Podcasts about startcon

In this episode of 'The Wisdom Of' Show, host Simon Bowen engages with David Kenney, founder of StartGrowth and veteran startup advisor, about the art of capital allocation, building investable businesses, and the fundamental principles that drive entrepreneurial success. From his early days selling orange juice subscriptions at 14 to helping raise billions in capital, David shares profound insights on what makes entrepreneurs and businesses truly successful.Ready to unlock your leadership potential and drive real change? Join Simon's exclusive masterclass on The Models Method. Learn how to articulate your unique value and create scalable impact: https://thesimonbowen.com/masterclassEpisode Breakdown: 00:00 Introduction and background 08:15 Understanding capital allocation 15:23 Communication and influence in business 22:47 What makes founders investable 31:16 The role of mental models 38:42 Entrepreneurship accessibility 45:15 Rapid-fire questions and conclusionAbout David KenneyFounder of Start Growth, David Kenney, is a key figure in Australian business and is respected for impacting the nation's most promising entrepreneurs and CEO's over the last two decades. His genuine, down-to-earth approach to mentorship and advisory has made him an indispensable ally to business founders, investors, and leaders, navigating them through growth, strategy, and innovation complexities.A sought-after speaker, David has graced the stages of events like The Sunrise, StartCon, B2B Rocks, Innovation Bay and Business Mastery, captivating audiences with his insights into achievable entrepreneurship for everyone, not just those traditionally seen as 'business people.' His role as host for Sydney's Startup Grind further underscores his commitment to fostering a dynamic entrepreneurial community. David's passion for mentoring shines through, inspiring a new generation of leaders.Connect with DavidLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidkenneyofficial/About Simon Bowen Simon has spent over two decades working with some of the most influential leaders across many complex industries and circumstances. His very clear finding is that thinking is valued less than doing in almost every situation in our modern world. However, Simon has conversely observed that the power and success of any business, project or organization will be in direct proportion to the level and quality of thinking of the people and the quality of the idea or ideas on which it is built. As such, Simon is leading the renaissance of thinking.Connect with SimonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonbowen-mm/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialsimonbowen/Website: https://thesimonbowen.com/Get Simon Bowen's Personal Newsletter for Leaders, Thinkers, and Entrepreneurs!

Exuberant and irrepressible, Cheryl Mack has been making a splash in the Australian startup ecosystem from the day she arrived.  After moving to Sydney in 2013 the Canadian-Australian introduced herself to the local startup scene through diligent networking and her leading role in establishing StartCon, a national convention for founders, investors and innovators backed by Freelancer.com. She has since mentored, invested and worked across a swathe of startup-focused organisations including the Sydney Startup Hub, The Founder Institute, SheStarts, Stone and Chalk, Air Tree and The Macquarie University Incubator. Cheryl is now bringing this network together to help launch Aussie Angels, a new venture focused on smoothing the investment process and increasing capital flows to the ideas that deserve it.  Plug in for a masterclass in networking, and a sneak peak at the future of the Australian investment ecosystem.    GUEST : Cheryl Mack https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylmack AUSSIE ANGELS : https://www.aussieangels.com/angels EON LABS :  https://www.eonlabs.org/ HOST : Dr. Leo Stevens https://www.linkedin.com/in/leostevensinc/ MUSIC : Purple Planet Music https://www.purple-planet.com Mixed by Dr. Nat Harris 

Imagine this. One day, you press a few buttons on your keyboard and your unique avatar is walking into a virtual bank. You go up to a virtual ATM, poke at some keys, and withdraw that Bitcoin you've been saving for a small treat. Next stop? Who knows! With the Metaverse and Cryptocurrency creeping up on us, the future is big and uncertain and could look vastly different from today. That includes those little things you do everyday, like banking. Meet Fred Schebesta Fred's Role as a Fintech Leader at Finder Fred Schebesta is a Co-founder of Finder. Finder is an award-winning fintech assisting people around the world in making better financial decisions and improving their lives. Their vision is to become the world's go-to destination for comparing. After starting out in Australia in 2006, Finder is now the most visited personal finance comparison website in Australia and are expanding around the world, with offices in the USA, the UK, Canada, the Philippines, Poland, and Singapore. Fred's Other Work in Finance and Crypto Besides his work with Finder, Fred is currently a co-founder of Hive Empire Capital, a crypto investment fund interested in helping technical teams launch projects. He is also the Chief Executive Officer of his own project, Schebesta Ventures Pty Ltd, meant to share his proven systems and strategies with others. He is an Advisor at Balthazar, a scholar-driven NFT gaming platform for the metaverse. On top of all that, Fred is a contributor to multiple magazines where he writes on topics such as finance, crypto, entrepreneurship, and business. So far, he's written for Cointelegraph, Entrepreneur Media, Yahoo Finance, news.com.au, Forkast.News, Kidspot.com.au, value walk, The Australian Financial Review, The Daily Hodl, DynamicBusiness.com.au, The Huffington Post, SUCCESS Magazine, and Fairfax Media. He has also spoken about business at the University of London and StartCon.com. Cryptocurrency, the Metaverse, and Open Banking In this exclusive analytics podcast episode, Fred shares: His role as the Co-founder of Finder The Finder wallet and how it works Using data analytics to remove friction and improve customer experience How his work with crypto and the Metaverse industry connects with his work at Finder How the uprising of the Internet compares to the uprising of crypto How crypto and the Metaverse are impacting finance and banking What will help companies survive the uprising of crypto and the Metaverse How data science, AI, and Machine Learning impact crypto and the Metaverse What he is hoping to achieve with Open Banking and Finder Crypto and the Metaverse vs Open Banking How crypto and the Metaverse help Open Banking in creating a more fair and ethical landscape for the financial industry His advice for startups or innovators in the banking industry who want to use crypto and the Metaverse in the future If you are a data professional in the banking industry interested in how cryptocurrency and the Metaverse will affect your work in the future, this is the episode you do not want to miss out on. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/analyticsshow/message

