Aussie Startups in Aust Financial Review

by | Jun 3, 2008 | Australian media

Renai LeMay did a story on Aussie start-ups in today’s AFR. But, of course, I can’t link to it online, because the zombies running the Fin still have it locked up tighter that a fish’s asshole. Memo to Fairfax – it’s 2008! HELLO?

Anyhoo, the article is also up on MIS Magazine’s website and you can read it here. I love that MIS Magazine is still called MIS, which apparently comes from the latin malum in se “wrong in itself”. So true, so true.

Read the article here.

It’s called ‘Funds drought hurts web hopes” and is basically saying that most if not all Aussie online startups are hurting from lack of funding. I kind of agree and kind of disagree.

Look – sure – if we all had a few million, I’m sure we’d be doing things differently. We could hire more people, invest in better infrastructure, hire some sales people, etc.

However, I’m not sure a lack of funding is necessarily a bad thing.

I’m sure we can all rattle off a bunch of start-ups in the US which raised a bucket load of money, only to be gone a few years later. Why? Because you have to learn to crawl before you can walk. Bootstrapping a startup, with little funds or people, forces you to work on the basics. What service do we provide? Who do we provide it to? What problem are we solving? How do we make money from solving it?

The benchmark that we seem to give to online startups is, I think, unhealthy. Unless they have a constant growth curve that looks like the Mt Everest, and are raking in the cash, we think EPIC FAIL.

However, I look at it a completely different way. I’m trying to build something that I will still be running in 20 years time. Something that can make a difference. Something I can have fun with. Something that will let me do what I want, when I want, where I want with whomever I want.

So check it – I haven’t had a job for nearly four years. I sit at home, playing on my Macbook Pro, talking to cool people around the world and getting paid to do it. I take my kids to school, pick them up, hang out with friends whenever I want – and I have fun doing it. I have zero stress in my life. Sure – I could easily spend a coupla mill. But at the end of the day, when I compare how I’m living today, to how I was living four years ago, I know which I prefer.

So how should we define success for a start-up? Is it a business with a billion dollar market cap, or a business that is doing good work, or a business which is allowing someone to follow their dream or a business which is making ends meet? Or perhaps its all of these things?

Here’s the thing about reading mainstream media – and I say this with all respect to my friends who work as journalists, editors and the like – the MSM does NOT want you to leave your work and build a start-up. They want you to conform – to sit in your little cubicle and live the Aussie dream, working 80 hours a week for the man, not thinking outside the square, not taking any risks outside of your footy tipping, just being a good obedient consumer and doing what you’re told.

Rudd’s burying the Haneef inquiry?

by | Jun 1, 2008 | Australian politics

More evidence that it doesn’t matter which one of the major parties is in power, the same game is played:

The narrow terms of reference were drafted to prevent any inquiry into the role played by Howard and his ministers. The inquiry was asked to report on “the arrest, detention, charging, prosecution and release of Dr Haneef, the cancellation of his Australian visa and the issuing of a criminal justice stay certificate”. Its instructions, however, are limited to identifying “any deficiencies in the relevant laws or administrative and operational procedures and arrangements of the Commonwealth and its agencies, including agency and interagency communication protocols and guidelines”.

The Rudd government’s inquiry is designed to cover-up the essential character of the Haneef witch-hunt, as well as Labor’s role in supporting it until the whole case fell apart. Last July 12, while Haneef was still being detained without charge, Kevin Rudd declared he had “confidence” in the AFP to “handle this manner in an appropriate way” and reiterated that Labor would retain the anti-terrorism laws if it won office. Labor’s proposal for an inquiry only emerged amid widespread popular disgust at Haneef’s victimisation.

(link)

The real reason behind high oil prices

by | Jun 1, 2008 | Iraq, US politics

You won’t hear this talked about on TV:

The hoax of Peak Oil – namely the argument that the oil production has hit the point where more than half all reserves have been used and the world is on the downslope of oil at cheap price and abundant quantity – has enabled this costly fraud to continue since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 with the help of key banks, oil traders and big oil majors. Washington is trying to shift blame, as always, to Arab OPEC producers. The problem is not a lack of crude oil supply. In fact the world is in over-supply now. Yet the price climbs relentlessly higher. Why? The answer lies in what are clearly deliberate US government policies that permit the unbridled oil price manipulations.

(link)