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Another #pitch night in Melbourne…

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If there is one basic theme emerging from Startup Victoria‘s monthly pitch nights, it is this: whatever market you are in, regardless of your business model, and however disruptive you are trying to be, if you don’t know how to engage or reach your customers your idea is far less likely to succeed. This message came across loud and clear during last week’s event where four startup hopefuls pitched their business ideas to a panel of judges in front of a packed audience.

Picture sourced from Startup Victoria Meetup page

Picture sourced from Startup Victoria Meetup page

So let’s look at this specific issue in respect to each of the pitches:

First came JobPokes, an online recruitment service designed to help candidates match job opportunities to their career preferences. Because it claims to be addressing the hidden job market, candidates aren’t applying for specific roles – instead, it’s a form of reverse enquiry, where recruiters target potential applicants via their registered profiles. I applaud the focus on the non-advertised job market, but while it may well offer an additional channel for recruiters, I’m not sure there was a clear strategy to reach job candidates who need to create a user account, and who are probably already using platforms like LinkedIn and Seek.

Next was Airly, which is sort of “Uber for private aircraft”. The business model involves signing up a minimum number of customers (who pay a monthly subscription fee, entitling them to unlimited flights), and securing sufficient seat capacity via scheduled charter contracts. There is no doubt that the idea of flight flexibility, and an element of passenger exclusivity met with audience approval (Airly took out the people’s choice vote on the night). Also, the PR around Airly has generated in-bound enquiries, suggesting there is demand. But how does this market interest convert to individual customers, when many corporate travel policies rely on wholesale and bulk-purchase models (i.e., aggregation, consolidation, vendor discounts, agency rebates, preferred airlines) rather than catering for individual travel needs or preferences? Unless the target customers are business travelers that manage and pay for their own tickets?

If Airly was about the Uberisation of air travel, RagRaider revealed another aspect of the shared economy model. Squarely aimed at fashion- and budget-conscious women, RagRaider offers a peer-to-peer service whereby customers can hire clothes for one-time use. No doubt there is a market (high school formal, spring carnival, wedding reception…) but the question is how to connect with actual lenders and hirers? We know that the per customer cost of acquisition for 2-sided markets is a key metric, and it wasn’t clear how the founders were addressing this, other than a pre-launch website and some social media. As one observer has commented, the “model is focusing on the ‘product’ part first which is the reverse of how it should be”, and another commented that despite a defined market, the barriers to entry are considerable. The judges also questioned some of the proposed pricing, commission rates and logistics.

Finally, Rounded is another FinTech startup looking to service the SME sector, specifically sole traders, freelancers, sub-contractors and tradies. Another spin on the invoice solution when suppliers need to get paid efficiently, Rounded does not claim to be a full-service accounting software – but, as one attendee commented, key to success will be reaching and educating the end-user market.  Also, they are entering a competitive space, where a new entrant like Xero has already disrupted incumbents like QuickBooks, Reckon and MYOB. I wasn’t able to stay for the pitch, but I did have the opportunity to speak with the founders beforehand. Clearly driven by their own experience and needs, there is a solid but simple idea here – but as Xero and others are increasingly able to serve similar customers, Rounded will find it really difficult to compete.

If anything, these latest pitches showed how hard it is to compare apples with oranges, although the voting criteria (market traction, product viability, team composition, pitch presentation, and responses to judges’ questions) are designed to deliver a consistent evaluation. It was also apparent that these pitches divided audience opinion more so than previous contestants – which is probably a good thing as variety is the spice of life….

Acknowledgments: thanks to Graphican, Marlene M., Cornell and Dale G. for their input.

Next week: Re-Imagining Human-led #Innovation

 

Update on the New #Conglomerates

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My blog on the New Conglomerates has proven to be one of the most popular I have written. I’d been contemplating an update for a while, even before I heard this week’s announcement that Verizon is buying the bulk of Yahoo!. Talk about being prescient…. So, just over two years later, it feels very timely to return to the topic.

Image sourced from dc.wikia.com

Image sourced from dc.wikia.com

Of the so-called FANG tech stocks, when I was writing back in May 2014, Facebook had recently acquired WhatsApp and Oculus VR. However, apart from merging Beats Music into its own music service, Apple has not made any big name deals, but has made a number of strategic tech acquisitions. Meanwhile, Amazon has attempted to consolidate its investment in delivery company, Colis Privé, but got knocked back by the French competition regulators. Netflix finally launched in Australia in March 2015, and within 9 months had 2.7 million customers, a growth rate of 30% per month. Finally, Google has since renamed itself Alphabet, and purchased AI business Deep Mind.

Over the same period, Microsoft appears to have reinvigorated its strategy: back in May 2014, Microsoft had just completed its acquisition of Nokia. Since then, Microsoft has announced it is buying LinkedIn (following the latter’s purchase of Lynda.com in 2015), but has also shut down Yammer, which it had only bought in 2012. The acquisition of LinkedIn has been framed as a way to embed corporate, business and professional customers for its desktop and cloud-based productivity tools (and maybe give a boost to its hybrid tablet/laptop PCs). On the other hand, Microsoft has a terrible track record with content-based products and services, as evidenced by the Encarta fiasco, and the fact that Bing is an also-ran search engine. I think the jury is still out on what this transaction will really mean for LinkedIn’s paying customers.

