StartupBus hackathon returns for its second Australian roadtrip

September 15, 2015, 5:04 pm

≫ Next: Lifestyle-driven coworking space Spaces launches in Melbourne ahead of Sydney opening

startupbus

One of the more unorthodox hackathons out there, StartupBus, is returning for its second year. Two buses will be taking off on a 72 hour road trip on October 25, arriving in Sydney in time for the SydStart conference on October 29. Six startups will depart on a bus from Melbourne, while another six will leave Sydney and travel to Byron Bay and then back to Sydney via Port Macquarie, all the while working to build a product from scratch and getting ready to pitch it to a crowded room at SydStart, after which at least one startup will receive funding. On the way, startups will receive advice from mentors on the buses and have the chance to meet business leaders at various pit stops. The event was launched in 2010 by Australian Elias Bizannes, who told Startup Daily last year he came up with the idea at a Silicon Beach meet up. At the time, Bizannes was set to relocate to San Francisco, and thought it would be fun to get Aussies over to the US and go on a roadtrip to the SxSW Festival to build their networks; he told friends, as a joke, that they could launch a startup upon arrival, and the idea for StartupBus was born. It took four years for StartupBus to then return to Australia, though Bizannes said the intention was always there, it was only a matter of time. In fact, he said, that was the reason why last year's bus departed from Sydney and returned to Sydney, playing on the fact that the StartupBus concept was coming full circle. StartupBus has since grown to a community of over 1,300 entrepreneurs with hackathons held across the US, Europe, Africa, and Australia, and its alumni include the founders of Instacart, now valued at over $2 billion, Branch, which was acquired by Facebook for $15 million, and Lisnr, which recently closed a $3.5 million funding round. The winner of the inaugural Australian event last year was People of the Sun, a startup which allowed people to invest in 'community funded solar power stations' - solar panels installed on the roofs of schools, warehouses, and shopping centres, with the revenue generated returned to investors. Other teams included Spexy, which wanted to help people design and 3D print new glasses, and FailPage, which aimed to increase conversion rates from 404 error pages. The organisers - or conductors - behind this year's event are Ricardo Buccianti, founder of OzPoint Technologies, and Imteaz Ahamed, ecommerce manager at RB Australia. Applications for StartupBus are open here.

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Lifestyle-driven coworking space Spaces launches in Melbourne ahead of Sydney opening

September 16, 2015, 7:00 am

≫ Next: SMS-based on-demand service ASAP merges with former rival Ketings, says it’s better to join forces than compete

≪ Previous: StartupBus hackathon returns for its second Australian roadtrip

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Spaces, a company that offers premium lifestyle-driven workspaces for entrepreneurs, small to medium enterprises and corporate intrapreneurs, has chosen Australia as its next launch location, starting with Melbourne suburb Richmond, followed by Sydney suburb Surry Hills. Pioneered in Amsterdam in 2006, Spaces' Australian launch marks a new phase of global expansion for the brand, with Melbourne selected as the first inter-continental base outside of its European roots.

Richmond, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne three kilometres from Melbourne's CBD, was chosen by the company because of its high concentration of fashion, technology, and media businesses.

"We felt this was the perfect fit for Spaces’ inspirational style," the company stated in a written Q&A.

Like its other venues, Spaces' Melbourne branch provides a lifestyle-driven professional working environment, founded on principles of creativity, collaboration and inclusivity, while its design aims to reflect the company’s ‘Inspire to Work’ philosophy.

Managing Director at Spaces, Martijn Roordink, said people are more productive and subsequently more successful when they're in an enjoyable, social and inspiring work environment, and this is what Spaces wants to deliver. “Spaces gives members the opportunity to take their careers into their own hands and our events enable them to get involved in the buzz of the Spaces way of life. While our staff take care of all the day-to-day logistics of the workplace, our members are free to connect and get creative,” Roordink said. Spaces Melbourne occupies a 1,093 square metre area and features meeting rooms, private offices and ergonomically designed and engineered coworking spaces. An in-house Café Deli will serve complimentary freshly ground coffee from local roastery, Where’s Marcel?, as well as healthy snacks, lunches and pastries from boutique suppliers. Beers from the Goat Brewery will also be in stock during social events. Like many other coworking spaces, Spaces will host masterclass workshops, seminars and networking events for those who wish to engage with the community aspect of the brand. These events cater to Spaces' network of entrepreneurs, teams, small to medium enterprises and corporates. The usual stuff is also offered at Spaces like secretarial, business and virtual office services, mail and package handling, fast Wi-Fi and IT support on demand, and exclusive access to all Spaces locations globally including Amsterdam, The Hague, London and Melbourne, with Sydney, New York and Rotterdam soon to follow. Memberships start from $350 per month, while tenancies start from $720 per month. Contracts are flexible, so residents can sign up for as little as one month depending on their circumstances, while six and 12-month contracts are also available including rolling contracts after 12 months. Community Developer at Spaces, Margot Van Der Poel, said “Spaces delivers an inspiring, quality workplace platform, where Australian entrepreneurs and SMEs can network with like-minded people and make lasting connections. It offers a unique ‘creative community workspace’ that is relaxed and informal, while at the same time curating a productive and professional environment. “Australia as a nation has been heavily driving the notion of flexible working, which is why we selected Melbourne as our next location after Amsterdam and London - even ahead of the New York venue." Here's a peek into Spaces Melbourne: [caption id="attachment_45308" align="aligncenter" width="600"]

Clubroom, Spaces Melbourne[/caption] [caption id="attachment_45309" align="aligncenter" width="659"]

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Couches & Bookcase Room, Spaces Melbourne[/caption] [caption id="attachment_45310" align="aligncenter" width="660"]

Workspaces, Spaces Melbourne[/caption] [caption id="attachment_45311" align="aligncenter" width="600"]

Meeting Room, Spaces Melbourne[/caption] [caption id="attachment_45312" align="aligncenter" width="660"]

Phone Booth, Spaces Melbourne[/caption] Images: Spaces Melbourne. Source: Spacesworks.com.

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SMS-based on-demand service ASAP merges with former rival Ketings, says it’s better to join forces than compete

September 16, 2015, 5:05 pm

≫ Next: Malaysian angel investment firm QEERAD is looking to invest in Australian startups

≪ Previous: Lifestyle-driven coworking space Spaces launches in Melbourne ahead of Sydney opening

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Following the viral success of Magic, an American SMS-based on-demand service that gets you whatever you want whenever you want (or as soon as possible), we’ve seen a number of Australian entrepreneurs replicate that model for the local market. One such local player is ASAP (As Soon As Possible), founded by two Sydney-based university students Dylan Samra and Kelvin Nguyen earlier this year, with Daniel Cunningham joining as a co-founder shortly after. Six months following its launch, ASAP has raised capital and merged with former rival Ketings. Essentially, ASAP provides people with an immediate trusted personal shopper, delivery person, researcher, booker or simple errand runner to deliver what they need within 60 minutes. The transaction process behind ASAP is simple: text your demand to 0409 777 917 and the ASAP team will reply with a quote and estimated delivery time. If the customer approves, the job gets done – as long as it’s safe and legal. In the first instance, the customer will be asked to provide their address and credit card details, after which everything the customer requests is on autopilot. In terms of monetisation, ASAP charges a service fee on top of every request and this fee depends on the difficulty of the task at hand. Payments are facilitated by global payment provider Stripe. “Everyone is time poor these days, so ASAP allows people or businesses to get items they require delivered to their doorstep in a very fast and efficient manner, whether that’s McDonalds for dinner, flowers for a friend or booking a hotel” said Samra. “ASAPers, our couriers, deliver most items within 30 minutes, with most requests only having a $9.99 fee attached.” In a previous interview with Startup Daily, Samra admitted that Magic’s success helped “spark the flame to bring affordable personal assistance via SMS to the masses of Australia”. “They are changing the ways consumers and businesses go through their day-to-day lives and we want to do the same for the Australian market,” Samra said. Services like ASAP cater to time-poor and chronically impatient Australians who are willing to pay extra for convenience. Or to put a slightly more positive spin on it, what we’ve discovered recently, as evidenced by the growing popularity of on-demand devices, is that different people are willing to pay different amounts of money at different times for things that deliver them value. (Nathan Kinch, Innovation Lead at edgelabs, explains this in greater detail in his article “In the future, all products will be designed for a market of one”.) “[T]wo people may order the exact same product from Amazon, but one of the people has a serious sense of urgency, because they need to use it tomorrow for a specific purpose, and is therefore willing to pay almost whatever it takes to get that product ASAP,” Kinch writes. “Our context is what sets us apart, drives our behaviour and controls our propensity to pay.” At first glance, the idea that we’re just too busy to do things ourselves may seem ridiculous. Machines are already doing things for us, or at least, cutting down the time it takes to do things like washing our clothes. But sentiments towards on-demand services like WHIZZ, Uber, Swiftly, Hangover Helpers and Sherpa demonstrate there’s a need in the market - a need for fast results. We live in a culture of immediacy. We demand instant access or instant results with minimal effort. “Customers are continuously increasing their expectations of service and how quickly they can get things. Technology, and companies like Uber, have helped spur that expectation and it’s warranted – things should be easier than they used to be,” said Samra. “We couldn’t be more excited to be at the front end of that for on-demand delivery of food, products, services and anything else you can dream up in Australia.” On merging with Ketings, Samra said it made more sense to join forces than compete, especially since both companies are based in Sydney and have similar aspirations. “Given how new the market is for on-demand delivery in Australia, we saw that there were obvious synergistic benefits to merging with competitors at an early stage, and Ketings saw this too,” said Samra. “The merge has enabled us to consolidate resources and experience to provide all of our customers with greater service.” The joint venture will operate under the name ASAP. Matt Keegan, formerly the co-founder of Ketings and now the co-founder of ASAP said the merger “guaranteed the future of the platform and meant that efforts could now be concentrated on what counts, the customer.” “With the ASAP team doubling in size, all our effort will be poured into research and development and improving customer experience, as well as expanding our business to the rest of Australia”. Based on completed customer orders - collectively, ASAP and Ketings has received around 35,000 requests - Samra believes ASAP is the second largest on-demand delivery service in Sydney, with orders growing at 30 percent month-on-month, and customers ordering at least three times within their first month of using ASAP. “We’re hoping to increase these statistics over the coming months as we expand our operational footprint and take full advantage of the technology and synergistic benefits gained through the merger with Ketings,” said Samra. Although Samra wasn’t able to disclose how much capital the startup raised for legal reasons, he did say it was enough to support ASAP’s expansion plans and maintain operations for the next 12 months. The startup is currently preparing a PR stunt with a big company. However, the only details Samra was able to provide was: “What Uber has done for ice cream and kittens, we’ll be doing for something else.” The PR stunt will be executed in the coming weeks. Other than that, ASAP will be focusing on solidifying its footprint in Sydney, then expanding into other Australian cities. Samra believes the startup is well-equipped to have a presence in all major cities within six months. “Given the recent merge, technology developed and systems in place, we’re now in a position to scale quickly and sustainably,” said Samra.