Cheryl Mack is passionate about supporting founders and has done so in a variety of roles over the years: as a mentor for programs including Startmate and Founder Institute, as CEO of StartCon, as an angel investor with over 10 investments and counting, and most recently as the CEO and founder of Aussie Angels. In her conversation with Adam, she discusses the importance of building communities, and what she sees as the current gaps in the Australian startup ecosystem. See the full show notes https://w2d1.com/cheryl-mack

While everyone is thinking about the COVID-19 pandemic, writer, filmmaker John Safran is checking up on the world’s largest cigarette company, Philip Morris. In September 2018, on the same day as World No-Tobacco Day, Philip Morris announced it wants to “unsmoke” the world. In his latest book, Puff Piece – How Philip Morris Set Vaping Alight (and burned down the English language), John Safran investigates how the tobacco company bend and shape-shift language to convince the world they’re helping people give up smoking through genius marketing. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Follow Mark Bouris on Instagram, LinkedIn & YouTube. Want to grow your business and stay ahead of the pack? Access Mark Bouris' Masterclasses. Got a question or comment for Mark? Send an email. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're a young woman on Instagram, chances are Bangn Body has likely popped up in your feed. The brand's main product, a yellow-tubed body lotion, has become iconic on social media and has turned over more than 8 million dollars in revenue for the 28-year-old founder, Priscilla Hajiantoni.  Beauty influencers ranging from small, medium and large followings share themselves holding the yellow product, applying it on their face and body while raving about the product.  Priscilla shares how she generated social media interest before launching her product, achieving customer trust online and how to convert followers into sales.  Join the Facebook Group. Follow Mark Bouris on Instagram, LinkedIn & YouTube. Want to grow your business and stay ahead of the pack? Access Mark Bouris' Masterclasses.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"If you can come up with bigger questions you'll come up with bigger answers."  Self-belief is one of the few things that'll get you through the shit…during those uncomfortable moments that make you wonder, ”why the hell am I here?”  After witnessing the tragedy of workplace incidents as a private investigator, Luke created SafetyCulture, a darling of Australia's growing tech sector. Luke and Mark discuss the humble beginnings of working in a Mobil service station, investment from his dentist, and why your imagination could be killing your business. Join the Facebook Group. Follow Mark Bouris on Instagram, LinkedIn & YouTube. Want to grow your business and stay ahead of the pack? Access Mark Bouris' Masterclasses. Got a question or comment for Mark? Send an email.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, we're going to talk to an influential corporate and personal branding specialist, Samantha Dybac, founder of The PR Hub and host of the popular podcast INFLUENCE UNLOCKED. Samantha launched The PR Hub in 2013, initially as a side hustle, to help tell the stories of entrepreneurs, business leaders and innovative brands so they could get on with the job of changing the world. She capitalises on more than fifteen years of experience in brand and business strategy expertise, and she makes it look good. She continues to make waves across various industries by asking the right questions and engaging business and market leaders in important conversations. Samantha is a 2-time finalist in the B&T Women in Media Awards and a 2019 Sydney Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. Not to mention, her completion of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) Course. She has also featured as a panel host and speaker at some of Australia's leading tech startup events including Pause Fest, StartCon and Crown's Women of the Future series event. Hear more about the conversation and learn tips how to get to press from the expert. Watch the full episode here… https://apple.co/37p16ze https://bit.ly/2Wn9etQ https://spoti.fi/2K3hfSk https://bit.ly/34n1qN1 Available on Spotify, Apple, and Google.  CONTACT OUR TEAM TODAY!

