Podcast appearances and mentions of ian gardiner

Join us for part 2 of our “studio on the road” at Sunrise, Blackbird's annual festival of the startup ecosystem.   Armed with his roving podcast mic, Innovation Bay's Co-Founder and podcast host, Ian Gardiner, was lucky enough to tap the mind's of some of Sunrise's stellar speakers.    During this ep, you'll hear from:  

A few weeks back Blackbird held their annual conference Sunrise - a festival and celebration of the the startup ecosystem in Australia; or as Ian describes it “real life LinkedIn”.   Our fearless Co-Founder, host of Open The Pod Bay Doors, and arguably one of the most connected humans in the ecosystem, Ian Gardiner, took the studio on the road.   Ian chatted to 9 incredible speakers who featured on Sunrise's epic line up, to pick their brains on their area of expertise and the industry at large.   During part 1, you'll hear from:   Adam Gilmour, Gilmour Space Technologies - discussing the challenges in the space industry, Gilmore Space's upcoming first orbit launch and future plans including reusable rockets and lunar missions (SO COOL!)   Kristen Durham, Zendesk - about her recent promotion, the integration and future AI in Zendesk's customer support strategy.   Tova Angsuwat, Series Build (ex-Google) - about her transition from Google to founding Series Build, insights on effective recruitment strategies for startups, and the importance of diversity in startup teams.   Bronwen Clune, Capital Brief - on her background and shift to Capital Brief (one of the newest and fastest growing tech and innovation focused media outlets), about Capital Brief's mission to cover the new economy, and the challenges and highlights in startup journalism.   It's a mixed bag of brilliant minds, set against the backdrop of the electrifying hum of Sunrise 2024.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“When we worked on Monument together in 1993 (the musicalised documentary that launched BBC Radio 3's Between the Ears), my old friend Ian Gardiner was keen to capture what he called a Singing […]

Sunday Evening, 19th March 2023 Testimony: Ian Gardiner www.lifeboatfellowship.com This audio was recorded at the Lifeboat Fellowship, Grange Corner, Moy. For further copies or information please visit our website at www.lifeboatfellowship.com or write to.... Lifeboat Fellowship, Old Moy Road, Dungannon, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland, BT71 6PX

Canterbury Mountain Radio Service is due to close after nearly 60 years due to funding shortfalls and changing technology. Ian Gardiner has been involved with the station for decades, and talks to Susie.

On November 10 and 11, Sunrise, Australia's leading ideas and innovation festival run by our friends at Blackbird, returned to Sydney for their most ambitious event since its inception in 2014. Taking over Sydney's iconic Carriageworks, Sunrise opened its doors, inviting around 1,000 of its closest pals, all primed to explore the optimism and wonder of human achievement. Armed with a microphone, and less a wisdom tooth (which was removed around halfway through the festival - by a professional dentist), Innovation Bay's Co-Founder and familiar host of Open The Pod Bay Doors, Ian Gardiner, tapped 21 people on the shoulder for series of pow wows about business, innovation, a retrospective at what has got them to now, a fast forward of what's to come for our industry and what's exciting them, and of course…what they're hearing, seeing and feeling at Sunrise. Part 3 features an admirable group of people including Flavia Tata Nardini (Fleet Space Technologies), Andy Tsao (Silicon Valley Bank), Matthew Pearson (Fleet Space Technologies & Airspeeder), Lucy Wark (Normal), Tim Moore (Investor), Matt Allen (Tractor Ventures), Alex McCauley (Tech Council of Australia).   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On November 10 and 11, Sunrise, Australia's leading ideas and innovation festival run by our friends at Blackbird, returned to Sydney for their most ambitious event since its inception in 2014. Taking over Sydney's iconic Carriageworks, Sunrise opened its doors, inviting around 1,000 of its closest pals, all primed to explore the optimism and wonder of human achievement. Armed with a microphone, and less a wisdom tooth (which was removed around halfway through the festival - by a professional dentist), Innovation Bay's Co-Founder and familiar host of Open The Pod Bay Doors, Ian Gardiner, tapped 21 people on the shoulder for series of pow wows about business, innovation, a retrospective at what has got them to now, a fast forward of what's to come for our industry and what's exciting them, and of course…what they're hearing, seeing and feeling at Sunrise. Part 2 features a bunch of incredible humans including Joel Connolly (Blackbird), Alex Apoifis (Blackbird), Jekaterina Viktorova (Syenta), Andrea Gardiner (Jelix), Damon Klotz (Culture Amp), Mick Liubinskas (Climate Salad), and Kate Glazebrook (Blackbird).   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On November 10 and 11, Sunrise, Australia's leading ideas and innovation festival run by our friends at Blackbird, returned to Sydney for their most ambitious event since its inception in 2014. Taking over Sydney's iconic Carriageworks, Sunrise opened its doors, inviting around 1,000 of its closest pals, all primed to explore the optimism and wonder of human achievement.    Armed with a microphone, and less a wisdom tooth (which was removed around halfway through the festival - by a professional dentist), Innovation Bay's Co-Founder and familiar host of Open The Pod Bay Doors, Ian Gardiner, tapped 21 people on the shoulder for series of pow wows about business, innovation, a retrospective at what has got them to now, a fast forward of what's to come for our industry and what's exciting them, and of course…what they're hearing, seeing and feeling at Sunrise.    Part 1 features a bevy of incredible humans including:  - Matt Fairhurst (Skedulo)- Al Coleman (Folklore)- Kristen Durham (Zendesk)- Mary Minas (Sense of Self)- Mark Dombkins (Forever Projects)- Jason Neave (Punt Club)- Nan Ransohoff (Stripe)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After a two year hiatus, Innovation Bay and ARENA teamed up once more for the ARENA Renewable Energy Founder Forum.    Across the course of the evening, four promising founders from a pool of 40 applications in the renewables space were invited to pitched their business to a room of experts and enthusiasts in the industry.    We heard from ARENA's Darren Miller, past alumni 5B's Dr Nicole Kuepper-Russell and an expert panel, recorded the night, featured Renate Egan from the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics, Kate Vidgen of Macquarie Group and Kristin Vaughan from Virescent Ventures.   Today we're thrilled to share the panel discussion with you for this week's episode. Across this educational and eye-opening conversation, Innovation Bay's own Ian Gardiner alongside renewables experts Renate Egan, Kate Vidgen and Kristin Vaughan cover a range of topics.    We investigate the renewable energy industry shifts across the last 12-18 months, Australia's evolution relative to other international markets in relation to EVs and hydrogen and where Australia is going to win within the emerging technology space. We also discuss how the world is recognising the need to globalise the supply chain, export opportunities for Australia's energy commodity or IP and the increasing need for negative omissions. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ian Gardiner is an Investment Partner at Jelix Ventures, a firm which invests in early stage tech startups in Australia and New Zealand, and a co-founder of Innovation Bay, which works to create and nurture supportive communities for investors and founders. Originally from Scotland, Ian previously founded and acted as CEO in his own startup, Viocorp, for over a decade, before taking the role of Head of Startups for Amazon Web Service (AWS) Australia and New Zealand where he was responsible for establishing and managing AWS's relationship with the startup communities in Australia and New Zealand. In his conversation with Adam, he discusses his time with AWS, and how he discovered his passion for growing and nurturing communities. See full show notes https://w2d1.com/ian-gardiner

