startups – Startup Daily

mypresences

For small business owners and startups alike, managing one's online footprint can be somewhat of an arduous task. For starters, it is often very unclear what is working and, for the newcomer to business, there are hundreds of social media channels and groups to be a part of. Having some sort of presence on each platform in existence is not just overwhelming, it is completely unmanageable. Brisbane based startup myPresences, founded by Paul Gordon, was created to solve what is quite often an assumed issue: that small business owners have very little understanding of what is happening online around their business, do not have the time to properly manage their presence and reputation online, and have little understanding on how to do so. As a result, this means that business owners are not taking advantage of possible opportunities to enhance their business by tapping into suboptimal online platforms and taking advantage of reviews and ratings sites. "We believe that online [web and apps] will only become more important for local business each year going forward as more consumers use online as their primary method to connect with the business around them, and new technologies emerge to make it even more convenient," said Gordon. myPresences has built a local marketing platform that streamlines the functionality of many different online solutions into a single platform. It covers social media management, online review management, influencer management, media monitoring (photos/videos), search engine management, listing/profile management and much more into a single platform that is designed to cover everything that a small business owner would need. The platform does this across more than 300 services and apps worldwide. As part of the platform, myPresences has an API that helps service providers and app developers worldwide connect with its users in a way that the startup claims has never been done before, and that this is a central part of the company strategy moving forward. "Ultimately we intend to be much more and aim to be the first place small business owners go when the go online each day," says Gordon. "This is because we provide them with everything they need to know about the online face of their business and provide them with the best place to find new opportunities for their business online. We want to be as ubiquitous with small business owners as LinkedIn is for professionals." The trouble with platforms like this is that getting and keeping traction/stickiness among small business owners is notoriously hard. In December 2012, Dan Norris launched his first business prior to current ventures WP Curve and Helloify called Inform.ly. That venture was very similar to what myPresences is trying to do, albeit leaning slightly more towards technology driven businesses than small businesses per se. In the end, Norris decided to fold the business after lack of traction. Having said that, it should be noted that Gordon is not a novice. He has been actively involved in the startup space for the last 20 years and is the founder and CTO of Shortcuts Software. It also happens to be the world's largest provider of software for salons and spas, with over 15,000 locations worldwide. The business was acquired in 2013 by Constellation software. "myPresences was conceived when I was researching online for salons when we were building an online directory for salons about 4 years ago, and I realised there was little support for the small business owner to cope with all the new services that were appearing where consumers could interact with and talk about their business. After Shortcuts was acquired I moved full time to building myPresences," Gordon said. The platform has an attractive UI and an intuitive UX that is easy to navigate, so from a cosmetic perspective everything about the startup is ready for customers. The big challenge is getting those small business owners who, as stated by Gordon himself, are already 'busy' people - will they be persuaded to take time out of that schedule to invest in learning to use a new platform? Only time can answer that question. Gordon is just starting to look for capital to expand and scale the business this year. myPresences is currently in a limited public beta with about 150 businesses on the platform, with the view to have a full-scale launch soon.

fishburners

By its very definition, a good coworking space isn’t just about the ping pong tables, nap pods, and coffee machine, but community. With Sydney's Fishburners nestled between ABC, UTS, and TAFE buildings on Harris St in Ultimo, a street populated by more startups than any other around Australia, you might be hard pressed to find a bigger community on just one road. Named after one of the ships in the First Fleet, Fishburners is a not for profit founded by Peter Davison and Mike Casey in 2011. It’s now overseen by AdMuncher founder Murray Hurps, who originally joined the space with a startup. Hurps said he accepted the role of general manager because he believes Fishburners is truly focused on helping startups. It’s helping more and more: as Australia’s largest coworking space, Fishburners has come off its biggest six months yet and is now home to over 100 startups and almost 200 people. The growth means that there are more startups applying than Fishburners can accommodate. On average, startups stay for 12 to 18 months, before graduating to their own larger spaces. With just one startup leaving each month, space is at a premium. As a result, new applications are judged on two main criteria: is the company scalable and impactful, and is there confidence that the team will be able to execute their plan? Hurps believes that by being selective, Fishburners ensures startups get value out of being part of an innovative, collaborative community. For Hurps, this community is Fishburners’ greatest asset. Startups are constantly learning from each other and sharing their expertise, while new ventures have also come out of collaborations. He also sees the four storey building as a watering hole of sorts: Fishburners holds various startup events almost every other day, attracting 300 to 400 outside visitors per week. Its Friday night pitch sessions alone regularly attract 100 visitors. While Hurps said he would like to be able to attract investor attention for the startups, the not for profit nature of the space makes this a difficult issue. Fishburners does not currently facilitate investment, needing to tread carefully to ensure all activities are purely in the interests of its members - this focus on working purely in the interests of its startups is Fishburners’ driving mantra. Hurps said Fishburners is also more about attracting pro-bono services for its startups rather than delivering specific services itself. It has been able to keep going thanks to sponsors like Google, PwC, Xero, Optus, and News Corp. “This ties in with our ethos around not competing with anyone that's already doing an amazing job. There are great companies around working hard to help startups, and we're happy to ensure their generosity reaches our members,” Hurps said. It's this generosity that Fishburners relies on. Though it offers full time desks for $400 per month, part time space for $300 a month, and hot desks for $40 a day, space in Sydney is at a premium and, as rents skyrocket, most of the fees are put into keeping Fishburners open on Harris St. The members, for their part, seem happy. One of them is Tom Walenkamp of soon-to-be-launched startup The Wine Gallery. He said that he discovered Fishburners after searching for Sydney startup events online. After working on his startup at home for four months, he decided to join Fishburners. “I thought Fishburners would be a great place to come and work, and it really has. I’ve met inspirational and useful people here. I’ve got a corporate finance background, which is great but it’s not relevant to startups, so coming here I’ve been able to get a lot of information on the day to day practicalities of getting something startup,” Walenkamp said. “Everyone’s so welcoming and generous with their time. You just have to go up to someone and ask them a question, or ask if they know someone who’s had experience with a certain thing, and they’ll lead you straight over. It’s very collaborative.” With some exciting news in the works, the future looks bright for Fishburners. Hurps said, “It only takes a few big success stories to really move the needle for a country the size of Australia, and we have all the ingredients here waiting for the right support to bring them together.”

uberairbnb

Life as/in a start-up is already a challenge, but some daring entrepreneurs add even more of a challenge by solving a customer problem/job in a two-sided market. Put simply: in a two-sided market there are two sets of customers for the company. The value proposition needs to be appealing to both for the company to succeed and the value of the product or service also increases as the number of customers grows - network effect. [Source: LinkedIn]

censor

The Chinese Government otherwise known as the internet fun police, have confirmed that this Sunday, March 1st will be the day that a new law banning the use of "certain kinds of usernames" online across the country will come into full effect. The new regulations called 'Internet User Account Name Regulations' will mean that internet based startups and existing companies in China will be forced to make sure that users of their sites are signing up with real-name registration and not, for example fake celebrity or heads of state names that could "cause chaos". China News reports that the laws are designed to make the internet a more 'cool and bright' place to be.

