James Tuckerman
James Tuckerman is one of Australia's most accomplished digital publishers. He's an entrepreneur, angel investor, consultant, coach and public speaker.
He is best known for launching Anthill Magazine, in 2003, from the spare bedroom of his parents' home. He was then 26 years of age. In 2004 and 2005, he was named Best Small Publisher in Australia by the ABA (now Publishers Australia).
In early 2009, he reinvented the Anthill business model, abandoning its print origins in favour of a 100% digital product. Within six-months, AnthillOnline.com was listed by Nielsen Online Ratings among the Top 50 Business & Finance websites in Australia (http://anthillonline.wpengine.com/about-us/).
Since then, he has launched numerous digital ventures and helped other companies, large and small, make the transition online or helped them significantly improve their online commercial outcomes.
To contact James, go to LinkedIn.
We back our athletes. Why not our entrepreneurs?
Two events happened this week that, together, have got me fired up. Firstly, I watched an aspiring Olympian make a collection in a busy cafe on Swan Street, on the outskirts of Melbourne. Sure, he was handsome, well-spoken, physically capable of doing things once thought humanly impossible. But, at the same time, I had to ask myself, to what extent does Australia truly stand to benefit from the physical accomplishments of this man? Secondly, that same morning, I received a thoughtful request for assistance from two young entrepreneurs seeking support for a delegation. Who would you back?
Would you like to interview one of these amazing people for Anthill?
Ian Charles Stewart (Co-founder of WiReD Magazine), Warren Coleman (Co-writer and Co-director of Happy Feet), Michael Naimark (Founding Member of the Atari Research Lab, the Apple Multimedia Lab and Lucasfilm Interactive), Shinta W. Dhanuwardoyo (Recognised by Globe Asia as one of the 99 Most Powerful Women in Jakarta), Gerry Gouy (Senior Director, Global Business Development, MTV Networks International), Corvida Raven (One of Time Magazine’s 25 Facebook Profiles You Should Subscribe to Right Now)...
Three things to never say to an Australian venture capitalist
Not only does Adventure Capital's Stuart Richardson have a great hairdresser (we share the same barber) but he knows a thing or two about pitching for venture capital. This is because he lives at the receiving end of hundreds of pitches every week.
Knowing when to call it quits. Barkles breaks the news with a remarkable email....
Last week, I was surprised to receive this linked email from Barkles, an online debating platform. The startup, barely a year old, was calling it quits. I suppose that's not so unusual. The mortality rate for start ups in Australia has always been high. What was unusual, however, was the candid nature that the Barkles founders, Diesel Laws and Jay Whiting, approached their sad news.
Is this the best or worst promotion for a startup space you’ve ever seen?
Large companies spend big bucks on making their organisations look uber-sophisticated and polished. This video, on the other hand, took three minutes and 12 seconds to film and maybe a little less to edit. (Maybe.) It's a very 'lean' debut for a much needed addition to the Queensland startup ecosystem. And that's exactly how it should be.
Here’s why saying ‘My customers are not on Facebook’ is like saying ‘My customers...
An old buddy of mine recently mentioned that his business had no place on Facebook. What my unsuspecting friend didn't realise was that, on the following day, I was scheduled to make a presentation on "How to create a self-building, largely self-managing Facebook prospect base" on behalf of Interactive Minds. While that exchange lasted, maybe, 45 minutes, I have distilled my main arguments into this two-minute hump dump.
Facebook Interactive Minds Presentation
Please find the presentation from the Interactive Minds seminar, hosted on Wednesday 4 April, below. Simply click the forward arrow to walk yourself through...
Why I gave Anthill’s Readers’ Choice Award to Scott Handsaker of Eventarc… with ‘smashing’...
Last week, I caused an online ruckus by questioning whether Cool Company Finalist LeadBolt should be named our 2011 Cool Company Awards Readers’ Choice winner. LeadBolt totally annihilated the competition – because its business model is based on triggering online actions, such as Facebook Likes. Starlettos, the first runner-up, had courted reader praise and social media reactions the old fashioned way – by rallying their mates. So, who should get the award? Short-cutting LeadBolt or hard-working Starlettos? The results were smashing.
Was our Readers’ Choice Award hijacked? (Or was it always going to be a...
Can you remember the winner of TIME magazine's Most Influential Person poll in 2009? Was it Barack Obama? Oprah Winfrey? The Dalai Lama? No, it was Moot, the pseudonym of 21-year-old Christopher Poole, a college student and founder of online community 4chan.org. So, why the long winded introduction to this year's Cool Company Awards Readers' Choice Award? Did we get gamed?