Fame without fortune leads to frustration. In today’s modern world, everybody seeks to become famous and amass a large following on social media. But unless you can turn those followers into results and profits, you’ll never get to financial success and confidence. So in today’s episode, Dan Lok is speaking to you directly from StartCon, […]

Fame without fortune leads to frustration. In today’s modern world, everybody seeks to become famous and amass a large following on social media. But unless you can turn those followers into results and profits, you’ll never get to financial success and confidence. So in today’s episode, Dan Lok is speaking to you directly from StartCon, Australia, and sharing with you his best secrets to use social capital to create an endless stream of customers and raving fans.

Dr Michelle Perugini is the co-founder and CEO of Presagen, who recently launched their first product Life Whisperer; which uses AI to better identify healthy embryos for IVF, and to ultimately improve outcomes for couples wanting to have children.  In this episode recorded live at Startcon. Pete and Michelle talk about how Presagen is changing the way medical data from around the world is connected with artificial intelligence through their Open AI Projects, and how this approach helps them build more diverse datasets and maintain high levels of data privacy for their intelligent health solutions.   Michelle also reflects on how scaling in healthtech differs to other industries, as well as the hype vs reality of AI in healthcare.  

Tech Entrepreneur John McAfee is apparently a man on the run but he's also on his way to Australia to appear at the StartCon convention in Sydney on November 22 & 23. Andy chats to John about who he's avoiding, Crypto and what we can expect from his visit to Australia this month.

  Introducing: Viveka – The largest online market place for coaches in the world and Katja Kempe is the CEO and Founder of Viveka. Identifying market providers and matching their services with the requirements of companies and individuals. She brings personal development to the world with the right mindsets to embrace the opportunities of the future. In so doing, creating a better environment for all.   TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS PODCAST EPISODE: (04:10) From Law Firm to Viveka (07:02) Pressure with the Corporate world today (11:32) How coaching should stand out (14:12) Focus on results and the outcome (19:03) Personal development (20:30) Find the right coach (27:40) Direct marketing is key (29:00) Perservere   HEAR MORE ABOUT KATJA KEMPE: Viveka is a combination of Katja’s professional experience and personal passion. As a Strategy Manager and then COO of Internationally leading law firms, Katja was required to follow strategic, innovative and global industry trends whilst implementing new strategies to continuously up level efficiencies and processes. Her passion for personal growth, as well as the need for professional development in our current times of exponential change birthed Viveka. To acknowledge her success with Viveka, she has recently been presented with StartCon’s Female Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2018. StartCon is Asia Pacific’s largest startup conference. Katja is internationally experienced, multilingual, inspired by innovation and a strong believer in creating positive and sustainablke change.   FAVOURITE QUOTE TO SHARE WITH THE WORLD "There are two great days in a person’s life – the day we are born and the day we discover why." -William Barclay   ONE BOOK YOU SHOULD READ The Code of the Extraordinary Mind – Vishen Lakhiani   CONNECT WITH KATJA Website Facebook Linkedin Twitter Instagram   CONNECT WITH SASHKA Facebook Instagram Pinterest Twitter LinkedIn   Want to be a guest on the podcast? Apply to be featured on the No Name Brand Podcast here.   SUBSCRIBE ON     

