Sticky Tickets - Online Ticketing and Event Registration

Vishal Sharma Wednesday, June 18, 2008 , , , , , 0 comments

Today we showcase an exciting and interesting startup from Sydney, Australia, Sticky Tickets - an online ticketing and event registration web portal. It is co founded by Matt Freedman, Jay Gaibisso and Dany Gruosso.
I further explored about Sticky Tickets and how Matt is progressing in a candid interview with him. This is what he has to say:

• Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests?

I’m Matt Freedman and I’m the CEO of Sticky Tickets, an online ticketing and event registration web portal. We are based in Sydney, Australia and our site currently services all of Australia. I am also the Chairman of eMarketing business Redback Solutions which I founded in 1999.

• Who are the people behind this and how it started?

The business was co-founded by myself and Sydney entrepreneurs Jay Gaibisso and Dany Gruosso. Jay hired the IMAX during the FIFA World Cup in 2006 to watch Australia v Brazil but couldn’t find a simple to use, self service online system to handle the ticket selling and payments so brought on Dany and myself to help him develop and realise the idea.

• How long did it take before it was up and running?

After initial planning and developing the idea through late 2006, Sticky Tickets was formed in early 2007 and the site was launched in July 2007. The actual development time was only around 4 months once the market research was complete and scope of the functionality of the site was developed.

• What service does it provides for consumer or customers?

It allows anyone that is running an event to sell tickets to it or handle registrations. We’ve created a very simply process of joining up as an organiser for free, creating and listing your event, marketing you event and managing the ticket sales, ticket delivery and invoicing.

It takes all of the admin nightmare out of the ticketing process, so event organisers can their time on the higher value tasks of managing and promoting their event.

It can be used for a very diverse range of events from business lunches, charity events, fashion shows, movie nights, theatre and even for private events where someone just needs to collect money from the other attendees, like a birthday or bridal shower.

Most importantly it add eCommerce facilities to organisations that not in a position or don’t want the hassle of building their own payment gateways into their websites.

It doesn’t matter how big or small your event is. We have had people use for a 4 person dinner, through to the Sydney International Boat Show who will have thousands of people buy tickets online.

• How many people are using your services?

We have hundreds of event organisers current using the site with new organisers joining everyday. There are thousands of registered members buying tickets through the site daily, many of which are return purchasers and use the site as a what’s on for local events.

• What sort of marketing you are using to spread the word?

Much of our marketing has been through targeted online advertising such as Google Adwords. We have also implemented a very successful word of mouth campaign and increase the spread of this with a referral program.

Our organisers are our best salespeople, spreading the word for us. We are finding that our rate of growth is accelerating as we bring on board more organisers.

• What is the monetizing/revenue model? Is their any new model, which is being tried?

For free events, there is no charge at all. If we process a credit card, we charge a small transaction fee that the organiser can choose to include in the ticket price or add onto the ticket. It is a low margin, high volume business.

• What are the main technologies used behind this venture?

The site has been built using ASP.NET and MS SQL. The site utilises an infrastructure that can handle massive growth with any decrease in performance.

• What has been the most easy to use, out of box and helpful technology?

The site itself has been custom built to handle the specific (and changing needs) of our market. In other areas of the business we utilise as much off the shelf software as possible. Salesforce.com has probably been the most useful out of the box solution for handing enquiries, opportunities and customer support.

• What’s your thought on being an entrepreneur? How tough it is to start a venture in Australia?

Being an entrepreneur is great!! I love it. But it is certainly a personality type. The main thing to consider when being an entrepreneur is that you are going to have to work hard, you have to try and focus on one idea at a time (because the ideas just keep coming) and once you have got the idea off the ground, you need to hand over the control or management to someone who is better suited to the details of day to day business management.

• What Government resources have you used to help your business? And have they made an impact? Have you sought any funding?

I’ve found as an entrepreneur, the amount of time and paper work to get any sort of government assistance is usually counter productive and it’s easier just to do it yourself and do it the way you want to do it. Private funding is much more successful and available. We have several private investors that have contributed funds and expertise to enable us to get the business off the ground and continue to grow it.

• Do you have any advise for people who want to start their venture?

  • Try and learn as much as you can before you start doing anything.
  • Make sure your idea has a sound revenue model
  • What ever your budget is, half you revenue forecasts and double the time frame. If you can still make it viable, then its worth a go.
  • Look for ideas that can run on autopilot, ie use technology and outsourcing to deliver the product. Stay away from service based models (ie selling hours for $). You aim should be to grow the biggest income generating business with least amount of people. Most people try and grow the biggest business employing the most people.

• Any suggested reading material?