Featured image: Kelvin Nguyen, Matt Keegan, Dylan Samra, & Daniel Cunningham, co-founders, ASAP. Source: Provided.

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Malaysian angel investment firm QEERAD is looking to invest in Australian startups

September 20, 2015, 7:50 pm

≫ Next: Fintech startup zipMoney, which offers interest-free loans to online shoppers, makes ASX debut and enters high growth phase

≪ Previous: SMS-based on-demand service ASAP merges with former rival Ketings, says it’s better to join forces than compete

To put it bluntly, the amount of angel investment available in this country is actually larger than one what people imagine. Perhaps, this is because the actual amount of angel investments being made in the country is quite underwhelming. Then again, this is an advantage for overseas players keeping a close eye on the Australian market for opportunities. An organisation that is capitalising on this opportunity is Malaysia-based angel investment firm QEERAD. The firm provides funding to startups, while also assisting them with their marketing strategies via training and workshops. The firm also works with government agencies that are engaging in similar marketing activities and providing grants to founders. Essentially, the firm is a hybrid of investment and training. At the moment, QEERAD is trying to find at least one startup team based in Australia to begin to expand its portfolio. The way it has chosen to go about doing this is via a new "accelerator" programme it will be running in Sydney called Launch Q. The programme will run for six weeks and consists of three workshops. The focus is also on companies that make a social impact, that improve the value of the world. The first workshop is all around 'Idea Validation'; it looks at how clear participating startups are about their customers, the problems they face and how their idea solves those problems or working out whether there is a product-market fit. The second covers the topic of 'Rapid Prototyping', which looks at the key product features that are needed to develop a minimum viable product, which will then allow startups to attract early users and collect market feedback. The third workshop focuses on 'Branding, Bootstrapped Marketing and Cashflow'; this is all around developing the startup's story, looking at marketing channels that will work for them, and the amount of money that is needed to keep the company going for 12 to 18 months. All startups will have access to onsite trainers and mentors, as well as access to a virtual mentor network via Skype that consists of individuals from Australia and Asia that have built and sold technology businesses, are investors and have an understanding of both markets. When it comes to funding, some of the startups that have received angel investment by QEERAD include Poptani, an urban farming technology play; TapauTV, an independent online television station; and GiveReceipt, a a fintech SaaS startup that makes managing receipts easier. All startups that QEERAD support receive at least AUD$100,000 in funding from the firm. It operates purely in the seed space, investing between $100,000 and $500,000 per company. The firm is also quite new to the game, launching only in September 2014. It declined to answer questions from Startup Daily pertaining to how large the size of its fund was. Sydney will be the first market for the Launch Q programme; the program has not even been run in the Malaysian market as of yet. The reasons behind deciding to trial the programme outside of Malaysia tie back to one of the advisors at QEERAD, Peter Gould who is Australian and based out of Sydney Australia. Already having someone on the ground meant that getting the programme up and running was a much easier process. As of today, there are already 10 startups that have been shortlisted to take part in the programme. At the conclusion of the programme, participating startups will pitch to investors and the QEERAD team. One or multiple startups have the potential to receive investment based on their performance. Considering QEERAD prides itself on investing in 'people', no doubt the company will also be assessing what the founders and teams are like to work with throughout the six-week period. While there is nothing wrong with what QEERAD is doing in regards to this Launch Q program, I think it is stretching the truth a little by calling itself an 'accelerator programme'. Sure, it's a training programme, but it most definitely is not the same as Startmate, AngelCube or muru-D that run actual accelerator programmes. It is a marketing tactic being used by a firm that teaches marketing to help enhance its investment deal flow - it is a clever way to do it. I don't know why QEERAD just don't call the programme what it is. After all, anything that can help Australian startups break into the Asian market and directs more angel investment into our ecosystem is a good thing.

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Fintech startup zipMoney, which offers interest-free loans to online shoppers, makes ASX debut and enters high growth phase

September 21, 2015, 6:07 pm

≫ Next: Strategic partnership platform Collabosaurus experiences steady stream of revenue and growing user base within six months

≪ Previous: Malaysian angel investment firm QEERAD is looking to invest in Australian startups

Larry Diamond-ZipMoney 008

Sydney-based fintech startup zipMoney, described as ‘online lending meets the checkout’, listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) yesterday after raising $5 million in an oversubscribed reverse takeover of mineral exploration company Rubianna Resources. Founded in 2013 by Larry Diamond and Peter Gray, zipMoney is a ‘buy now, pay later’ finance product that operates like a payment gateway: online retailers simply integrate zipMoney into their checkout and customers have the option to pay for their purchase using their zipMoney account, instead of their credit card or PayPal account. Behind the scenes, however, customers are provided with a revolving unsecured line of credit of between $500 and $10,000 to finance their online purchase, be it a bicycle or breast implants. The average approved credit limit is currently between $1,000 and $2,000, however approved limits depend on the vendor. For example, customers purchasing a bike will get a limit of $1,000, whereas the limit for cosmetic surgery will probably be higher. Each transaction comes with a minimum three months and up to 12 months interest-free deal. Interest rates start from 19.90% after the interest-free period - this is lower than most rates offered by traditional retail finance competitors, which typically range from 22% to 30%. In stores like Harvey Norman, JB HiFi, Myer and David Jones, customers are required to sit through a long, tedious process with an in-store salesperson, filling out forms, waiting for approval before receiving a credit card in the mail. With zipMoney, the approval process can take as little as three minutes - like many new online-only lenders, it assesses risk by using software to access data directly from applicants' bank accounts and other sources such as social media. Once approved, customers are issued a virtual line of credit, meaning there are no plastic credit cards involved. Added to that, customers are provided with easy-to-use online tools to configure their repayments to suit their needs - they can choose and change their repayment amount (as long as it’s above the minimum) and pay weekly, fortnightly or monthly. zipMoney assigns a minimum repayment amount to ensure customers can pay off their loans within five years maximum. It’s also very difficult to miss a repayment because customers are mandatorily signed up to direct debit authority at the checkout. In the spirit of openness, zipMoney also discloses to the customer what their interest-free balance is and how long it will take to pay off. zipMoney’s system is entirely paperless - in most cases, zipMoney’s offering is easily integrated into the merchant’s order management backend and managed through its dashboard - and cloud-based, meaning that it operates on a ‘low cost to serve’ model with the ability to efficiently process high volumes of lower dollar value transactions. While retail finance isn’t new - Harvey Norman and JB HiFi, for example, offer interest-free deals on in-store purchases and the Australian retail finance market is already worth approximately $10 billion - digital retail finance is still in its infancy. This is zipMoney’s primary focus. The startup is keen to distinguish itself from peer-to-peer, marketplace and payday lenders, some of which have a predatory approach to customer acquisition and lack transparency. zipMoney, on the other hand, acquires customers through its merchant relationships. Unlike other types of lenders, zipMoney doesn’t provide personal loans, debt consolidations or cash to its customers - rather, it settles loans directly with partnered merchants to fund a consumer purchase. Since its launch, zipMoney has partnered with almost 150 online merchants and facilitated over $9 million in transactions across 5,000 customers, with $4 million originating in the July-to-September quarter alone. On average, merchants have seen 50% increase in order value (or basket size) and 20% increase in gross sales. In the spirit of transparency, zipMoney admits that it still makes money if customers repay their loans within the interest-free period. This is because merchants are charged a higher merchant services fee (per transaction) than others in the market like PayPal. However, in return, zipMoney bears all the risk. It offers merchants a seller protection policy so they don’t have to worry about chargebacks or mitigating fraudulent transactions. “Merchants are happy to pay extra because we're delivering the incremental contribution margin,” said Diamond, zipMoney’s co-founder and CEO. zipMoney has funded its customer loans through pooled, senior-secured loan notes from unrelated third party lenders with up to 12-month repayment terms. Its funding facility of approximately $5 million has recently been extended to a $20 million facility. Diamond also told Startup Daily that zipMoney is currently working with a strategic funder on a $100 million traditional securitisation programme. It’s clear the second half of 2015 has seen zipMoney enter a rapid growth phase; its customer loans have increased drastically in Q3, along with its monthly revenues. Though it’s unclear how much revenue has been generated between July and September, if the company delivered a quarter (about $100,000) of its total 2014/15 financial year revenue ($410,000) in June alone, and facilitated half of its total $9 million in transactions this quarter, then it would probably be a little too safe to expect tripled revenue in the 2015/16 financial year, especially now that the startup has extra cash in its pockets to invest in new talent and growth. Diamond, an ex-Macquarie and Deutsche Bank investment banker, admitted that zipMoney has been growing "quite aggressively” as of late. “We settle cash daily. It's been really important for us to solve the debt funding side of the equation; and the other part is making sure our risk models and decisioning engines are working properly. We spent the first year proprietarily building our big data engine, which uses conventional and non-conventional data, and testing it to make sure it works, while also solving the debt funding side. We're at that point now where we can scale quite well and that's what we're focused on,” said Diamond. According to Earl Evans, Head of Private Wealth Management at Shaw and Partners, the firm that led the reverse takeover, the $5 million raising was completed within 24 hours of the offer opening and was heavily oversubscribed. The startup has raised capital previously from Geoff Levy, former Chairman and Founder of Investec in Australia, and David Shein, founder of Comtech Communications, which was acquired by Dimension Data for $1 billion. Diamond has been quite vocal about the benefits of reverse listing, a strategy that has come under heavy scrutiny earlier this year, with Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes and calling the method ‘shady’ and many VCs agreeing with the sentiment. Many reverse takeover opponents regard the method as “cheating” or “a shortcut to the ASX”. This is because during reverse takeovers, a private company buys enough shares to control a publicly traded company or vice versa. Typically, the private company’s shareholders then use their shares in the private company to exchange for shares in the public company. At this point, all the value is in the acquired company, and the private company effectively becomes a publicly traded one. Many of the companies that engage in this method either haven’t met the ASX’s listing criteria, want to fast-track their listing, or reduce the cost of their listing. While Diamond is cognisant of the potential problems associated with reverse listing, he found the overall experience to be positive and beneficial for his company. For zipMoney, reverse listing cost 60% of the price of frontdoor listing, and the process took just six months. “A lot of people do say [reverse listing is] shady, and I think there are some deals in the market that probably have question marks around it. But that is certainly a very large generalisation. We’ve see a lot of successful reverse listings in the last couple of years,” said Diamond. He also said it’s difficult for startups to raise Series A rounds locally, so listing on the ASX, whether through the front door or back door, is a good alternative to venture capital. “We were raising the equivalent of a Series A round. When you look at the Australian VC market around Series A, it's very quiet. There was about $100 million in total VC deals in the last 12 months. We spoke to a lot of VCs and most of them are steering away from Series A ... The reality is if you've got a great tech story and you're looking for local VC support in [the form of a] Series A round, there's quite a big gap in the market,” said Diamond. “I think there's great support right now for incubation and seed capital, which is fantastic because this means [startups] will eventually graduate to Series A and capital will follow. But currently it's very quiet.” Diamond also made sure to point out that, relative to other public markets like the NASDAQ, listing on the ASX is significantly cheaper. Certainly, over the past 18 months, we’ve seen an increase in ASX listings of technology companies, proving that public markets, is helping fill the funding gap that has many times forced Australian tech startup founders to relocate to places like Silicon Valley and Singapore that have larger funding pools. In addition to increasing the capital on a company’s balance sheet, there are other benefits of going public that are increasingly being recognised by Australian tech founders. For one, public companies have higher valuations – usually double that of a privately-held company. Another benefit is the ability to divest equity at any time in small or large portions; founders of private companies cannot easily sell 10 percent or 20 percent of their shareholding, whereas when trading on the ASX, they can sell 1 percent, 5 percent or 20 percent. Public companies also have greater credibility; large prospective clients like government departments and corporates are more trusting of, and are more willing to adopt, products supplied by public companies. “The ability to go public is always exciting. It raises the profile of your company; it increases your ability to attract talent. There are many benefits, so if there’s a quicker and cheaper way to do it, then that’s great for startups,” said Diamond. zipMoney has recently hired former PayPal Australia's Head of Retail, Jonathan Kelly as its Director of Merchant Services. This comes after the May poaching of FlexiGroup's National Accounts Manager, Craig Dufficy to be zipMoney's new National Sales Manager who will be leading the company's enterprise merchant acquisition strategy. With its latest cash injection, zipMoney will be looking to make additional hires to grow its existing team of just under 20. “A large chunk of the $5 million will be used to acquire really good talent because we're a very people-heavy business. All of our tech is in-house, so we have to invest a lot in great people,” said Diamond.

