Last week, I mentioned that Australia’s headline employment numbers appeared to be making a strong post-lockdown recovery – however, the latest ABS data shows that while the unemployment rate has declined, the overall participation rate has remained the same, and the underemployment rate has actually increased. “Underemployed” is defined by the ABS as the number of “employed people who would prefer, and are available for, more hours of work than they currently have”. For many people, the traditional solution to bridging the gap between the amount of work they have, and the amount they want, is to juggle multiple part-time jobs, while others may choose to seek freelance work. Another approach is to create your own role, by becoming a startup founder, or joining a startup.
Of course, as I have written elsewhere, startups might not be for everyone. But until you try (or at least explore the idea), how will you know? This was one theme to have emerged from the recent Victorian Tech Startup Week, hosted by YBF Melbourne, with support from OVHcloud, AirTree Ventures, Silicon Beach Melbourne, the Victorian Government and YBF’s network of mentors, programme partners and community of members.
In part an effort to rekindle the local community of startups, in part a celebration of YBF’s Startup Immersion Programme, the week also showcased the benefits of co-working, and included sessions on startup funding, R&D grants, engaging with corporate clients, and a pitch night (more on that next week).
Of course, as a YBF member, and having worked with startups and founders for more than 10 years, I’m naturally biased. I have been working from their Melbourne co-working facility for the past two years (lock-down permitting), and I have been attending events and workshops there for many years (including participating in my very first hackathon….). I have also worked with some of their earliest startup founders.
Even though I am used to working from home and working remotely, the value of being on-site with other startup teams and founders within a supportive environment cannot be overestimated. And it’s not just about access to great facilities, and the many benefits that YBF offers. For one thing, as a member I get invited to meetings and events not open to the wider public. For another, I can host clients and other visitors without having to maintain my own office. But most of all, it’s the opportunity for chance encounters with potential clients, partners and suppliers, often triggered by casual conversations by the coffee machine or during other networking sessions.
A few years ago, it was reported that there were over 300 co-working spaces in Australia, and more then 80 of them in the Melbourne area alone. I’m not sure what those numbers are now, post-pandemic, especially as offices in Melbourne are still not back to full operating capacity. Nevertheless, co-working spaces are in demand again as (ex-)employees consider their future career options in light of the COVID recession, and as startups and their founders are expected to support the anticipated economic growth in areas like new technology, sustainability, smart manufacturing, healthcare and financial services. Of course, before making a decision on where to locate your new business or where to start co-working, it pays to do your due diligence.
Next week: Victorian Tech Startup Week – Pitch Night
Taking its cue from some of the economic effects of the current pandemic, the latest Startupbootcamp Melbourne FinTech virtual demo day adopted the theme of financial health and well-being. When reduced working hours and layoffs revealed that many that people did not have enough savings to last 6 weeks, let alone 6 months, lock-down and furlough have not only put a strain on public finances, they have also revealed the need for better education on personal finance and wealth management. Meanwhile, increased regulation and compliance obligations (especially in the areas of data privacy, cyber security and KYC) are adding huge operational costs for companies and financial institutions. And despite the restrictions and disruptions of lock-down, the latest cohort of startups in the Melbourne FinTech bootcamp managed to deliver some engaging presentations.
Datacy allows people to collect, manage and sell their online data easily and transparently, and gives businesses instant access to high quality and bespoke consumer datasets. They stress that the data used in their application is legally and ethically sourced. Their process is also designed to eliminate gaps and risks inherent in many current solutions, which are often manual, fragmented and unethical. At its heart is a Chrome or Firefox browser extension. Individual consumers can generate passive income from data sales, based on user-defined permissions. Businesses can create target data sets using various parameters. Datacy charges companies to access the end-user data, and also takes a 15% commission on every transaction via the plugin – some of which is distributed to end-users, but it wasn’t clear how that works. For example, is it distributed in equal proportions to everyone, or is it weighted by the “value” (however defined or calculated) of an individual’s data?