Books

  • Secrets of Internet Entrepreneurs Exposed, Dale Beaumont – it features me, so I’m a bit biased, but it also has some great stories and ideas from 13 other internet entrepreneurs.
  • The E-Myth, Michael Gerber – an oldie but a good. Set up your business with automated systems and the end goal in mind.
  • The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell – all you need is a social epidemic to make an average business into and exceptional business.
  • Anything from Seth Godin – he is truly the permission marketing guru.

Blogs

For coverage on other Australian startups, innovation, tech trends check this out and our coverage on interviews can be found here

Continue Reading >>

Tjoos - Compare Prices For Better Choice While Shopping

Vishal Sharma Wednesday, June 11, 2008 , , , , , , 0 comments

In our ongoing coverage of startups coming out of Australia and interviews with CEO's, Media Personalities, Philanthropists, and VC’s, today we showcase a startup in eCommerce segment from Manly, Tjoos.com - Compare Prices For Better Choice While Shopping. It is co-founded by Kim Chen and Bart Jellema.

Let us explore what Bart, co founder of Tjoos.com, is progressing with his venture. This is what he has to say:

• Who are the people behind this and how it started?
Back in July 2007 my partner and I were looking to purchase contact lenses online. Having done comparison shopping a few times I expected it to be easy to find the lowest price using one of the price comparison sites. We spend all day looking at every comparison site we could find and got some upsetting results. Shopping comparison engines rarely list the lowest price, and if they do it's merely a coincidence. Shopping comparison sites only list stores that pay them, making most sites nothing more than PPC product search sites. Basically the current function of comparison shopping engines is to give consumers the 'perception' of finding the lowest price and thereby facilitating the buying process. We believed there was a market for a quality online shopping portal and started plans for Tjoos.com (pronounced choose).

• How long it took before it was up and running?
In October 2007 we launched the site with the world's first real price comparison engine. The only category we listed was contact lenses, and to calculate the 'store to door' price we took into account volume discounts, shipping costs, hidden handling costs, taxes and available discount coupons. After successfully launching the contact lens price comparison feature we experimented for a few months and created an online store directory listing over 90,000 online stores, a clothing recommendation engine, some widgets and an extensive coupon code listing.

• What is the main mission behind your venture?
We have narrowed our focus to online coupon codes. Coupon codes are the online equivalent of grocery coupons. Many online stores such as Old Navy, Dell and Amazon issue coupon codes that give you instant discounts during checkout. This is a huge market with over 25 millions users looking for coupon codes each month, however there is no dominant player. This is
because the quality of coupon sites is so low that none of these sites can give consumers the confidence that they list all available coupons and that their coupons work. At Tjoos.com we are setting up a team of people that work 24/7 around the globe to collect, enter, organize and test coupon codes to provide the most comprehensive and highest quality coupon site on the
web. It's free to use and we don't display advertising.

• How many people are using your services?
More than a million people have already used our site and visitor numbers keep growing.

• What is the revenue model?
A number of the stores we list on our site provide us compensation for referrals. This means that if we refer a user to one of these stores and the user makes a purchase, we receive a percentage of the sale. Currently the sales we make through our partners are over US$100.000 per month. In line with our mission we naturally also list many stores that do not provide any
compensation for the referrals.

• How often do you catch up with others trying similar things and where do you catch up?
Over the last few months we've met many like-minded people and we try to go to at least one event every week. To help others find out what's happening around Australia I setup an open wiki where everyone can share their knowledge on starting up in Australia.

• What are your thoughts on being an entrepreneur?
We absolutely love it! We live and work in Manly, close to the beach and though we work long hours, we work when we feel like it. For me it is like doing what I would do as a hobby anyway, but now I get to do it full-time. When running your own business, there is none of the big company rubbish, no red tape, no politics. We get to decide what to do and just do it. It's also very exciting to create a successful company out of nothing. Less than a year ago we just had an idea and some crayon drawings. Now we have website with thousands of visitors every day.

• Any external funding?
We are a self funded company.

• Which City are you based in?
We are in the heart of Silicon Beach: Manly, NSW

• Do you have any advice for people who want to start their venture?
Start! Just get it out there as soon as you can. Don't be afraid someone will steal your idea and stuff like that. As long as you're small nobody will notice, when you're big you're already ahead of the pack. On top of that people tend to not believe in what you do until it works, so just get out there and do it, talk about, get feedback, go to social events such as OpenCoffee, BarCamp, friday night drinks, and many of the other regular meetups happening around Australia.


Thanks Bart for sharing your thoughts with us. All the best for future.