When Ian Gardiner was 10 years old, he was the fastest kid in his class to solve the rubix cube. He was also quick enough to sense a business opportunity so he sold the solution to his classmates. Despite the modest circumstances of his childhood in Glasgow, he went on to secure a place at St Peter's College Oxford and row not once, but twice in the prestigious Oxford Cambridge boat race, the culmination of 6 hours of training 6 days per week for 7 months on top of demanding Oxford academic expectations. What becomes of a man who has the sort of innate smarts and stamina? Surprisingly he has found himself halfway around the world, and together with his wife Andrea Gardiner one half of the possibly the most dynamic couple in the Australian startup eco-system with their firm Jelix ventures. Ian is also the co-founder of the wonderfully expansive network of technology and investment enthusiasts Innovation Bay and for good measure the host of probably my favourite Australian startup podcast Open the Podbay doors. Along the way Ian became a Member of YPO, had a stint as the Head of Startups at AWS in Australia/NZ, has won the Pearcy award for IT Entrepreneur of the year. He is a Passionate startup mentor, Cyclist, gamer, skier, husband, geek, and father (but not necessarily in that order). Links and resources Ian Gardiner on LinkedIn Jelix Ventures Podcasts Open the Pod Bay Doors Other Oxford Cambridge boat race For more information about Scale: Scale Investors Scale Educated

Our guest on Pod #016 is Scott the serving Officer Commanding 4/73 (Sphinx) Special OP Battery. On this episode we talk about his unique journey to head up the Army's STA patrols unit from the ranks of the Royal Military Police's Close Protection Unit where he carried out tours in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Being selected for commissioning as an officer and attending the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.  Finally passing P Company in order to serve with Airborne Forces before he completed the STA Patrols Selection course for his first tour with 4/73 as a Troop Commander . Scott then covers the role of the unit today including operational commitments, training and selection in order to deliver surveillance, reconnaissance and joint fires in high risk environments.  We then move on to discuss the future of STA patrols in a shrinking Army with increasing demands.   We finish with Scott's book choice on Desert Island dits In the Service of the Sultan: A First Hand Account of the Dhofar Insurgency by Ian Gardiner.  His film choice is A Bridge Too Far.  The teams book choices this episode are Berlin: The Downfall 1945 by Antony Beevor and The American Civil War by JohnKeegan. Find out about the current serving unit at STA Patrols Special Observer. Follow us on social media and don't forget to like, follow, share and leave a review. Instagram @the_unconventional_soldier_pod. Facebook @lateo82.  Twitter @TheUCS473. Download on other platforms via Link Tree. Email us: unconventionalsoldier@gmail.com.  This episode brought to you in association with ISARR a veteran owned company.