According to regulations, all Internet users account name on the Internet Information Services for registration subject to the nine rules, including not violate the Constitution and laws; not endanger national security, leaking state secrets, subverting state power, undermining national unity; not incite ethnic hatred ethnic discrimination, undermining national unity; not spreading obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, murder and other content. Any violation, the account will be imposed a suspended until logout. National Network Information Office deputy 任彭波 [Peng Bo] said that a goal of the remediation action is " to see the name of someone on the Internet, it is not disgusting, not chaos, is comfortable "to make cyberspace more cool and bright.

Basically under the new rules the following types of usernames would be banned, as explained by TechinAsia.

Usernames impersonating or satirising public figures (no more usernames with “Obama” or “Putin” in them, for example)
Usernames that harm national security, reveal state secrets, subvert government authority, or harm national unity.
Usernames that incite ethnic/racial hatred, discriminate against an ethnicity, or harm national ethnic unity
Usernames that promote/disseminate vulgarity, pornography, gambling, violence, or assassination.

The way in which the implementation of these rules plans to be carried out is by giving users a limited amount of time to change their user names, before having their accounts deleted permanently. Although the new rules may seem quite extreme, the fact that the onus has been placed on the internet companies themselves to police this makes me think that, much like our ISP's and copyright laws here in Australia that this won't be implemented as heavily as the Chinese Government hopes that it will.

exec team (1)

In its bid to become the largest internet conglomerate in the world outside of China and the US, another Rocket Internet backed startup officially launches into the Australian market today aiming to take a slice of the country's $752 million self-storage market. German founded startup SpaceWays has chosen Sydney as its fifth market to launch in, having spent the last couple of months organising warehousing space and implementing the correct infrastructure so it has the ability to scale quickly. The startup was founded by a trio who have known each other for over a decade; David Fuchs, Martin Twellmeyer and Rob Rebholz had always said they wanted to launch a company together. Unlike many other Rocket Internet backed startups, the three founders are actually the founders according to Rebholz. The company is well known for 'recruiting' founders to join startups as opposed to the founders actually coming up with and creating the original idea. It should be noted though that in the case of SpaceWays, Rocket Internet has still commanded a considerable percentage of the company with the three founders and the ecommerce juggernaut sharing an equal slice of the pie four ways. Fuchs, Twellmeyer and Rebholz all seem to meet the typical criteria that Rocket Internet has become famous for investing in, mostly men, with backgrounds in investment or management consulting and in the case of Fuchs experience working within another Rocket Internet startup in a different market overseas. Having said that, this formula has catapulted Rocket Internet into becoming one of the most globally successful companies on the Frankfurt stock exchange with a market capitalisation of over $8 billion. It's also worth noting that Rocket Internet founder Oliver Samwar does not consider his company an incubator or accelerator. He was very specific and pointed when asked the question at last year's Digital Life Design Conference in Munich that his company was a platform "backed by a methodical process repeated over and over" . Whilst it could be argued that is pretty much the same definition as an incubator or accelerator, Samwar said that he prefers Rocket Internet to be known as a platform. SpaceWays, having already proven itself to be a successful part of that platform in the markets of London, Paris, Chicago and Toronto, is one of the startups within Rocket Internet's portfolio that seems to be rapidly growing attracting an interesting mix of both consumer and business based clientele. The startup is a web based system with an offline delivery and pickup component. Basically, SpaceWays lets users store items they don't have the room for in a simple and seamless way. Whether it's old books, clothes or even business documents and files that legal and accountancy firms need to keep for a set period of time, SpaceWays caters for all types. The company's signature heavy-duty storage containers are dropped off for free to users and then are picked up - again for free for up to eight containers - when filled and ready for storage. Naturally, when it comes to storage of documents for business, one has to question the security methods the startup employs to guarantee that possible sensitive documents or belongings are not tampered with. Rebholz told Startup Daily that security was important and front and centre of everything the company does. "The items that people store with us usually have a high emotional value, or they have a high value because they might be business documents that [the customer] can't lose. So our warehouses are not accessible to the public, we have a pretty sophisticated warehouse management system that we use around the world and we have CCTV monitoring systems as well" he said. Whilst traction is evident around SpaceWays, the company - like all startups that Rocket Internet is involved with - refused to talk about company valuation, users or revenue. What we do know is that currently there are five warehouses with a capacity to hold between 10,000 to 50,000 boxes each. This means that, just based on the $9.90 monthly storage fee per box without taking into consideration any other fees or services that based on one Sydney warehouse SpaceWays revenue potential would be between $99,000 and $495,000 a month. Currently SpaceWays has 30 employees worldwide and is sharing Australian headquarters with fellow Rocket Internet startup Shopwings that has also recently launched into the Australian market.

GemmaTripalocal

The online travel industry is worth about $516 million in Australia, according to IBIS World. It is also one of the strongest performing Australian industries with constant growth year on year and for the foreseeable future. One of the areas in this space that represents a strong opportunity for Australia is the inbound travellers that come to Australia each year. Tripalocal, one of the startups currently going through the muru-D program is aiming to do just that with its newly launched travel experience platform. Co-founded by Jemma Xu (CEO) and Yiyi Wang (CTO), with ex-Microsoft and recent Ph.D graduate / Doctor of Cloud Computing (Andrew) Yi Han leading up the development team, Tripalocal is aiming to dominate a niche part of the travel market with the type of platform that a handful of tech entrepreneurs in Australia have attempted to build, but sadly closed soon after. Traction was the major issue in all cases. In its simplest form, Tripalocal is an online platform that connects travellers with locals so that they can have authentic experiences. Xu told Startup Daily that the overarching goal is to bring travel back to its core - that is, the discovery of new people, experiences and culture. Of course, like other models that have existed over the past couple of years, suppliers make money from selling their 'experiences'. From the outset, Tripalocal is focusing on inbound travellers coming into Australia from China. Over 1 million travellers came to the country from China last year, and the numbers have been increasing since Australia and China signed the free trade agreement. Tripalocal is expecting the amount of travellers to increase by a conservative 20 percent over the next two to three years. Not only does this mean that Tripalocal has to be a two-sided marketplace, because of its target market, the website needs to be bilingual. Xu says that this is important and is precisely the reason that in one click the website can convert to either Chinese or English. [caption id="attachment_38328" align="aligncenter" width="549"]

Screenshot of Tripalocal English version of the site[/caption] [caption id="attachment_38329" align="aligncenter" width="543"]

Screenshot of Tripalocal Chinese version of the site[/caption]

This does not necessarily mean that once users arrive in Australia and engage the experience they have purchased, that they expect the suppliers of those experiences to also speak perfect Mandarin. In fact Xu says that the vast majority of customers to date prefer that the suppliers only speak in English, mostly because it makes the experience much more authentic.

"So far we have found that the travellers who have come to our platform are quite comfortable speaking conversational english, and sometimes they actually prefer a host [our suppliers of experiences] do not speak Chinese as it makes it a more authentic experience, and is a good way for them to practice their english," says Xu.

"But having said that there are also those who prefer the hosts who actually speak Chinese, so for our platform, we have both, both bilingual ones and also just english speaking ones."