So, what are the big tech themes, and where are the New Conglomerates competing with each other?

First, despite being the “next big thing”, VR/AR is still some way off being fully mainstream (although Pokémon GO may change that….). Apple and Google will continue to go head-to-head in this space.

Second, content streaming is not yet the new “rivers of gold” for publishing (and the sale of Yahoo! might confirm that there’s still gold in those advertising hills….). But music streaming (Apple, Spotify, Amazon and Google – plus niche services such as Bandcamp and Mixcloud) is gaining traction, and Amazon is building more content for SVOD (to compete with Netflix, Apple and Google). But quality public broadcasters such as BBC, ABC and NPR are making great strides into audio streaming (via native apps and platforms like TuneIn) and podcasting. One issue that remains is the fact that digital downloads and streaming still suffer from geo-blocking, and erratic pricing models.

Third, Amazon continues to build out its on-line retail empire, even launching private label groceries. Amazon will also put more of a squeeze on eBay, which does not offer fulfillment, distribution or logistics and is a less attractive platform for local used-goods sellers compared to say, Gumtree.

Fourth, Amazon is making a play for the Internet of Things (which, for this discussion, includes drones), but both Apple and Google, via their hardware devices, OS capabilities and cloud services, will doubtless give Amazon a run for its money. Also, watch for how Blockchain will impact this sector.

Finally, payments, AI, robotics, analytics and location-based services all continue to bubble along – driven by, for example, crypto-currencies, medtech, fintech, big data and sentiment-based predictive tools.

Next week: Another #pitch night in Melbourne…

 

 

 

 

Moving #innovation from “permitted” to “possible”

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As the dust settles on the Federal election results, the Turnbull government has already been taken to task for failing to get one of its key messages across to the public: how to take advantage of the economic, technological, scientific, social and cultural opportunities inherent in the “Innovation Agenda”.  It seems that the so-called “Ideas Boom” failed to resonate with much of the electorate because, apparently, no-one has explained to them how innovation actually impacts their lives.

Screen Shot 2016-07-18 at 8.39.24 PMUnfortunately, I think it goes deeper than that: the recent campaign debates were limited to concepts of “traditional” job-creation; reliance on conventional relationships between the State, the private sector and individual citizens; and the priorities of (pre)serving the interests of public institutions such as 3-year Parliaments and even political parties themselves. The electorate may (perhaps rightly) feel short-changed by the level of the debate, but voters also need to take some responsibility for not challenging candidates to raise their game: where were the mainstream discussions on climate change, new technology, the future of “work”, digital disruption, scientific advances, and the changing attitudes towards end of life?

There is also a core misconception, that the government is responsible for fostering  innovation, that only public policy (and public resources?) can set the innovation agenda. I don’t believe it is the role of government to “make it happen”, and certainly, such an approach is not going to occur overnight. At best, government can create a framework, highlight best practice, and encourage appropriate activity. Just as I don’t think you can “teach” creativity (only identify, support and nurture it), I don’t think innovation is something to be determined from the outside. As with creative inspiration, innovation has to come from within: from employees, from customers, from suppliers, etc.

The risk of relying solely on governments or other vested interests to shape innovation is that our thinking becomes constrained by what is “permitted”, rather than what is “possible”.

On a related theme, it was refreshing to listen to a panel of speakers at a seminar on “Innovation from the inside out” held during Melbourne Startup Week. The key messages were:

  • how to instill purpose in any organisational change, business transformation or innovation project;
  • how to empower all levels of an organisation to make ideas happen; and
  • how to incentivize intrapreneurship?

This naturally leads to a discussion of developing more adaptable and resilient career paths. If you don’t have transferable skills, or if you not prepared to update your knowledge, or if you think of your career path as a straight linear projection, it will be much harder to cope with the demands of a flexible work environment. If you think of yourself as only ever performing a specific job function, or identify only as your profession or job title, or define yourself only by your formal qualifications, you will only ever think about what roles you may be “permitted” to perform, rather than seeing what career opportunities may be possible. As a careers adviser in the Victorian Government’s Skills and Job Centre network told his audience at a recent Small Business workshop: it’s not the responsibility of the government or your employer to manage your career. Notwithstanding upskilling initiatives and structured outplacement programs, we are each responsible for shaping our own destiny – especially in the increasingly on-demand economy.

Back to the main topic, I’ve been participating in a series of workshops on the Future of Work, Money, Ageing, Death, Democracy etc. hosted by the Re-Imagineers, an on-line ideas playground that builds co-created artifacts to support people-led innovation. The model is designed to help organisations draw on insights from their in-house knowledge and skills, customer experience and feedback, and external expertise to originate new ideas and innovative solutions from within their own resources, and which align with their values and those of their stakeholders. It’s still early days, but all of the discussions have identified some amazing ideas and possibilities.