Matthew was a guest of StartCon, Australia’s largest startup and growth conference. It was held at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1. When he was young, Matthew Brimer spent his days taking apart old electronics and dreaming of space exploration. A child of the Midwest, he was raised on the belief that hard work and passion could turn even the grandest dreams into realities. As he grew older, he continued to hold tightly to this conviction, and, with the blood of two entrepreneurial parents pumping through his veins, Brimer knew he wouldn’t be stuck in his high school job selling ice cream forever. Always that tinkering kid at heart, Brimer wanted to be an inventor. And he ultimately achieved his dream, but in a way he never would have imagined while growing up. He became an inventor of businesses, of communities, of experiences. Co-founder of several brands to date, including dance party/lifestyle brand Daybreaker, VC firm The Fund, and most notably online education platform General Assembly—Brimer has developed an incredible knack for building passionate, engaged communities. Today, General Assembly has 20 campuses and more than 35,000 alumni, and Brimer serves as a mentor to members of the next generation of entrepreneurs through his role at The Fund, a New York City community of founders that he co-founded. And it all began with an old piece of furniture and a lucky break on eBay. Extracurricular Activities In 2005, during Brimer’s freshman year at Yale, he and a few buddies noticed that some of the buildings were under renovation and the university was selling the contents in the process. After perusing the items for sale, they decided to buy an antique piece of furniture to see what they could get for it on eBay. They took a couple photos of the item, posted it and hoped they could make a few extra bucks from the sale. They had purchased the piece for $50. It sold for $1,000. Minds blown, they rushed back to the buildings, bought more items and the college freshmen launched a small online business in the antique furniture space. Having caught the entrepreneurial bug, Brimer wanted to try his hand at something a little bigger—something that required more technical skill. In 2007, he and four other college students launched the website GoCrossCampus.com, an online game that turned college rivalries into a wildly popular online battle. “We made every first time founder mistake in the book. It ended up a few years later becoming a total failure,” Brimer says. “But for a while we were the largest college gaming network in the country.” He acknowledged that with too many founders and no way to generate new revenue, the project was doomed to fail, and GoCrossCampus shut the doors to its battleground in 2010. But while his first project may have ended, Brimer’s desire to create new things had only begun to grow. He graduated, moved to New York and freelanced as a web designer while he spent all his free time immersing himself in the tech space. Although the city was bursting with brilliant entrepreneurs and new, exciting ideas, Brimer soon realized that bringing them together to interact and exchange those ideas was a challenge. What if, he wondered, there was a physical building dedicated specifically to serving those in the tech space? What if there was a place where they could work alongside each other and learn while building meaningful community? With that dream in mind, Brimer, Jake Schwartz, Adam Pritzker, and Brad Hargreaves co-founded General Assembly in early 2011. Education for the 21st Century General Assembly launched as a place for coworking, education, and community, under a single membership model, and this system worked well at first. But Brimer quickly noticed that, to better serve members, a greater emphasis had to be placed on building out the educational branch of the brand. “There’s this huge skills gap between where traditional higher education leaves off and where the 21st century begins,” he says. “College education isn’t changing that much relatively speaking. But the 21st century—in terms of what employers are looking for, in terms of the talent they’re hiring, in terms of the skills you need to be effective in any industry today—that’s moving quickly.” Brimer says that a traditional university education can leave graduates in tech fields woefully unprepared for the challenges ahead, and this was the gap he hoped General Assembly could fill. So they eliminated the coworking aspect of the business and doubled down on providing quality education from stellar instructors. According to Brimer, these practical training programs on digital skills taught by actual practitioners currently working in the space were the most powerful, the most transformative thing they could provide. He wanted to equip students with valuable skills that enabled them to land a new job, upgrade their current position or pursue their passions in the digital economy. Brimer and his cofounders threw themselves into the new phase of their business, raising more capital, expanding their curriculum both online and off, and launching a new branch that offers corporate training and assessments to large companies. They also built out a credentials program and launched a philanthropic wing designed to lift up those with talent and tenacity from all