Featured image: Larry Diamond, co-founder, zipMoney. Source: Provided.

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Strategic partnership platform Collabosaurus experiences steady stream of revenue and growing user base within six months

September 22, 2015, 7:04 pm

≫ Next: Will Sydney startup MoneyBrilliant be the winner in the personal finance management space?

≪ Previous: Fintech startup zipMoney, which offers interest-free loans to online shoppers, makes ASX debut and enters high growth phase

Jess-074

Earlier this year, Startup Daily profiled a Sydney-based startup called Collabosaurus, which aimed to solve one of the most time-consuming problems facing businesses: the forming of mutually-beneficial strategic partnerships. In some cases, identifying opportunities for synergy, actually convincing the relevant brands to partner with you, and then implementing a strategy can take years. Six months after its launch, Collabosaurus has a steady stream of recurring revenue and a growing user base. The platform launched in March after having attracted 250 signups in its pre-launch period. In the months since, Collabosaurus has reached 1100 active users. The majority of users are fashion accessory and food brands, though a number of beauty brands, design agencies, accounting firms, and tech businesses are also on the platform.

This platform works through a matchmaking algorithm. Upon signup, a user is asked to enter details about the type of collaboration they’re interested in securing, their target market, and marketing assets, such as social media following, excess product or email database. The software then matches them with potential, valuable strategic partners.

The growth of Collabosaurus means founder Jessica Ruhfus, who was working a full time job as a marketer and PR representative, working as a barista part time, and tutoring HSC students while developing and launching the startup, has been able to give up the full time job. Though Ruhfus is fully dedicated to Collabosaurus, she's continued working part time as a barista and English tutor, explaining that she'll get bored if she's only doing one thing. Ruhfus said it's been exciting to see collaborations form through the platform. “The most common so far has been social media cross promotion. That’s as simple as two brands getting together and going, 'Well we have complementary products that our audience would be interested in' and they just do cross promotion,” Ruhfus said. The platform operates on a three-tiered subscription model, with the cheapest subscription setting users back $30 a month. This allows users to create one active project and send five requests to connect every month. Next up is the $60 per month subscription, targeting small businesses and startups, allowing for three active projects and 20 invitations to connect per month. The third tier costs $90 per month and allows for unlimited active projects and connections. This tier is aimed at larger businesses like PR, marketing, and events agencies. The free version of the platform allows users to set up projects and view matches, but does not offer connectivity. Of the 1,100 active users on Collabosaurus, Ruhfus said there are around 300 paying subscribers, though the flexible subscriptions mean numbers change from month to month; however, the platform is seeing a stable five percent subscription rate from month to month. These users are companies big and small, with Topshop recently using the platform to source a caterer for a collaboration in Melbourne. Ruhfus has been running events to market the platform and educate businesses about the value of strategic partnerships. Through this, she's seen her own network grow, hosting lunches with talks from people like Rewardle founder and CEO Ruwan Weerasoriya and Declan Lee, director and co-founder of Gelato Messina. The platform has already gone international, with a number of brands from North America and the UK joining Collabosaurus in its pre-launch stage. Ruhfus plans to properly expand into these markets over the coming months. “I had three separate completely unrelated businesses from Canada somehow find Collabosaurus and sign up. I got in touch with them straight away and because I had to know how they found us, why, if they think it's worth it, and with everyone I've spoken to so far, it seems there's quite a small business culture in Canada, it's quite similar to Australia. They have a lot of cool, creative things coming out of the works there and I think it would be an interesting one,” she said. Moving forward, Ruhfus sees the tech space as an opportunity for growth, with only a handful of tech companies currently using the platform, and will also be looking to target venues. “There are so many opportunities for venues, particularly in their off-peak hours. I'm always preaching ‘you have something someone else want’ and venues need to look at their space as a significant marketing and partnership asset. Goals for venues are usually social media growth, content creation, and overcoming the challenge of driving local newcomers into their venue to experience it first hand. Event partnerships for venues are extremely beneficial for achieving these goals and for valuable brand alignments with particular industries,” she said. Over 37 million people attended more than 412,000 business events in Australia in 2013-2014. These events generated $28 billion in direct expenditure, $13.5 billion in direct value added, and over 179,000 direct jobs. With these figures coming from business events alone, the potential in the wider market is much larger. Ruhfus believes a huge opportunity also lies in the nature of the collaborations brands work on. She said brands need to take advantage of creative ideas to provide value to each other's audiences. "Usually, the craziest or most creative collaborations get the most attention, and I'd love to see more of these that result in press exposure and exposure outside of social media alone," she said. Ruhfus envisions Collabosaurus being acquired by a company such as LinkedIn further down the line, but before that, she said it needs to establish itself in the market as “the go-to, original, and only source for strategic partnerships. We've had some competitors emerge that are so far unsuccessful, which we take as a compliment and a good sign. We're on track to being extremely desirable to potential acquirers and I'm loving every second of building this baby up!”

Featured image: Jess Ruhfus, Founder, Collabosaurus. Source: Provided.

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Will Sydney startup MoneyBrilliant be the winner in the personal finance management space?

September 23, 2015, 6:11 pm

≫ Next: OpenLearning and Smart Sparrow partner to offer educators easier course creation through platform integration

≪ Previous: Strategic partnership platform Collabosaurus experiences steady stream of revenue and growing user base within six months