For coverage on other Australian startups, innovation, tech trends check this out and our coverage on interviews can be found here

Continue Reading >>

Trickytix - Online Event Registration Company

Vishal Sharma Tuesday, June 10, 2008 , , , , , 0 comments

In our ongoing coverage of startups coming out of Australia and interviews with CEO's, Media Personalities, Philanthropists, and VC’s, today we showcase a startup from Melbourne, Australia, to be lunched in October, 2008, Trickytix - an online event registration company.

Trickytix allows a customer to create an account, setup and style their event page and then begin selling tickets without any manual intervention from us. This is all achieved through a self-service interface. Typical events include lunches, meetings, fun runs, cycling or triathlon events, dinners, conferences, etc etc.
It will be running under closed beta trial with number of companies from July 2008.

Let us explore what Scott, co founder of Trickytix, has to say about his venture and innovation coming out of Australia. This is what he has to say:

• Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests?
My name is Scott Handsaker, and I am the Managing Director and co-founder of Trickytix, an online event registration startup from Melbourne, Australia. My previous experience was in managing IT call centres in Singapore and Malaysia, but I have been working on the web exclusively since 2004 in my role as MD of Hugeobject.

• Who are the people behind this and how it started?
Andrew Edwards and myself founded a web consulting company in 2004, and commenced Trickytix as part of that in mid 2007.

• How long it took before it was up and running?
Hah! Trickytix is the end result of a thousand and one ideas for a web application, some of which we actually started coding before dumping them in favour of Trickytix.

We commenced it in April 2007 with the aim of launching a beta within 8 weeks. The need to keep money coming in through consulting work put paid to that launch date, but the build continued throughout 2007 with a successful launch in Feb 2008.

• What services it provides it for consumer or customers?
Trickytix allows anyone to accept registrations and sell tickets for their event online, without the need to know computer code. It is a self service model aimed at small business, community groups, sporting organisations and not-for-profits in Australia.

Trickytix has a number of modules built in which make it easy for event organisers to accept registrations online quickly and easily, as well as make more money from each entrant. These include merchandise, donation and sponsorship modules.

Fundamentally we are aiming for Trickytix to do two things for our customers:

  • Make accepting online event registrations easy and hassle free
  • Extract more money per online registrant for them than any other previous method used
We have achieved both these objectives for our first two customers, and look forward to rolling out our solution to the rest of the country.

• How many people are using your services?
We launched to two larger customers in Feb 2008, with both the Mothers Day Classic and the Million Paws Walk (RSPCA) using our solution to run their online event registrations. Each event is the largest single fundraiser for their respective organisations.

Since then we have added another two smaller customers, with another five lined up to commence our closed beta testing program in July 2008. Trickytix has not yet fully launched as a product, but will do so in October 2008.

• What sort of marketing you are using to spread the word?
Since we commenced the build we have been blogging for Australian Anthill magazine, and have been featured a number of times in their pages over the last 12 months.

Each ticket/registration done through Trickytix is branded with our logo and URL, so many people have found out about us through both the Mothers Day Classic and the Million Paws Walk.

Once our full marketing plan kicks into gear we will be utilizing a combination of direct mail, pay-per-click, organic search, media releases, content provision and word of mouth.

• What is the monetizing/revenue model? Is their any new model, which is being tried?
We take a small percentage of all financial transactions put through the system. This service fee can either be absorbed by the event organiser, or passed onto the ticket buyer as a booking fee.

Once we launch in October 2008, free events will be able to use our system at no charge.

• What are the main technologies used behind this venture?
MySQL, Flex, Flash, PHP.

• What has been the most easy to use, out of box and helpful technology?
We use Basecamp extensively, as well as Trac

• What’s your thought on being an entrepreneur? How tough it is to start a venture in Australia?
Doing a start-up is not for everyone, although it is no more difficult in most respects in Australian than anywhere else. Where it gets harder when compared to places like the US is in access to capital, as well as the depth of recruitment resources available.

• What Government resources have you used to help your business? And have they made an impact? Have you sought any funding?
Our experience in seeking Government funding has been poor. The processes are difficult to navigate, while the amount of early stage funding available is quite small. The serious money (6 figures) only kicks in once you have an established, growing business with a few years of operating revenues behind you.

We are currently seeking private equity/VC money to fund the expansion of our business, and have teamed up with BSI to facilitate this. I have pitched in Sydney and Melbourne at investment breakfasts, one of which went quite well and one of which I would like to do over again!

Fund raising is a lengthy process with no promise of a return at the end of it. We are lucky in that we have a consulting business which can continue to fund us whether we receive funding or not, but yeah funding makes life easier.

• Do you have any advise for people who want to start their venture?
There are a lot of people more qualified than me to provide advice on doing a start up, so my best advice is to do what I do – read them extensively!

Blog suggestions are:
And one book suggestion, which I highly recommend: The Four Steps to the Epiphany – Steven Blank

Thanks Scott for sharing your thoughts with us. All the best for future.

