🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ episode. Yaniv and Chris are fired up about bad VC investors, and they can't hold it in any longer!

Good Venture Capitalists help founders make the impossible, possible. They are the fuel that allows rocketships to defy gravity.

But bad VC investors will take a founder's dream and grind it into dust.

In this episode, Chris and Yaniv share the ways in which bad investors often undermine a founder's ability to pursue their vision. They then share tips how as a founder to look out for and defend against this type of "dumb money" investor, and how to show traction that is beyond just revenue.

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Key links

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Today you’ll hear the story of Startup Muster through its founder Murray Hurps.

Startup Muster is a report that produces the most comprehensive data on the Australian startup ecosystem to measure and publish the progress, challenges, and opportunities within the startup ecosystem.

Startup Muster is important because the startup world here in Australia is, in no sense of the word booming. But it could be, and Startup Muster aims to make the data available for us to course-correct our ship. All hands on deck, let’s go back to day one, where this story begins…

Want to hear more inspiring startup stories? Sign up to the newsletter.

See the Startup Muster show notes.

Connect with Adam on LinkedIn.

Steve Grace is CEO and founder of The Nudge Group, which works with startups and scale-ups to support them through various stages of business growth. Based in Australia, The Nudge Group has expanded globally with offices in the UK and Singapore. Steve also hosts the Give It A Nudge podcast, and is director of YBF Ventures. In his conversation with host Will Tjo, Steve discusses his belief that Australian companies put too much focus into the US and UK markets and too little in neighbouring Asian markets, as well as some of the ways covid has altered the ways companies do business in Australia and globally.

See full show notes: https://w2d1.com/steve-grace

Peter Tippett is a serial entrepreneur with decades of experience working in startups both in Australia and around the world. He is currently working on three ventures, all of which he co-founded in the last few years: BodyMindLife, a platform for passionate community creators, educators, teachers and students, Vault3, which provides storage services on blockchain, and KULA, which utilises Web3 technologies to create online communities. In his conversation with host Will Tjo, Peter discusses his first hand experience seeing the internet evolve from Web 1.0 to today, as well as how he sees company ownership and management evolving in the future.

See full show notes: https://w2d1.com/peter-tippett

John Allsopp is an author, web developer and conference organiser who’s been working in Australia’s startup ecosystem for nearly three decades. In 2006 he co-founded Web Directions, a conference series for people creating tools for the internet, at a time when the field was still relatively new. In his conversation with Adam, he discusses the very first Web Directions conference, which he sees as being “like the Woodstock of the Australian web industry”, as well as his perspective that over the last few decades the Australian startup ecosystem has evolved from a small “community” into a fully established “industry”.

See full show notes: https://w2d1.com/john-allsopp

Lars Rasmussen is a Danish computer scientist and tech angel investor with a long history of working within the startup ecosystem both within Australia and internationally, including as co-founder of Google Maps, and as Director of Engineering for Facebook in London. In 2015, Rasmussen announced his departure from Facebook to co-found a music startup, Weav Musi, with his partner Elomida Visviki. In his conversation with guest host Will Tjo, Lars discusses his love of Sydney, what he sees as key ingredients for successful founders, as well as the difficult balancing act between self belief through adversity and knowing when to quit.

See full show notes: https://w2d1.com/lars-rasmussen

Ric Richardson is an Australian inventor who first came to prominence as a result of his invention of Software Activation, a technique used in software anti-piracy. Ric founded the Uniloc Company and entered an agreement with IBM to commercialise the invention, which Ric says has now been used on two and a half billion computers globally. In 2011 a US court awarded Uniloc $388 million in damages after Microsoft was found to have infringed on Ric’s patent, and the subsequent publicity surrounding the case led to the TV program Australian Story creating an episode covering the trial. In his conversation with Adam, Ric discusses the surge of support he received after the Australian Story episode was watched by 2 million people, and what he sees as the contrasting skills and personalities needed for creating an invention, and running a company.

See full show notes: https://w2d1.com/ric-richardson

Brad Parsons is CEO and founder of Movus, a company that provides monitoring tools for industrial equipment with the mission of preserving the earth’s resources by improving the efficiency and life of industrial assets. At the time of recording Movius is active in 16 countries, and has ambitions for further growth. In his conversation with guest host Will Tjo, Brad discusses how he has seen an increased emphasis on funding for startups with a focus on environmental sustainability, as well as his belief that Australia’s startup ecosystem suffers from a greater degree of risk aversion than other nations.

See full show notes: https://w2d1.com/brad-parsons

Eloise Hall and Isobel Marshall are the founders of Taboo, a social enterprise that sell organic cotton pads and tampons, with all profits going towards eradicating period poverty. The Eloise and Isobel were first introduced to the social enterprise model of business in 2016 while students at high school, and began designing what would become Taboo during the summer holidays before commencing their final year of high school. In their conversation with guest host Will Tjo, Eloise and Isobell discuss how social enterprises fit within the broader startup community, as well as some of the considerations unique to social enterprises when considering various options for raising funds, such as crowdfunding campaigns or more traditional venture capital.

See full show notes: https://w2d1.com/eloise-and-isobel

What will the new economy look like? As startups become the new way of life, Australia must become more open and less restrictive to encourage innovation. Hear entrepreneurs' firsthand accounts of their journey and learn what that has meant to the startup world.

This podcast will give you a great insight into Australia’s innovation ecosystem by tracing its history and future. If you're curious as to how it all started, who were the innovators that helped transform it, and how this ecosystem interacts with others both domestically and around the world- this is a must-listen!

This 6-part audio documentary and its accompanying 150+ interviews is a deep dive into the startup scene, both past and present and takes an exciting look at the future of Australia’s technological and economic transformation.

Join us on this exciting journey, celebrating what has been accomplished and asking hard questions about where we’re heading and whether we’re on the right track.