startup
Strategy: Cash is king
While sometimes apocryphal, start-up failure rates tell a sombre story: most start-ups don’t see their third anniversary. This high attrition rate has many causes, but a primary factor is poor cash flow management.
Business valuation… a black art?
Value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. While experienced investors use a range of tools to calculate the worth of a start-up or early stage company, some also believe that valuation is more art than science. So what is this ‘black art’ and how do experienced investors make their decisions?
The big house
A prison sentence early in life can dash the hopes of a would-be entrepreneur. Or it can fuel them. In the youth unit at Port Phillip Prison, rock bottom gives way to the bottom line as teenaged inmates become CEOs. Jodie O’Keeffe clears security to find out what it takes to build a business behind bars.
Dot-com survivors downunder
Has it really been six years since the world’s first wave of internet entrepreneurs fell through that plump cloud they’d conjured in the sky, taking with them the turgid hopes of our fledgling new economy? It’s been six years peppered with hard luck stories, investor reluctance and, lately, cautious hope rekindled. Australian internet startups were in the thick of it back then. The survivors emerged with slightly bloodied noses and wisdom far beyond their years.
Intellectual property
We love stories of simple ideas making millions: think Post-it Notes, Frisbee and eBay. Ideas need nourishment and protection as they move from R&D to the open market. Turning knowledge into profit is a serious business. Jodie O’Keeffe casts a critical eye on the trying journey from A-ha moment to market-ready Intellectual Property. A NOVEL [...]
Strategy: Securing your first customer
Achieving your first sale can literally make or break a start-up. Many investors will delay committing significant funds until you can identify a customer prepared to pay real money for your product. It is often at this point that many start-ups fail: not because their product is not up to scratch, but because they run [...]
‘The Buck Starts Here’ podcast
In the final days of September 2005, Anthill editor Paul Ryan caught up with five of Australia’s leading early-stage venture capitalists. The meeting turned into a feature story. The feature story turned into a networking event, which we offered as a fly-on-the-wall audio CD. Now you can download/listen to it as a full podcast, which includes the previously unreleased Q&A session.