socioeconomic backgrounds. With this grand expansion came a need to cement the trust consumers had in the brand. From day one, Brimer placed a significant focus on delivering measurable outcomes at General Assembly, as a way to build firm trust in the brand. He wanted to answer the question, “What can I do after experiencing this product that I couldn’t do before,” with an unequivocal answer: get a job in tech. It’s no secret that a college degree doesn’t necessarily guarantee a job after graduation, and this, Brimer feels, is a major issue right now for traditional colleges and universities. “So here you have spent all this money, all this time getting a college degree and it doesn’t guarantee you a job anymore,” he says. “The outcomes are a little nebulous.” Brimer and General Assembly wanted to provide something with more certainty. By supplying classes in coding, data, design, marketing, business, and career development, as taught by instructors with the most up-to-date information, Brimer feels that General Assembly fills the gap left by traditional education, more directly preparing students for a career in the industry. The co-founders of General Assembly also made a concerted effort to attract instructors who were not only excellent in their fields, but also who cared deeply about passing their knowledge and skills on to others. Brimer says that the best instructors at General Assembly are those who love giving back and empowering others, even if they’ve never had any teaching experience. Today, according to its website, there are more than 250 expert instructors. With an ever-evolving curriculum, and continued expansion, General Assembly is bound to continue making a splash in the tech world. Brimer began as a cofounder, later transitioned into a part-time position, and this summer he stepped into a new role as an external “evangelist for the company,” when the Adecco Group acquired the brand for $412 million. While his day-to-day work at General Assembly may have come to a close, he is still extremely passionate about what he was able to accomplish during his time there, and is excited to see what new frontiers they are able to conquer in the years to come. Brimer is no longer the kid tinkering with household electronics in Missouri, but with free time to concentrate on new ventures, he’s still dreaming big. “It would be a hilarious thing,” he says, “to explain to my 6-year-old or 8-year-old self what it is that I am, have been, and will be.” 4 Ways To Establish Trust in Your Brand When competing with major colleges and established universities, the way Matthew Brimer was when he co-founded General Assembly, it is absolutely essential to establish deep trust in the brand as quickly as possible. But all brands, not just those in the education space, have to find a way to build a bridge of trust between company and consumer to become successful. These are four of Brimer’s best tips on how to establish trust for your brand. 1. Deliver Measurable Outcomes Brimer says that one of the best possible ways to build trust in your brand is to deliver outcomes that are clear and measurable. To decide what that outcome is, he recommends asking, “What is possible for a customer after engaging with the brand or product that would have been completely unattainable before?” By nailing down the measurable outcome and then delivering it, it turns word-of-mouth references into undeniable, tangible results. 2. Celebrate Success Stories Once you’ve determined what “measurable success” for your brand looks like, it’s time to celebrate those who have achieved it! Brimer says that even prestigious colleges only gained the clout they have because of the success of their alumni. In the same way, the successes of others who have interacted with your product reflect back onto your brand. 3. Establish and Adhere to Core Values By crafting a definitive and concrete set of core values you can stand by, customers learn what they should expect from your products and services. Brimer says that by delivering on those values, you can develop an invaluable level of trust with consumers that can only come from maintaining integrity. 4. Stay Humble Brimer says that, all too often, as companies grow larger, so do the egos of the people at the top, preventing them from quickly acknowledging mistakes and accepting feedback with humility. “The more human of a relationship you can have as a company with your users, the more trust you’re going to have,” he says. “Trust goes away when it’s a faceless brand—a faceless corporate entity—interacting with live humans on the other side. That’s when things go downhill.” Key Takeaways Why we need to stop asking children what they want to be when they grow up How buying an antique piece of furniture at Yale sparked his first ecommerce business How he and his friends built the largest college gaming network in the country How General Assembly got started The philanthropic arm of General Assembly GA’s $412.5 million acquisition by Adecco Group What it’s like post-acquisition and his involvement in General Assembly GA’s hybrid approach of both online and in-person classes Why, from an employer perspective, General Assembly is a great source for talent acquisition How GA built trust in their brand in the early days What they look for in a General Assembly instructor