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We’ve seen a number of startups emerge in the last few years that help people manage their personal finances via their smartphones - a few notable examples include Mint, Pocketbook and Digit. Although Sydney-based startup MoneyBrilliant isn’t a new market entrant, it has undergone many iterations and is now one of best ones available because of its UI/UX as well as the volume and type of financial services accounts that can be integrated into the application. In brief, MoneyBrilliant, described as a “virtual financial assistant”, brings people’s personal finances together under one digital umbrella. Users can connect the app, which is both web-based and mobile, to hundreds of Australian and international financial services accounts and automatically have their bills, spending and savings organised to see if they are tracking ‘in the green’ with each pay cycle. “People have relationships with many different financial service providers; and as an individual it’s really difficult to stay on top of those different relationships,” said Jemma Enright, co-founder and CEO of MoneyBrilliant. “MoneyBrilliant gives members the opportunity to have great visibility on their full financial picture and then there’s a whole lot of functionality within the app that helps them pay their bills on time, set guardrails and stay within them, set some goals and start to sock away the savings towards goals. It's a 360-degree view of your financial life.” Founder Peter Lord added many Australians have little to no idea how much money they’ve spent, let alone what they've spent it on, and that MoneyBrilliant gives people the financial reality check they need. “Cashflow management is being left out of most financial conversations, even with financial planners and bank managers. Unless the knowledge is coming from your parents, it’s not coming from anywhere,” Lord said. “A massive percentage of the Australian population is financially insecure. Even if they're earning a lot of money, they don't know where it's going.” Founded by Lord in 2011, MoneyBrilliant was inspired by the tough financial times experienced by his mother as she neared retirement. She was given the family home unencumbered, but she wasn’t in control of the family’s finances and was quite uncomfortable around money. Lord suggested that she see a financial planner, borrow against the value of the family home and invest in a unit trust. But she didn’t have the confidence to say yes. Lord said this cost his mother close to $300,000 when it came to retirement. “We have an issue right now where my dad worries about where we’re going the next holiday and my mum worries about $8 bank fees,” Lord said. He added that elderly women are especially vulnerable. “When my grandfather died, my nan just had herself and she didn't have the financial knowledge to really enjoy her golden years. Once I started digging a little deeper, it wasn't just my mum I could help, but also my sister, my friends, my work colleagues. There’s a whole range of people who are financially insecure,” said Lord. “I feel like there’s a real opportunity to help women … I believe the solution to the world’s problems with money has to start with helping women first.” While the app was designed with women in mind, it’s not exclusively for women - in fact, its users are split 60-40, women to men. The reason MoneyBrilliant primarily targets women is not because women are financially incompetent, but because in some ways, women are disadvantaged, and they certainly face different challenges to men. An obvious example is the gender pay gap - in Australia, the gender pay gap is 17.9%, so women are paid $0.82 of every $1.00 men are paid. Yet Australia fares well compared to the US, where women are being paid $0.77 of every $1.00 men are paid. Enright, who left her career in marketing and joined MoneyBrilliant a year after its founding to bring a more customer-focused approach to financial services, noted “Peter’s mum’s story is repeating itself … I think women are more [likely] to miss out on [financial] opportunities because of a host of reasons, like having children and unequal pay. The odds are stacked against women.” “If we can do something that helps women [manage their finances] more effectively and efficiently, providing them with greater visibility around their own finances, then I think it’s a very worthy cause, and one we’re very passionate about.” While MoneyBrilliant targets women through its social media activities and blog content, to ensure the product itself appeals to women visually, the team had to do a lot of design testing. What you see today isn’t overwhelmingly and stereotypically feminine; this is helped by the fact that the website displays images of women in fairly gender-neutral settings. The colours - a mix of coral-pink, dark blue, grey-green and yellow - are also balanced. As a result of various design choices, including its minimalistic appearance, the app doesn’t impose any standards on women or alienate men. The rebranding, which was finalised in March this year, also saw a surge in user uptake. “It's definitely not a case of strapping pink on things. It’s a route that we don't intend to go down again. We've spoken to a lot of women about that and the first iteration of the MoneyBrilliant logo was pink and got pushed back. I think this is a great insight to women - they don’t necessarily like pink. And for us, it's also about cleanness and simplicity. If you look at our app, it's about getting people that one big number that counts instead of overloading them with a whole range of data. We had to think about how we could make the experience enjoyable so that it doesn’t feel like you’re looking at a spreadsheet, which is kind of masculine,” said Enright, who wasn’t trying to insinuate that women like ‘simple’ while men like ‘complex’, nor that women and men have different levels of intelligence. “You'll notice that in every screen in the app, there is one big number - it’s like the headline - and you can click to get more details [like an article]. It’s an experience that works for everyone - women and men. We're not intending to be alienating towards any segment. All we're doing is simply saying 'here are a group of people who can be really well-served and get on top of their everyday financing'. We want to make sure we're delivering an experience that works for them.” [caption width="1200" id="attachment_45609" align="alignnone"]

MoneyBrilliant website screenshot[/caption]

MoneyBrilliant’s core features include: aggregated balances and transactions for all bank, credit, loan, superannuation and investment accounts; instant categorisation of spending and trend reports; organisation of spending with the intelligence to remember user preferences; automatic bill finder and calendar; safe spending tracker for the user’s pay cycle; weekly money updates; and high levels of security using global banking technology company Yodlee. At the moment, there are over 250 Australian-based institutions that can be connected to the platform, and hundreds more in nine different international markets. Lord believes MoneyBrilliant’s ability to aggregate your superannuation data is its biggest point of difference. Australia’s superannuation funds are worth $1.94 trillion as of December 2014, yet most Australians have no clue of how much super they’ve accumulated. "On the MoneyBrilliant app, you can easily see your super balance every day. I hope this helps people have more awareness around their super. Right now, to retire comfortably, you need about a $1 million in super, whereas the average super balance is close to $250,000. It's even lower for women. It’s hard to live on a pension - it’s too small, so super is going to be the key thing for people,” said Lord. “I think research shows that 70% people think they're going to rely on super in retirement, but the percentage who actually do is closer to 25%.” One thing the co-founders are adamant about is keeping customer data completely private. The co-founders confidently claim they won’t be monetising customer data or using it in any way other than to increase the value of MoneyBrilliant's offering. “We think there is a growing nervousness amongst consumers as to what the ulterior motives are with different companies who have access to data. As a business, we are trying to position ourselves as a consumer champion, if you like, starting from giving people the opportunity to view their full financial picture. We need to build that trust, and [that trust] does start to dilute if you're using data in ways that [customers] haven’t consciously said okay to," said Enright. “In the future, I guess it would make sense for us to help people find the right product and service provider through our app to [enhance] their financial life ... But the intent will be to do that in a way that is very transparent and completely independent.” The startup has not yet monetised its offering, though the co-founders did say they’re steering towards a freemium model. This means basic features will be free, but power users will be able to upgrade to a premium version for a small monthly fee. Enright said the startup is also working collaboratively with well-established businesses. Moving forward, the bigger companies will distribute MoneyBrilliant’s products to their customer base and there will be commercial terms around it. In the early days, when MoneyBrilliant was called ‘Cha-Ching’, Lord had raised capital amongst family and friends. Late last year, the startup raised $1.5 million in funding from financial services company AMP. According to the startup, the partnership with AMP was brokered on a shared goal to make a positive impact on the financial well-being of Australians, with the startup approaching that challenge by focusing on the everyday – the basics of helping Australians pay bills, save and spend. “We coined the phrase, the ‘Money Maslow’, to reflect our philosophy on financial well-being. If you don’t have the basic needs under control, like paying your bills and spending within your limits, you can’t have a conversation about goals and building wealth. You can’t get ahead,” Enright said. The raised funds is being used primarily to recruit talent - MoneyBrilliant currently has a team of seven full-timers and casual workers - and is also being invested into marketing and other strategic customer acquisition activities. “That money has allowed us to first and foremost bring the right talent into the business. Prior to that, our small founding team wore a lot of different hats. Post-investment, we've been able to grow our technology team, which is obviously a fundamental piece of our business. We have a great CTO, a great head of product and another talented developer, as well as a number of other roles,” said Enright. The startup is currently experiencing about 50% month-on-month user growth. Though the co-founders did not disclose the number of users MoneyBrilliant has, Enright did say it’s “growing in the thousands each month” and that its users are based all over the world. Recently, Money Brilliant received requests from people in the US who are interested in using the product in full capacity. At the moment, Facebook is proving to be the most effective channel for user acquisition and engagement. “Facebook works really well for us, we found. Obviously, the nature of Facebook, it gives us more than user acquisition; it's giving us incredible insight into how people are feeling about our service. We’re getting a lot of reviews on there. We've been blown away by how many people are actually sharing our ad!” said Enright. MoneyBrilliant is gearing up for an aggressive rollout of product developments beyond the current cash management service to move customers towards longer term financial well-being and to help users maximise their savings. Lord admitted it’s been a rocky four-year startup journey, however, the ‘thank you’ notes he gets from users make it all worthwhile. “I couldn't actually help my mum because she's in retirement now, but we're helping so many other Australians, taking away their stress. I love getting notes saying 'thank you',” said Lord. Featured image (L to R): Jemma Enright, Co-Founder & CEO and Peter Lord, Founder, MoneyBrilliant. Source: Provided.

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OpenLearning and Smart Sparrow partner to offer educators easier course creation through platform integration

September 27, 2015, 2:00 pm

≫ Next: StartupWeek Sydney launches to celebrate and strengthen the city’s startup ecosystem

≪ Previous: Will Sydney startup MoneyBrilliant be the winner in the personal finance management space?

open learning smartsparrow

Sydney EduTech startups OpenLearning and Smart Sparrow have partnered to launch an integration that will allow educators using OpenLearning's Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform to create customisable and personalised courses for students. The partnership will see Smart Sparrow's adaptive learning technology, which allows educators to create personalised learning paths for their students, collaborate in real-time, and use pre-made templates to speed up the course creation process, integrated into the OpenLearning platform. Adam Brimo, co-founder and CEO of OpenLearning, said the startup's focus on delivering stronger engagement levels for students complements Smart Sparrow's adaptive learning approach. “By working together with Smart Sparrow, OpenLearning is offering a seamless learning environment that is designed fully with the student in mind. This provides educational institutions with the option of including Smart Sparrow’s adaptive learning functionality into their courses," Brimo said. Smart Sparrow founder Dr Dror Ben-Naim said that the idea for a collaboration came when the two startups learned that a number of educators were already using both platforms. He said, "We saw an opportunity to introduce our platform through OpenLearning to make it easier for educators to create their courses in the one environment. And students will be better supported and more motivated to succeed via more adaptive and personalised learning as well as the social features offered by OpenLearning.” The partnership is the latest in a line of big steps for both startups. After raising $1.7 million in seed funding in February to facilitate its expansion into Asia, OpenLearning opened its new global headquarters in Sydney in June and announced that it had been awarded a tender to deliver Australia's first Federal Government MOOC, which will be used to train thousands of public servants over the next four years. The platform is now being used by educational institutions including UNSW, the University of Canberra, and companies around the US, Europe, and Australia, with more than 200,000 students from over 180 countries studying OpenLearning courses. It was also selected as the national MOOC platform for Malaysian universities in September 2014. Meanwhile Smart Sparrow, which is being used by over 400 universities, opened offices in San Francisco following the raising of a $10 million Series B funding round early last year. The startup was one of seven finalists in the Gates Foundation’s Next Generation Courseware Challenge, sharing in $US20 million in funding to help improve the success of low-income high school graduates in the US.

Image: Smart Sparrow's Dr Dror Ben-Naim and OpenLearning's Adam Brimo.

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StartupWeek Sydney launches to celebrate and strengthen the city’s startup ecosystem

September 28, 2015, 3:52 pm

≫ Next: NAB launches partnership with Sydney coworking community Fishburners

≪ Previous: OpenLearning and Smart Sparrow partner to offer educators easier course creation through platform integration

Sydney

Just two months after Sydney fell four places to 16th in the latest Global Startup Ecosystem Report rankings, StartupWeek Australia has announced the launch of the inaugural StartupWeek Sydney, a series of 50 events aiming to strengthen and celebrate the city's startup ecosystem. The festival, to be held across Friday October 23 to Friday October 30, will feature conferences, hackathons, workshops, pitch nights, panels, exhibitions, and other events looking to celebrate the efforts of those in the startup ecosystem and encourage others to learn more, with a particular focus on exploring how women can play a greater role in tech and getting more kids involved.