Today you’re going to hear the story of Startmate featuring the head of operations at Startmate, Michael Batko.Startmate is the leading tech accelerator in Australia and they take 10 to 15 companies and new stage founders in each cohort and help them from three to four months to get them to the next stage of their business.They look for just the most ambitious founders and then work with that talent. Startmate doesn’t necessarily specialise in a certain area or industry. Startmate just focuses on the most ambitious founders and work with them to create immense value.Let’s go back to day one, to a pub in Surry Hills where this story begins…

A wonderful series of books from author and ex-military man Ian Gardiner published by Pen & Sword books. The Yompers: With 45 Commando in the Falklands War The Flatpack Bombers: The Royal Navy and the ‘Zeppelin Menace’ In the Service of the Sultan: A First-Hand Account of the Dhofar Insurgency

My guest for Episode 99 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is 3 times entrepreneur and investor, Jules Miller. Jules co-founded and led two legal tech companies: Evolve Law which was acquired by Breaking Media/Above the Law and Hire an Esquire, a venture-backed tech startup providing attorneys on-demand to law firms and in-house legal teams. She also co-founded Carbonado Group, an environmental sustainability consulting firm that helped companies including EY, Salesforce and Tiffany & Co. to launch and grow new business units around environmental and social responsibility.  Jules now spends her time on the other side of the table. She helped to create the new IBM Blockchain Ventures group, where she now runs the IBM Blockchain Accelerator  and is a Partner of IBM Blockchain Ventures. She is also the co-founder and managing partner of Prose Ventures, the first independent VC fund investing in legal and compliance technologies. We covered a wide range of topics in this interview including: The benefits of focusing on a nicheThe value add of vertical specific fundsWhat startups should look for in accelerator programs and VCsThe importance of networkingHow to expand and get funding in the US This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au. Join us as we celebrate our 100 episode milestone & do a live interview with Culture Amp, Co-founder & CEO, Didier Elzinga. Register here and use the code "playbookpodcast" for discounted tickets! Show notes:- Prose Ventures- IBM Blockchain accelerator- Hire an Esquire- Evolve Law- Above the Law- Brava Ventures- Nathalie Molina Nino- Howard Buffett- Gugenheim Partners- LunaCap Ventures- Holly Liu (podcast episode)- Kabam- Invest in lines not dots - Mark Suster blog- Ian Gardiner (podcast episode)- Jules Miller (LinkedIn) Check out my new video series on Youtube! Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams Other channels:Don't have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & StitcherAudio Player The post Ep099 – Jules Miller (Partner – IBM Blockchain Ventures) on the importance of owning a niche appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Episode 98 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the Investment Partner at Jelix Ventures, Ian Gardiner. Ian is best known for his role at Amazon Web Services as the Head of Business Development for Startups in Australia and New Zealand, but prior to this he was the founder of several startups himself. Ian was the Founder and Managing Director of “Last Orders”, a UK based startup that raised GBP2.5M but as Ian describes it himself, they built the supply but the expected demand never came through. Ian then moved to Australia and along with his co-founder Ron Mcullough launched Viocorp, run-in the company for the next 12 years as it's co-founder and CEO. He is now an Investment Partner at Jelix Ventures, a fund that he setup with his wife Andrea, after they had both spent spending several years successfully identifying and investing in early-stage high technology companies. Alongside his role at Jelix, Ian is also the Co-founder of Innovation Bay, a community and networking group for businesses, entrepreneurs and investors and he also hosts the highly successful Open The Pod Bay Doors podcast. I was really excited to speak with someone who had spent so much of his time and energy in building the ecosystem here as well as seeing first hand a range of successful and unsuccessful companies being built from the ground up across his various ventures. In this interview we spoke about: Breeding success from implementing cultureHow Amazon approaches hiring “A players”How to stay consistentThe foundations of building successful ecosystems3 key ingredients shared by successful founders This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au. Show notes:- Open The Pod Bay Doors Podcast- 2001 Space Odyssey- Innovation Bay- Andrea Gardiner- Viocorp- AWS- Phaedon Stough- Jelix Ventures- Cap Table- Liquidity Preference- Fuckup Nights- Ron McCullough- 14 Leadership Principles (Amazon)- Malcolm Turnbull- Paul Bassat- Daniel Petre- Wyatt Roy- LaunchVic- Square Peg Capital- Blackbird VC- Airtree VC- AVCAL- Startup Muster- Venture Downunder- Postie- StorReduce- Pollenizer- Pure Storage- Stone & Chalk- Alon Greenspan- Whooshkaa- Ian Gardiner (email) Check out my new video series on Youtube! Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams Other channels:Don't have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & StitcherAudio Player The post Ep098 – Ian Gardiner (Jelix Ventures) on building success through culture appeared first on Startup Playbook.

