Hiring for a start-up – what I’ve learned so far
I’ve run a start-up for a couple of years now and ran my own music company for eight years before that. Anyone who followed our progress would know I’ve made a few hiring mistakes in my time: we had a…
The power of a new year’s resolution
I remember being on a summer holiday at age nine just after Christmas, and hearing adults talk about their new year’s resolutions. I liked the idea that you could set a challenge for yourself for a whole year. You couldn’t…
Australia vs US for startups
I’m writing today from the plane travelling between San Francisco and New York. I’m in the US for 6 days and it’s the third time I’ve been here in five months. Last time I was out, I had some great…
Spinning the Feedback Loop
Yes, I promised that this week, I’d share tips on raising capital in Silicon Valley. But I’ve postponed that post. This blog is to firm up in real time the lessons I’m learning, which could help other entrepreneurs facing similar…
What it’s like to pitch in Silicon Valley
I’m writing this week from the University Cafe in downtown Palo Alto. It became famous in ‘The Facebook Effect’ book as the team’s regular hangout when they moved to Palo Alto. It’s an unremarkable cafe, often packed with people like…
Startups and Suppliers
Sometime or another, every startup needs to engage suppliers. Lawyers, accountants, PR companies, design agencies, consultants – everyone needs them. I have to admit that I’ve found selecting and managing supply partners to be a real challenge over the years….
The only mistake I regret; important advice for startup founders
I’ve talked a lot in this blog about the mistakes I’ve made over the past couple of years, what I’ve learnt, and the ways I apply all this to how I run the company now. I don’t regret any of…
Three core qualities an entrepreneur needs
Last weekend, I spoke at the National Student Leadership Forum in Canberra about entrepreneurship. Ambitious uni students, nominated to attend by their local MPs, packed the auditorium. During Q&A at the end, one of them asked, ‘What are the core…
This is actually working!
In these blogs, I tend to focus on the problems because challenges and mistakes occupy most of my time. If you’ve read my earlier blogs, you maybe sensed that the road so far has been hard and stressful. Which is…
Practising radical openness
Recently, I bumped into a few people from my past who surprised me by knowing everything going on in my life by reading this blog. I started the blog to keep a record of my ups and downs on this…