It will also seek to facilitate deeper engagement between startups and investors, government, and corporate organisations, with organisers expecting 5000 attendees across 22 venues including NSW Parliament House, UNSW and UTS, recently opened FinTech startup hub Stone & Chalk, and Fishburners.

Michelle Williams, national manager of StartupWeek Australia, said the event will showcase a Sydney startup community "which has never seen this level of energy and momentum."

“Global economic uncertainty is contributing to a new focus on innovation and entrepreneurialism here in Australia. As whole industries face digital disruption, now is the time to catalyse existing and aspiring entrepreneurs to build and grow Australia’s innovation and growth opportunities," Williams said.

With startups a hot topic with governments around Australia at the moment, StartupWeek Sydney will be supported by the NSW Department of Industry and the City of Sydney.

Clover Moore, Lord Mayor of Sydney, said, “We want the thriving talent and long-term benefits of a fertile tech culture for Sydney, with local startups that lead their fields. Our support for StartupWeek is part of a long term strategy to help build the skilled and connected community we need to make that happen.”

Events include a breakfast and panel discussion on impact investing, a HealthTech hackathon at the Kinghorn Cancer Centre in Darlinghurst, a networking event for startups interested in the Chinese tech scene, and a Code Club Australia session at Town Hall, with a keynote speech from Code Club director and muru-D cofounder Annie Parker.

StartupWeek Sydney comes after the second successful Startup Week Melbourne was organised by Startup Victoria earlier this year, and follows on from the Startup Spring festival held around Australia this month.

StartupWeek will be looking to expand across Australia next year, with events in regional areas on the agenda.

Find out more about StartupWeek Sydney here.

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NAB launches partnership with Sydney coworking community Fishburners

October 5, 2015, 4:11 pm

≫ Next: Construction safety startup Safesite names Dailius Wilson as vice president of sales as it focuses on US market

≪ Previous: StartupWeek Sydney launches to celebrate and strengthen the city’s startup ecosystem

fishburners

Sydney coworking community Fishburners has landed yet another big name partnership, announcing this week that National Australia Bank (NAB) has joined forces with the space to provide support for its startups. The partnership will see NAB get a desk in the space, giving it a first hand look at the 176 startups residing in the four storey building on Ultimo's Harris St, and the opportunity to work with them closely to deliver solutions for its customers. Jon Davey, executive general manager of NAB Labs, said it's important for the bank to partner with companies it can learn from to help it meet evolving business and technology trends. “We see the digital environment changing significantly, and much of this change is being driven by smaller companies and startups...we want our NAB team to be among the best global thinkers in the innovation space and give our customers access to the best ideas,” Davey said. Murray Hurps, founder of AdMuncher and general manager of Fishburners, said the partnership with NAB is one of the most exciting the space has had so far - no mean feat considering Fishburners has partnered with companies including News Corp, Google, Optus, PwC, Xero, and most recently Dropbox. Hurps told Startup Daily that NAB "aligns perfectly" with Fishburners' goal: to create more Australian startups. The space has turned down lucrative partnership deals in the past because they "just wouldn't make our startups more successful." "I first took an interest in NAB after seeing their partnership with Xero. It's refreshing to see a bank going the extra distance to give customers what they really need, and the partnership with Fishburners is entirely about delivering more of the same," Hurps said. The main thing Fishburners will get from the partnership, said Hurps, is a customer for its startups, and potentially many more startups in the community as NAB learns more about the local ecosystem. "Big Australian banks are probably one of the most challenging potential clients for a startup. If you have a relevant product or service though, it's a massive boost just to say you have had NAB as a customer. Customer number 2 is suddenly a whole lot easier," he said. With NAB having announced the launch of NAB Ventures, a $50 million innovation fund, earlier this year, the partnership also means Fishburners startups will have the opportunity to work closely with a potential investor day in and day out. NAB is just the latest Australian bank to double down on the startup space. Westpac launched its $50 million Reinventure Fund last year, while Commonwealth Bank opened an Innovation Lab in the Sydney CBD last year.

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Construction safety startup Safesite names Dailius Wilson as vice president of sales as it focuses on US market

October 5, 2015, 4:57 pm

≫ Next: Wyatt Roy teams up with BlueChilli to run policy hackathon aimed at developing new policies for the innovation ecosystem

≪ Previous: NAB launches partnership with Sydney coworking community Fishburners

Dailius Wilson

The tech world is full of young entrepreneurs, but that doesn’t make it any less strange to see someone in their early 20s with a resume that would rival that of someone enjoying the twilight years of a long career. Sydneysider Dailius Wilson is one such entrepreneur. At 23, Wilson has just finished up his stint as Oneflare's national head of sales and partnerships and is now set to head to San Francisco to take up a post as vice president of sales at Safesite, a startup which came out of muru-D accelerator's first intake last year. Wilson got his start in the tech scene working as a telemarketer while at university; attached to the call centre he worked for was a home loan startup called Rates Direct, for which he began to do some casual work. He then founded his own consulting businesses, focused on helping small business owners increase their business online through SEO, email marketing, and online sales strategies. Recently named on Anthill Magazine’s 30under30 list, Wilson’s own ventures include Content.Care, a content creation business, Wolf of York Street, a daily YouTube channel in which he gives advice on sales and digital marketing, and Increase my Online Business, or iMOB, another site giving businesses advice. For good measure, he was also a guest and assistant on the Ellen DeGeneres show when she came down under two years ago. The full time job at Oneflare came mostly by accident. "One day I decided, as a little bit of a test, to go in and do some interviews and see what my knowledge would get me in terms of a career salary because I just wanted to check that I was charging clients the right rate. So I applied for the national head of marketing role with Oneflare and that's where it all began. We kind of had a chat and we figured out I had a few skillsets," Wilson said. He worked as head of digital sales and national manager of partnerships and sales at Oneflare, as well as national manager of partnerships and sales at Word of Mouth Online, which Oneflare acquired in July last year. Since Wilson joined Oneflare the same month, the startup has raised $4 million in funding across two rounds. As of July 2015, it has over 70,000 businesses registered on its platform, with a number reporting they have made over $100,000 from the site, and attracts 1.3 million unique visitors a month. Following success at Oneflare, Wilson recently decided to take up a new challenge and head to San Francisco to work with Safesite after giving the team some sales advice on internet marking forum Warrior Forum. The startup, founded by Peter Grant, David Fontain, and Leigh Appel, has created a mobile app that records and communications critical safety information across construction sites, enabling supervisors to improve safety culture, resulting in fewer injuries. Safesite has raised $500,000 in funding to date, facilitating the opening of its new headquarters in California, and is currently in the process of raising a second round. David Fontain, Safesite's chief operating officer, said the move came after the startup saw 80 percent of its sales coming from the US after its official launch a year ago. One of the startup's first major clients began using Safesite on a light rail infrastructure project in LA last year, which led to more projects in the US. Wilson has a personal reason for making the move: his grandfather suffered for a year following a fall from a ladder on a worksite, and as a result, Safesite’s work is close to his heart. "The beauty of technology is that you can give so much back to the community. I just thought it was a match made in heaven. Also being in Silicon Valley, going over to the States, there's so much opportunity to bring back knowledge and also connections to help the Australian startup industry to continue to grow as well," Wilson said. When it comes to making decisions, Wilson is often guided by gut instincts and emotions, for which he said he has received some criticism. “Ultimately I think the products that win are the ones that win in people's hearts and their minds. So if you're too logical and too cautious, you may be too generic. So I think, don't feel afraid to follow your emotions and use them to your advantage because that passion will allow you to succeed more than other people.” Wilson is now charged with being a key driver of Safesite’s push into the US market. “The US construction industry is a trillion dollar industry so we feel as if that it would be fantastic to take on the bigger market, because we feel like that's where the real growth is,” Wilson said. As vice president, Wilson’s role will have three parts: growing and expanding the sales team, coordinating the startup’s marketing efforts, and securing partnerships. He’ll be doing that while continuing to work on his own ventures on the side. “Often in my career I’ve been criticised for having too many irons in the fire and not enough focus on one thing, but how I look at it being an intrapreneur, working at one place but then also having other ventures, opens up new opportunities,” he said. “It allows you to test things on your smaller venture without risking the place that you work or a larger one. I also think as well that it doesn't matter if those smaller ventures are successful or not. They provide passive income which can allow you to buy more freedom in your life.”

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Wyatt Roy teams up with BlueChilli to run policy hackathon aimed at developing new policies for the innovation ecosystem

October 8, 2015, 12:10 pm

≫ Next: Sydney startup FlexCareers wants to help mothers get back into the workforce with flexible roles

≪ Previous: Construction safety startup Safesite names Dailius Wilson as vice president of sales as it focuses on US market

Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 6.11.34 pm

Although there are varying opinions around how involved government should be in the startup ecosystem, the general consensus is 'support entrepreneurs, but let them lead the way'. Following Malcolm Turnbull's newfound Prime Ministership and reshuffling of the Cabinet, it seems the government is finally letting tech entrepreneurs, as well as VCs, accelerators and other startup industry stakeholders, lead the way when it comes to matters in their interest. The newly appointed Assistant Minister for Innovation The Hon. Wyatt Roy MP has teamed up with venture technology firm BlueChilli to facilitate a one-day policy hackathon to take place in Sydney next weekend. The hackathon, called Policy Hack, is an opportunity for representatives from startups, VC funds, accelerators, incubators, universities and other operators in the innovation ecosystem, as well as policy experts from key government departments, to collaborate and bring innovation to an area that lacks it most: policy. The very use of the hackathon methodology shows the government is interested in engaging in the language and activities of startup entrepreneurs and technologists. (In a video, Roy even says Policy Hack aims to "disrupt the Canberra bureaucracy"). Policy ideas are currently being submitted online via OurSay.org. From funding and taxation to education and migration, no policy area is off limits as long as it promises to help foster the growth of innovation industries like agtech. biotech, fintech, renewables and resources. Ten people with the highest 'upvoted' policy ideas will be invited to Sydney to lead teams and workshop their ideas with government and industry representatives before pitching to a panel of government representatives. Currently, some of the highest ranking ideas include tax incentives for angel investors (submitted by Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin of BlueChilli) - Innovation Minister Christopher Pyne is already reportedly considering this - financial incentives for technical graduates to found or join a startup (submitted by Alex Ghiculescu of Tanda) and a national programme of entrepreneurship exposure and education in all Australian universities to nurture students early on in their careers (submitted by Colin Kinner of Spike Innovation). According to policyhack.com.au, the overarching goal of the hackathon is "to present a set of creative new ideas to an audience of government officials ... [and] give them the top-line thinking from which full policy can be developed and implemented." If the outcries of the startup community fell on deaf ears before, it's safe to say the Australian government is listening now, finally recognising the tech sector's potential to become Australia's economic powerhouse. The five standard judging criteria include:

Value proposition: Does the proposal address a clear and present problem in the innovation ecosystem, and has the problem been clearly articulated?
Impact: Does the proposal contribute to making the innovation ecosystem stronger?
Implementation: Is the proposal practical to implement; has the proposal identified required resources (public and private); has the proposal indicated who would be the relevant stakeholders? Is the proposal practically achievable in realistic timeframes?
Value for money: Has consideration been made to proposal’s potential costs?
International comparisons: Has anything similar been done internationally?

