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Australian startup aims to help U.S. student with their...

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:08:00 +1000

Australian startup aims to help U.S. student with their debts

JoinStampede, an Australian startup which aims to help US university graduates to be financially independent.

JoinStampede is a website launched by a 29-year old Queenslander Stephen Dash. He spend the last decade in venture capital and investment banking in Sydney. The website has gathered 30,000 members since it launched last March.

JoinStampede intends to aggregate the borrowing power of its members to gather discounted refinance agreements from financial institutions.

“I saw this as a global anomaly and wanted to help individuals by using our collective influences”, Dash says.

It has two people here in San Francisco, Dash and his partner, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Brian Lucas, and two workforces in New York. This way it is in the Californian start-up Mecca, and also near to Wall Street where it seeks to find resources to aid its members. [Sydney Morning Herald]

Tech Startups to contribute billions of dollars to Australian economy by 2033

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:19:00 +1000

A report from Google says that Tech startups will be worth AUS$ 109 billion, will create half a...

Australian broadcast journalist Rakhal Ebeli realized that he...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 17:41:55 +1100

Australian broadcast journalist Rakhal Ebeli realized that he woudn’t look for his own stories, he just want to collect them, and help those who found the stories earn.

“I was increasingly becoming a third-party broker, if you will, between people who had captured newsworthy content at scenes of stories and my colleagues back at work, who would effectively offer them money to buy that content,” Ebeli said. “I realized that this was the way things were going and that there needed to be a centralized location for newsworthy content online.”

He then created Newsmodo, a “one-stop shop” for journalists and media organizations to sell pitch their freelance assignments. As more publications need freelance content, they need the Newsmodo platform. [WAN-IFRA]

17-year-old millionaire tech entrepreneur Nick...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:30:00 +1100

17-year-old millionaire tech entrepreneur Nick D’Aloisio

“If you start learning computer science and programming at a young age, you can create real tangible businesses and have successes”, said Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin, the founder of Sydney technology incubator BlueChilli.

A good example of that is the 17-year old entrepreneur Nick D’Aloisio, a highschool graduate in London who made and sold an iPhone app that summarises Yahoo! Articles. It is reported that app was bought for $29 million. He lived in Australia from ages one to seven, and started his million dollar project at the age of 15.

Niki Sceva, the founder of tech incubator StartMate said that tech entrepreneurs don’t need to relocate to Silicon Valley to attain global success. Sceva is also a managing partner f fund of Blackbird Ventures.

This success story proves two things, age doesn’t matter, and that tech success for entrepreneurs doesn’t really need Silicon Valley to reach global success. [Financial Review]

Are Australian Government grants difficult to avail?

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:51:00 +1100

Commercialisation Australia is an ingenuity of the Australian Government. It is a competitive,...

Know when to give up on your business, and when to hold on Every...

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:53:00 +1100

Know when to give up on your business, and when to hold on

Every business has its ups and downs. If it feels like you’re really having a hard time keeping it up, and if you think it should be that hard, maybe it’s time to let go.

Jemma Gawned of Naked Treaties learned the lesson in a hard way. Naked Treaties is a distributor of raw, vegan food treats which started as a hobby for Gawned. Back in the days, she was only making raw treats for friends and family, and everyone loved what she’s creating.

Gawned started to receive orders, and the business just grew. What started as a hobby ended up to be a business with two employees, then it grew to 15 in a matter of 12 months.

It seems like it’s all success for Gawned, but it’s not. Jemma Cosmetics, which Gawned started while she was on Big Brother, started tumbling down. Since she hasn’t set margins on when to let go or still push through, she sold her home to keep the business alive. Then, an investor pulled out and she has no money left to keep her small business running.

“Looking back I realise I had such a strong emotional attachment to this story that I had created around this brand. Had I been able to stand back and recognise that back then, I probably could have come out of it with a lot less stress and maybe much better off. Having said that, it was a good apprenticeship that is serving me now.” [Sidney Morning Herald]

Google is looking for the ‘Holy Grail’ of Tech...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 17:53:00 +1100

Google is looking for the ‘Holy Grail’ of Tech Startups in Australia

Google launched a project to keep track of Australia’s startup and business community to further analyse what prevents Australia from being the next Silicon Valley.

Alan Noble, the Engineering Director of Google Australia said that it is all about increasing awareness.

Greater awareness could lead to more accommodating policies, greater enthusiasm of investors to put in more money into new companies and a greater recognition by society that it was a valid career path to become an entrepreneur.

We all know it isn’t that easy to be an entrepreneur given all the things the entrepreneur has to go through to jumpstart and grow his business.

By encouring more people to study tech related courses, such as computer science, coupled with great support from the community, it might not be that long before the holy grail of tech startups be discovered.

Read the rest of the article here.

Seed Funding and Startups

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 23:01:52 +1100

When it comes to startup funding there are a lot of ways that a project or an idea gets funded and...

The story of DesignCrowd, how it all began For every startup...

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 18:09:00 +1100

The story of DesignCrowd, how it all began

For every startup success, there are countless stories to tell.Failures, conflicts, struggle, drama.. DesignCrowd is not exempted. Alec Lynch, founder of DesignCrowd, has experienced all of them.

DesignCrowd, is an online marketplace for those who are looking for designers. You can look for someone who can design your company logo, shirt, and even ebooks.

With over 100,000 designers strong, you will be able to find the right designer for the right designing job.

Read the whole story here.