For coverage on other Australian startups, innovation, tech trends check this out and our coverage on interviews can be found here

Continue Reading >>

Flogd - Sell Securely Anwhere on Web

Vishal Sharma Tuesday, June 10, 2008 , , , , , 0 comments

Today we showcase a story of another successful startup and entrepreneur, Phillip Kingston, Co Founder & CEO, Flogd

Flogd is an Australian based company which allows anyone to create a shop to sell stuff anywhere you can paste code. Sell from blogs, websites, social networking sites like MySpace. It provides its users with a shopping cart system which handles postage, taxes and processing of the sale. It also partners with other company’s to offer Flogd services natively in other applications.

Let us explore what Philip has to say about his venture Flogd and his thoughts on entrepreneurship and innovation coming out of Australia. This is what he has to say:

• Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests?
I am a 22 year old student at the University of Melbourne studying a Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Commerce. I am interested in human behaviour, social and environmental sustainability, and, I suppose, technology. I am a programmer by trade but much prefer strategy and business problem solving - so I do more of it.

I am the CEO of Flogd and I am also the Vice-Chairman of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership

• Who are the people behind this and how it started?
Flogd was co-foundered by Edward Thomson and myself. It all started on a phone call between Ed and myself. Ed said to me “I have an idea..”

• How long it took before it was up and running?
6 months. We both took a semester off uni so we could pursue it full time. The main reason for this is because we kept changing (read: improving) our product and our service offering.

• What is the main objective/mission behind your venture?
To ultimately allow people to monetize their web traffic (blogs, websites, etc) with product sales and commissions.

• What services it provides it for consumer or customers?
Flogd is an integrated and full-feature portable shopping cart system. Flogd handles taxes and shipping costs and has a user-friendly control panel for product, tax and shipping management.

• What type of customers you are targeting?
Anyone who has web traffic can find products to sell with our partner sites and sell. Customers can also sell their own products either in isolation or with products from our partners. We are targeting people of average technical proficiency, it’s important they don’t need ay specialised computer skills.

• What sort of marketing you are using to spread the word?
We’ve tried a lot of different avenues, but the best is word of mouth, particularly through forums. We’ve used Google AdWords and fairly aggressive press strategies. Nothing competes with a recommendation from a faithful Flogd user to a forum.

• How are you measuring the success of your venture? Are their any special mechanisms/tools in place to monitor the progress?
We have a few metrics for this including: the number of users, the number of page views, press, and good-will.

• Which are the main competitors or major players in this market segment?
There are no Australian competitors. Our main competition comes from silicon valley. It’s challenging keeping up with Silicon Valley all the way out here - but it allows us to constantly improve our product and service for our consumers.

• What are the main technologies used behind this venture?
We use all the standard web-development programming languages and software. PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, HTML, Flash (ActionScript) and CSS. Everything is custom built - we don’t use any platforms.

• Are you using lot of open source tool sets for this?
Everything except Flash is open source.

• What is your operating environment (operating system) and what type of database you are using? Linux derivative operating system, Apache software, MySQL database

• What’s your thought on being an entrepreneur? How tough it is to start a venture in Australia?
Web start-ups are not too tough. You need to know the technology in-house. If you have to pay upfront for the initial technology development then it’s going to be expensive and the product will never be exactly as you want it. If you are not tech savvy, find someone who is and partner with them.

• What government resources have you used to help your business? And have they made an impact? Have you sought any funding?
We never thought of Government resources or funding.

• What do you think the government (federal and state) should do to improve the culture of innovation and the telecom industry?
Yes, although its easy to bash the government. Rudd seems to value innovation and entrepreneurship and seems to be trying to develop the Australia scene. Brumby is trying to establish Geelong as a new tech centre. We will have to wait and see on that one.

• How many business partners you have?
I have one business partner, Edward Thomson, and he is amazing. He is very intelligent and a good character, the two most important attributes. He keeps it fun when it gets tough. He is also a very creative fellow and works out hard things like design and usability.

• Any external funding – from VC, Govt, Self funded
Self-funded by my business partner coupled with a lot of free man hours

• Which City you are based in?
Melbourne

• Do you have any business advisor/mentor?
Initially, I made sure that I had a lot of people around that I could ask for guidance and advice. The real value of a mentor is knowing when you’ve actually made a mistake - most of the time mistakes are very hard to identify and attribute to yourself. Mentor’s can slingshot you up the learning curve.

• Do you have any advise for people who want to start their venture?
If you know what you are doing in the web technology scene, go for it. If you don’t, find someone who does. In any case, I’d also advice that people don’t do it alone.

Thanks Phillip for sharing your thoughts with us. All the best for future.