Simon chats with Cheryl Mack, CEO of StartCon. Cheryl is the CEO of StartCon (a Freelancer.com company), which she has grown into an international events & entertainment company in the technology industry. She hosts the largest startup and growth event in Australia, with over 4000 attendees from across the startup ecosystem and featuring speakers from the world’s biggest technology companies like Uber, Pinterest, and SurveyMonkey.   You can find out more about StartCon here: [https://www.startcon.com](https://www.startcon.com) You can contact Cheryl here: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylmack/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylmack/) Please remember to give us a rating and review on iTunes! Our Instagram page is here: [www.instagram.com/flypaperplanes.co/](http://www.instagram.com/flypaperplanes.co/)   Contact the team at [www.flypaperplanes.co](http://www.flypaperplanes.co) or Simon here: [www.linkedin.com/in/iamsimondell/](http://www.linkedin.com/in/iamsimondell/) or here: [twitter.com/IAmSimonDell](http://twitter.com/IAmSimonDell)  If you think you have a great story for the podcast, contact our producer Sarah here: [sarah@simondell.com](mailto:sarah@simondell.com) And find out more about our sound engineer Gilberto here: [www.thepodcastboss.com](http://www.thepodcastboss.com)

Steve was a guest of StartCon, Australia’s largest startup and growth conference. It was held over two days at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1. One For The Books The story of Booktopia, ‘Australia’s favorite bookstore,’ and how they’re conquering the competition—even Amazon. Once upon a time, a programmer who got his start with IBM was given an enchanted opportunity to create a magical bookstore that would one day battle powerful giants. The magical power? With just a click of a button, Australians could have brand new books delivered within days to their doorsteps. And just like in most fairy tales, our hero and his friends stumbled upon the opportunity entirely by accident. “We literally fell into it,” says Steve Traurig. Traurig and his two brothers-in-law, Tony and Simon Nash, were running an online marketing consulting business when Angus & Robertson, the 130-year-old Australian bookseller, approached them and asked if they would be interested in getting into the book business. The pitch was a white label book retail website, meaning that everything from the website creation to the distribution would be handled by Angus & Robertson. All Traurig and company had to do was add their personal flair. But Booktopia, the company that arose from that project, would end up becoming something much bigger. Nearly 15 years after Traurig’s brother-in-law said he “wouldn’t mind giving that book thing a bit of a go,” Booktopia has served over 4.2 million Australians and is on track to bring in $115 million this year, making it the market leader in online book sales. Oh, and they now own Angus & Robertson. The journey from their very first book sale to squaring off against Amazon for online book supremacy in Australia was a chess game of strategic move after strategic move. Thanks to some shrewd decisions, including focusing on customer interaction and building their own ecommerce and fulfillment systems, Booktopia’s well on its way to happily ever after. A White Label Bookshop, Transformed In 2004, with only $10 a day to put toward advertising their new business, Traurig and the Nash brothers dove headfirst into the book world. “When we first started, we owned nothing,” Traurig says. When Booktopia first launched, Angus & Robertson created their website, managed their distribution and owned the brand. Traurig and his brothers-in-law were responsible only for marketing, so they created a few Google AdWords campaigns (one of which is still running today) and waited for their first books to sell. By the end of the first year, they were doing $100,000 in business a month. This worked beautifully for the trio and for Booktopia for three years, but in 2007, they had to confront the reality that what they were building, with revenue ever increasing, could all go away in an instant. They also realized that the fulfillment company was neither able to keep up with the growth they were experiencing, nor were they able to meet the expectations Traurig held. “We decided we had to go out on our own, because we were actually building a company of value,” he says, “and we realized that if you want to have something of value, you have to do it yourself.” Things were going well, and they realized that in the current setup, they didn’t really own anything of substance, should they ever want to sell. So they broke away from the fulfillment company and set out to turn Booktopia into something of their own. They set up their first warehouse, hired a warehouse manager, bought some shelves off eBay, and got to work building their own core systems. “Dealing with those sorts of numbers in databases, in the website, in the front end, in the backend, etc., the scale is beyond almost any other retail environment, and we had to make it all work,” he says. “We built the systems ourselves and that takes particular commitment and skill.” With all of the changes taking place, it would have been reasonable to see a marked customer drop off. Before the transfer, they did about 130 orders a day, but that number only dropped to about 110 a day, even after everything from their systems to their website changed. Through it all, the Booktopia customers remained loyal. In fact, the focus Booktopia places on the customer experience would come to define their brand. “It’s about the customer obsession,” Traurig says. “About putting yourself in the place of the customer.” When Traurig and his brothers took on the fulfillment side of the business, they began with only a single book on their physical shelves, but knew that building up their stock was the only way to give their customers the best experience. Instead of the long wait from the moment an order was placed until a supplier could deliver the order and then ship it off, all they had to do once they built up stock was grab an item from the shelf the moment the order came in and send it along. “That was essentially a business-changing experience, because the feedback we got from the customer was instantaneous,” he says. Customers responded with glee that their books arrived so quickly, inspiring them to remain loyal and recommend the bookseller to friends. Because of this organic growth, Booktopia has never needed to take on investors. Even without investors, they have consistently outmatched the competition and met their sales goals. In fact, they made the BRW Fast 100, Financial Review’s list of the fastest growing Australian brands, seven times between 2009 and 2016, the only company to do so. Traurig says that they have also built strong relationships with their banks, something he describes as a critical part of doing business. This gives them additional wiggle room if necessary, staving off a need for traditional investors. “A lot of startups, a lot of founders, think they immediately need to go out and grab someone else’s money and give away bits of the company,” he says. “There’s definitely merit in doing that for certain types of models. We chose to actually build a solid business organically and build it off the back of our customers and customer service.” And this approach has carried them through what could have been a business-ending battle. Squaring Off Against a Giant When Amazon announced that it would be launching in full in Australia at the end of 2017, Traurig wasn’t nervous. The institutions they worked with, however, had concerns. The gargantuan online retailer had generated $136 billion in revenue the year