Australian startup Ollo Mobile entered talks with SingTel and...

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 17:03:09 +1100

Australian startup Ollo Mobile entered talks with SingTel and Optus for a global release

Ollo Mobile is a Brisbane startup that creates a wearbale 3G device that is useful for senior citizens and children.

The device functions as a panic line for emergencies. When the wearer will be caught in an accident of some sort, he can hit the button on the device and it will automatically call the family. It ca be set to make a conference call to family members or just call a set of number in a sequence and only talk to the first person who will answer the call.

It can also send an SMS link to a web page that will show a map with the location of the wearer.

Read the rest of the article here.

Be Big in Australia...and America.

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 14:31:00 +1100

Mike Loftus, an angel investor and also a mentor says that Australian entrepreneurs are selling...

How to start a company? Reid Hoffman once thought of becoming...

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:19:00 +1100

How to start a company?

Reid Hoffman once thought of becoming an academic. But he realized that in order to be a professional scholar, he needs to dedicate a vast majority of his career writing obscure book that only a few people will understand.

So he got a Job at Apple and helped build eWorld, Apple’s version of AOL.

Then, he started SocialNet, but if failed.

He was then recruited to work on a startup which is Paypal. But it was sold to eBay.

He then went to Australia to create an internet company called LinkedIn. Luckily, it’s still around, and that company he started, is now worth over $19 billion.

Read the rest of the article here.

The Smell of Money

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 18:14:00 +1100

For Edwina Beveridge investing about $1M in a biogas generator could earn annual returns of $230,000...

Google Ventures could be heading Down Under

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:34:00 +1100

Tech giant Google is considering launching its start-up investment funding arm in Australia, a...

Google MD Nick Leeder says Melbourne trumps Sydney for linking...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:06:38 +1100

Google MD Nick Leeder says Melbourne trumps Sydney for linking start-ups with Silicon Valley

Sydney may be home to the greatest number of local tech start-ups, but Melbourne is better at creating start-up communities locally and connecting with big players in Silicon Valley, according to Google Australia’s managing director Nick Leeder.

Leeder said Australia needs to create a “critical mass” of tech-savvy companies and it can do this by helping create better links between universities and business to encourage more start-ups.

Speaking in Melbourne this morning in a speech for the RMIT business lecture series, he threw his support behind the Gillard government’s innovation precincts. The government wants to spend more than $500 million on establishing up to ten precincts, which it says will “bring together” businesses – research institutions such as the CSIRO, universities and government agencies – in particular areas.

Read the rest of the article here.

Pozible gives rise to Australian crowdfunding Inside an...

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 19:11:00 +1100

Pozible gives rise to Australian crowdfunding

Inside an enterprising Melbourne city co-working office on Bourke Street, the Australian crowdfunding platform Pozible is preparing for DocWeek, a live documentary crowdfunding event in Adelaide. The world first pitch is planned to coincide with the release of Pozible’s mobile platform — both initiatives form part of the team’s 2013 strategy.

Alan Crabbe, Pozible co-director and founder, says they’re trying to give their clients a competitive advantage and prepare them for the imminent changes on the crowdfunding horizon. The Pozible director says the biggest of these changes will be the rollout of the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act, which U.S. President Barack Obama passed last April.

In essence, the bill will give the American public the ability to receive company equity in exchange for funding. Currently crowdfunding platforms operate on a reward, gift or donation basis only.

Read the rest of the article here.

Local startups hire global help via online service Freelancing...

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:30:44 +1100

Local startups hire global help via online service

Freelancing website oDesk seeks to address a skills gap and save money for startups by connecting Australian businesses with freelancers from around the world, according to the company’s CEO, Gary Swart.

However, in an interview with Computerworld Australia, Swart dismissed the idea that the American company is outsourcing programming and other computer jobs that might have gone to Australians.

“Australia, per capita, is the largest country on oDesk,” said Swart. The gross per capita value of transactions by Australian companies using the service was double that of US companies.

Read the rest of the article here.

Solar power, generating capacity equivalent to half the Snowy...

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:45:46 +1100

Solar power, generating capacity equivalent to half the Snowy Hydro scheme

Australian roofs now have a solar power generating capacity equivalent to half the Snowy Hydro scheme as consumers react to soaring power prices and sinking prices for photovoltaic (PV) panels.

The federal government’s long-term plans for the sector are under review lets hope they have an eye on the business opportunity ahead rather than protecting the past …. “If we make the wrong decisions by defending the old market, renewables will still arrive,” he said. “It will take longer and in the meantime we’ll pay more for electricity than we have to.

Read the rest of the article here.

Startup success doesn't require Silicon Valley

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 18:50:00 +1100

Australian entrepreneurs have been shown to seek smaller markets than their counterparts in Silicon...

Ready to play host to the world - at 25Michael McGoogan was the...

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:48:00 +1100

Ready to play host to the world - at 25

Michael McGoogan was the teenager that grown-up friends and family went to when they wanted their new VCR connected or needed computer advice.

A decade later, he has leveraged that knowledge into a multimillion-dollar enterprise with global ambitions.

Now aged 25, McGoogan founded his business - which went on to become UberGlobal - as a 14-year-old high-school student in Canberra, after being inundated by requests to help people he knew build websites and get online.

”I realised very, very quickly that I was able to make $500 once off for helping a small business put together a website and then $20 a month forever for hosting it,” he says.

Read the rest of the article here.