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Articles by Michael Yarnold
Why meetings are killing innovation
The average manager’s workday is divided into one hour blocks. This is not due to humans naturally working best in one hour increments but because meetings, those seemingly necessary events that seem to dominate the days of office workers everywhere, tend to be scheduled in one hour blocks. Diaries covered in meetings have become so common, that most people have probably either made or heard the comment, “I feel like I didn’t actually get any work done today – I spent the whole day in meetings”.
Brosa raises $5m to disrupt furniture industry
Having raised $5 million in Series B funding, this week, digital-native retailer Brosa is setting its sights on becoming a dominant omnichannel furniture brand. In addition to securing additional capital from Series A investor AirTree Ventures, Brosa welcomed Bailador Technology and BMY Group as new investors. Since its$2 million Series A funding round in 2015, order volume from Brosa’s customers has increased ten-fold and its workforce has ballooned from 25 FTE employees to 70.
Big Businesses could learn a thing or two (or three) about digital marketing from startups
With so many channels to market these days, communication has become a two-way dialogue rather than a one-way push, though many big businesses have yet to accept this. The outdated marketing techniques still employed by many big businesses is handing a clear advantage to those startups and small businesses that are agile and adapting to change.
First fintech, now fashion: online retail marketplace MyDeal continues to diversify
Fresh from entering the fintech game, with the launch of SME e-tailer loans in partnership with Prospa, ecommerce company MyDeal has continued to diversify its offering, with the soft launch of an online fashion marketplace. Built with the technology underpinning MyDeal Marketplace, MyWardrobe went live this week with over 5000 men and women’s products, including clothing, swimwear, accessories and footwear, from more than 32 fashion boutiques.
Benefits to employees of superior web hosting in their businesses
Web hosting, the way that websites are placed on the internet for people to visit them, is a thriving business that all business which sell online make use of. Many times, hosting is thought of as something that benefits customers or the company, but it’s rarely not examined from an employee standpoint. There are several benefits to using quality web hosting that support employees. Let’s look at a few of these.
From 'glorified lawn business' to tech-centric market leader: a chat with Hire A Hubby's CEO
With more than 330 active franchisees nationally, Hire A Hubby (HAH) is today the third largest player in Australia’s tradesman and handyman industry, claiming a market share of 5% – and of the big three, it’s reportedly the only one to have gained market share since 2011*. Under the leadership of CEO and owner Brendan Green, the 23-year-old handyman franchise has expanded into New Zealand and the UK, and enjoyed sustained growth.
GAVL kicks off Series A round with $1.8m raise to help launch remote, real-time auction bidding
GAVL, the real estate tech startup led by Ex-AFL player Joel Smith, has kicked off a planned $6m Series A round with an initial $1.8m in funding from existing investor Harris capital, the investment office of Flight Centre co-founder Geoff Harris. Launched in December 2016, GAVL is an auction livestreaming and analytics platform that enables people to watch auctions in real-time or on demand using the company’s app.
"I'll Laundromap that": NZ dry cleaning tech startup enters Australia seeking $3-4m to grow
On-demand dry cleaning pick-up and delivery service Laundromap has now launched in Perth and Sydney, with the founders of the New Zealand tech startup in the midst of planned $3-4 million capital raise to service further capitals across Australia. Since launching in New Zealand last year, Laundromap has grown at a rate of 30% month-on-month.
The Federal Government opens new round of grants to address a shortage of women in STEM
The second round of the Federal Government’s $8 million Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship (WISE) grants program is now underway, with organisations encouraged to apply for funding to support activities that eliminate barriers to girls and women pursuing STEM education, careers and businesses. Funding between $5000 and $250,000 is available to businesses, not-for-profits, education provider and research bodies under the program.
Let's Talk… Success | Dynamic Business
“What is the biggest growth barrier Australian startups are facing?” That’s the question Dynamic Business put to more than 20 entrepreneurs and industry experts, this week, for our exclusive “Let’s Talk…”, exploring success (and barriers to achieving it). Some commentators pointed to environmental factors such as a scarcity of local capital, customers and talent as well as a shortage of women in STEM, recent visa changes and Australia’s remoteness from global markets.