Harpocrates Solutions provides a simplified data privacy via a “compliance compliance as a service” model. Seeing itself as part of the “Trust Economy”, Harpocrates is making privacy implementations easier. It achieves this by monitoring and observing daily regulatory updates, and capturing the relevant changes. It then uses AI to manage a central repository, and to create and maintain tailored rules sets.
Mark Labs helps asset managers and institutional investors integrate environmental and social considerations into their portfolios. With increased investor interest in sustainability, portfolio managers are adopting ESG criteria in to their decision-making, and Mark Labs helps them in “optimising the impact” of their investments. There are currently an estimated $40 trillion of sustainable assets under management, but ESG portfolio management is data intensive, complex and still emerging both as an analytical skill and as a practical portfolio methodology. Mark Labs helps investors to curate, analyze and communicate data on their portfolio companies, drawing on multiple database sources, and aligning to UN Sustainable Development Goals. The founders estimate that there are $114 trillion of assets under management “at risk” if generational transfer and investor mandates shift towards more ESG criteria.
MassUp is a digital white label solution for the property and casualty insurance industry (P&C), designed to sell small item insurance at the consumer point-of-sale (POS). Describing their platform as a “plug and sell” solution, the founders noted that 70% of portable items are not covered by insurance policies, and many homes and/or contents are either uninsured or under-insured. MassUp is intended to simplify the process (“easy, accessible, online”), and will be launching in Australia under the Sorgenfrey brand in Q2 2021. For example, a product known as “The Flat Insurance” will cover items in and out of your home for a single monthly premium. As MassUp appears to be a tech solution, rather than a policy issuer, underwriter or re-insurer, I couldn’t see how they can achieve competitive policy rates both at scale and with simplicity (especially the claims process). Also, as we know, vendors love to “upsell” insurance on tech appliances, but many such policies have been seen to be redundant when considering existing statutory consumer rights and product warranties. On the other hand, short-term insurance policies (e.g., when I’m traveling, or on holiday, or renting out my home on AirBnB) are increasingly of interest to some consumers.
Ontrack provides B2B white label digital retirement planning solutions for financial institutions to help their customers in a more personalised way. There is a general consumer reluctance to pay for financial advice, but retirement planning is deemed too complicated. Taking an “holistic” approach, the founders claim to have developed a “best in class simulation engine” – founded on expected retirement spending priorities (rather than trying to predict the cost of living in 20 years’ time). Drawing on their industry experience, the founders stated that a key challenge for many financial planning providers is getting members comfortable with your service. I would also add that reducing complexity with cost-effective products is also key – and financial education forms a big part of the solution.
In Australia, the past 10 years has seen a major exit from the financial planning and wealth management industry – both at the individual adviser level (higher professional qualification requirements, increased compliance costs, and the end of trailing sales commissions in favour of “fee for advice”); and at the institutional level (3 of the big 4 banks have essentially withdrawn from offering financial planning and wealth management services). At the same time, there have been a number of new players – including many non-bank or non-financial institution providers – offering so-called robo-advice and “advice at scale”, mainly designed to reduce costs. In addition, the statutory superannuation regime keeps being tweaked so it is increasingly difficult to plan for the future, with the constant tax and other changes. Superannuation (a key success story of the Keating government) is just one of the “pillars” of personal finance in retirement: the others are the Commonwealth government aged pension (means-tested), personal wealth management (e.g., investments outside of superannuation); and retirement housing (with the expectation of more people opting to remain in their own homes). I would also include earnings from part-time employment while in “retirement”, as people work longer into older age (either from choice or necessity) – how that aligns with the aged pension and/or self-funded retirement is another part of the constantly-shifting tax and social security regime.
