As my dear Mum used to say: “If you want something done, do it yourself!” I’m not sure I completely agree with this, as you will probably need a team, need to influence some other people, and take them all along with you. You can’t do it all on your lonesome. But there’s a kernel...Read More
'It was 20 years ago today' the Beatles famously sang on Sergeant Pepper in 1967. Well, more than half a century later I'm reminiscing and musing about 1999, 20 years ago...Read More
In the recent Business News corporate finance report for calendar year 2018, I added up over $9.58B worth of equity capital raisings for WA companies, across 548 deals. That’s $17M+ per deal. And this does not count another $41B+ in M&A (merger and acquisition) activity. How much of the capital raising money went to early...Read More
I was speaking with an American CEO a few years ago, just after he had been in Perth a few months. “What’s the biggest difference between doing business in the States and here?” I asked him. “You guys sure love your coffee meetings,” he remarked, “Everyone just rings me up or emails and says ‘Let’s...Read More
Last week I visited an old watering hole with a former real estate client. He’d been one of the first to give our fledgling online business a go back in our first year (1999/2000), when it was far from certain that we had a valuable service, or that we’d even survive. [Our early clients gave...Read More
Smart leaders are no longer casting themselves as solo visionaries, but are rather rewriting the rules of innovation, so claims Harvard Business Professor Linda Hall. Together with a few other CEO-types, I was privileged to spend a half day with her recently in Perth courtesy of the RAC. She writes on leadership of innovation, and...Read More
This week it was revealed that local tech business, HealthEngine, had raised $26 million from global venture capitalist Sequoia Capital. This is notable for a few reasons: it’s the largest private sector investment in a local tech startup the first such investment from this Silicon Valley VC in Western Australia, and their second in Australia...Read More
7 years ago I visited a New York real estate technology conference, and one of the main themes was the emergence of the mobile economy, and how important smartphones were becoming. On returning, I wrote one of my first blog posts (‘It’s mobile, stoopid‘) on the Business2 website, the first comment of which still reads:...Read More
When we set up our tech startup back in 1999, we looked to angel investment to get our business off the ground. Some new business ideas just need to be tried in the marketplace in order to see if they will work, and they cannot be launched without some financial support. Often the idea is...Read More