Policy ideas and votes can be submitted via OurSay. Policy Hack is taking place at BlueChilli HQ on October 17th. The event is invitation only, though expressions of interest are being accepted.

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Sydney startup FlexCareers wants to help mothers get back into the workforce with flexible roles

October 11, 2015, 1:36 pm

≫ Next: INDX.GURU is the latest fintech startup looking to decode the stock market and be a champion for everyday investors

≪ Previous: Wyatt Roy teams up with BlueChilli to run policy hackathon aimed at developing new policies for the innovation ecosystem

flexcareers

The issues of maternity leave and returning to work after having children are perennial hot topics, and for good reason. There are around 2.1 million ‘career mums’ in Australia, and many of them are working in roles that don’t properly cater to their needs. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that 55 percent of mothers with school age children were working part time in 2010-11, with 10 percent of these women wanting to work more. However, it’s difficult to find the kind of role and employer that allow for the degree of flexibility that many mothers often require. Former investment bankers Joel McInnes and Marko Njavro have come up with what they hope can be part of the solution after noticing the lack of women around them on the trading floor. FlexCareers is a job board dedicated to mothers searching for flexible roles. “Seeing my own wife trying to get back into the workforce after being a stay-at-home mum for a few years, it was tough. Speaking to Emily and her friends, they told me that flexible roles were not easily found,” McInnes said. The idea formed into something more concrete the week before Christmas last year. The platform works much like any other job board: a job seeker creates a profile outlining their experience and type of desired roles, and can then either search for roles manually or apply for those they get matched with by the Flex Careers algorithm. McInnes and Njavro decided to turn their idea into reality around Christmas last year. The platform had a soft launch six months ago, and has since grown to a community of over 10,000 job seekers, with jobs posted from companies including Commonwealth Bank, NAB, HSBC American Express, PwC, and KPMG, as well as small businesses. The platform is free for candidates, while companies pay a fee of $150 per job ad; there are plans in place to create an unlimited access database product over the next few months. Given the fact the two founders were investment bankers, it comes as no real surprise to see so many corporates already on board; McInnes said they were very keen to join. “In our discussions with the top corporates, during the early stages as we validated the business concept, we found that they were very supportive of the idea and wanting to access this unique community. They’d been trying all sorts of ways to do this, but this community had traditionally been quite disparate,” he said. They grew the candidate pool by engaging with a number of mother’s groups, professional associations, and referral partners. The FlexCareers community - and the users it is targeting - is highly engaged and eager to connect and learn. As such, FlexCareers isn’t just a job search platform, with the startup offering training and re-accreditation courses and Relaunchships, a programme helping women become confidently career-ready. “Our community has asked for the right level of support to be confidently be career ready and our employers have asked for the right level of training and support to be ready and capable to lead a flexible team. This makes the idea of flexible work sustainable and our community increasingly valuable,” McInnes said. Employers and job seekers are also able to engage in conversation about career and work flexibility. Job search platforms seem like they're a dime a dozen right now, but the growth of the FlexCareers user base and the calibre of companies the founders have already gotten on board show that there is a need for a platform catering to this specific market. Expanding the FlexCareers offering to include training and other support services is also an interesting move. While McInnes and Njavro have done the leg work getting the platform off the ground, they have realised that the people who best understand women and their particular needs are, well, other women, and have named Nikki Hobin as CEO and Rhonda Brighton-Hall as chair. “We knew what we wanted to do, but we didn’t know everything we needed to know and we were keen to bring in different thinking. We needed complementary skills,” McInnes said. The initial development of the platform was funded by McInnes and Njavro, who also secured a $250,000 investment from two family businesses. They are planning on raising more capital by mid-next year to fund further development of the platform and marketing, with the first key goal for FlexCareers to grow the candidate community to 100,000 users.

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INDX.GURU is the latest fintech startup looking to decode the stock market and be a champion for everyday investors

October 11, 2015, 5:42 pm

≫ Next: Hart: Ldn’s interior design marketplace is holding its own by curating a network of Australian designers

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INDX_Teams_SYDNEY

From Simply Wall St to Stockspot and StockLight to FirstStep, many Australian startups have emerged in the past few years attempting to decode the stock market, make it more accessible to investors of all ages and experience levels and offer an alternative option to paying financial advisors exorbitant fees to manage investment portfolios. The latest market entrant is Sydney-based INDX.GURU. In similar spirit to its predecessors, INDX.GURU wants to be the fourth estate of the stock market industry, bringing much-needed transparency to an industry rife with jargon that's indecipherable to the average investor, and using technology to empower self-directed investors to manage their own investment portfolios. Founded by John Atkinson and Ted Schrauth, INDX.GURU is a mobile application that provides users access to the information they need - presented in a real-time, easy-to-use interface - to make smarter investment decisions on companies listed on the stock market. The startup describes itself as ‘a Bloomberg-like terminal, available to everybody at a cost anybody can afford’. There are three tabs for each publicly-listed company: overview, media and stats. The overview presents key information like share price, market movement, heat (media buzz) and sentiment (market performance), while the media tab presents links to the company’s latest media mentions. All media coverage is presented unfiltered and unbiased with over 50,000 news sources and millions of social media feeds including blogs and Twitter - all provided in real time. The stats tab presents additional statistical data like market capitalisation, trailing dividend yield, price-earnings ratio and 52-week highs and lows. The information is easy to digest because each coloured box contains that one important number - traditionally, data would be presented in graphs, spreadsheets and tables. “Enormous effort has been put into ensuring that INDX.GURU's user interface is genuinely ‘watchable’. Critically, INDX.guru has a user interface that doesn’t look like it was created in the 80’s. It is visually stunning, with all data being provided in an engaging way,” co-founders Atkinson and Schrauth in an email interview with Startup Daily. “In recognition of the fact that self directed investors lead busy, normal lives and cant be glued to a screen 24 hours a day, INDX.GURU was created so you don’t have to be in front of your computer to stay up to date with changes to your portfolio. The app uses push notifications to alert you of an event in your portfolio so you know precisely at the same time they know.” [caption id="attachment_46258" align="alignleft" width="300"]

INDX.GURU Mobile App, Overview[/caption] [caption id="attachment_46259" align="alignleft" width="300"]

INDX.GURU Mobile App - Alerts[/caption] INDX.GURU's humble beginnings dates back three years. A couple of disgruntled would-be investors thought ‘$38,000 a year is way too much to pay my financial advisors; surely there is solution that allows me to manage my investment portfolio’. This thought sent the co-founders of technology development house Scarlett Madz Media, Atkinson and Schrauth, on a technology odyssey to develop INDX.GURU. They realised very quickly they weren’t facing the problem in isolation, that other people were also frustrated with the costs involved with managing their financial affairs. In fact, studies suggest from 2008 to 2013, unfair fees made up almost half of managed fund returns, with financial advisors profiting at the expense of consumers. “It became clear that everybody who wasn’t a Broker or a Financial Advisor and who didn’t have the benefit of sitting behind a Bloomberg or IRIS terminal all day shared the same problem - to successfully research and monitor investments in the stock market using old fashioned methods is intimidating, expensive and increasingly ineffective for the independent investor,” the co-founders said. “The knowledge gap between the powerful global financial gorillas and the everyday investor was forever widening.” By creating INDX.GURU, Atkinson and Schraut aren’t just solving a problem (or several problems) for themselves. The addressable market is large. In 2014, 36 percent (almost 6.5 million) of the adult Australian population participated in the share market either directly via shares or other listed investments or indirectly via unlisted managed funds, according to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). While a big market means big opportunity, it’s also a big challenge. INDX.GURU is entering a $2 trillion investment industry dominated by the Big Four banks and their distribution networks. However, the Scarlett Madz Media team - the 11 of them are scattered across Sydney and Perth and are experienced in many industries including alcohol, marketing, retail and technology - seem to be well-poised for the challenge. [caption id="attachment_46253" align="alignnone" width="969"]

INDX.GURU Perth team. Source: Provided.[/caption] The technology team at Scarlett Madz Media originally embarked on building their own search engine to power their idea. The search engine and a prototype of INDX.GURU was built within a year. Three years later, after significant capital investment by the co-founders, the search engine has been mothballed. Over the years, development took many different turns, and the team built an array of proprietary technology and custom algorithms to house the investment metrics that fuel INDX.GURU today. The co-founders stressed that INDX.GURU is market agnostic. Although Australia has been used as the test market, the platform can easily and quickly be populated with data from any market, making it a global opportunity for its users. The business model can just as easily be replicated in other markets, making it a global opportunity for the startup as well. The overall reaction to INDX.GURU during its alpha testing phase has been very positive, according to the co-founders. “People love the user interface and cannot believe the extent of the media monitoring. The Sentiment and Heat readings get special kudos, as does the presentation of the easily digestible financial information,” said Atkinson and Schrauth. “The more technology-savvy tester applauded the speed in which the real time data was delivered.” INDX.GURU launched its private beta test last month and well over 1,000 people have registered to become early adopters. Upon completion of the beta test, the startup is hoping to attract a sizable user base using three distinct market channels. Principally, through growth hacking techniques, INDX.GURU is hoping to build a loyal base of self-directed investors. These users will have the option of getting a base service, which encompasses access to news, social media, blogs, video and critical financial data on all ASX companies, for free. However, a premium and professional ‘paid’ version will be available at a later date. The second channel involves accessing users indirectly by forming partnerships with wealth managers, broking firms and financial advisors. INDX.GURU is finalising its Advisor Assist platform which provides real-time user information to brokers and financial advisors, and designed to facilitate more relevant and direct communication between them and their customers. The startup hopes this will drive transactions and also cement customer loyalty. The third channel involves licensing INDX.GURU content to media companies interested in providing their users/customers with an enhanced information service related to the business news section of their digital publications. “Access to INDX.GURU for media companies will help build digital customer loyalty, reduce churn, enhance advertising revenue opportunities and create opportunities to participate in transactional revenue,” the co-founders said. INDX.GURU has been self-funded to date, however the team is in the process of raising a Series A round to assist with growth activities and international expansion. Thought the platform is yet to be launched publicly in Australia, Atkinson and Schrauth already have their sights set on the US market. INDX.GURU's US content platform is well developed, and the co-founders are hoping to start working on US-based distribution partnerships towards the end of the year. It’s unclear which fintech startup will win in this space, but it will likely be the one with the best UI/UX - that is, the UI/UX that most of the users want and feel comfortable with. Given how large the market is and how diverse stock market participants are, there is room for multiple homegrown success stories.

