Collider Accelerator Demo Day

Yester, I was able to attend the Collider Accelerator Demo Day 2018. With registration opening at 2:30 PM and the pitches starting at 3:15 PM, it was a nice change from the usual nightly affairs. I left straight after the pitches because I wasn't in the right head space for networking afterwards. But I had a lot of fun and got to exercise my critical evaluation skills by ranking the pitches by asking, "Who would I invest with?".  So let's start with a few start-ups I would definitely invest with, were a venture capitalist or angel investor. 

The strongest pitches on the night were new software-as-service platforms that seemed to address a clear gap in the market. In this category was Brandollo - they offer marketing advice and training to small business owners, who are shut out of the expert marketing advise due to pricing.

Also in this category were Prysim - a gig management platform and Tribefire that's catering to the online gaming and eSports industry. As a gamer, I am especially interested in Tribefire, and I think they are an early mover in competitive eSports, which may well be the next Formula 1! The Tribefire team also seem on the ball and to understand how the gaming community works. So I would very interested to see how far they go.

I guess I'll put Tixel in the saas category as well, although they are more a marketplace. But they facilitate the resell of eTickets. Due to the nature of eTickets, often just a picture or a PDF, fraud is rampant and disappointment even more so! Tixel validates before selling and blocks out users from reselling the same ticket multiple times. So based on the pitch, I would be onboard!

The platform startup I wasn't convinced by, still, is Lana. I heard their pitch for the first time during the Impact Boom Elevate+ event. I thought they might have issues then, I am more convinced than ever that they need to look at their start-up carefully. You see, the Impact Boom event was a celebration and there were no questions allowed. But this demo day was a pitch for investment. So there was a panel of expert asking questions, raising issues following the pitch. They pointed out that Lana might be trying to do too much. I think they should drop the sharing/renting aspect of their platform. I think there is a big market for high quality, designer maternity wear. While I am sure mothers will appreciate a secondary market within the Lana platform through which they could resell their clothes, I thinking the renting side is too much work for too little gain.

The other two platform startups I was not convinced by were Neon, who are trying to harness the power of VR to help you plan your wedding, and Birdee, who I would describe as constructing artificial memory for salespeople. Both are good ideas on paper but Neon needs to think outside the box to grow because their onboarding process does not seem scalable. As for Birdee, its cool on paper but I think they will find better uses for their technology in social services and healthcare industries.

Speaking of healthcare industries, apparently, we have already entered the era of companion robots! Exaptec doesn't make robots but take off the shelf programmable robots, and program them for use in aged-care, healthcare and I can also see them branch out in education. They are a startup I would like to know more about, and I am keen to see how they progress with their concept.

So this brings me to the last startup that I liked but wouldn't invest in because I am not sure if they have a future. BOP Industries is trying to make holographic projection technology, and they are doing well so far. But I don't know if they have a plan for when the novelty factor of their displays wears out. Because at the end of the day, marketing is the content, not the medium. Are they doing cool things with the content? I wasn't apparent during the pitch or based on the displays that were set up. 

Lastly, you have Can't Sleep App, which is another entry in the very crowded but ever expanding wellness genre of products and services. Given the crowded marketplace, I wouldn't invest in the startup, mostly because I am not sure the CEO realises that he has to turn himself into a wellness guru to sell the app/music service.

Regardless of what I think, my hearty congratulations to all of the graduates from the Collider 2018 accelerator program. I look forward to seeing what you do next. Well done and keep going. I look forward to hearing about your startups in the future.

The Collider 2018 Entrepreneurs

Kickstarter Woes: Antonia Saint NY

I posted a long article on my experience with Antonia Saint NY on Medium. It recaps and builds on the story that I have chronicled here. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Sharing my story with Meet the Entrepreneur - Queensland

At this time yesterday, I was asked to share my entrepreneurial journey to date with Industry Mentoring Network in STEM (IMNIS). I warned them that I was still in the very early stages, but the organisers assured me that it was good to have a wide range of experience levels. My co-panellist was Dr Stuart Hazell the managing director and principal consultant, Fusidium Pty Ltd. A man with vastly more experience in the entrepreneurship than myself. But then again, the audience was supposed to be skewed towards PhD students. So a work in progress entrepreneur can be more encouraging. It was a cold morning, at least for a Brisbane, so I am glad that people seem to appreciate the insights that I offer. I look forward to more opportunities to engage with IMNIS.