For coverage on other Australian startups, innovation, tech trends check this out and our coverage on interviews can be found here

Continue Reading >>

Kahuna Bay - A Story of a Young Woman Entrepreneur

Vishal Sharma Tuesday, March 25, 2008 , , , , , 0 comments

Today we showcase a story of a young woman entrepreneur, Susie Hambleton, founder of Kahuna Bay, from Gold Coast, Australia.

Kahuna Bay - is a brand of tropical styled homewares and accessories. The Kahuna Bay products are sold in boutiques and homewares stores in Australia as well as online in the web boutique. The products are made from natural materials such as sea shell, mango wood, sandstone, mother of pearl, freshwater pearls and silk.

We explored bit further about Susie and her journey as a woman entrepreneur. This is what she has to say in her interview with us:

• Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests?
I live on the Gold Coast. I am Australian but grew up in California. I have an MBA from California State University and a Bachelors in Management and Marketing. When I’m not consumed with my business…you’ll usually find me at the beach, in yoga class or hanging out with friends. I’m learning to surf and always surround myself with people.

The first decade of my business career I worked in financial sales, then I was a business studies lecturer, and moved into corporate communication and marketing. In my late twenties I quit my job and started a homewares and café boutique in Brisbane. After three years, I sold the business. I always knew the boutique was going to be a launching pad for something bigger…I called it my retail uni.

It was there that I gained knowledge of the retail and wholesale homewares industry and decided to start the Kahuna Bay brand.

• Tell us how it started?
I went over to Asia and spent seven weeks looking for factories that could manufacture my products.

• What is the main objective/mission behind your venture?
My main objective is to create a great brand that means style and quality with inspiration from the tropics while at the same time having fun in the venture.

• How long it took before it was up and running?
I started Kahuna Bay in March 2007. It took about seven months to set up the manufacturing, develop the website content, organise international shipping, and create a sales system.

• What services it provides it for consumer or customers?
Kahuna Bay provides gorgeous products for the home such as vases, photo frames, candle holders and accessories like jewellery and silk scarves.

• What market segment verticals are you targeting?

  • I am targeting boutique homewares and giftware shops that are independently owned in Australia.
  • The secondary target is individual customers shopping online for tropical and coastal style décor.
• What type of customers you are targeting?
The end user of my products are usually affluent women between the ages of 30-50. Many love tropical style or beach style decorating and enjoy products made from natural materials. They are very into style and decorating their home is important to them.

• How many people are using your services?
  • There are about 30 stores stocking the Kahuna Bay brand in Australia with numerous end users.
  • People shop online, but this is not my primary focus. I have recently deleted over ½ the products online in order to streamline the business.
  • I would like to see the number of stores stocking the brand triple in the next year.

• What sort of marketing you are using to spread the word?
The most effective marketing as been a personal approach and that means setting up meetings and showing the product range. I have two sales reps as well as myself who represent the brand to prospective clients and service existing customers.
I have also used:
  • Google Adwords
  • National advertising in House & Garden magazine and Real Living magazine
  • Shopping Centre counter to generate customer interest as well as test the market reaction to the products and set realistic prices
  • Direct Mail
  • E-mail campaign
  • Decorating website community Coastal Living- by participating there I had more success than Google Adwords results.
  • The brand will be launched to a wider market at a buying trade show in Melbourne in July/August 2008.
• How are you measuring the success of your venture? Are their any special mechanisms/tools are in place to monitor the progress?
I am measuring success by repeat store orders and qualitative feedback from store clients as well as end user feedback. I am using a customer database that tracks store orders as well as look at trends and room for growth.

• What is the monetizing/revenue model? Is their any new model, which is being tried?
Product sales. Nope…just an old fashioned model of buying and selling.

• Which are the main competitors or major players in this market segment?
There are many brand competitors. But I have chosen a product niche that was different in the Australian market and entered the market with competitive prices. I approach the market from the retailers perspective, harnessing my experience owning a boutique.

• What are the main technologies used behind this start-up?
The website is based on CubeCart, its pretty easy to get going but its not perfect.

• What has been the most easy to use, out of box and helpful technology?
For sure CubeCart and my customer database by Simply Contacts.

• How often do you catch up with others trying similar things and where do you catch up? Do you have dedicated communities in your city?
No formal networking…just informal. There is a local bloggers group and I have used Twitter to link in with other entrepreneurs. I tend to meet other entrepreneurs when I travel to international trade shows.

