The statistics are disturbing. A typical venture capital (VC) firm receives around 1,000 business plans a year, and quickly rejects 90% without a detailed review. The problem is not a shortage of investment funds — money will always be available for promising investment opportunities. Rather, most entrepreneurs do not understand the expectations and requirements of…
BACK-ISSUE BULL-ANTS Glass of steel If you’ve been with Australian Anthill since issue #1 (Sep/Oct 2003), you might remember one of the first herd of bull-ants we featured. Australian company Stop Shot International (SSI) had developed an astonishingly effective form of bullet-proof glass that was attracting great interest from defence and security organisations around the…
BI-GOODNESS is a bi-monthly column dedicated to the quirky, generally funny and often dangerously impractical inventions and business concepts that occasionally come our way. It is a tribute to the one-eyed entrepreneur, the nutty professor and dotcom jockey in each of us. HIJACKER INJECTOR It’s fair to say that aeroplane hijacking is a pursuit reserved…
Most Australian entrepreneurs claim to think big from the outset. But you need more than a good idea and a broad Aussie smile to conquer the world. Bi-lateral free trade agreements are tearing down barriers, but exporters must still negotiate the vestiges of international protectionism and the rollercoaster Aussie dollar.
Could the art of giving be the key to boosting your sales, motivating your employees and enhancing your market position? According to a US industry body, North American businesses spend more than US$25 billion each year motivating sales people to sell, customers to purchase and employees to be more productive. It’s called incentive marketing and…
What do you do when you your market is finite and your brand is ubiquitous? That is the challenge faced by Microsoft Australia’s Managing Director Steve Vamos, recently described by AFR Magazine as the most influential person in Australian IT. Vamos is not daunted by the challenge, nor does he seem reluctant to seek advice…
Imagine if Australia’s innovators and entrepreneurs received the same media attention as sporting celebrities. Maybe we would find Ziggy Switkowski being tested for caffeine ingestion before Telstra’s next annual general meeting. Or Coles Myer board members being cited for boardroom melees. I know there are a few members of the business elite that I would…
Imagine if Australia’s innovators and entrepreneurs received the same media attention as sporting celebrities. Maybe we would find Ziggy Switkowski being tested for caffeine ingestion before Telstra’s next annual general meeting. Or Coles Myer board members being cited for boardroom melees. I know there are a few members of the business elite that I would…
Software companies are not the cash cows they used to be. Most software development is done for internal use or on a bespoke basis. Developing software with no guarantee of a sale is a risky business and the risk is normally left with those that can afford failure the least. So listen up, all those…
The Spam Act became law on 12 December 2003 with a proviso that its penalty provisions would come into effect 120 days later – 11 April 2004. Email marketing is a powerful tool for a business of any size. What impact the Spam Act will have on Australian companies is anyone’s guess. Nicholas Blackmore, Corrs…
A meeting of minds or clash of heads? It is little wonder that only a small proportion of investment proposals ever successfully attract venture capital. The relationship between entrepreneurs and investors can sometimes be likened to the relationship between contestants in a boxing match, entering the ring from opposite corners, both adamant they are up…
For technology entrepreneurs, the war on terror has become the next Y2k. Governments are pumping dollars into defence and security with a level of determination not seen since the Cold War. Private companies are also dedicating escalating attention, and equally escalating funds, to the surveillance and protection of ‘their’ people and ‘their’ corporate assets. Across…
For technology entrepreneurs, the war on terror has become the next Y2k. Governments are pumping dollars into defence and security with a level of determination not seen since the Cold War. Private companies are also dedicating escalating attention, and equally escalating funds, to the surveillance and protection of ‘their’ people and ‘their’ corporate assets. Across…
John Wolpert is best known for his work as Lab Director of IBM’s incubator for technology and business concept innovation, Extreme Blue. However, his talents span from theatre to Java, project management to the Spanish language. He is a successful business founder and start-up entrepreneur, and he is now in Australia to launch a pilot…
Against the odds James Dyson Orion Business Books, 1997 “…no one, these days, can be arsed with the intellectual open-mindedness it takes for a Renaissance.” James Dyson James Dyson is an inventor, innovator, entrepreneur and artist. However, he is best known for an ingenious product that, in the UK at least, has made him a…
Tim Pethick is the founder and managing director of ‘renegade’ fruit juice company, Nudie, which not only makes him top banana, but “Chief Nudie”, according to his business card. This sort of maverick marketing is nothing new to fans of the preservative-free fruit juice company or its free thinking founder. In fact, it is Pethick’s…
The US-Australia Free Trade agreement has got everyone talking. Like it or loathe it, smart companies are reading the fine print. They are doing their homework, exploring new ways to profit and adjusting their plans to suit. In the area of Intellectual Property (IP), systems are similar, but the rules do vary. Differing interpretations of…
The Research Collaboration Review, chaired by Mr Donald McGauchie and released last March, recommends funding changes to major public sector research agencies in an effort to encourage greater research partnerships. While no one can deny that the promotion of public and private sector collaboration is a good thing, it is essential that we don’t neglect…
It’s now four years since the ‘tech-wreck’ of April 2000. Four years!!! Can you believe it? Yet, it’s so hard to move on. We continue to talk about it, romanticize it, lament it, tut-tut at our folly. And we definitely can’t stop writing about it. Like the unnamed narrator in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,…
Preventative genetic medicine has opened a can of worms — for ethicists, scientists, medical practitioners and governments. What will happen when a person’s genetic weaknesses can be identified at birth (or ever before birth)? Are we playing god, creating a future where a person’s destiny can be determined in utero? Can we expect to see…
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