Featured image. INDX.GURU Sydney team. Source: Provided.

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Hart: Ldn’s interior design marketplace is holding its own by curating a network of Australian designers

October 11, 2015, 10:54 pm

≫ Next: Collaborate Corporation ventures into fintech territory with investment in BlueChilli startup FundX

≪ Previous: INDX.GURU is the latest fintech startup looking to decode the stock market and be a champion for everyday investors

hartldn

If television is anything to go by, Australians love three things: sport, cooking, and sprucing up their homes. As a result, the interior design market is a crowded one, but new Sydney-based ecommerce store Hart: Ldn believes it's found a gap in the market by focusing solely on Australian designers. After being made redundant last year following a 15 year career in finance, Tiffany Jade Benn decided that, rather than being dealt a blow, she had actually been granted the opportunity to pursue her real passion of home décor. The idea for Hart: Ldn, named for Benn’s mother’s maiden name and London, came when Benn was completing a renovation of a Victorian terrace in the Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst. Searching for home décor, she found that the only way to find fresh looks was to spend hours trawling through Instagram. “This was frustrating to me as it took up so much time. I just wanted to be able to go to one online store and browse a big range all in one spot,” Benn said, and that’s when she decided to turn her idea into reality. Benn is passionate about Australian designers and, as such, the store showcases only Australian designers, who Benn began to get on board by simply searching Instagram and contacting them, sending them her ideas for the branding and layout of the store. At first glance, it’s fair to say there’s a huge amount of competition in this space; there’s no end of homewares stores both online and off, from the monolithic Ikea to Etsy and Australian player HandKrafted. But Benn’s focus on Australian designers could be a key selling point, as people increasingly look to spend their money locally and support Australian makers. Benn explained that this is part of the company’s ethos. “The vision for the business is to have a positive impact on others. This is being achieved by the support and help offered to the designers selling with us and by bringing our customers a beautiful and seamless shopping experience in one easy to find spot,” she said. “Our mission is to be the number one marketplace for Australian designed home décor products.” Benn is reaching her target audience - which she describes as “the type of person who loves discovering contemporary products, someone who spends their spare time reading interiors magazines, likes to support our homegrown talent and enjoys making their house a home” - mainly through social media, This has opened the door to orders from overseas, which are currently processed through email as Benn builds an international ordering function into the site. “The way we set ourselves apart from the competition is by offering our customers a fun, exciting and inspiring experience when they come to the site. We let it be known there is plenty to see and do on the site, it’s not just about buying a product and leaving,” Benn said. The other things to do and see on the site are housed in the ‘Hamlet’, which Benn said started as a blog and has become a collection of mood boards, articles, videos, and even a Spotify playlist to listen to while browsing the site, all in the name of helping people get inspired. The growth of platforms like Houzz, whose Australian community has more than doubled since its launch last year, and Interiors Addict shows that there is immense value in developing this kind of content to foster a community. However, what Hart: Ldn is doing is perhaps most similar to Perth fashion startup Clique Arcade, which also focuses solely on Australian designers and uses content marketing and other activities to build awareness of the brands it represents, taking a clip-of-the-ticket on sales. Like Clique Arcade, Hart: Ldn doesn't handle inventory, with designers shipping direct to customers. Free shipping is offered for a number of products in the store, with Benn's goal to work with designers to create a model where they are able to offer free shipping for each of the store's 1500 products. Benn has self funded the development of the store thus far and her goal is to keep bootstrapping in the near term, however with her plans for expansion “getting grander” with each passing week, this may change soon. She said, “I would love to have the store go international as soon as possible and that’s just a matter of time and administration. I am extremely open minded about the future and am always looking for new opportunities to work with others.”

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Collaborate Corporation ventures into fintech territory with investment in BlueChilli startup FundX

October 12, 2015, 3:43 pm

≫ Next: Disrupt launches ‘connected surfboard’ that captures location data so surfers can log the journey of their boards

≪ Previous: Hart: Ldn’s interior design marketplace is holding its own by curating a network of Australian designers

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Collaborate Corporation (ASX:CL8), formerly known as QANDA Technologies, has today announced an investment in FundX, a Sydney-headquartered peer-to-peer lending startup supported by venture tech firm BlueChilli. Collaborate’s initial investment of $150,000 for an 8.33% equity stake in FundX, makes the ASX-listed company the largest investor in FundX's recently completed round. FundX is a new peer-to-peer platform that allows SMEs to have their invoices funded by investors, giving businesses access to working capital within 24 hours instead of waiting up to 120 days for their invoice to be paid by a debtor. The startup uses big data, machine learning and predictive algorithms to analyse risk and authorise invoice funding in less than two minutes, with users simply linking their business accounts via MYOB or Xero. Collaborate Corporation, on the other hand, has made many investments and acquisitions over the past few years, focusing on collaborative consumption, peer-to-peer and businesses. Collaborate first got into the game of online marketplaces by purchasing 43.3 percent of Marketboomer, an online trading platform that allows hotels to view offers from multiple suppliers in real-time. Since going public, Collaborate acquired peer-to-peer car rental business DriveMyCarRentals.com.au, peer-to-peer caravan rental business MyCaravan.com.au and peer-to-peer 'rent anything' platform Rentoid.com. The company also has a proprietary online reputation management platform PeerPass.com.au which 'creates trust between individuals' and enables safe transactions in the sharing economy. As part of the investment deal, FundX will be able to license Collaborate’s PeerPass verification platform to support its funding decision making processes, enabling it to cost-effectively assess a range of trust and reputation criteria. Collaborate's investment into FundX marks its first step into Australia's fintech space, and it wouldn't be surprising to see the company making more investments into fintech. Though it's uncertain which financial technologies and business models will be winners in the long run, one thing that is certain at the moment is that the traditional financial services landscape is being disrupted by new entrants leveraging technology to deliver new and existing services in smarter and more convenient ways to consumers and businesses. Between 2013 and 2014, the financial and insurance services industry contributed the highest share of sector value to the national economy (9 percent or AU$130 billion), making it Australia's largest sector, bigger than mining and manufacturing. With fintech promising to lead this sector, it's understandable that Collaborate wants to get its skin in the game.

Collaborate's CEO Chris Noone, who is joining FundX's board as a non-executive director, said the company's investment in FundX is a "great opportunity to disrupt the highly profitable yet inflexible and antiquated banking sector."

"ABS data suggests that access to finance is the most common barrier to innovation, affecting around 400,000 businesses locally. It’s a big problem that requires smart solutions," said Noone.

“We are very excited to be involved with FundX in exploring peer-to-peer and fintech opportunities in an SME market that is worth over $120 billion in Australia. FundX is able to leverage Collaborate’s peer-to-peer and marketplace skills and knowledge, while we simultaneously address significant opportunities in the fintech sector.”

From a distance, it appears Collaborate is emerging from the pack as a market leader in the collaborative consumption and peer-to-peer business space, so there is certainly merit in the company's strategy to own little bit of every vertical to see what takes off.

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Disrupt launches ‘connected surfboard’ that captures location data so surfers can log the journey of their boards

October 12, 2015, 3:55 pm

≫ Next: EdTech startup Fluid Education wins Lenovo Choice award at INCUBATE demo day

≪ Previous: Collaborate Corporation ventures into fintech territory with investment in BlueChilli startup FundX

Disrupt

Sydney-based startup Disrupt, which allows customers to design their own surfboards, has announced the launch of its new connected surf board, the SmartSurf. The SmartSurf boards are equipped with an embedded microchip that enables surfers who have designed a board through the Disrupt platform to log each wave they ride around the world. The chip works without an app - users can simply tap their phone against their board to bring up their design and images of the production process. The chip also contains the owner's details, which is of course helpful in case the board goes missing and the authorities want to track its owner. Disrupt CEO Gary Elphick said the SmartSurf chip is the first of many new additions to come to Disrupt's custom design platform, which works by using data such as weight, age and fitness levels to help customers tailor the shape, volume and size of their board to their needs. He said the idea was spurred on by customers - the startup originally wanted to create a chip that simply held the owner's details to help in case a board was lost, but found surfers were eager to share the story of their boards and show off their designs. "The surf industry has lagged in innovation and consumers are demanding more input in their designs and from output from their equipment...we couldn’t be more happy to connect people to the their designs and give them something to brag about," Elphick said. This first iteration of the SmartSurf doesn't allow for surfers to be tracked in real time in case of an incident in the water, but Elphick said this feature will be included down the line. The startup had hinted at launching an IoT-type play in a chat with Startup Daily earlier this year, and the SmartSurf could be the first step that opens up a range of opportunities. For example, a future iteration of the design platform could overlay user data with location data to determine the types of waves that a customer is most likely to surf, helping the platform recommend the right shape of board for that person. [caption id="attachment_46322" align="aligncenter" width="749"]

disruptsurfing.com[/caption] The launch also comes a few months after Disrupt launched in Europe, setting up its European headquarters in the UK after signing marketing partnerships with popular outdoor sports brands including WaveLength and Animal and making distribution agreements with a number of retailers. The startup, which was part of the second class of the muru-D accelerator, has already created over 1500 boards for customers around Australia and Asia. After a foray into China, Disrupt has brought all their manufacturing home again, with all boards now made in Australia. The plan is to eventually offer a wider range of 'smart' customised equipment across different sports.