This week on Open The Pod Bay Doors we chat to Sam Wong, Partner at Blackbird Ventures, an Australian venture fund who back exceptional founders with big ambitions to build global businesses. They provide equity capital for Seed, Series A and later stage - no cheque is too early. With a portfolio of over 40 companies, Blackbird has backed some of Australia’s startup powerhouses like Canva, Safety Culture, BugCrowd, Culture Amp.Sam and her parents emigrated to Perth from the UK in the 1980s, shortly after her mum started a computer sales business, and it wasn’t long until Sam and her dad were helping to run the business. Growing up with entrepreneurial parents instilled a drive and ambition in Sam from an early age.Sam went on to study law, this led to a summer clerkship and a graduate offer at top law firm. Sam loved the learning and analytical framework, however wanted to work on side projects (including learning French), and lawyer hours allowed no time to focus on these.One of these side projects was SurfStitch, a surf e-commerce company, so Sam left corporate world to help with their SEO and email marketing. A year later, she was in France hiring the team to run SurfStitch’s European operations - putting the French she’d learned to good use.After SurfStitch Sam knew she wanted to start her own thing, so she thought about a problem she faced working as a lawyer, working fewer hours, and CapacityHQ, an on-demand marketplace for legal talent was born. They were part of the Startmate cohort in 2015, the program accelerated their learning, and about halfway through realised they could build a small business but it wouldn’t meet their ambition.At the end of Startmate and after selling CapacityHQ, Sam became the first employee of the Blackbird team as Head of Operations, two years later Sam became a Partner.Blackbird is on its third fund of $250 million ($100M for new investments and $150M for follow on). They are focused on investing earlier and writing smaller cheques to back founders all along their journey. Outside the portfolio, Blackbird has been leading the charge adding value to the wider ecosystem with community initiatives like the Sunrise event, robotics clubs in universities and schools, and the partners regularly writing blog posts.     Sam has seen all sides of business, raised by entrepreneurs, working as a lawyer, a startup employee, founding her own business, and now an investor. In this episode she shares lots of her experiences and lesson learned along the way.  Enjoy.

This week on Open The Pod Bay Doors, we turn our attention to the New Zealand startup ecosystem as Ian Gardiner speaks with kiwi native, serial entrepreneur and investor, Rowan Simpson.Rowan started his career as an IT consultant working on mainly Government projects in Sydney. A software engineer at heart, Rowan began tinkering with web tools and developed his first startup FlatHunt to help people finding flatmates. After burning through all his cash, Rowan returned to NZ where he was hired by TradeMe and became the third founding member of the team.Rowan talks about their David and goliath experience when TradeMe took on eBay and became the dominate the e-commerce platform in New Zealand (one of only a few markets eBay did not succeed in). TradeMe went on to become an iconic Kiwi brand and was acquired by Fairfax for $750m.After the sale of TradeMe, Rowan was involved in the early days of the great New Zealand unicorn, Xero. Shortly after the IPO Rowan moved on and led the investment in another great kiwi company, Vend, a retail management software that lets retailers run their business in-store, online, and via mobile.His current role is Chair at Hoku Group,  his family office where Rowan combines private investments into early-stage technology ventures and a non-profit foundation. He continues to work closely as both an investor, director and advisor with the next wave of technology businesses they have invested in, including Timely, Atomic, Melodics and Thematic.Rowan and Ian discuss Rowan’s investment thesis, what great founders look like, and exchange notes on difference between the Australia & NZ ecosystems.Rowan is a great thinker, backing some incredible startups and a huge ambassador for New Zealand. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed chatting to Rowan.

This week on pod, we talk everything blockchain and cryptocurrency with Australia’s leading thinkers on the subject, George Samman.A blockchain consultant/advisor, George Samman has co-founded and worked with numerous startups in the bitcoin and blockchain space since 2013. George strongly believes that blockchain and financial technologies are here to change how business is done across every industry.George co-founded Magnr in 2013, a bitcoin trading platform, and Sammantics where he blogs about blockchain technology and use cases. He’s constantly researching the technology in great depth in order to explain its potential to institutions of all shapes and sizes. He recently co-authored a seminal report on blockchain architecture with KPMG.George Samman is an entrepreneur in Residence for blockchain and cryptocurrency at Startupbootcamp, Tyro Fintech Hub, and has also advised startups such as Agridigital, Lightstreams, Investfeed, Gazecoin and Hedera Hashgraph.So turn up the volume and dive into the crypto world!

This week on the pod, we have one of Australia’s most creative and well respected research commercialisation specialists. Dr. Steve Brodie talking everything innovation.Steve is passionate about all things science. Steve brings more than 20 years’ experience in research and development, commercialisation and open innovation with stints at major universities and now working with CSIRO.In his current role as Executive Manager for Innovation with CSIRO, Steve leads a fantastic team who design and delivery of innovation programs, including the ON program, Australia's innovation accelerator open to all Australian universities,  publicly funded research agencies and CSIRO. The program is designed to support and guide academia and research teams into viable, commercial businesses.On 9th April 2018 Innovation Bay will host the Deep Tech Founder Dinner that will feature teams from ON accelerator program.A curious inventor by trade, Steve co-founded ‘Thinking Thingamabob’, designed to solely help people be more creative. Prior to relocating to Australia Steve worked in space-tech and development of sensors for rockets and jets with Ferroperm Piezoceramics in Denmark.It’s a really fun conversation we hope you enjoy!