This bilingual feature is one of the core components that was missing from startups like Arribaa that launched in 2013 with a similar concept of allowing travellers to have genuine experiences with passionate locals. When Arribaa launched, the idea sounded solid - the startup raised funding, and the site experienced some uplift in the beginning. In hindsight, perhaps the thing that led to the startup's eventual demise was the lack of a niche focus around building a 'traveller pipeline'. Tripalocal has managed to implement both of these things as core features. The niche focus is obviously outbound Chinese travellers; and the startup is using two very calculated marketing strategies to keep a pipeline of interested users travelling through. It is the travellers that are the key in this startup succeeding, as suppliers will naturally flock to a platform where money can be made, as those with the wallets begin to scale. Xu told Startup Daily and also mentioned in her Chinese Investor Night presentation at muru-D, that Tripalocal had formed some strategic partnerships and affiliate arrangements with online travel platforms in China, which has put the startup in front of some quite substantial databases full of potential customers. The other marketing strategy that Xu says the startup is seeing significant traction from is the Chinese based application WeChat backed by Chinese ISP Tencent, Inc. The app has recently introduced business profiles; and users are able to follow and engage with those companies. To give you some insight into the power that this particular social media company is wielding right now, in China, CCTV recently utilised WeChat during its New Years Eve Gala that was broadcasted on the network. Aside from the fact that even in its 32nd year it happens to be one of the most watched television shows on the planet (even though it had a record low of around 700 million viewers this year), the combination of the television channel and WeChat giving away $80 million in prize money on the night produced some mind blowing social media statistics. Users had to shake their smartphones at the television set to have a chance at winning the prize money; and Chinese viewers did this over 11 billion times that night. Whilst Xu is under no illusion that Tripalocal is not in a financial position to run that kind of campaign on the WeChat platform, she told Startup Daily that it is driving users organically, and expects it to continue to grow as the brand gains more followers. So how exactly is the Tripalocal team gaining so much traction in the Chinese market at such an early stage? If you think that the answer is the team had connections already in place, you would be mistaken. Xu says that prior to joining muru-D, she had zero connections in the Chinese market. The only advantage she and her team had was that they can speak the language. Xu says that her biggest help came from the mentors within the muru-D program, and that when the teams were tasked with finding additional investors to go in at the same valuation as Telstra (muru-D) was, she picked up the phone and called venture capital firms and investors based in China. As a result of that Tripalocal has a strong advisory board with three strong female advisors that also happen to be based in China. Fan Wang is the Director of Strategic Investments at Trends Media Group, Xinhua Zhou is a partner at HGI FINAVES China Fund and Tina Ni is the Investment Director at Shanghai NCE Ventures. Attaching these names as well as the others that sit on the Tripalocal advisory board meant that when Xu went on her first trip to China at the start of the year, she already had 20 to 30 meetings lined up with various investors and potential partners and it has continued to have a snowball effect with "so many doors opening" for the startup within the Chinese market. Tripalocal is currently in the middle of closing its first major round of funding. Althought Xu was quiet on the specifics, she did mention that it would be somewhere in the vicinity of US$500,000 and $1 million. Xu is currently talking with many VC firms in China about this and it is highly likely that she will also be looking towards Australia for investor interest as well.

Startup Daily has formally partnered with Muru-D over the next 12 
months to bring you the stories of its startups, mentors and 
investors.

Tony Kramer SparkStarter

Blind dates set up by mutual friends have a bad track record in romantic comedies, but a new startup has taken the concept and created a platform it hopes will change the online dating landscape through trust. Launched earlier this month, Minneapolis startup SparkStarter works through Facebook to allow users to browse friends of friends and then ‘vote up’ if they find someone they would like to be introduced to. Those happily coupled can get in on the fun too, introducing friends to each other by voting up a potential match. It’s then up to the two people to decide whether they want to act on the match. Benjamin Hohl, co-founder and chief operating and business officer of SparkStarter, said the idea came when his co-founder and SparkStarter CEO Tony Kramer was set up with his now-wife by a friend. “He was discussing the typical struggles of dating with a friend. His friend told him that he must know someone in his network that would be good for Tony, and they proceeded to actually sit down and scroll through his friends on Facebook,” Hohl said. SparkStarter is just the latest in a long line of dating services to hit an extremely saturated market. From the traditional sites like OKCupid and EHarmony to younger, hip apps like Tinder and its many niche offshoots, there are hundreds of companies trying to get a slice of the online dating pie. However, Hohl believes the service can succeed in the crowded online dating space because, by involving friends, it does something most other dating platforms don’t. “We are convinced, and think most people would agree, that friends know you better than any series of questions or any complex algorithm ever can. At the end of the day it can be boiled down to a simple question: Are you more likely to go on a date with someone that a close friend personally recommends, or with a complete stranger that a computer suggests?” Hohl said. While he admits the concept of the blind date sometimes deserves the bad reputation it has, Hohl said that knowing you have a mutual friend in common goes a long way for users, particularly those who may be concerned about safety on mainstream dating sites. “There was obviously a reason a mutual friend decided to set you up, and it's up to you to evaluate your friend's matchmaking skills. In addition to this, safety in dating is a huge concern these days. With traditional online dating there is always the unfortunate chance that you are being ‘catfished’; luckily, when a friend is involved that knows both parties, you can be sure that safety is not a concern,” Hohl explained. Already counting over half a million profiles, SparkStarter’s beta testing showed its team that matchmakers in particular love the concept. “We found that matchmakers were making up right around 50 per cent of our user base, and interestingly enough were actually engaging even more than the singles. This is when we knew we were really on to something,” Hohl said. This is an interesting point. After all, the online dating market excludes a significant portion of the population. A service like SparkStarter allows those in relationships to get in on the fun, and essentially doubles the potential reach of the platform. However, the idea of letting friends play Cupid online isn’t exactly new. My Mate Your Date, an Australian startup launched last year, essentially does the same thing as SparkStarter. However, SparkStarter has already gained more traction than its Australian counterpart, and has also attracted financing from unnamed investors in Minnesota and San Francisco. According to Hohl, SparkStarter is currently in discussions with companies interested in partnering with the startup to launch its service overseas, while also looking into ways to do expand on its own.

Image via SparkStarter.