before, with all signs pointing to continued growth. So how was “Australia’s local bookstore” going to keep up? Well, according to Traurig, they had been keeping an eye on the behemoth from the very beginning and hadn’t let its success deter them. “From our point of view, when we started Booktopia, Amazon was shipping $100 million worth of books into Australia already, and we didn’t worry about that,” he says. “We were fearless.” They focused instead on their own business, and the most important asset: the customers. Due to its global nature and size, Amazon has an impersonal quality to it that Traurig says Booktopia always vowed to counter. For example, Booktopia’s website has the office’s physical address, email, and phone number on every single page, not only allowing but encouraging customers to reach out and share praise, complaints, and questions instantaneously. They wanted to be accessible and feel like a part of the community. To keep up with the emails and phone calls, they quickly hired their first customer service staff, a cheerful individual who still answers the questions of Booktopia customers today. Traurig says they take customer feedback extremely seriously and use it to inform their continued development. With a 20-person development team on the case, he says that Booktopia is always in pursuit of the best possible user experience, a quest that can only be completed through regular, honest feedback. Traurig says that this approach to customer service has been the key to keeping up with the competition. “All throughout our history, Amazon has been this massive company…but we were just focused on getting product to our customers.” And if winning 2016’s National Book Retailer of the Year and 2017’s National Bookstore of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards is any indication, Booktopia’s approach is working. The Next Page Today, Booktopia has over 6 million products available on their website with over 150,000 of those titles in stock in a 140,000 square-foot distribution center. They also acquired Angus & Robertson, along with its online store Bookworld, in 2015. “It’s a 130-year-old company that had a very, very good chance of disappearing completely,” Traurig says. “So for us, it was also an honor.” The company currently runs as its own business unit with independent marketing, branding and customer base. The founders also have high hopes for the company’s automated systems and distribution center. To demonstrate their capabilities, Booktopia acquired an online camera and optics company. In doing so, Traurig and his partners are hoping to show that their systems can handle more than a single type of product. So what’s next for Australia’s favorite bookstore? Although they ventured down the path of going public in 2016, they pulled the IPO just before launch, choosing to remain a private company. With Amazon looming, and after watching several other online companies attempt to go public and fail spectacularly, they decided to keep things as they were. While Traurig has a “never say never” mindset toward another try at going public, there are no plans to move in that direction for now. “Our customers have been our investors,” Traurig says. “What we’ve always chosen to do is delight the customer.” And in true fairytale fashion, delight them they will. Steve Traurig’s Tips on Building a Sellable Company While founders are still scaling the challenging mountains that come with launching a business, it might seem silly to think 500 steps ahead to the day they will be shaking hands on the sale of the company. But Steve Traurig believes building a company that will someday attract a buyer starts on day one, so he offered three tips to creating a company that will sell. Make Sure Your Bookkeeping is Impeccable “One of the things we’ve always done is make sure that our financials, our financial reporting and our accounting are top notch,” he says. As you might expect, well-kept books have always been a priority at Booktopia. From the very beginning, they sought financial advice when necessary and kept all of their books in perfect order. And because neither he nor his other co-founders had strength in bookkeeping, they always made it a number one priority to hire someone skilled. “It may just all look like a whole bunch of receipts and a pain the neck…but aim to set up solid financial management right at the beginning.” Create as Many Original Things as You Can In the beginning, Booktopia was a white label website, but when it started to flourish, Traurig and his partners realized they needed to make some changes. “If we wanted to sell it,” he says, “we had nothing to sell,” Traurig says. So they decided to build all of their own core systems to create something that would be attractive to eventual buyers. Traurig encourages founders to use as many original systems as possible and innovate wherever feasible. In doing so, the value of the company you may someday look to sell increases significantly. Demonstrate What You’ve Built Now that you’ve created something original, it’s time to show what it can do! Perfect its intended capabilities and then push its limits. This is what Traurig says they are currently doing at Booktopia with their distribution systems. Because they created the automation used in the center, they decided to demonstrate to potential buyers that it could handle more than one product at a time, leading them to purchase a camera company. The only thing better than an innovative creation is one that can be used in more than one way. Traurig says that demonstrating this is a great way to build a sellable company. Key Takeaways How this self-professed tech guy “fell into” starting an online bookstore that rivals Amazon How Booktopia has remained fully self-funded for 15 years Why they pulled an IPO just before it went live How he felt about Amazon coming to Australia For bootstrapped businesses, how to know when it’s time to build your own internal tools and handle shipping and fulfillment yourself The reasons behind the acquisitions Booktopia has made, particularly Angus & Robertson How Booktopia approaches Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Recent episodes of our podcast have talked about positioning, seasonality, landing pages, and digital assistants. With the complexity and fast-paced evolution of many topics in marketing, it’s easy to forget that so much of what we do all comes down to words. There’s a lot riding on our ability to find the right message at the right time for any audience we’re reaching. If we’re going to succeed, we need to create or curate copy that sparkles, engages, convinces—and converts. The good news is that like many skills, good writing can be learned. So this episode, we’re excited to welcome one of the best teachers around: Joanna Wiebe. Founder of Copy Hackers, Joanna is a highly sought after conversion copywriter who has worked with clients as diverse as brick-and-mortar stalwart, Tesco, and digital native, Nectar Sleep. A globe-spanning speaker, Joanna joins us to share techniques that make words work harder. Guest - Joanna Wiebe, Conversion Copywriter The original conversion copywriter, Joanna Wiebe is the creator of Copy Hackers and CH Agency, where she and her team write world-class conversion copy for clients like Nectar Sleep, Datastax, Canva and Sprout Social. She's been invited to teach conversion copywriting on 100+ international stages at events like StartCon, INBOUND, Mozcon and Business of Software. Along the way, more than 50,000 people at businesses large and small have turned to Joanna for copy coaching, and thousands more have taken her online training courses, such as Copy School. Find her at copyhackers.com or on Twitter @copyhackers. Host: Alex Langshur