Australia Post eliminates the gender pay gap
Australia Post has announced that it has achieved gender parity in pay, with an average 0% pay gap between men and women across the organisation. This marks an improvement on 2016, when Australia Post recorded a gender pay gap of 1.4%, below the national average of 16%. Acting Managing Director and Group CEO Christine Corbett said gender parity was achieved with targeted programs addressing pay equity and nurturing talent.
Airtasker raises $33m to launch into the UK
Australia’s largest online jobs marketplace, Airtasker, has completed a $33 million funding round to bankroll the company’s first overseas foray, with an expansion into the UK. Airtasker had already been enjoying a milestone year, with the formation of strategic partnerships with IKEA and eBay plus the introduction of income protection insurance for its workers.
Hotel sales success - how search marketing can help
It’s the web where most travellers are booking hotel rooms these days and, if you’re looking to seize a slice of the online market, that’s exactly where you should be. However, you should note that you’re going up against lots of competition. Not just individual hotels, but chains and booking agencies all looking to get potential customers clicking on their websites. Yes, you need to be thinking about search engine optimization, or SEO as it’s known.
Spacer raises $2.7m, builds out its space sharing marketplace with acquisition of Parkhound
Spacer is vying to become the dominant marketplace for storage, parking and warehouse space in Australia, today announcing that it has acquired Melbourne-based startup Parkhound and completed a $2.7m in Series A funding round. Founded by former private equity professional Roland Tam and ex-Deals Direct CEO Michael Rosenbaum, Spacer has raised $5 million in funding from angel and private investors since launching two years ago.
Why your business needs the best website possible
Every modern business needs a good website, one that is not only well designed but which is served up to visitors using a reliable infrastructure. With more web hosts than ever competing for your business, it can be hard to pick out the best provider for your needs, especially if you are new to web design. Businesses who overlook the importance of thoroughly vetting their web hosts are much more likely to run into trouble further down the line.
Email Marketing Your Way to New Business
You’ve heard of cold calling, and we’re here to tell you there’s also cold emailing. You know what they have in common? They both suck. Yes, the truth hurts doesn’t it. But you know that, and that’s why you’re reading this article. You’ve crafted email after email hoping for a bite, a nibble, any sign of life only to get radio silence. And the reason why?
NAB "first off the mark" with shorter, plain English loan contracts for small businesses
National Australia Bank’s decision to introduce shorter, plain English loan contracts for small business borrowers has been welcomed by the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman.
7 tips to improve your cash flow
Running a business of any kind — whether it’s a large or small, retail or service — follows the same steps to success. One of these steps involves managing your money by tracking and improving your free cash flow — that free flow of post-financial commitment cash and a key indicator of business success.
4 ways to make your social media marketing rock!
Have you ever been at a rock concert and paused for a moment to look around you? It’s usually either a beautiful mess or utter madness. Navigating the social media landscape can sometimes feel like a rock concert as well, with 1.71 billion monthly active users on Facebook, 313M active monthly users on Twitter, and over 450 million registered users on LinkedIn globally — all with different demographics and preferences.
How to choose a freight forwarder
A freight forwarder can make an exporter’s life much easier. So here’s a guide to finding the right freight forwarder to refine your logistics process. It can be hard to get your head around the logistics of exporting—new and existing exporters alike. Fortunately there are professionals who can take care of these things for you; they’re called freight forwarders.
Five ways to support your growing micro-business
Commonly defined as enterprises employing nine or fewer people, “micro-businesses” are big players on the business stage. In 2013, they accounted for 14% of all businesses newly opened in Australia, but only 9% of businesses shutting down[1]. Any new business will face its share of growing pains. When you’re trying to grow your business without necessarily growing your staff, though, you’ll encounter many obstacles that are somewhat unique to partnerships, solopreneurs and micro-businesses.
How Atlassian built a $4.4 billion business without sales staff
The story of Atlassian is the perfect tech startup fairy tale; two humble guys from Sydney bootstrap a company with a $10,000 credit card and pull off a successful IPO with a market cap of $4.4 billion (USD). Although, contrary to the hopes of many Australian entrepreneurs, the success of Atlassian doesn’t ride on the back of a pumpkin coach or fairy godmother – it’s a story of user-centred design and the never-ending pursuit of an awesome user experience.
Why would anyone opt for desktop accounting over cloud?