_37A2789

Last year, we published a story on the launch of a new ecommerce brand called Frank Body that sells coffee based skincare products. The startup leapt out of the gates as an instant hit, mostly due to its on point marketing strategy which has not only been one of the most effective social media campaigns by an Australian startup in the last 12 months, but it has converted brand awareness into cash, and buyers into loyal fans. The masses of Frank Body fans from across the globe have been aptly dubbed 'frankfurts'. The co-founding team of Erika Geraerts, Jess Hatzis and Bree Johnson along with Steve Rowley and Alex Boffa created the company to help users reduce cellulite and other skin 'imperfections'. They use ground coffee beans laced with a concoction of exotic fruit and scented plant oils. “Like a lot of people, we were disenchanted with our current exfoliators: big promises, price tags, chemical components and brands with no personality. Frank Body is a simple product with a simple strategy, to make women feel great about themselves,” said Johnson. Interestingly, a lot of the sales for Frank Body come from Instagram, which is by far, the business' most successful social media channel. And the business announced this week that revenue this financial year will most likely exceed the $20 million mark - making it one of the fastest ecommerce starters in the country. The startup is also being backed by Officeworks at the moment (from a non-financial promotional perspective). Officeworks is promoting this pending milestone publicly as part of the company's entrepreneurial focused campaign in conjunction with the sponsorship being shown around Channel Ten programme Shark Tank. Whilst it might seem like a bit of a mismatch from a promotional standpoint, the fact that Officeworks is putting such a focus on the startup space sends a strong message out to the ecosystem about the willingness of enterprise to get involved with new and creative ideas. [caption id="attachment_38382" align="aligncenter" width="588"]

Frank Body has incredibly on point branding.[/caption] The Frank team has also recently started to add new products to the mix outside of the body scrub line, launching a new body balm product last year. With such strong branding and packaging teamed with an impeccable UI and UX on the website, it is no wonder that the company is turning into the beauty and cosmetics juggernaut that it is. Frank Body products are manufactured in Melbourne and sold exclusively via their online store - a clever move considering their customer base is rapidly growing across the United States, Canada, Europe and the United Kingdom. In fact these markets are rapidly catching up to its original and largest market, Australia.

SolarQuotes Finn Peacock

With the carbon tax and climate change sources of never-ending debate among politicians and on talk radio and Q & A over the last few years, Australians have become increasingly aware of the environmental challenges facing the country, and entrepreneurs have launched businesses to help solve some of them. One such entrepreneur is Finn Peacock, an engineer who used to work on coal mines before ‘defecting’ to CSIRO. After becoming disillusioned with the time it took to get the green light for projects at CSIRO, Peacock came up with the idea for SolarQuotes, a website providing consumers with reliable reviews and quotes for solar panels. After selling the family house in Newcastle and spending three months camping with his wife and two kids, Peacock arrived in Adelaide and started working on the business out of the Brighton library in 2009. Back then, SolarQuotes simply asked consumers to fill out a form asking for a quote, which Peacock would then forward on to solar companies he found in the Yellow Pages. As people started asking for quotes, Peacock wrote to every accredited solar provider in Adelaide, asking if they wanted to properly come on board with the site. Peacock used his profits to expand into NSW after three months, and kept expanding into a new state every three months until SolarQuotes was nationwide. He said this allow his cash flow demands to scale up slowly and organically, meaning he didn’t need to expose himself to debt or bring on investors. “My first hires were all through rentacoder.com. When it started to get serious I realised I needed a local to handle my IT because they would have access to sensitive information and server passwords and would be able to screw me royally if they turned out to be evil. I knew that if I hired a local Aussie via Odesk, I could always go after them legally if they ripped me off,” Peacock said. “I found a Sydney based IT guru who started out with a few hours a week, but was so good he came on board full time after 6 months. Odesk and similar sites are very powerful for testing potential new hires out with small projects before committing to a full time position.” Peacock said the nature of the business means he was regularly threatened with lawsuits when the site first started. “We collected reviews of solar installers, including some really bad reviews of really bad companies - and some really good ones of really good companies too! The companies told us they would sue us if we did not remove the bad review,” he said. “One huge solar company threatened us with trademark violation for using their company name on their review page on our site! Blatant bullying in the name of ‘reputation management’. Our policy has always been that if it is a true reflection of the customer's experience, it stays. A friend recommended a lawyer who really understands internet law in Australia who exposed the threats as legally baseless. But it was incredibly stressful at the time.” With 160 solar clients now on board and over 200,00 Australians having gotten quotes through his business, Peacock believes Australia is a great place to have an environmental startup - though such startups could do with some more government support. “We only have one main problem: the Abbott government's ideological hatred of both renewables and fast internet. The constant beating up of renewables as expensive and overhyped really does dampen many consumers' enthusiasm for investing in their own solar system,” he said. "And as someone that owns an internet business don't even get me started on the NBN. If I want to send a hi-def video advert for some modification by an offshore video editor, the fastest way is to FedEx it on DVD!"

Scutify

If Scutify has not been a startup on your radar until recently, there is a very good reason for that: the company has been quietly working on its product offering in the background away from the noise of main ecosystem, avoiding press and marketing activities for the better part of 2014. But as the startup prepares to aggressively scale its user base in 2015, the company is beginning to build itself a reputation, especially across the growing space of financial technologies. Founded by Kheang Ly, who has been working with his business partner Cody Willard, Scutify is a social network for investors and traders, as well as newcomers to the markets. Ly explains it as having similarities to Facebook, except with more of a core focus around a single subject matter - individuals that share a common interest around successful investing and trading. The engagement on the platform is enhanced by the platforms 'Scutify All-Stars' - hand selected people from the financial community, such as Hedge Fund Managers, Trading Coaches, Day Traders, and Long Term Investors that provide the community with an abundance of knowledge. The way in which this knowledge is disseminated is via the company's so called 'iTunes of Finance' model that allows users to purchase premium content like trade ideas and research reports, as well as getting access to trading rooms for as low as $0.99. Even though Scutify is an Australian startup, it is beginning to experience some very solid traction within the United States. The way the founders split their time has Willard looking after a lot of things state-side while Ly, who is also the CEO of the company, concentrates on ensuring strong growth across all aspects of the business, with a focus right now of building a strong Australian user base. "We spent 2014 focused on building and enhancing the platform and are quite happy with what we have," said Ly. "For 2015 we are focusing on the marketing side of things and building our user base ,and getting the word out about what we are doing via different channels, including the media." Scutify appears to sit as kind of a hybrid between a media startup and a FinTech play. Given the fact that the front page is constantly changing every couple of minutes with new posts from users, it seems fairly safe to say that a degree of stickiness has begun to develop on the platform. Personally, I feel that the UI and UX could do with a bit of a tidy up. The front page for me is a little 'busy' - having said that, I am also well aware that perhaps I am not the target audience and that in its current format, the site does have a certain 'reddit-like' rawness about it that is definitely attractive to a particular niche audience. The most interesting thing about the company to date, in my opinion, is the fact that in the last year it has raised two rounds of seed funding and, at the time, nobody caught a whiff of it. While it is not uncommon for smaller amounts of fundraising between $50,000 and say, $200,000 to often go unnoticed and unreported across the startup ecosystem, it is extremely odd not to hear about a round of $1 million in funding followed by a further $500,000 round less than 10 months later. Scutify has taken a very different approach to raising capital, opting not to entertain the idea of having a single private investor or venture capital firm come on board - instead when it came to raising funds, Ky and Willard reached out to the platform's early adopters, which is where they ended up raising all their funding. There are a couple of individuals and companies that own significantly larger shares within the company, with Ky and Willard remaining the majority shareholders, but Scutify actually has about 150 individual shareholders that own varying slices of the pie. For most people - including myself - the thought of managing that many investor relationships at such an early stage of the business seems overwhelming and quite frankly like a bit of a nightmare. However, we need to remember that Willard in particular is a globally renowned professional in this space, having structured many deals like this throughout his long and successful career within the American finance sector. The investment to date has given Scutify a market capitalisation of US$25 million. It should also be noted that having a platform's early adopters as investors goes a long way in guaranteeing they stick with the platform and proactively contribute to its growth - skin in the game is always a successful formula for recruiting long term ambassadors for a new product or service. Right now, monetisation of the application of the app is not number one on Ly's priority list. The mechanism is in place and the startup is making money via its premium content services, but for Ly the future success of the business relies heavily on growing the users on the website as well as the Scutify app, which Ly claims already has over 120,000 downloads.