• What’s your thought on being a women entrepreneur? How tough it is to start a venture in Australia esp if you are a woman?
  • The homewares industry is a natural for a woman to be involved in. In my opinion I haven’t faced any harder challenges than a man would face in Australia.
  • I think some people are surprised by what I do… because I’m a female, but it could be that its unusual. They are more surprised that I travel on my own and have set up my Asian networks alone.
  • I probably have encountered more obstacles in Asia being a female…but I have been able to work through each issue as they come along. I just try and take it one step at a time.
• Which city in Australia is more vibrant and can be regarded as Silicon Valley of Australia?
It seems there is a lot of activity in Sydney.

• What do you think of new ventures and innovation coming out of Australia?
I think some Australians are very innovative. I get excited by new ventures and love meeting other entrepreneurs.

• What do you think of our TAFE/Universities and their curriculum in terms of promoting and encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation?
I wasn’t educated in Australia, so I don’t know if I should comment. Although university helped, nothing could really prepare me for having a business like having a business does. Having your own business can be an obstacle course of extreme highs and lows. You have to be a risk taker as well as a good juggler. You have to learn to cope with anxiety and be better than others. Most importantly you must believe in your business ideas more than anyone else, even when other people are doubting you. I think real entrepreneurs should be the ones teaching innovation and business. You can only teach it if you’ve experienced it.

• Have you sought any funding?
No, Self-funded

• What do you think government (federal and state) should do to improve the culture of innovation?
Besides grant matching programs or reduced rate loans, I would love to see the government put in place useful initiatives at the local State Development offices…more than just business planning. Wouldn’t it be great if they did free seminars, networking and share space. What if there was a share space for entrepreneurs added to local libraries?

• At the 2020 conference, PM Kevin Rudd is meeting with top 1000 people from different background to discuss and collaborate on the issues facing the nation. What issues would you like to raise if you are given a opportunity to attend?
I think issues of drugs, domestic violence, depression, high cost of living and troubled kids are all really important issues.

• Do you have any advice/message for people, esp; women, who want to start their venture?
If you are thinking about a business, but don’t know where to begin, start a journal. Before I started both businesses I had a journal where I sketched out what I wanted until it became very clear. Documenting my thoughts really helped me create a clear path of what I wanted and what the business concept was. Using word concepts or drawing pictures is great.

When you do decide to start the business you must realise it is going to be hard work. You will be working all the time and much harder than in a 9 to 5 job. Its not an early retirement and people will doubt you. Stay clear on your focused goal and just go for it. Once you start you have to know your in it for the long term. Keep visualising how you will feel once you achieve your goal and reward yourself for progress.

Thanks Susie for sharing your thoughts. We look forward to hearing from you in future on the progress of Kahuna Bay. All the best for Kahuna Bay.

For coverage on other Australian startups/innovation/tech trends check this.

Continue Reading >>

OurWishingWell

Vishal Sharma Saturday, March 15, 2008 , , , , , , , 0 comments

The 27th participant is OurWishingWell.com

Founded by Joseph Renzi, OurWishingWell.com is an online gift registry that allows hosts of any occasion to list items that they need/want and invite guests to view the registry and request contributions toward these gifts.
Hosts can list any item – from home wares, honeymoons, a holiday or a house deposit. Guests can view the registry and contribute any amount towards any gift on the list. It allows multiple guests to contribute different amounts to larger/significant gifts that would otherwise not be possible.

This is Joesph's 2nd venture entry in this carnival, first one was SwapAce.com. He tells us bit more about this intriguing venture:

• How it started?
It started with his team in 2007. The successful site has now expanded into other sites such as; BabyWishingWell.com, BirthdayWishingWell.com and BestFundraiserWebsite.com.

• How long it took before it was up and running?
The site took less than 6 months to develop before it was fully functional

• What stage of your start-up is, stealth mode, beta mode or fully functional?
Fully functional

• What is the main objective/mission behind your venture?
The main objective behind OurWishingWell.com is to provide a unique gift registry service to hosts and guests of any occasion.

In summary, a majority of people who are getting married have already been living together and already have the standard household items that they might receive for a wedding gift, so OurWishingWell.com provides them with an elegant way of collecting money towards other items (like their honeymoon or a house deposit).

• What services it provides it for consumer or customers?

  • OurWishingWell.com is free for customers to set-up and personalise their own registry.
  • OurWishingWell.com provides hosts of events an alternative to asking for cash. As it is often seen as ‘impolite’ to ask for cash – OurWishingWell.com provides an alternative.
  • OurWishingWell.com is convenient to customers as you are not limited to a registry at one store and saves time as there is no need to go back to shops to return unwanted or duplicate gifts.
  • The site is also convenient for the guests as they do not have the stressful task of shopping for a suitable gift or spending money on wrapping.
• What is unique about your venture?
OurWishingWell.com is unique as it allows guests from all over the world to contribute to any gift listed on the registry. Hosts can list any items they desire – from household items to experiences to pets and house deposits. Money can also be withdrawn from the registry by the hosts at any time, which allows them to use the money to help pay for the event.