Larry Lopez has been driving innovation for over 25 years. He has worked with start-ups, venture capital funds, institutional investors and government agencies, with a long track record of developing outstanding teams that deliver successful outcomes.Larry spent 17 years in technology finance with Silicon Valley Bank, before moving to Australia in 2006. His current role as Director of Accelerating Commercialisation for the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science sees him offering support and opportunities to help Australian entrepreneurs, researchers and SME businesses to address the challenges associated with commercialising intellectual property.We caught up with Larry at last year's West Tech festival in Perth.

Dom Luszczyszyn from The Athletic joins us this week to break down the Leafs that we think are a bit overrated and underrated when you compare their results with fan perception.3:23 - Dom: Dermott & Kapanen are Overrated.10:29 - Ian: Matthews is (slightly) Overrated.17:35 - Ian: Marleau is Overrated.25:25 - Dom: Rielly is Underrated.31:18 - Ian: Marner is Underrated.36:00 - Dom: JVR and Bozak are Underrated.40:26 - Ian: Gardiner is Underrated.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After a little break we're back and ready to open the pod bay doors again.To kick off the year we thought we'd let our co-founders, Ian Gardiner and Phaedon Stough interview one another. This year Innovation Bay celebrates 15 years of supporting Australian founders and the startup ecosystem. It's been quite a ride from those initial gatherings of a few people in a dingy bar to a national community of over 3000 members spread across Australia.In case you don't know much about them, Ian Gardiner has a day job with Amazon Web Services, helping startups across Australia and New Zealand. Previously Ian was the CEO and founder of Viocorp, a software company supplying a video publishing platform for corporates and government. In 2009 Ian won the NSW Pearcey award for Technology Entrepreneur of the Year.Phaedon Stough, has worked with entrepreneurs and high growth tech start-up across APAC, EMEA and NA. Founding Mitchellake in 2001 to help entrepreneurs scale their companies via human capital solutions. Phaedon was the on board of Australia's first incubator, Pollenizer and later co-founded The Australian Founders Network in San Francisco to help Aussie entrepreneurs living overseas collaborate and support each other.Quite a dynamic duo we think you'll agree. Buckle up as these two 'veterans' cover everything from Innovation Bay's humble beginnings, their own personal journey's as startup founders, reflect on the changes in the Australian ecosystem over the past 15 years, share thoughts on the work that still needs to be done, and announce lots of new initiatives coming 2018.

Vanessa is the founder and CEO of Storreduce, an Australian deep-tech startup playing in the storage area. She moved the business to Silicon Valley a couple of years ago to be closer to her market. I caught up with her on a pretty noisy exhibition floor at AWS's re:Invent customer event in Vegas. 

Jeremy Kwong-Law manages Grok Ventures, which is Mike Cannon-Brookes's family office fund. Jeremy has a law degree  from Sydney Uni, a stint at Macquarie bank as well as a foray into running his own startup a few years ago. This a fascinating story about how Jeremy got into venture, what a family office fund like this looks like, what their investment focus is.

Dr Michelle Perugini is an academic, entrepreneur, and an internationally renowned expert in health, medical research, advanced analytics, and cognitive AI. Her business, Life Whsiperer uses AI, computer vision and machine learning to better select healthy embryos for IVF, and ultimately improve outcomes for couples wanting to have children.Success rates for IVF are low, placing unnecessary financial and emotional burden on couples. Selecting the right embryo during IVF treatment is critical to ensuring a successful outcome. However, embryo selection is typically a manual and imprecise process. Life Whisperer's goal is to improve IVF success rates, and reduce cost and emotional burden on couples by selecting the best embryos.

Slight change in format this week. Ian is off in Hawaii cycling up a volcano, so has handed the microphone over to his Innovation Bay co-founder Phaedon Stough. He caught up with Patrick Llewellyn, the CEO of Accel-backed Aussie startup success story 99Designs. 99Designs is one of the world's largest graphic design marketplaces. There are few who have executed such rapid global growth as successfully as Patrick.To date, 99designs has hosted more than 245,000 graphic design contests and paid out more than $60 million to its community of 250,000 designers around the world. 

Katherine is the founder and CEO of Brighte, a Sydney-based fintech startup. Its proposition is to lend to households looking to buy big-ticket items like solar panels, batteries, air conditioners, etc. A former Macquarie banker, she launched the business in late 2016. She has shown incredible traction and progress, having recently landed $3.5m in seed funding, including from Mike Cannon-Brookes (Atlassian's co-CEO).

Bill has had a long career in the startup and venture space. He was a co-founder at Blackbird Ventures (with Niki Scevak and Rick Baker). He has a huge passion for #DeepTechFounders and has now recently launched Main Sequence Ventures along with Phil Morle, Mike Zimmermann, Martin Duursma and Mike Nicholls. It's a $100m fund part funded by CSIRO and part funded by the federal goverment.Bill proved his geek chops and street cred by nominating Rick & Morty as his favourite TV show. Love it.