UreferjobsPhotos

Back in 2013 when Mahesh Muralidhar launched his startup Ureferjobs, the potential the business had to change the approach companies have towards recruitment was evident. However, in such a competitive and crowded vertical, achieving the level of scale he was after meant that Muralidhar needed to be knocked down a couple of times and learn a few things about exactly what it was his customers wanted and where exactly his platform would fit within the 'recruitment space'. In 2014 those learnings were accelerated after Ureferjobs was accepted and went through the INCUBATE accelerator program at Sydney University. A number of pivotal changes were made to the platform to give the startup an entirely new value proposition, which in my opinion has made the venture a startup to keep an eye on in 2015. The way the platform works is that it allows users to refer jobs to their peers and win significant cash rewards if it is their referral that leads to a placement. Companies post their jobs on the platform and allocate cash bounties of $2,000 or more for successful referrals - this gamifies the recruitment process and allows companies to benefit from a much faster and more cost effective turn around time, given that referrals make up for a large bulk of hires - especially within technology companies. From an outsider's perspective, you would be forgiven for just thinking that Ureferjobs is just another 'job search' platform with its signature 'bounty' component as the main point of difference. In fact, I would say that this is the biggest false-perception that the startup will need to overcome. While it is true that things were that simple in the beginning, during the time at INCUBATE the startup under-went a slight pivot to enhance its product offering and create a degree of engagement that I personally think other platforms within the job search space fail to provide. Ureferjobs is now an end-to-end hiring platform. While Muralidhar - who has a strong background in recruitment himself - understands that the 'sourcing' aspect of the recruitment process is quite often one of the biggest pain points for companies searching for talent, managing the process is just as difficult and time consuming. The aim is for Ureferjobs to become an integrated part of (at first technology companies') HR and talent search processes. This has meant that, in addition to the external referral features of the site, an employee referral system has been created. Also, companies can build a profile page so that potential candidates can get to know a bit more about them when searching for jobs, and key stakeholders within the company can work through the entire recruitment process within the platform without having to send emails and use multiple technologies. The system is intuitive with an applicant tracking system, online collaboration, avoids the need for emails, and is made for businesses, so they can avoid the exorbitant costs recruitment firms charge and enjoy a seamless recruitment process. To date, Ureferjobs has remained completely bootstrapped as a company, choosing to focus on the product and customers. In doing this, the team of four full timers has been working nearly exclusively with four technology companies to nail the product and get it exactly right. Those customers are Balance Labs, Uber, Freelancer, GoCatch, and Canva, who currently have various jobs on the platform. The great thing is that this also means that the platform is making sales and has been able to take care of all its costs through these sales, a rarity in such an early stage business within this particular industry. From a product perspective, the startup has also hired a full time UI designer very early on as a core employee. Muralidhar told Startup Daily that the look and feel of the site plays a major role in the continued use of the site by customers, and says that he thinks even though most startups would not usually invest in this type of role prior to raising capital, he feels it was a smart tactical decision for the company. Ureferjobs will undergo a seed funding round this year of between $300,000 and $500,000. This will most likely be cash from Australian and New Zealand investors who are currently showing some strong interest in the platform.

Untitled design

This year, there seems to be a real focus on the Asian startup ecosystem. Already, within the first eight weeks of the year there has been an unprecedented amount of tours, educational trips and launches announced involving the region. Some of note include Pozible's initiative with the Shenzhen government in the Internet of Things space, the upcoming China tour by muru-D startups and of course the new focuses by both TechinAsia and e27 Echelon Ignite approaching some parts of the publications' respective conferences from a regional perspective. Added to that, co-founder of Technode and Koombah and Forbes.com contributor Jason Lim along with business partner Mathew Benjamin are announcing the launch of an exclusive Asian startup focused event called Asia Recon. The initiative will see 12 delegates from Australia chosen to participate in a seven-day tour to Singapore, Shanghai and Beijing from the 6th to 13th of September this year. The tour will be taking the delegation around local tech company offices, corporate innovation and research and development centres, startups, incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces as well as technology parks. The aim of the tour is to help foster and develop stronger relationships between Australia and Asia across the areas of technology, innovation and entrepreneurship.

"Asia Recon is a tour for Australian tech leaders to three of Asia’s most exciting tech hubs: Singapore, Shanghai and Beijing. Like a real reconnaissance mission, the goal is to take the best representatives from Australia, to visit Asia and bring back new insights, ideas and relationships for the future benefit of Australia," said Lim.

"More importantly, they will meet local high profile entrepreneurs, investors, accelerator managers and their advisors who will share deep experience and insight about doing business in Asia".

Partners that have already confirmed to be part of the tour include Innovation Works, the most prestigious incubator in China, App Annie (raised $55 million in January), Blk 47 (backed by Singapore government), and a US$500 million investment fund.

The idea for this tour came about after Lim returned home to Sydney last year and gave some presentations about China's tech startup ecosystem at places like Fishburners and BlueChilli. After seeing the strong sense of curiosity about Asia and realising there was a deep knowledge gap about it, particularly from an Australian perspective, Lim decided to do something to bridge that gap so Australian startups would become aware of the abundance of opportunities awaiting them across Asia.

"As an indicator of size, in terms of venture capital funds invested in 2013, there was US$3.46 Billion into Chinese startups, US$1.71 Billion into Singaporean startups and just US$490 Million into Australian startups. China’s largest tech company is worth well over US$100 Billion and Australia’s is less than US$10 Billion" said Lim.

"With the recently signed Free Trade Agreement with China as well as Australia’s mining slowdown, it is now a perfect time for Australian entrepreneurs, investors and their advisors to take full advantage of the tech boom in the region. With deep capital, human talent, and market size, Asia offers amazing opportunities".

If all goes well, Asia Recon will expand its tour offering to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and India as well as other emerging tech hubs in Asia over the next 12 months.

Applications are now open for interested entrepreneurs, investors and corporates that are interested in taking part in the event until March 30th here.