OurWishingWell.com is unique as it offers personalised features for each event. Hosts can print personalised gift registry cards to be distributed to guests. Hosts also have the option of creating a personalised website for their event. The personalised website builder allows hosts to create their own event website and add photos, event details and their gift registry for their guests to view. The website builder is free when you create a registry.

• What market segment verticals you are targeting for?
Marketing for OurWishingWell.com targets hosts of many events including; weddings, engagements, baby showers, birthdays, house warmings, fundraising events and Christmas wish lists.

• What type of customers you are targeting?
OurWishingWell.com targets hosts of all events and the guests of those events. Events include: engagement parties, weddings, baby showers, birthdays, Christmas wish-lists, house warmings and fundraisers.

• What age group of people will be benefited most?
Customers of all ages will benefit from OurWishingWell.com - as people of any age can create or contribute to a registry.

• How many users are using your services?
In less than 1 year, we have almost 10,000 people who have used our gift registry service.

• What sort of marketing you are using to spread the word?
Online marketing is predominant and advertising through wedding websites. We also use public relations to create and maintain relationships with customers/potential customers.

• How are you measuring the success of your venture? Are their any special mechanisms/tools are in place to monitor the progress?
  • Some of the key performance indicators are:
  • Number of members (new and existing)
  • Number of advertisements
  • Number of offers
  • Number of agreements
  • Number of hits to the website
  • Cost to acquire a customer

A majority of this information is provided to us through our own reporting system (attached to our database), but we also use Google tools like Google Analytics.

• What is the monetizing/revenue model? Is their any new model, which is being tried?
  • It is totally free to set up a gift registry. We make our money by taking a small percentage of each transaction (like a credit card).
  • We also sell gift registry cards and we also provide a free website builder (for their event) which can be upgraded to a paid premium subscription (with additional features).
• Which are the main competitors or major players in this market segment? What are the main technologies used behind this start-up?
There are hundreds of both direct and indirect competitors in the gift registry segment. Direct competitors include: WeddingGiftsDirect.com.au, Wedding List Co., MelbourneWeddingRegistry.com.au, NotAnotherToaster.com.au,

• What has been the most easy to use, out of box and helpful technology?
Our internal wiki (pmwiki) for our internal intranet.

• Are you using lot of open source tool sets for this?
Yes.

  • For development we use unix (for the operating system), PHP and cakePHP (for coding), mySQL, and postgresql (for databases).
  • Internally we also use bugzilla (for tracking software development), pmwiki (for an internal intranet), trixbox (as a VoIP server) and many other products.

• What is your operating environment (operating system) and what type of database you are using?
  • Unix, Windows and Mac.
  • mySQL, and postgresql and Microsoft Access.

• How often do you catch up with others trying similar things and where do you catch up. Do you have dedicated communities in your city?
Networking functions throughout the city, small business activities, awards dinners etc

•How much money is needed upfront to start a venture?
Depends on the type of business

• What are the main barriers in general for people start their venture in Australia.
  • Limited access to funds (raising capital)
  • Building a committed team of people willing to work hard
  • Many competitors on the marketplace

• What are your thoughts on the future trends of your service and market segment you are in?
The segment is expanding rapidly with an increasing number of competitors entering the gift registry market. Consumers are moving to online gift registries rather than traditional instore registries due to increased choice of items and ease of set-up.

• Do you have any advice for people who want to start their venture?
  • Never give up
  • Don’t take no for an answer
  • Find other people who share your vision
  • Surround yourself with other people who are in the same situation as yourself
  • The government offers a lot of support – you should utilise this options
  • The measure of success is not how many times you fall over, but how many times you can pick yourself back up again
Thanks Joseph for sharing your thoughts. We look forward to hear from you in future on the progress of OurWishingWell.com. All the best for OurWishingWell.com and the competition in this carnival.

Continue Reading >>

SwapAce.com

Vishal Sharma Friday, March 14, 2008 , , , , , , 1 comments

The 26th participant is SwapAce.com

Founded by Joseph Renzi, SwapAce.com is an online marketplace that allows people from all over the world swap, sell, meet, and buy almost anything in a secure environment. It allows you to barter for goods and services; negotiate until you get the deal you want; and make offers to multiple ads without the risk of having to buy everything.

It creates and connects communities – both geographically and by interest. This enables you to meet like-minded people and trade within a special interest group. SwapAce.com also has personalised features which allow users to create a list of items you want and when someone posts something on SwapAce.com that is on your list, will suggest potential matches – increasing your chance of success.

