law. If I had used that as a indicator as to whether I should build a tech startup, I never would've done it."

"Where we actually provide the confidence and then accelerate users is via our training and tool kit. We take a lot of examples from the traditional consulting world where there are companies like Accenture and McKinsey. These firms have their own toolkit, their own database of case studies and success stories, which their management consultants can use.

"Similarly, from our end, we have our own templates, tools and trainings. So a candidate that doesn't know much about the biking industry, for example, but has a background in corporate, can actually go to our platform, connect with a business and actually use our frameworks to apply for market entry strategy roles. The way we curate the candidates is already self-selective. Our users are motivated people with three to five years work experience, who want to do something on the side. They're not only capable of learning via our toolkit for training but they're also passionate enough to lend their time to learn about the biking industry."

It could be easy to confuse what QLC is doing with a traditional "find-a-freelancer" type platform like Upwork, Freelancer or even Expert360. However, the user does not receive any remuneration for taking part in a project; and it is in this aspect of the platform where the real difference lies. The user is paying for a process of self discovery and to broaden their experiences. It is not about a short-term side gig for some extra cash.

When asked about whether or not QLC was in the middle of raising a round of seed funding, Fan was silent on the subject. From that, I don't think it would be a stretch to surmise that it is most likely they are perhaps having some serious conversations with investors or even close to closing a round.

I would hazard a guess that a seed funding round for a play like this in Asia would end up being somewhere between $450,000 to $800,000 given the vision QLC is looking to execute on.

QLC is making some headway into the tertiary education space, which is also very interesting. It looks like it will serve as an accelerator of sorts when it comes to user growth on the platform.

QLC is about to announce a partnership with the University of NSW, which will see the university piloting the QLC platform with 100 of its Post-Graduate and Masters students - in other words, students with life-experience in the workforce. This will help the startup achieve its vision of there being a way for universities to provide high quality, real-world experiences for its students by 2020.

If the pilot flies smoothly, then it could eventuate in QLC being embedded into the university curriculum. This would mean 50,000 odd students will have access to instantaneous internship opportunities. The pilot is set to kick off in October this year.

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