Al is one of the new generation of Aussie VCs.  Tempus Partners was formed after his successful exit from ShippingEasy. He's now launched a $40m fund investing in the best early stage and Series A opportunities.  It's an awesome story and great to hear the insights from one of the best "emerging" VCs in Australia.

Alison brings some unique insights to the podcast this week. She's done just about everything from early stage startups to a stint as a VC and now as a Director of Westpac and Cochlear (amongst other things!) She's an amazing thinker and problem solver. I enjoy all my interviews, but this is definitely up there as one of my favourites.

Dan Cohen is an Australian serial entrepreneur. He successfully built and sold his first business Park Assist after a 10 year journey. In 2015 he co-founded Flare, a business redefining the employer-employee relationship. Has raised almost $10m locally, mostly from local VC Reinventure. I've known Dan for years now and he is one of my favourite entrepreneurs. He seems to combine the essential entrepreneurial traits of tenacity, ambition and arrogance but with healthy dollops of humility. There are some extremely valuable insights in this interview.

I know you shouldn't have favourite children, or, I suppose, favourite startup CEOs. But Luke is definitely one of my favourite CEOs. Luke's story, and by extension the story of SafetyCulture is fascinating - the epitome of startup hustle. It was so inspiring that Luke produced and paid for a movie about it (along with his buddies from Canva and Vinomofo). It's appropriately called "The New Hustle" - if you haven't seen it check it out - you'll find it on YouTube.

Jason is a prinipal at Partners for Growth (PFG), a specialty lending company from Silicon Valley with an active presence in Australia. When it comes to financing high-growth companies, we tend to focus on equity deals - ie sell a percentage of your company shares to an investor. Debt is an instrument that is much less common. Why is this? Jason has a great story to tell. Listen in and find out how he went from a Phd in Ancient History from Oxford University via a few years with Silicon Valley Bank in San Francisco to PFG's man on the ground in Australia. And what exactly is venture debt?

Amanda Price is the head of KPMG's High Growth Ventures team. Their aim is to help founders build successful startups by helping them with access to capital, customers and international connections.She returned from almost 10 years in Los Angeles in various startup roles and has been a pillar of the Aussie startup community for over three years now. She's smart and passionate about startups. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Flavia is my favourite rocket scientist. Passionate, driven, intelligent and with unbelievable amounts of tenacity, it seems there is nothing that Flavia can't do if she puts her mind (and talents) to it.Fleet is a space business providing free global satellite connectivity for the internet of things. Over the next few years they will be launching and managing a constellation of up to 100 nano-satellites operating in a low earth orbit and providing ubiquitous connectivity for the tens of billions of internet-connected devices around the world. They just raised $5m from Blackbird and Mike Cannon-Brooke's investment fund, Grok Ventures.Flavia has a great story of how she got to this point. And articulates well the remarkable ambition she still has for the business. 

Karen is the CEO of corporate startup accelerator Slingshot. She has spent most of her career in various tech roles, most recently as CEO of News-owned job site Career One. Slingshot has delivered programs for several major Australian corporates over the last 3 years, including NRMA, HCF, Qantas and Lion. It's an interesting model which seems to have carved out a good spot in a relatively competitive market.Karen and I cover a lot of ground in this (quite long) episode. She's an awesome lady - great fun to talk to with some great insights.

Niki Scevak is the founder of Australian accelerator program Startmate as well as a founding partner at VC Blackbird. He's been passionately involved in the Australian startup sector since 2008 when he returned home from the USA.Niki has done about as much as anyone I know to support and grow the startup ecosystem. Startmate is on its fifth (or sixth?) cohort. Blackbird has now made almost 40 investments across its two funds. Many of their most recent investments are in what one might call "non-standard" sectors such has self-driving cars and space. Niki is a deep thinker with a keen intellect. And a great guy too.

Nico Chu is a very accomplished senior executive from the global IT corporate ranks. He has held senior global roles with companies like Expedia and Orbitz. His last corporate role was successfully helping to navigate Orbitz through their $1.5bn acquisition by Expedia. His new venture, Sinorbis, is a software business helping western (well, non-Chinese) companies market themselves into the enormous Chinese market. China has 720m internet users, which is one quarter of the world's internet population. Broadly speaking they love western goods and services. However it's very difficult for those brands to get their message delivered behind the Great Chinese Firewall in a way that resonates. Sinorbis has built software and associated services that is helping with this.Nico has a great story. And is a shining example of someone coming from the corporate world to make a significant splash in the startup world. (Also, sorry for my Barry White voice - got whacked with a bug just before this was recorded.)

Gen is a remarkable young woman. Smart, driven, humble. She has demonstrated a remarkable ability in her short career so far to (ahem) "get shit done". She cut her teeth in understanding double sided-markets with recruitment marketplace OneShift. This was sold earlier this year to Programmed. Gen and her co-founder/CTO Jess Glenn have now embarked on Tamme, a service for micro-targeting both sides of marketplaces, at a hyper-local level. She has also co-founded (with Jane Lu from Showpo) "Like Minded Bitches Drinking Wine" which now has 46,000+ female members around the world who enjoy wine and business. We discussed this and more. Jump in and enjoy...