Pete Williams’ EXTREME ‘content leverage system’ video
If you attended yesterday's webinar with Pete Williams on outsourcing, offshoring and crowdsourcing, you might recall that I asked Pete whether we could share a video of his that I was fortunate enough to stumble across in the not-so-distant past. As mentioned, this video really got my head spinning. It begins with one logical and familiar example of outsourcing (creating content for a website) and then takes the process to the... wait for it... EXTREME! (Because Pete's an outsourcing 'extremist', see?)
9 things a 9 month-old can teach you about online marketing [VIDEO]
This morning, I sat down with my 9-month old son, Julian, to feed him breakfast. This is one of the jobs allocated to me as a first-time, new father. Remembering the arduous steps required to complete yesterday morning's meal (and the day before that), and contemplating how bizarre it is that I must work so hard to provide him something that will make him stronger and healthier and happier, I began to think about online marketing. Yes, the brain works in mysterious ways. (And I am kind of sleep deprived.)
Domenic Carosa invests in BlueChilli to launch two new Australian incubators
Incubator options for Australian startups will expand next month, with the announcement on Friday that "venture technology company" BlueChilli has acquired growth funding from early stage venture capital fund FCDF. If the names BlueChilli and FCDF sound familiar it's because BlueChilli is the venture of serial entrepreneur (and 30under30 veteran) Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin. FCDF is the product of another well-heeled player in the Australian startup scene, Domenic Carosa.
If you’re not a cloud business, you’re doomed.
Zach Nelson is CEO of NetSuite. He was named one of the 10 Visionary CEOs of 2008 by InternetNews.com, after guiding the company through its 2007 IPO. He helmed it from startup to one of the world's leading cloud computing companies. So, it's not surprisingly that he should hold this view. Yes, he is biased. But is he wrong?
Here’s my response to some recent feedback. Was I too harsh?
Naturally, we receive feedback all the time from Anthill readers. Much of it is helpful. But, sometimes, the feedback contradicts what we know to be true, based on the cumulative behaviours of hundreds of thousands of site visitors. Rather than provide a polite but generally meaningless response (like, "Thank you for your feedback. We welcome and respect the views of all our readers"), I often try to explain why it is that we do things the way we do. But, today, I'm feeling a bit guilty. Too harsh?
Doodlers, unite! It’s NOT a waste of time. (Finally, experts agree.)
Studies now show that sketching and doodling improve our comprehension -- and our creative thinking. So, why do we still feel embarrassed when we're caught doodling in a meeting? In this fun TED talk, professional doodler Sunni Brown makes the case for unlocking your brain via pad and pen. Doodlers, unite!
Is your role functional or is it vital? Chances are, you’re kidding yourself.
As you can imagine, I get sent books all the time. It's one of the perks of being 'Mr Anthill'. Despite being a prolific reader, only a few ever capture my attention. And an even smaller number capture my imagination. Several weeks ago, I was sent the Australian edition of 'Become a Key Person of Influence' by Daniel Priestly. I read it in an afternoon. And, several weeks on, my imagination is still buzzing.
Why rent the eyeballs when you can own? (Online marketing at its most clinical.)
Do you have an eyeball collection strategy? No, I'm not talking about some gruesome or macabre practice more likely associated with the works of Edgar Allan Poe than a commercial series on marketing. I'm talking about decreasing your reliance on traditional media, or at least maximising traditional marketing outcomes.
Bro humour… for a good cause
Some years ago, the Anthill office was all-a-chuckles when a seagull offered a beached whale a 'chup' (the whale was 'beached as'). More recently, Brett, Germaine and the lads from Flight of the Concords had us rhyming like hip-hop-opotamuses. It was, therefore, with great pleasure that the Anthill 'massive' alerted us to this clip 'en masse'. (If you're not already reading this with a New Zeland accent, we're not doing our job right, bro.)
ANTMART DEAL: How to get a stationery pack… plus goat!
OFFICE SUPPLIES PACKAGE – AND A GOAT! Isn’t it high time you made your office purchases count for the greater good? Thanks to the...
There is one overwhelmingly common reason why so many online marketing campaigns fail. In...
What's the difference between a vitamin and a headache cure? There is rarely an immediate, urgent demand for vitamins. But when a headache strikes... Get out of my way! The unfortunate truth is that most organisations are in the business of selling vitamins -- products and services with beneficial qualities. Only a very rare few are in the business of selling headache cures -- products and services that their customers desperately need. Does this sound familiar? Sucks, doesn't it? Well, there is a way to turn this around.