Let us leran more about SwapAce.com from Joseph, this is what he has to say:

• How it started?
A gap was identified in the eBay net-based buy and sell model, so I set out to offer net users a unique village marketplace bartering approach. SwapAce.com was created so that users could swap and barter with items as well as buying and selling.

• How long it took before it was up and running?
The early days of the business were very challenging. I recruited a number of young people to join him, some just out of high school and some who had just finished university and soon there were 10 people working in the family home.

Four years later, and with additional funds from a government grant, SwapAce.com is now well placed to challenge eBay, the world’s largest online auction house.

• What stage of your start-up is, stealth mode, beta mode or fully functional?
Fully functional

• What is the main objective/mission behind your venture?
The main objective behind SwapAce.com is to offer users a unique experience with online bartering and negotiation.

• What services it provides it for consumer or customers?
SwapAce.com provides a place for its customers to swap, sell, buy and meet in a safe environment. And it’s free!

• What is unique about your venture?
SwapAce.com is a web-based system that enables users to buy, sell, swap and barter with virtually anything – products, services, events, etc. The company has patented several unique features which allow users to make multiple offers and negotiate the terms of the transaction until both parties are happy, enabling buyers to “shop around” during negotiation.

• What market segment verticals you are targeting for?
SwapAce.com is targeted at everybody.

• What type of customers you are targeting?
Anybody that has anything to swap or sell; or would like to buy and meet like-minded people.

• What age group of people will be benefited most?
Everybody can benefit from using this site, although the younger generation with less disposable income would benefit greatly as the site is free to swap, sell or buy.

• How many users are using your services?
SwapAce.com currently has over 200,000 members, from over 150 countries, and growing at a rapid rate.

• What sort of marketing you are using to spread the word?
SwapAce.com is predominantly marketed through online channels. We also use public relations.

• How are you measuring the success of your venture? Are their any special mechanisms/tools are in place to monitor the progress?
Some of the key performance indicators are:

  • Number of members (new and existing)
  • Number of advertisements
  • Number of offers
  • Number of agreements
  • Number of hits to the website
  • Cost to acquire a customer
A majority of this information is provided to us through our own reporting system (attached to our database), but we also use Google tools like Google Analytics.

• What is the monetizing/revenue model? Is their any new model, which is being tried?
To ensure our financial success, we have developed multiple revenue streams, including many options to provide a recurring revenue model.
Revenue from System Usage includes:
  • Purchasing Credits
  • Membership Fees
  • User-Pays Fees (like advertising & enhancement fees)
  • Premium Services (like SMS notifications)
  • Advanced Services (escrow services, insurances, mediation services)
Revenue from other sources includes:
  • Banner Advertising
  • Commissions (on sales and through our “barter dollars”)
  • Landing Pages (where people take ownership of a Community, or run a shop in SwapAce)
  • Alliances; and
  • Licensing (provides some interesting opportunities where our framework and engine can be re-branded and used by other organisations)
• Which are the main competitors or major players in this market segment?
eBay, freecycle, and other online auction sites.

• What are the main technologies used behind this start-up?
The main technologies include PHP and mySQL.

• What has been the most easy to use, out of box and helpful technology?
Our internal wiki (pmwiki) for our internal intranet.

• Are you using lot of open source tool sets for this?
Yes.
  • For development we use unix (for the operating system), PHP and cakePHP (for coding), mySQL, and postgresql (for databases).
  • Internally we also use bugzilla (for tracking software development), pmwiki (for an internal intranet), trixbox (as a VoIP server) and many other products.
• What is your operating environment (operating system) and what type of database you are using?
  • Unix, Windows and Mac.
  • mySQL, and postgresql and Microsoft Access.
• How often do you catch up with others trying similar things and where do you catch up. Do you have dedicated communities in your city?
Try to meet up at least once a month through various networking/ small business events in Sydney.

• How much money is needed upfront to start a venture?
Depends on the business venture.


• What are the main barriers in general for people start their venture in Australia.
  • Raising the capital needed to start the business
  • Building a capable and committed team
• What are your thoughts on the future trends of your service and market segment you are in?
We believe that swapping (e.g. the swapping of products and/or time) will be increasing popular; especially for cash-poor individuals and organisations … for example, I can swap 1 hour of my time for 1 hour of your time.

• Do you have any advice for people who want to start their venture?
  • Never give up
  • Don’t take no for an answer
  • Find other people who share your vision
  • Surround yourself with other people who are in the same situation as yourself
  • The government offers a lot of support – you should utilise this options
  • The measure of success is not how many times you fall over, but how many times you can pick yourself back up again
Thanks Joseph for sharing your thoughts. We look forward to hear from you in future on the progress of SwapAce.com. All the best for SwapAce.com and the competition in this carnival.

Continue Reading >>