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EdTech startup Fluid Education wins Lenovo Choice award at INCUBATE demo day

October 14, 2015, 2:17 pm

≫ Next: Startup WithWine is like a wine festival in an app that helps consumers buy wine based on word of mouth

≪ Previous: Disrupt launches ‘connected surfboard’ that captures location data so surfers can log the journey of their boards

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EdTech startup Fluid Education has been named the winner of the sixth INCUBATE accelerator intake at the University of Sydney and awarded the Lenovo Choice award by INCUBATE's technology partner Lenovo. The idea for the startup, which has created a central hub for communication between teachers, students, and parents called Backpack, was founded by first year students Giorgio Doueihi and Declan Scott, who came up with the idea while still in high school. Backpack combines homework management, learning resources, reporting, and communication into one app. It lets teachers send push notifications about homework and other announcements to select students and classes or entire year groups, and allows parents to view their children's timetables and homework, as well as allowing students, teachers, and parents to communicate with each other. Matt Codrington, Managing Director of Lenovo Australia and New Zealand, said Fluid Education showed the greatest acceleration and innovation during the programme and at the demo day event. “Having said that, I think we’ll see great things to come from all the participants in this class. At Lenovo, we know our future will be built by the highly creative and capable minds that are continuously pushing the limits of what can be done while they’re still at university. We have always supported education and entrepreneurship. INCUBATE is something we feel is critical to encourage those with big ideas to come forward and develop them,” Codrington said. Fluid Education has won $10,000 worth of Lenovo hardware. The Backpack app is already being used by the 1,000 students at St Aloysius College in Milson's Point, and St Ignatius' College in Riverview. Other startups that took part in the sixth INCUBATE intake include FirstStep, a platform similar to US startup Acorns, looking to help millennials develop their first investment portfolio, and Abyss, an autonomous inspection and analytics provider which uses 3D mapping and drones to provide over 400km of imaging and modelling for a major water company. Another startup, Uprise, aims to reduce workplace absenteeism by allowing employees to access preventative mental health solutions through its online platform, while recruitment startup Hireflow integrates multiple platforms often used in the hiring process, such as sourcing and screening candidates, into one platform. INCUBATE is now taking applications for its seventh intake. The 14-week programme is set to kick off in December.

Featured Image: Matt Codrington, Managing Director, Lenovo ANZ; Giorgio Doueihi, Co-Founder, Fluid Education; James Alexander, Founder, INCUBATE. Source: Provided.

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Startup WithWine is like a wine festival in an app that helps consumers buy wine based on word of mouth

October 14, 2015, 3:09 pm

≫ Next: UrbanOutsource raises a $500,000 seed round led by Grand Prix Capital

≪ Previous: EdTech startup Fluid Education wins Lenovo Choice award at INCUBATE demo day

with wine

Australia may have a reputation for being a country of beer drinkers, but the number of startups in the wine industry that have emerged over the last few years may suggest otherwise. From startups offering wine subscriptions to those that help you pick wine by matching it to your meal or your personality, there’s almost a wine startup for every occasion. Sydney startup WithWine, backed by BlueChilli, wants people to find wine by looking at what their friends have enjoyed and then helps them buy it, with lists of wine on the app ranked according to ratings from friends. Users can follow friends, wineries, and specific wines. As well as this social aspect, the app allows users to save and keep track of wines they like, eliminating one of the most common issues when it comes to wine: actually being able to remember what you found at the bottle shop last time you went, or what you drank at a restaurant or at a friend’s place. The second aspect of the app is the marketplace. Essentially, With Wine allows wineries to have their own online store and sell direct to consumers. This offers them an alternative sales channel, with wineries most often supplying restaurants and supermarket chain bottle shops which push for them sell at the lowest possible price, or selling at their cellar door, a long drive away from most consumers. At its core, founder Richard Owens said With Wine can be likened to a wine festival. “We're an online wine festival in which any winery in the country is invited to have a store. When you’re at a wine festival, more often than not, what happens is you walk in and you're catching up with friends and inevitably one of the friends says, 'Oh, such and such winery is here, let's go over there'. And this is the exact same mechanism where it's like a festival, and because the friends are the ones doing the endorsements, the friends are the ones that are steering what stores the users are going to,” Owens said. The focus on recommendations from friends was the main factor driving the creation of With Wine. Funnily enough for someone who now works in the wine industry, Owens never really drank wine until he was 30, four years ago, and only then at the urging of his father’s friend. “The more wine I drank, the more frustrated and annoyed that it took me until the age of 30 to discover that there's this stuff called wine that's actually pretty bloody enjoyable. And I thought, now that I know that I do like wine, I'm going to go to the bottle shop and buy more bottles, and experience number one was standing in the aisles of the bottle shop looking at row upon row of bottles of wine and I thinking, what the hell do I get?” Owens explained. Of course, there are a number of other startups looking to solve this problem. Vinomofo, perhaps the most popular, has staff curate its selection of wines, while The Wine Gallery helps customers match wines to their food from a relatively small selection so as not to overwhelm, but Owens is confident that the social angle is an important one. This angle also helps differentiate the startup from other services helping wineries sell direct to consumers, such as From The Producer. “Word of mouth is the cheapest and most effective marketing there is and you trust your friends the most. So we wanted to show the recommendations of your friends rather than the recommendations of complete strangers,” he said. Owens, who has a background in tech, having worked at Apple and as innovation manager at Macquarie Bank, began working on the app last year. His background in tech helped get development going and put him in touch with BlueChilli, who took With Wine on board. The startup began testing out its marketplace feature at the end of January, and signed up 40 percent of wineries in the Hunter Valley within three months. There are now wineries on board from around Australia, with a number of importers of foreign wines also expressing interest in creating a store on the app. Given Owens’ philosophy on sales and the competition, it’s not too hard to see why wineries have been eager to come on board. Rather than trying to secure the lowest possible price for each bottle, he is confident that, like paying a premium for an iPhone, consumers will be happy to pay for quality and know that they are supporting the wineries. “Plumbers, electricians cost $250 an hour to fix your lights, and you don't dispute it. We pay 100 percent of the fee and that's that. But wine producers, when they come out with a product, it's expected that product should be discounted and it should be discounted heavily. And we're basically saying, you know what, it's such a good product, what's wrong with paying full price for it?” Owens said. “There's some wine out there that should be discounted but there's a lot of wine that shouldn't. It's been produced with care and with love and it's a damn good product. I don't believe that the person who put their blood, sweat and tears into it should be asked to forgo a whole chunk of their margin in order to ship that product. So we're not about bargain basement prices, we're about finding the gem that you always wanted to find and getting it at a fair price.” Wineries set their own prices, though are encouraged to be competitive. With Wine takes a cut of sales. Owens said he’s “stoked” with how the app has grown since January. At the top of the agenda now is getting more wineries on board and introducing new features into the app, with a subscription service to come soon.

Featured image: Richard Owens, Founder, WithWine. Source: Provided.

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UrbanOutsource raises a $500,000 seed round led by Grand Prix Capital

October 15, 2015, 5:46 pm

≫ Next: Valuiza’s proprietary technology allows companies to measure and improve customer lifetime value

≪ Previous: Startup WithWine is like a wine festival in an app that helps consumers buy wine based on word of mouth

Untitled design (49)

UrbanOutsource, an online contracting service that caters to the three main categories encompassing the average household - cleaning, gardening and handyman services - announced today that it has raised $500,000 in seed funding led by Grand Prix Capital. The startup, founded by Noga Edelstein and Elke Keeley, currently operates predominately in Sydney, with national expansion the long term plan. It works by finding licensed and experienced gardeners, cleaners or handymen for users to book online through its platform. Payment is made upfront via credit card, with everything is processed online to avoid the hassle of negotiation and time wasting. The necessity for such services has been heavily debated as of late, especially with the demise of Homejoy, a massive player in the same space in the United States, earlier this year. Regardless, the home outsourcing services industry is a multi-billion dollar sector and every other week there seems to be a new player entering the market. In addition to Urban Outsource, the Australian market is also home to TidyMe (raised $750K) and Whizz (raised $2 million), while ASAP and Ketings merged last month. There are other larger platforms like Oneflare and Service Seeking that have also been around for a while now, allowing customers to access similar services via a quote model. It's a competitive industry vertical to say the least. Urban Outsource claims to be growing revenue at 100 percent quarter on quarter, and a lot of this has to do with its focus on repeat revenue from customers each month. Right now the platform claims that 69 percent of monthly revenue is from repeat customers that have used the platform before. The founders have also been very clever to leverage their corporate backgrounds, setting up partnerships with blue chip companies like Ernst & Young where they provide home services to their employees as a benefit. In fact, cleaning is by far the platform's largest category. "It's a really good entry into our other categories," says Keeley. "We're really focused on being the 'get a helper for your home' platform. We want to be able to provide everything that you need to maintain your home on a regular basis. Cleaning is a really good entry point for that and it's a $3 billion opportunity, which is exciting." "There are some players in Sydney that are just focused on cleaning," adds Edelstein. "We've got our eyes on the bigger prize, end-to-end maintenance, which is a $15 billion opportunity. What we find is that once people come into the network and use us for cleaning, we get a really good conversion across to our other services." The Urban Outsource team currently consists of four people, however part of the funding will be used to hire a CTO for the business as well as develop an in-house CRM system. Both Edelstein and Keeley told Startup Daily that they have bootstrapped the operation up until now, and have focused on getting the business profitable and putting the right systems in place in order to be in the ideal position to scale, which is where they are right now. When it came to raising the round, the founders said that they had a lot of interest and the round was in fact oversubscribed. The two needed to make a decision as to what to do, and decided to stick with their original $500,000 plan and go with Grand Prix Capital - a strategic choice, considering the firm's speciality around investing in marketplace style startups. The venture capital firm, led by Les Szekely, has invested into the likes of SiteMinder, HotelClub, DesignCrowd, and Oneflare. "We decided from the start that we were interested in the value we could get from an investor and we were really looking for someone to partner with who had the knowledge, mentoring and connections, rather than simply to fundraise," says Keeley. "We were seeking $500,000. We had more on offer but we decided to stick with our strategy of raising $500,000. We think it's the right number at this point in time." The founders have also been watching the amounts raised by their competitors in the last few months and were very firm on the belief that raising too much money in this particular market could do more harm than good. "It's been interesting for us to watch other players in the market," says Edelstein. "We've seen some [competitors] have raised quite a lot of capital but we've been really focused on what's been happening internationally in the on-demand space and we're being very strategic about not falling into the trap of raising too much money and purely using that to subsidise user acquisition."

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