Venture Capital Talk By Mike Zimmerman Next Wednesday

Next Wednesday I’ve organised for Mike Zimmerman of Technology Venture Partners to come and give a talk at the University of Sydney to the Young Entrepreneur’s Society. Mike will be explaining what Venture Capital is, why you would need it and how to get it.

Whilst the presentation is primarily for students we don’t mind others attending (you may have to pay a small fee otherwise the union will have us for lunch).

The talk is at the Camperdown campus of Sydney University in Room 251 of the Carslaw Building. It is on at 1pm-2pm on the 7th of May.

My deepest purpose [revised]

By posting “my deepest purpose” for people to read I had a few ask questions of it, such as “why?”. It’s great how when you make something public it can only be enhanced. As such, my purpose has been revised and improved to sit even closer to what I’m about.

So here is the revised version:

• Creating something that other people find value and enjoyment in

I’d love to hear about other people’s purposes.

My deepest purpose

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about what it is that I want out of life. What am I doing?

Well I always find myself coming back to:

• Helping other people find their passion and helping them pursue it.

I just get so passionate about it.

Coffee with Mark from RaveAboutIt – A Sydney Startup

Just the other day I had a coffee (well I had a glass of water and Mark had a hot chocolate) with Mark Rimmer from RaveAboutIt. I’m not going to say much about RaveAboutIt because the site and Mark do a better job of it.

What I will say is that Mark is a very friendly guy, with a lot of passion and focus on what he’s doing. I’m looking forward to seeing what RaveAboutIt gets up to over the next few months.

Interesting Quote

My email signature is:

If you have tried to do something and failed, you are vastly better off than if you had tried to do nothing and succeeded.

It has been for the last two years and will be for the foreseeable future. I like it because I think it says a lot about me and also because people occasionally reply to my emails and append their own quotes or versions of the above quote. I got a great one today from our fantastic resource manager in Object Consulting’s Sydney office:

Winners lose a lot more times than losers lose.

Thank you Mia

Mia took up writing for Don’t Tell a few months back and she just recently hit her 15th post. To me that is a huge milestone worth celebrating.

Her writing is coming on in leaps and bounds and it always gives me a smile.

Check it out and subscribe: http://mia.donttell.com.au/

Thank you Mia, I’m looking forward to your next post.

MobiCorp files it’s provisional patent for txtnsave

MobiCorp has submitted the provisional patent application for our contextual mobile advertising solution, txtnsave. What is that you say? Well consider this, you need to grab some wine for dinner with friends tonight and you’ll be meeting them in North Sydney, a location you don’t know to well (or do it doesn’t matter). SMS txtnsave with “merlot north sydney” and txtnsave will get back to you with the best specials or deals for merlot in North Sydney.

We’ve reached “patent pending” thanks to the hard work of my partners, Andrew Lowe and Brett McDowall. It’s exciting stuff, I’ve never been involved with a patent before (even though it is just provisional at this stage). Hopefully having the patent will give us more of an advantage when speaking with potential customers.

This week I’ll be out wearing down the shoe leather, which in my case is actually thong leather (that’s a sandal like thing for the non-Australians), compiling a list of the potential advertisers around Newtown area.

We want to connect the residents of Newtown and the students of Sydney University with the best deals on food and alcohol in the area.

We want to connect the bars, pubs, restaurants and bottleshops of Newtown with the residents of Newtown and students of Sydney University. We want to connect these businesses with potential customers right when the customer is looking for it.

(Oh and Don’t Tell is about to get a very fresh make over to start moving forward properly – but thats another post)

Authenticity

Interesting little article in my Google Reader this morning; Authenticity Lessons from the American Girl Store:

I stood there transfixed, watching the stylist as she spritzed a doll’s hair, and chatted breezily with her three-foot-tall owner, as if they were old friends. As if all of this was normal. My mother came up next to me asking, “Do you want a doll? I’ll get you one if you want. They didn’t have this sort of thing when you were growing up.” I found myself nodding involuntarily. Yes, yes, I do want a doll.

I wonder if you can build this kind of authenticity with a website? It would be quite difficult because you just can’t create that same level of emotional connection that a physical presence can.

On the other hand you can create little fun things like the doll hair stylist using flash games, polls and user forums.

I wonder if there is anything else that can be done…

Aussie entrepreneur shuts innovation business

It’s an unfortunate day to day if you read Smart Company’s ‘Entrepreneur Tim Pethick shuts innovation business‘.

Yesterday was a sad day for entrepreneur Tim Pethick as he closed the Australian office of innovation company Whatif!

The founder of Nudie had joined Whatif! as managing director six months ago and had high hopes that he could not only grow the innovation consultancy but also to use the agency to spearhead an innovation agenda in Australia.

…

He says the issue was that the global board deemed Australia not exciting enough as a marketplace.

…

“Australian companies also expect to get half a million innovation projects for $50,000. The innovation ambition exceeds their willingness to pay.”

He also believes that Australians do not focus on innovation output. “They think of the cost not the new lines of products and services or the new revenue.”

I suppose if I look at the Australian start-up scene maybe this is right, or maybe its just that we don’t have the amount of people places like the US have.

Maybe there is an opportunity to change this?