My Writing Toolbox

It seems these days I do more writing than coding. Along with this blog, I do a fair bit of ghostwriting freelance for tech and tech adjacent concerns. But mostly, I am slowly but surely, pushing up the word count on my novel. So I thought this might be a good opportunity to blog a bit about some of the tools I am using.

To begin with, no, I am not using any fancy editor. Maybe I should be, but for now, I am mostly using good old Microsoft Word or Google Docs. I might regret it later, but hey, I managed to write my thesis on Microsoft Word, I am sure I can write my novel on Google Docs. But one tool I have been using, not only with Microsoft Word but with almost all my writing, is Grammarly. 

Grammarly has a lot of detractors, and I can see why. If you follow all its suggestions badly, you are likely to end up with mangled writing. But that's just it; you aren't supposed to follow Grammarly's suggestions blindly. It certainly helped me by catching some common issues with my writing that I cannot seem to iron out. I certainly don't think Grammarly deserves the vitriol that Gizmodo directed at it. I mean, it solves a real problem that maybe isn't apparent to the writer, who I presume speaks English as a first language. Well, technically English is my second language, and I never quite mastered flawless spelling and grammar. To me, Grammarly is very useful, and I certainly recommend people check out the free chrome extension for themselves.  I mean, there is a reason why they have 22 million users.

Getting back to my novel, while I made a fair bit of progress this month. There was a period when I wasn't as productive on that front as I would have liked. So tried a few things to motivate me and that included trying writing plan sites like Pacemaker. Pacemaker didn't work for me, and frankly, I don't get the point of it. But I think it could be useful for people who get motivated by setting milestones and meeting them.

Once I produced some sections, obviously I wanted some feedback. I was using my brother as a beta reader but he's pretty busy. But a bit of googling yielded Scribophile and Critique Circle. Both of them require you to participate on the site before you can post something. Basically, you trade critique for critique. Scribophile has a more modern look and feel. Also, it is faster in the sense that you can quickly amass the necessary "karma" to post something. What you post also goes up immediately and so you can get feedback on it quickly.

Critique Circle is much slower, releasing submitted work in batches. It also took me a long time to get my first critique after my writing was published. I was ready to write off Critique Circle but then I got a very extensive critique from the platform that made the waiting worth it! So I think, going forward, as time-consuming as it is, I'll probably keep posting on both. But maybe I'll do something like rough drafts to Scribophile but more polished drafts to Critique Circle. I don't know, I am still working it out.

All that said and done, I am just glad that I am starting to get my novel out in black and white.  To keep up the momentum, 

Creative3 Pitch 101 Webinar

Today, I logged into the Creative3 Pitch 101 Webinar, hosted by Philippe Ceulen of QUT Creative Enterprise Australia (CEA). This was my second go at attending this event. I originally signed up for the physical workshop that took place in QUT Kelvin Grove. But it was not to be and so I was grateful for the webinar 2nd chance!

While I attended a few Startup Weekends, I always seem to miss the pitch workshops. Mostly because I wasn't going to be the one doing the final pitch and usually there was something else that needed to be done while the workshop was on. I also missed to the pitch afternoons that were part of pre-events. As a result, this was my first time I got an extended presentation on pitching.

I am not going to recap everything Philippe covered, but I wanted to highlight three resources that Philippe highlighted. Namely, the Only 10 Slides You Need in Your Pitch which remains the gold standard for pitching but that Philippe extended by two slides. I did take a screenshot of Philippe's slide list but I can't find it. But I know the last slide was "contact" and we had a discussion about how it's important to make sure the contact slide contains up to date information.  Might seem like a small thing but the early life of startups is about transitions. So it's not unusual to find broken websites and emails that bounce. Unfortunately, every failure to connect is potentially a lost opportunity. So the "contact us" slide is very important.

Figure 1: Dramatic Structure

The other two resources Philippe shared were around the need to tell a story. I think we all know that most humans are not good with facts and figures but we do remember stories. Whenever pitching is mentioned, the "tell a story" aspect is always emphasised. But Philippe made the explicit connection to the dramatic structure, using Figure 1.

Being a fiction writer who is actively writing a fantasy novel, I am of course familiar with the dramatic structure. But I didn't think about trying to think of a pitch in that context. To that end, Philippe pointed us to "The mountain pass, the berries and the princess" by Alan Jones, who is an entrepreneur in residence at QUT's accelerators. I am looking forward to reading the article.

So yes, Pitching 101 as an afternoon well spent, in my opinion! To finish this post off, I'll just mention that the workshop was held to promote and get potential participants ready for Creative3 Pitch competition. I am keen to see how the event unfolds. It should be fun!