This product describes itself as a customer data platform that powers stored value, and was described as a “Safe harbour” solution (I’m not quite sure that’s what the founders meant in this context?). According to the pitch, consumers gain a fair and equitable outcome (consumer discounts), while retailers get targeted audiences. The team have created a vertically integrated gift card platform (working with MasterCard, Apple Pay and GooglePay), and launched JamJar, a cashback solution.
Similar to Harpocrates (above), RegRadar is a regulatory screening platform that helps companies “to set routes and avoid crashes”. The tool monitors regulatory changes (initially in the financial, food and healthcare sectors) and uses a pro-active process to developing a regulatory screening strategy, backed by analysis and a decision-support tool.
Having worked in legal, regulatory and compliance publishing for many years myself, I appreciate the challenge companies face when trying to keep up with the latest regulations, especially where they may be subject to multiple regulatory bodies within and across multiple jurisdictions. However, improved technology such as smart decision-support tools for building and maintaining rules-based business systems has helped enormously. In addition, most legislation is now online, so it can be searched more easily and monitored via automated alerts. Plus services such as Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis can also help companies track what is currently “good” or “bad” law by tracking court decisions, law reports and legislative updates.
While most of Australia has been preoccupied by things such as Covid-19 lock-downs, border closures, which contestant got eliminated from Big Brother/Masterchef, and which federal politician went to an NRL game (and depending on which State you live in), the ACCC has implemented the first phase of the Consumer Data Rightregime (aka Open Banking).
The TLDR on this new regulation, which has been several years in the making, can be distilled as follows:
Banks can no longer deny customers the right to share their own customer data with third parties.
So, in essence, if I am a customer of Bank A, and I want to transfer my business to Bank B, I have the right to request Bank A to share relevant information about my account to Bank B – Bank A can no longer hold on to or refuse to share that information.
Why does this matter? Well, a major obstacle to competition, customer choice and product innovation has been the past refusal by banks to allow customers to share their own account information with third party providers – i.e., it has been an impediment to customer switching (and therefore anti-competitive), and a barrier to entry for new market entrants (and therefore a drag on innovation).
Of course, there are some caveats. Data can only be shared with an accredited data recipient, as a means to protect banking security and preserve data privacy. And at first, the CDR will only apply to debit and credit cards, transaction accounts and deposit accounts. But personal loans and mortgages will follow in a few months. (And the CDR is due to be extended to utilities, telcos and insurance in coming years – going further than even the similar UK Open Banking scheme.)
Although I welcome this new provision, it still feels very limited in application and scope. Even one of the Four Pillar banks couldn’t really articulate what it will actually mean for consumers. They also revealed something of a self-serving and defensive tone in a recent opinion piece:
Despite our fondness for bank-bashing (and the revelations from the recent Royal Commission), Australians are generally seen as being reluctant to switch providers. Either because it’s too hard (something that the CDR is designed to address), or customers are lazy/complacent. In fact, recent evidence suggests existing customers of the big four banks are even more likely to recommend them.
For FinTechs and challenger brands, the costs of complying with some aspects of the CDR are seen as too onerous, and as such, act as another impediment to competition and innovation. Therefore, we will likely see a number of “trusted” intermediaries who will receive customer data on behalf of third party providers – which will no doubt incur other (hidden?) costs for the consumer.
Full competition will come when consumers can simply instruct their existing bank to plug their data into a product or price comparison service, to identify the best offers out there for similar products. (Better still, why not mandate incumbents to notify their existing customers when they have a better or cheaper product available? A number of times I have queried the rate on an existing product, only to be offered a better deal when I suggested I might take my business elsewhere.)
Recently, my bank unilaterally decided to change the brand of my credit card. Instead of showing initiative by offering to transfer my existing subscriptions and direct debits to the new card, the bank simply told me to notify vendors and service providers myself. If I didn’t request the change of card, why am I being put to the inconvenience of updating all my standing orders?