InvoiceBid

Talk to nearly any small business owner about problems they face in the day to day running of their business, from a new startup through to an established SME, and there’s a very good chance the topic of cash flow will come up. Having both worked in accounting and banking, Melbourne husband and wife pair Andrew and Charlotte Petris have seen clients struggling with the problem first hand. Thinking there had to be a way to use technology to give SMBs a better deal, they came up with InvoiceBid. The platform allows businesses to have their invoices funded by investors who bid on each invoice, giving businesses access to working capital immediately instead of waiting up to 120 days for their invoice to be paid by a debtor. Invoices must have a minimum value of $10,000, with a maximum value of $1 million. “Growing up working in a family business, I experienced first-hand the constraints that stem from a lack of cash flow. Following a career in finance I worked with all business sizes from startups to large companies, advising on raising capital. I noticed how tough this process was for SMEs and also how finance has not kept pace with changes in technology. The banking and finance industry has been largely unchanged for decades,” Charlotte said. The pair believe there is a huge untapped market for their business. “In Australia, 4,000 businesses use invoice finance, to a value of $63 billion of invoices each year. In addition to this, businesses have $240 billion in bank loans. Combined with the ‘unbanked’ market where 30 percent of SMEs have missed opportunities due to a lack of finance, the market size for InvoiceBid is significant,” Charlotte said. “Our product crosses all three of these market segments. Because we don’t discriminate by business size or sector, we have been able to help growing businesses that have never had access to finance before. And for those that have used invoice finance, we have been able to reduce their cost of finance by up to half.” By connecting businesses with investors directly, InvoiceBid reduces the fees businesses would be paying banks to access funds through invoice finance, with fees calculated according to invoice value and the length of time until it’s paid. While the advantages of InvoiceBid for small businesses are clear, Andrew believes the service is also a valuable tool for investors, who can buy a whole invoice or as little as 5 percent. “There are few options for investors in Australia, particularly in fixed income. Despite Australia having one of the largest superannuation industries in the world, close to $2 trillion, it has one of the lowest rates of returns to investors. A significant portion of the funds are held in cash deposits, providing inflation adjusted returns of close to zero. Introducing these funds to the InvoiceBid platform provides better returns for investors and enables the sharing of capital within the economy,” he said. The pair are primarily marketing their business through the network they developed working as chartered accountants, with word of mouth from existing customers also helping it grow. “Business owners are not always aware of all the options available, especially with new products entering the market, and do not have the time to research these and keep updated. We are utilising this network to raise awareness of InvoiceBid and other new and innovative alternative forms of finance that sit outside of the banks and financial institutions,” Charlotte said. The aim for the platform this year is to further integrate processes and improve the end user experience, with the Petrises aiming to have applications approved within minutes of uploading, with funding advanced the same day. “Our focus this year is also to build awareness of not only our product, but a whole new alternative finance industry that is developing in Australia that can benefit both businesses and consumers.”

Jo Burston III

"In 2013, I travelled around to schools in Australia and asked young girls what they thought an entrepreneur was, the majority of them had no idea. The very few that did answered "a man". I walked away from that experience feeling disappointed and determined to create change and opportunity for women in entrepreneurship". This is how Jo Burston opened her speech last week at a book launch that kickstarted the entrepreneurial movement she recently founded, Rare Birds. The book, Rare Birds: Australia's 50 most Influential Women Entrepreneurs, is the first in a series of coffee table style publications, profiles some of Australia's most significant female entrepreneurs with a deliberate focus on attributes outside from wealth like influence, pioneers of particular industries and overall contribution to their field and society. "This book is a call to each to ensure that every woman is given the opportunity to be an entrepreneur by choice," Burston said in a media statement. "This book is aimed at future changemakers and entrepreneurs to give them the inspiration, skills and resources to create a job, rather than get a job". It's worth noting that Rare Birds is a heavily business driven organisation. The movement is not about fluff and cheering women on from the sideline. The company has a very clear and pointed purpose, with its own financial goals - which are heavily centred around mentoring and funding. The funding aspect is a 'Deal Room' that helps get women entrepreneurs investor ready and most importantly investable. After going through this process, the women will then be ready to be introduced to funding partners such as angel investors, private investors and venture capitalists. At the media briefing prior to the book launch last Thursday, there were some very good points raised when it came to the topic of women and capital raising. Featured Rare Bird and Chairman of Biothoughts Topaz Conway expressed that even though women are becoming more confident when it comes to opening up conversations with investors, the amounts of capital they ask for are in most cases significantly less than that of males. There are a few mantras that Burston has integrated into the Rare Bird culture such as 'If she can, I can' and 'You've got to see it to be it', but for me the stand out attitude is the concept of 'Think Big, Ask Big'. Over the past four years speaking to startups every single day, one of the biggest contributors to failure that I have witnessed across many female entrepreneur founded businesses was the burn out of capital, crippling the ability of that venture to reach its next milestones and ultimately folding. The philosophy of 'Think Big, Ask Big' encourages a much needed mental shift with female founders that says to everyone 'my idea is going to change an industry and anything that has the ability to do that is going to require significant funding'. I would argue, however, that this goes way beyond capital raising. 'Asking Big' is not just about startup capital, it is about asking customers to pay for what you and the services/product you offer are worth. Discounting and undervaluing is another huge contributor to women either going out of business or inhibiting themselves from being able to think about scalability - literally selling themselves out of growth opportunities. 'Think Big, Ask Big' sends a clear message that the pursuit of profit is normal, something I personally feel more entrepreneurs both female and male need to embrace. The mentoring arm of Rare Birds is a paid program that costs women entrepreneurs $5,000 per year, which is roughly around $420 a month. While the program is self managed, in that the entrepreneur can do things at their own pace the technology supporting the program has been designed to help accelerate and support the growth of a user's business. "Be it financial, behavioural, learning or whatever the barriers are for the entrepreneur. With the right mentor and the right funding the women [can] accelerate growth and have the guidance they need," said Burston. In a way, there are similarities around this mentoring arm and the mentoring offered by Gen Y focused organisation The Entourage. The online based self-paced model that it offers to entrepreneurs has found success and currently has over 400 active paying members. Like Rare Birds it also pairs entrepreneurs with mentors so users can have one to one coaching and catchups aimed at setting goals and keeping users accountable for reaching those milestones. Given the public profile of not only Burston herself but the hundreds of high profile women of all ages involved with Rare Birds, it should not take long for membership of the Rare Birds mentor program to exceed 400 in which case not only will Rare Birds be one of Australia's leading communities for women entrepreneurs but a multimillion dollar company to boot.

TSL

Australian corporations are certainly beginning to take notice of startups and the innovations they could bring to the corporate world. The latest to demonstrate its support of the startup community is Ernst & Young (EY). Yesterday, the company announced a new multi-year sponsorship of Sydney-based co-working community Tank Stream Labs. Located in Sydney’s CBD and operating on a membership basis, Tank Stream Labs provides a collaborative space for startups to share otherwise unaffordable office spaces in Sydney. Having EY as a sponsor means the Tank Stream Labs will be able to provide additional support to its startups. EY Technology, Media & Entertainment and Telecommunications Leader David McGregor said EY’s sponsorship of TSL is about "developing new connections ... to financiers, to customers, potential partners or acquirers." "It’s building bridges between innovation-focused startups and larger corporates hungry for growth opportunities and new technologies,” he added. The sponsorship isn't unusual given EY's history of celebrating the work of entrepreneurs through its global Entrepreneur of the Year programme which has been running for 15 years as well as supporting entrepreneur-focused initiatives like Rare Birds. “There is enormous global market potential for Australian innovators and we’ve seen a number of successful examples of this. But we think there is ample potential for much, much more and the market remains largely untapped," said McGregor. Tank Stream Labs' General Manager Balder Tol said the organisation will be setting up an "in-house EY help centre where entrepreneurs can go for premium advice and support in IPO, capital raising, R&D Tax, M&A and risk management". "At TSL we cater to everyone from the one-man-band to the country's leading technology companies such as Airtasker and through this collaboration they will all benefit from real entrepreneurial support and advice," Tol added. "Startups have graduated from the garage or spare bedroom and are increasingly seeking a professional environment with all of the necessary support services nearby."