The team from Re-Imagineers will be visiting Australia during July and August, so if you or your organisation would like to hear about the key learnings from these forums, especially as they impact sectors such as finance, health care and IT, please contact me via this blog, and I will make the relevant introductions.

Next week: Update on the New #Conglomerates

 

Startup Victoria’s #Pitch Night for #Startup Week

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The grand finale of Melbourne Startup Week was Startup Victoria‘s regular pitch night held at inspire9. Six months in, and this new monthly format has become a major fixture on the startup calendar, judging by the audience size, and the range of startups applying to pitch. There are still a few teething problems (the AV quality is a bit variable, and some of the judging panels are probably too “soft”…), but it’s established something of a benchmark against which other pitch nights might be compared. This month’s cohort covered medtech, wellness and the greetings industry.

StartUp Vic 240616

Cardly

Cardly is an online service that allows users to send personalized greetings cards to friends and loved ones. Under the banner of “you write, we post”, customers can choose from a range of artist-designed cards, add their own message, and Cardly will then print and send the card from a location as close as possible to the recipient (currently London, Sydney and New York).

A variant on the familiar 2-sided market model, Cardly has built a community of independent artists who supply the card designs. Artists are charged a sales commission on each order, and they get their own store front on Cardly. And for anyone struggling for words, there’s a range of predefined texts and doodles.

Because this is a print-on-demand model, using digital printing, there is zero wastage (unlike the traditional greeting card industry where over-production and limited distribution are commercial headaches). However, even with some “handwriting” fonts, there are some design and user limitations, which something like the Sensel Morph touch-sensitive track-pad may be able to address?

Cardly is aiming to take a chunk of the retail market and disrupt the global greetings card industry. The judges took a slightly different view. Based on the founders’ own data, consumer customers will probably send an average of 12 cards per annum, and at $6.45 per card, it’s a tough sell. However, by looking at a lower cost per acquisition, addressing the corporate market and offering a white label solution, the business would be in a better position to scale. There was also a suggestion for an engineered viral solution to drive traction through collaborative cards, and other ideas for partnerships (e.g., gift buying services and gift cards).

Cardihab

Cardihab (“Get Back To Life”) has appeared in this blog before, and is a CSIRO spin-out that has developed a mobile support solution for cardiac patients via an app and a patient/GP portal. As someone whose father is recovering from major heart surgery, this pitch got my personal vote!

The success rate is staggering – patients using the app are 70% more likely to complete rehab. So far, four hospitals have signed up, with three more in the pipeline. As well publishing their research, the founders see Cardihab as being a broader platform for managing chronic illnesses.

Currently in the process of getting investor ready, the proposed business model will charge an annual license for hospitals, plus a per patient fee.

The judges had some questions about the potential market (“Anyone with heart disease”) and wanted to know a bit more about the bench strength of the team.

Black

Staying with the medtech and after-care theme, Black‘s modest goal is to “revolutionise healthcare”, via an in-home observation solution that scans patient movement and analyses interaction with their helpers. The scanner strips out personal data (features, attire) using skeleton tracking to monitor movement and falls, while learning from patient gestures. It can use real-time alerts to contact helpers, carers and emergency services.

The scanning software is currently trialing in casinos to refine the machine-learning algorithms, and all trials are subject to ethical approval.

Although still at a conceptual stage (in terms of health care applications), and notwithstanding privacy concerns, this project demonstrates that predictive tools will be vital to helping the elderly and the infirm to continue living independently in their own homes, which will have significant advantages to the cost of long-term care, preventative health services, patient rehabilitation and after-care services. There are doubtless other, similar solutions in development, and the outcome will likely be a mix of blended services based on ease of use, cost of roll-out, system interoperability and patient efficacy.

Honee

Last to present was the team from Honee which is bringing digital connectivity to the wellness, fitness and beauty industry. The solution they offer is designed to make it easier to discover and book an appointment for a treatment, consultation or workout session, by connecting merchants and users.

With previous international experience at Delivery Hero, Quandoo and Zomato, the founders have strong startup business credentials in adjacent markets – connecting consumers to service providers via search discovery, customer reviews, personal recommendations and proximity.  Of particular interest in this sector is the growing “wellness travel market”.

There are undoubtedly competitors already working on similar solutions; and it may just be that I’ve seen far too many pitches in the past few years, but I’m sure there was a startup out there offering a “just in time” service to help find and book appointments for personal services – Fit Me In? – and I recall another comparable startup idea for restaurants to offer last-minute menu specials via a location-based app.

Nevertheless, as we know, execution is key, and the judges asked about the huge cost to build a consumer brand – hence Honee is focusing on service providers to get their brands on line. There is an MVP in pre-launch, and Honee has built a mobile responsive website, with a grant from the Melbourne Accelerator Program.

After the vote (and thanks to technology, the results of which were available in minutes….) Cardly was declared the night’s winner.

Next week: Moving #innovation from “permitted” to “possible”