For real innovation, we need banks and other providers to maintain a unified and single view of customer (not a profile organised by individual products or accounts). Moreover, we need a fully self-sovereign digital ID solution, that truly puts the customer in charge and in control of their own data – by enabling customers to decide who, what, when, why and for how long they share data with third parties. For example, why do I still need 100 points of identity with Bank B if I’m already a client of Bank A?
As with the recent Startupbootcamp Virtual Demo Day, the Antler incubator program also ran its Demo Day Rewired as a live webcast. Both online events were an opportunity to see what their respective startup teams could achieve in less than 3 months, and a chance to interact in real-time with the founders themselves. The main difference was that Antler decided to stream the event live (rather than broadcast pre-recorded presentations) which worked surprisingly well in the circumstances – and not just the technology; it must have been really challenging to pitch to an empty room, with no ability to “read” the audience.
Like Startupbootcamp, the majority of teams were only formed at the start of this cohort, and to do this during the current pandemic lock-down must have been especially challenging.
Of the 12 teams to present, half were SaaS solutions, two were curated marketplaces, two were related to carbon offsets, while the remaining pitches offered a support platform for people suffering addiction, and an investment solution aimed at Millennials.
All of the SaaS teams, deal in some way with managing other SaaS applications, as follows:
Intalayer – streamlining software development and product management tools
motiveOS – streamlining CRM, accounting and billing systems to track sales commissions
meetric – streamlining productivity and collaboration tools
CloudOlive and Hudled – streamlining the procurement, provisioning and management of SaaS stacks themselves
Given the similar nature of these concepts, there was some commonality in their approach to problem identification, solution design, and market sizing. A number of the audience questions also asked why existing incumbents in each of the specific verticals wouldn’t simply come up with their own solution (even if it was simply to offer 3rd party plug-ins, which leading SaaS platforms such as Xero and Salesforce already do)?
Both Pathzero and Traceaim to make it easier/cheaper to go carbon neutral (via carbon credits and offsets) for SMEs and consumers respectively. Both solutions are essentially curated services, to help customers access, evaluate and verify carbon offsets and make informed decisions about going carbon neutral. Other traditional solutions involve repackaging wholesale schemes (often expensive to administer, since they are not designed for small businesses and retail consumers), or they lack transparent reporting and certification. Blockchain (as a form of immutable distributed ledger) and tokenisation (to streamline the origination, structuring and distribution of carbon offset assets) are also concepts that are being explored.
In the curated marketplaces, Mys Tyler is a platform for women’s fashion, and RightPawis designed to help dog breeders connect with prospective dog owners. The former may find an opening now that Amazon has decided to decommission the Echo Look (an AI-supported camera offering fashion advice) although Amazon claims most of the features have been incorporated into the main Amazon Shopping app. While the latter made the point that during Covid19 lock-down in April, online pet scams increased 5-fold.
Combining clinical research, community networking and self-help solutions, Aurelius is designing an online support system for people who suffer from addiction, or living with family and friend who do. It’s quite an ambitious goal, given the value will be in providing highly personalized, proven and achievable outcomes for their users, but the team are not, and do not claim to be, medically qualified professionals. It was not clear from the pitch how the service will be funded.
Finally, Yolo ex is designed to be an investment platform aimed at Millennials. On the one hand, it was suggested that younger people don’t have access to investment products and services suited to their needs, since current solutions are geared towards older investors. On the other, Millennials are said to be more likely to research and do their own analysis on investment choices and opportunities. Part of me thinks that if it was that easy, superannuation brands and financial planners would find it easy to engage with this demographic (remember those colourful ads for Kinetic Super, before it ended up merging with Sun Super?). Another part of me is encouraged by what I have seen after more than four years working in the Blockchain and crypto space – the adoption of Bitcoin and other digital assets by younger people demonstrates that they looking for alternatives to what the major banks and traditional wealth management providers offer them. And not all of them are looking to make a quick buck via RobinHood and Hertz….
Content in Context 