Careseekers

With Australia’s population ageing steadily, aged care providers are struggling to keep up with demand for their services. As demand grows, so do costs for care, but with serious concerns in the aged care space well documented by the media and advocacy groups, consumers also face challenges in finding reputable providers. After experiencing difficulties trying to find carers for their grandparents, who wanted to stay home and receive care rather than entering a facility, Sydney sisters Lauren Hockley and Marissa Sandler came up with the idea for Careseekers. Essentially a job search platform for the aged care space, the site allows carers to create profiles, explaining their experience and qualifications, which can then be browsed by those seeking carers. In turn, those seeking a carer can also post job ads. “Agency care was too expensive, government services had eligibility criteria and long waiting lists. In the end it was through word of mouth and a bit of luck that our family found some great carers who helped to look after our grandparents at a price that was affordable to our grandparents and fair to the carers,” Hockley said. “We decided that luck should not be the determining factor in finding reliable in-home carers and the more we spoke to other people in similar situations the more we saw that there was a need for a disruptor to the status quo, an online marketplace to find in-home carers. The need for this type of a service will only grow as Australia has an ageing population.” Hockley’s previously worked in marketing, while Sandler was a lawyer working in human rights and disability discrimination. The pair have worked together before, co-producing and directing a documentary about child trafficking in Cambodia in 2009. “We are both passionate about creating a business that helps people and have the same grand vision for Careseekers,” Hockley said. Work on the business started in April last year, with the carer side of the site launching in September. Now boasting several hundred carers signed up with profiles, the focus has switched to attracting care seekers. “We are initially focusing on three marketing strategies to attract customers to our site - search engine marketing, content marketing, and developing relationships with key stakeholders who we believe will refer clients to our site. Referrals will be key to our success, this includes referrals from community services, hospitals, GPs. We need to go to the places where people are looking for carers. Although this is an online business we will be attracting customers through online and offline channels,” Hockley said. Those searching for carers pay a one-off fee to search the database, contact carers, and post jobs. Careseekers also offers a concierge service, shortlisting candidates and conducting reference checks on behalf of a customer. Corporate packages are also available for organisations hiring carers on an ongoing basis, like group homes and residential aged care facilities. Niche job search platforms seem to be all the rage in startups at the moment. A new one seems to pop up every month, but their growth shows that particular industries have not been served well by mainstream platforms like Seek and CareerOne, simply due to the nature of the jobs in those industries. By allowing those searching for carers to bypass agencies and search for carers directly according to experience and personality, Careseekers gives users peace of mind that their parents or grandparents are in safe hands with the carer they have personally chosen. The potential for Careseekers to grow was seen by the NRMA, with Careseekers accepted into the organisation’s 12 week Jumpstart accelerator program earlier this year. The program, gave them $30,000 and connected them to mentors, also gives the startup access to the NRMA’s 2.4 million-strong customer base - many of them in the age group Careseekers is targeting. Hockley said, “Demo day is fast approaching and this is when we will hopefully be able to secure further investment.”

Sydney-based startup LegalVision announced this morning it has just finalised a Series A round of funding to the amount of $1.2 million. This brings the total amount raised by the startup to $1.5 million, with the initial $300,000 funding given to the startup early last year as a revenue loan. The funding was raised from a network of private investors, some of who were original supporters of the initial 'funding' round. While LegalVision have chosen to keep the names of those investors private at the request of the investors themselves, Startup Daily can confirm that at least two of them are also part of the Sydney Angels investment network. A handful of these investors were locked into this recent round not long after the initial revenue loan. LegalVision's founder Lachlan McKnight said the funds will allows the startup to provide better service to its customers. "We have some new technology products that we would like to introduce and we can continue to ramp up our resources, reaching more people and continue to make sure we provide a high quality service". It's worth noting that LegalVision operates a little differently to its 'competitor' startups like Law Path and Brief It. While working out the company's product-market fit, LegalVision found that one of its pain points was not being able to utilise lawyers that were wanting some casual work that were not set up correctly with the right provisions needed to practice law outside of an established firm or business. This prompted LegalVision to essentially become a practising law firm itself structured as a technology company. What this has meant, is that now in addition to full-time lawyers that work within the business, LegalVision can also give casual hours to talent that were otherwise not being utilised. One of the biggest feathers in LegalVision's cap is the way it has approached customer service. Many legal based tech startups struggle to get ongoing revenue traction that LegalVision has started to see. This comes from the law firm like approach that it has implemented into its business model. Right now the legal industry is trying to work out how to innovate to survive in a relatively tough economic environment and in a space where technology is fast changing the face of its industry. LegalVision, which launched in 2012, has now gone through a number of iterations and trialled a few different marketing strategies to get to where it is today. It is looking more and more likely that LegalVision could perhaps be the SMB focused law firm of the future - customisable, flexible and customer focused, facilitated of course via a platform with seamless technology.

dunn

Less than a month out from the state election, NSW Premier Mike Baird this week unveiled a new FinTech startup space, which is set to open in the heart of Sydney's CBD in May. The coworking space, named Stone and Chalk, is a key project of the Committee for Sydney think tank's Financial Services Knowledge Hub. It is an independent, not-for profit organisation that will aim to provide startups with low cost services, mentoring, and access to capital. The creation of a FinTech hub was just one of the recommendations set out in a report from KPMG, commissioned by The Committee for Sydney, on how to unlock Sydney’s potential to become a leading FinTech space in the Asia-Pacific region. Stone and Chalk’s foundation partners, which include Amazon, American Express, HSBC, Woolworths, Suncorp Bank, and Intel, have contributed $2 million to make its establishment possible, with the NSW Government also providing support for the space. DEXUS Property Group has been appointed property partner. Tim Williams, CEO of The Committee for Sydney, believes the city has solid foundations to become a thriving FinTech hub. “Sydney's financial services sector contributes $57 billion to New South Wales’ economy and produces 5 percent of Australia’s GDP, with a significant extra multiplier effect in innovation and job creation for the rest of the economy. At the same time, Sydney is also the centre of Australia’s ICT industry and leads the nation in tech startups,” Williams said. Craig Dunn, the newly appointed chair of Stone and Chalk, believes the space will become the heart of FinTech in Australia and even Asia. “Digital disruption is transforming the financial services industry and there is much to be gained through greater collaboration between stakeholders in the FinTech ecosystem. We are focused on bringing to life our vision for Sydney’s fintech hub to support start-ups compete, thrive and lead on a world stage,” said Dunn. Dunn, previously CEO of AMP, will be bringing more than 20 years of experience in the financial services industry to his new role. The name Stone and Chalk defines the principles the hub will aim to live by: ‘everything is set in stone’ speaks to the unchangeable foundations of the fintech community, including upholding the integrity of the financial industry, regulatory compliance, and earning the trust of customers and putting them first, while ‘everything else is writing in chalk’ highlights the innovative nature of the startup community. Applications are now open for startups interested in moving to Stone and Chalk.