Rob is the CEO and founder of podcasting platform Whooshkaa. An accountant by background, Rob was formerly the CEO at Macquarie Radio Network before he left and threw himself into the startup world with Whooshkaa a couple of years ago. Whooshkaa as well as being the publishing platform for Open the Pod Bay Doors is also one of the best startups in Australia right now. Commercially and technically it is doing an amazing job. Rob is intelligent, focused, talented and super-humble. 

Jennifer Tejada is the CEO of Pagerduty, a company that provides (I'm quoting from their web site) - "full-stack visibility and actionable insights for better software and better customer experiences. " It might sound niche, but this is a huge and growing area, especially with the way software is currently being developed, deployed and managed. Just 7 years old and a graduate of Y-Combinator,  Pagerduty has raised over US$80m from investors including Accel, Bessemer and Andreessen Horowitz.  It has over 9,000 clients globally and around 330 staff.Pagerduty just launched in Australia and Jennifer was in town to get things kicked off. She has a strong link to Australia (Bondi in particular) having married an Aussie through their love of ocean-yacht-racing. She spent 10 years or so in Australia before heading back to San Francisco and eventually ending up at Pagerduty in 2016. She's a remarkable woman with a huge wealth of experiences and insights. One of my favourite guests so far. Enjoy.

We held an Innovation Bay event in Melbourne recently where we hosted Partners from three of the country's best VCs (Airtree, Reinventure and Squarepeg). Between them they represent almost $750m of Venture Capital and have made around 60 investments between them. Fascinating discussion covering the background of Australia's VC sector, where it has got to now, some of the upcoming trends and what the future holds. 

On Thursday 13 July 2017, Jobs NSW announced the creation of the "Sydney Startup Hub", a new, 17,000 sq m space dedicated to housing, and nurturing, much of Sydney's startup community. Anchor tenants of Fishburners, Tankstream, Stone & Chalk and The Studio. Scheduled to open later in 2017. David Thodey is the Chairman of Jobs NSW and managed to squeeze in this special episode of the podcast straight after the announcement. David was CEO at Telstra from 2009 to 2015. Under his tenure Telstra's market cap doubled and, according to Crikey, "not only restored its tattered reputation but improved it."He is currently Chair of CSIRO and JobsNSW, and has a wealth of experience as a technology industry executive.

Slightly different episode format this week. This was recorded at an Innovation Bay event in Sydney, so we had the fun of recording at a live event in front of a studio audience. Please forgive the audio challenges around the Q&A section. Apart from a mis-joke about Paul growing up in Liverpool (he didn't, but I actually thought he was serious when he said he did!) this is a great and fascinating chat with Paul.Paul has over a decade experience in investment, venture capital and startups. He started at Goldman Sachs before becoming the Investment Manager for the $400m Tulla Family Office. For the past 2.5 years, Paul has been a Venture Partner at AirTree Ventures, a $250M Venture Fund.Today, he's building Spaceship, a tech-focused Super Fund offering a diversified portfolio with tech at its core, built for those with long investment horizons. Spaceship is looking to completely change the future of Superannuation for young Australians.

Based in Western Sydney, Ed Husic was elected to the House of Representatives as the Federal Member for Chifley in 2010. Currently in his third term, he was re-elected to Parliament in 2016.Before entering Parliament, he held a number of roles within the public and private sector including National President of the Communications Electrical Plumbing Union. Prior to this he was employed with Integral Energy (now Endeavour Energy); a major national energy retailer and NSW based electricity distributor.We managed to keep the discussion as non-political and partisan as we possibly could. And remarkably didn't even mention Donald Trump once.

Over the course of Paul's career he has built and sold four previous companies and has then become an active consultant and non-executive director of some major companies like Trade Me and iiNet. In 2014, Paul McCarney and Danny Gilligan (one of the founders of VC Reinventure) founded Data Republic with a mission to change the way organisations exchange data - to make it safer, more secure and more scalable.This is a complicated area, which we cover in some detail.

Elaine is Head of Venture Capital at Blue Sky and is responsible for the management of the Blue Sky venture capital fund and portfolio. Established in 2012, her division has over $100 million in assets under management across a broad range of industry sectors. Amongst her notable investments was a $25m injection into Vinomofo in April 2016.Elaine is a proud Brisbane native and a huge champion of Queensland's startup sector. She has a strong academic foundation holding a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Adelaide.  She is actively involved in Australia’s professional venture capital community, as a member of AVCALs venture capital stakeholder committee and as a member of the investment committee of ANUConnect Venture Capital, the Australian National University’s venture capital fund.I took the podcast studio on the road with me and visited Elaine's Brisbane office for this awesome and insightful chat.

The sharp-eyed amongst my listeners will have noted the reference to "2001 - A Space Odyssey" in the title of this podcast. Whilst certainly no HAL 9000, Andrea Boyd is one of the controllers of the International Space Station, albeit from the relative comfort and safety of Cologne, Germany, Planet Earth.Andrea was visiting Australia to help lobby for the establishment of an Australian Space Agency (plus some other things). I managed to catch up with her and her busy schedule to hear how a girl from Adelaide has made it so far in the Space Industry. And what we might expect in the future from Australia's nascent Space Sector.