This woman is absolute FIRE when it comes to successful startups. As CEO of Startcon, Cheryl Mack has experience running more than 500 business startup events around the world. She is currently running the largest pitching event in Asia Pacific..‘Pitch for 1 Million’, where more than 600 businesses in 15 countries are pitching for a one million dollar term sheet. Check out my third episode, where I spoke with Ben Chong about how to master the perfect pitch -- he’s is putting forward the million dollar prize for the event. This episode is a great start for anyone who is thinking about going to events, workshops or conferences and wants to learn the basics of networking, following up and creating long lasting business relationships. This absolute powerhouse woman is helping people who may have an epic idea or have just begun their business turn their dream into reality, by creating events that give people opportunities to make connections in a weekend, that would usually take them six months.

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This is the fourteenth episode in a new series of the Two Tribes podcast supported by Tank Stream Labs (TSL). Pete meets with Marcus Segal the former COO of Zynga, mentor at Y Combinator and the Google Launchpad Accelerator Program and GP at UpShift Capital. Marcus was in Australia for StartCon in Sydney in December and stopped for a discussion on his start up story, advice for founders and investors and his perspectives on the Australian start up ecosystem. A big thank you to Marcus for generously giving his time to do this podcast and Rob from Mashay for the introduction. Links: UpShift Capital: http://www.upshiftcapital.com/ Marcus @ StartCon: https://www.startcon.com/speakers/marcus-segal Zynga: https://www.zynga.com/ Start Up Daily with Marcus: http://www.startupdaily.net/meet-international-entrepreneurs-marcus-segal/

My guest for episode 65 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Jason Lim, the General Manager of York Butter Factory (YBF) and Director of National Innovation Precint, Hoist. Jason joined Melbourne based Venture Capital Fund, Adventure Capital over 5 years ago, providing funding and resources for startups to scale and grow. Since then, Jason has been at the centre of the Victorian startup ecosystem through his role at the York Butter Factory, helping to drive the local community and fostering connections and collaborations between startups and corporates. Along with his role at YBF and Adventure Capital, he is also the Director of Hoist, a new innovation precinct at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney which is a partnership between YBF and Mirvac. The partnership will bring together various communities, corporate partners, incubators and accelerators at the Locomotive Workshop in the ATP, providing a collaborative workspace. In this interview we cover a range of topics including; overcoming a culture of risk aversion, building diversity from the grassroots, playing to your strengths, building effective teams and the importance of having role models. PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling Show notes: - York Butter Factory - Stuart Richardson - Darcy Naunton - Stuart & Darcy Podcast interview - Blackbird Ventures - SquarePeg Capital - Bailador - Hyper Anna - Sequoia Capital - 90Seconds - Sheryl Sandberg - George Catlett Marshall - The 5 love languages test - Startup Bootcamp - Pantree - Leigh Sherman - Kate Morris podcast interview - Hoist - Mirvac - Australian Technology Park - Atlassian - Cisco - Cicada Innovations - Level 39 - Canary Wharf - TechCrunch Battlefield - Startcon - Sunrise - Jason Lim (Email) Feedback/ connect/ say hello:  Rohit@startupplaybook.co @playbookstartup (Twitter) @rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit) Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn) Credits: Intro music credit to Bensound Other channels: Don't have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud The post Ep065 – Jason Lim (GM – YBF & Director – Hoist) on learning from role models appeared first on Startup Playbook.

In Episode 53 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Pete Cooper, the Founder of SydStart, StartSoc and iCentralCo. Pete has been one of the pillars in growing the Australian startup ecosystem, particularly in his hometown of Sydney. He is probably best known for founding the SydStart Conference (now known as StartCon), the first tech conference of it's kind in the country and he actively mentors, invests and is helping to develop an ecosystem to provide the best chances for startups to succeed. In the episode we talk about a range of topics including his transition from a corporate career path to being heavily involved with startups, how to find mentors, how to build communities and how to get started in the startup ecosystem. LIVE PODCAST WITH VICKY LAY (MANAGING DIRECTOR - ARTESIAN VENTURE PARTNERS) Show notes: - SydStart - Sunrise conference - Elias Bizaanes - Mick Liubinskas - Cicada Innovations - Startcon - Freelancer - Spark Festival - Maxine Sherrin - Niki Scevak - iCentral - Lana Hopkins - Mon Purse - Jodie Fox - Jane Lu - Michael Biercuk - Sydney School of Entrepreneurship - Startup Genome - Newcastle Slingshot Program - Eighteen04 - Tyro - Fishburners - StartupAus - StartSociety - Sydney Angel Group - Founder Institute - Ben Chong - Springboard enterprise - 500 Startups - Lean Canvas - Silicon Beach Melbourne - Athula Bogoda - Atlassian - Canva - Envato - Tom Ellis - Paul Napthali - Startup Playbook 50th episode - Airtree Ventures - Blackbird Ventures - Blue Sky Venture Capital - Square Peg Venture Capital - Pete Cooper (Twitter) Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 1) Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 2) Feedback/ connect/ say hello:  Rohit@startupplaybook.co @playbookstartup (Twitter) @rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit) Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn) Credits: Intro music credit to Bensound Other channels: Don't have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud The post Ep053 – Pete Cooper (Founder – SydStart) on the old and new economy appeared first on Startup Playbook.