Image: The Australian. Original Source: The Courier Mail

shutterstock_244657471

From the millions of cute cat videos, pictures of dogs dressed up in wacky Halloween outfits, and forums allowing people to chat about their pets, the internet has taught us that people are crazy about their pets and may do just about anything for them. Of course, entrepreneurs have noticed and are finding new ways to leverage this love and monetise it. One such entrepreneur is Danil Krashakov of Sydney-based startup Dogsperts. The startup is an online platform connecting dog owners with, as the name suggests, dog experts. The platform allows for the pet professionals, whether they be vets, trainers, pet psychologists, or stylists, to conduct live video sessions with dog owners. Krashakov said the idea came from observing his friends who have dogs that often misbehave. “Sometimes their dog's behaviour is not ideal. People love their dogs and treat them better than humans, which can make them a bit spoiled, and creates behaviours we don’t like. But because we love our dogs, we forgive them for many things,” Krashakov said. [caption id="attachment_38641" align="alignnone" width="2963"]

Danil Krashakov, Founder of Dogsperts[/caption] He believes that changing a dog’s behaviour is not so much about educating the dog but educating its owner, and it’s this concept that led to Dogsperts. While Krashakov acknowledges the fact that there are hundreds of pet advice forums and communities online, he said that they’re too time consuming for dog owners to trawl through looking for the right advice. With live video, Dogsperts allows for owners to get personalised advice. The pet professionals were brought on board after being contacted by Dogsperts directly, while the startup will be looking to leverage the internet’s love for pets and attract users primarily through social media. “Because people have very strong emotional attachments to their dogs, it is much easier for us to have free, or relatively inexpensive, and engaging publicity in social media. We are one of those folks who ‘enrich’ or ‘pollute’ - depending on which camp you are in - Facebook and other social media with photos of dogs and cute puppies,” Krashakov said. Payments for video sessions can be made on a per-minute or per-session basis, with prices set by the dog professionals. Dogsperts will be taking a portion of the total cost of each session. There are surely some people who will look at Dogsperts and scoff at the idea of spending money on things like dog psychologists or dog stylists, but it is undoubtedly a clever concept. As Krashakov said, some people love their pets better than they like other humans, and won’t blink an eye on spending outrageous amounts of money on their dog. People are already spending hours online talking about their pets and trying to find advice for their pets, so why not create a service to speed up that process and monetise it? While it can be useful for any dog owner, Krashakov suggested that the platform may be particularly useful for first time dog owners and those living in smaller inner-city houses or apartments, whose dogs may have behavioural issues stemming from the small living quarters. Though it’s still early days for the platform, which is launching this month, Krashakov envisions Dogsperts becoming an online dog park of sorts. “We want it to not only be live video, but also a community for dog owners who can communicate with each other and befriend each other,” he said.

Daniel Paronetto and Luciano Guasco have both been involved in sports at a professional level. Guasco was and still is a climber and Paronetto was involved in Motor Sports for a long time. Like many other people within the professional sporting profession, the duo found it difficult to source and secure sponsorship that would enable them to continue an active pursuit of those careers. Two of the biggest killers when it comes to sports careers are injury and lack of funding - the latter, it could be argued, is a more wide-spread problem. The pair founded FanFuel in 2013 and was accepted into the muru-D accelerator a few months later. The startups helps athletes find sponsorship by leveraging those athletes' social media channels. "The sports sponsorship ecosystem is now looking at social media as the biggest driver of influence, and we leverage an athlete who has a large following or a very high engagement rate on social media to use that as a key metric to find them sponsorship," Paronetto explains. What is perhaps most interesting about FanFuel is how the proprietary technology they created influenced a pivot in January this year. Originally the idea was that the startup would be a crowdfunding platform that allowed athletes to raise sponsorship money. In the process of building that platform, Paronetto and Guasco developed an algorithm that could identify whether or not users of the platform were going to reach their crowd funding target based on their social media influence. As a result, focus from potential brands shifted to focusing on what the data being generated by this algorithm actually meant - they could determine who was going to be the most targeted and influential ambassadors for their products and services. This led the startup become what it is today: a market that connects brands with athletes. According to Paronetto, the platform is geared towards action sports as far as the user base is concerned. The thoughts behind why this is the case has a lot to do with this particular vertical of athleticism already being naturally geared towards using social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook to distribute their content, and in turn building massive loyal followings. For example, when I joined the platform to have a look around and play around to gain some insight into the current user experience there were just under a thousand athletes I could see on the system and their sports ranged from cross-fit professionals to wing-suit adrenaline junkies. The immediate focus for FanFuel is to work out whether it has product-market fit, before it looks at raising a post-accelerator round of funding. At the moment the company is working with one of Australia's largest Telcos and the local arm of one of the world's largest media brands closely, gaining insight and feedback on the product. Thus far, brands have experienced success by utilising athletes on the platform to raise awareness about their new product launches. It would be easy to assume that FanFuel falls within the advertising and sports sponsorship space as far as revenue is concerned, but this couldn't be further from the truth. The space the startup is competing for revenue is the Social Media marketing space, most notably Facebook and YouTube. At the moment, there are three primary 'social' sponsorship tiers ($25, $60 and $100 per month) that buys brands a set amount of social media activity to be conducted by the athlete. To give you some perspective on the potential size of the market, in 2014 over $7.2 billion was spent on social media advertising, and this number has been predicted to reach $151 billion industry over the next five years.

Startup Daily has formally partnered with Muru-D over the next 12 
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investors.

myPresences want to be the ultimate small business platform but there will be some challenges ahead

Fishburners’ selective application process has allowed it to become one of Sydney’s premium startup hubs

Uber & Airbnb: the challenges in two-sided markets

This Sunday, parody social media accounts will be illegal in China

SpaceWays is the latest Rocket Internet startup to launch into the Australian market

Strategic decisions around its advisory board allowed Tripalocal to gain unprecedented advantage in China

Dating startup SparkStarter lets friends play Cupid online

After only 18 months in business Frank Body will likely exceed $20 million in revenue this year

Growth of SolarQuotes shows there’s a market for environmental startups in Australia

Scutify raised two rounds in 2014 totalling $1.5 million but we never heard anything about it

People shouldn’t mistake startup Ureferjobs as another job hunting platform

Forbes.com writer Jason Lim launches Asia Recon, an initiative exposing Aussies to hidden opportunities across Asia

Startup InvoiceBid allows businesses to get their invoices paid by investors when in need of immediate cash

Rare Birds founder Jo Burston wants women to think and ask big

Ernst & Young announces multi-year sponsorship of Tank Stream Labs

Sydney startup Careseekers connects seniors with in-home aged care providers

Sydney startup LegalVision has just closed a $1.2 million Series A round of funding

New startup hub Stone and Chalk wants to make Sydney Asia’s FinTech leader

Startup Dogsperts wants to cash in on the internet’s love for dogs

Can FanFuel secure a portion of the $151 billion social media advertising space?