Daniel is one of the most successful Venture Capitalists in Australia. He is a founder of Airtree Ventures, a technology-focused venture capital company. Prior to Airtree Ventures he was the Founding Chairman of netus (a technology investment company acquired by Fairfax Media in 2013) and prior to this role he founded Australia's largest internet investment company, ecorp. The returns to investors from all of these funds were nothing short of extraordinary - eg Netus invested in and exited nine companies over a six-year period, delivering a 4x cash-on-cash return to investors. Prior to that he held several senior executive roles with Microsoft, including reporting to Bill Gates and running the APAC region for Microsoft. He was recently appointed to the federal government's "Innovation and Science Australia" Board. He is a noted and vocal philanthropist, and currently serves on the Sydney Theatre Company Board and the advisory boards for the UNSW Australia Business School and the University of Sydney Medical School. He is also an adjunct professor at the Business School of the University of Sydney and the Business School of UNSW Australia.Daniel is incredibly smart and articulate. And he has been known to be quite opinionated.  He's also a remarkable predictor of the future. Delighted that Daniel was my first guest. Enjoy and please let me know your feedback.

I am joined in Bansko by Ian Gardiner and Alex Evtimov to talk about all the things to do in Bansko and the surrounding areas this summer. Sponsors: http://www.appfactory.bg http://www.banskoblog.com (book your Bansko activities / hire here) https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bansko/id491461324?ls=1&mt=8 Bansko App http://www.cleves.bg Links http://www.saintgeorgepalace.com http://www.banskotowers.com If you enjoy these Bulgaria Now podcasts then I need your help. Please use the service of the sponsors and services at http://banskoblog.com. A rate and review of this channel on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/bulgaria-now/id889642431?mt=2 is the best way to help others to find it.

Shadowplay offers a four-part 'symphony of voices' to celebrate 20 years of Between the Ears. It explores the shadows that may fall between the appearance of things and their reality. Making use of the full palette available to the radio producer - documentary, fiction, music, pure sound - four feature-makers address our values, our identities, our romantic inclinations and our sense of worth. 4. Final Movement: Art Values One of the 'variations' in the first movement of Shadowplay, broadcast earlier this month, introduced the life-model Sue Tilley. A nude portrait of her by Lucian Freud, Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, became the most expensive painting by a living artist when it was bought by Roman Abramovich in 2008. In this 'finale', Sue shares more of her life and work (as a life-model, benefits officer and '80s club-scene icon) at the centre of an exploration of the value of art - aesthetics, price-tags, high-life and the everyday. With a cast of voices from the art world, including Tracey Emin, Ai Wei Wei, Jeff Koons, Robert Hughes, Roy Lichtenstein and Gilbert and George. Shadowplay has been inspired by the words of TS Eliot: Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the shadow. Radio 3's showcase for adventurous feature-making was launched in October 1993 with a 'piece for radio', by the composer Ian Gardiner. 'Monument', which was conceived as a kind of London symphony, received the prestigious Prix Italia the following year. Produced by Alan Hall. A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3.

Shadowplay offers a four-part 'symphony of voices' to celebrate 20 years of Between the Ears. It explores the shadows that may fall between the appearance of things and their reality. Making use of the full palette available to the radio producer - documentary, fiction, music, pure sound - four feature-makers address our values, our identities, our romantic inclinations and our sense of worth. 2. Slow Movement: Everything, Nothing, Harvey Keitel In the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world, the city of lights and dreams and distractions, a man sits down and tries to meditate. Learning to meditate is hard. Emptying one's mind, focusing entirely on one's breath is hard. And it gets even harder for the man with the realisation that he's sitting next to the famous actor Harvey Keitel. Radio 3's showcase for adventurous feature-making was launched in October 1993 with a 'piece for radio', by the composer Ian Gardiner. 'Monument', which was conceived as a kind of London symphony, received the prestigious Prix Italia the following year. Produced by Pejk Malinovski. A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3.

Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the shadow. The words of TS Eliot provide a cue for this playful, challenging and touching anniversary series celebrating 20 years of Between the Ears. Radio 3's showcase for adventurous feature-making was launched in October 1993 with a 'piece for radio', by the composer Ian Gardiner. 'Monument', which was conceived as a kind of London symphony, received the prestigious Prix Italia the following year. Shadowplay offers a new four-part 'symphony of voices', exploring the shadows that may fall between the appearance of things and their reality. Making use of the full palette available to the radio producer - documentary, fiction, music, pure sound - four feature-makers address our values, our identities, our romantic inclinations and our sense of worth. In the first movement 'Theme and Variations', ideas about what we value - wealth, health, liberty and happiness - are revealed through the experiences and insights of the economists Ha-Joon Chang and Felix Martin, the life-model Sue Tilley and the poet Jazzman John Clarke, and also with reference to Ian Gardiner's 'Monument', Ritalin and Mary Poppins. Produced by Alan Hall and Hana Walker-Brown. A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3.