The debate may seem won, but desktop accounting software is hanging around longer than many cloud-converts would have thought. So why would any business opt for the desktop option, when the advantages of cloud are shouted loud and clear from the likes of Xero, MYOB, Intuit and Reckon, and more? Brad Paterson, Intuit Vice President and Managing Director Asia-Pacific, says he doesn’t believe any new business would indeed opt for the desktop package over cloud.
Australia should go sweet on a sugar tax...now
422 million people. That’s the number of adults now living with diabetes according to an inaugural report recently released by the World Health Organisation (WHO). With Type 2 diabetes representing up to 90% of all diabetes cases, it is clear that our sweet tooth needs to be pulled. Professor Stephen Colagiuri, the only Australian who contributed to the WHO report, says a sugar tax is one way the Government could tackle the problem. And he’s right. Unfortunately, neither side seems to be listening.
Entrepreneur Kate Middleton on rescuing a company in free fall, shaking up the status quo
In 2016, Brisbane entrepreneur Kate Middleton earned the distinction of being the only female CEO of a major player in the Australian Insurance Adjusting and Engineering industry. It’s now her personal mission to blow the floodgates wide open and make the sector a much more attractive place to work for other enterprising women.
Boost the value of HR in your business - bring it out of the back office and into the cloud
Traditionally, human resources (HR) is seen as the very epitome of an organisation’s ‘back office’, in managing hiring, payroll, workforce administration, and so on. But there is the opportunity for HR to take a far more proactive and strategic role in the organisation, and that can be achieved by leveraging the capabilities of the cloud.
Mums in the workplace should also be celebrated this Mother's Day
Outside of work, we all use Mother’s Day as an opportunity to reflect on and be thankful for everything our mothers do for us. But with Mother’s Day approaching, it is important that we appreciate the contributions and commitment mothers make in the workplace as well as in the home. Working mothers often juggle their careers with being the primary carer and home keeper.
Revenue or rankings: where you should direct your SEO focus
Any business entering into the online world first hears about SEO. That’s a good start for many and is a needed tool in the vast and often confusing online world. Many businesses will receive hundreds of solicitations from various SEO companies that will promise amazing returns and being shot to the top of Google rankings. A lot of these are heavily based in technical jargon and doesn’t take into account more important factors with an online business.
Small retailers urged to trial not surcharging ahead of next year's ban on excessive fees
In May, this year, the Reserve Bank of Australia released a new surcharging standard, which introduced a ban on excessive surcharges. The ban, which is being enforced by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), commenced for large retailers this month but all other merchants have until 1 September 2017 to comply with it.
Data dungeon: the small business case for making ANZSIC code information available
The Federal Government’s Public Data Policy Statement, released last December, flagged its commitment to make non-sensitive government data ‘open by default’, with the aim being to stimulate innovation and drive productivity improvements across all sectors of the economy.
Why so many new hires leave within the first year and how to prevent it
The expense of finding and retaining top-performing talent can challenge organisations’ profitability, and if employees leave within the first year, there are even more costs. Research shows that only 12% of employees leave their employer to earn more money.[1] That means most employers can take action to prevent staff turnover. One of the most common reasons staff leave a company is failure to fuel the intrinsic motivation that most new hires feel.
Bright minds: draw them in or risk losing them
Succeeding in business today doesn’t just require good talent – it requires great talent. It also requires great products, a smart strategy and an internal desire to innovate and thus stay ahead of the competition. But let’s focus our attention back on talent. After all, it’s one of the most important components of business today and all around us we hear about talent wars and the shortage of talent.
Continuous Deployment - a critical ingredient for innovation
Imagine you work as a developer for Etsy. In case you haven’t heard of Etsy, it is a marketplace where people around the world connect, both online and offline, to make, sell and buy unique goods. It has 1.5 million sellers, almost 22 million active buyers, and in 2014 it had gross merchandise sales of almost $2 billion. So you could say it’s doing quite well. Now let’s just say you happen to notice a problem with the Etsy website, or perhaps you think of a way it could be improved.
The productivity gaps holding SMBs back
Over the past decade, the nature of work has changed significantly. Economies have shifted from labour-based, to knowledge-based and service-based, and technology has enabled modern workers to collaborate wherever they may be. This has had a significant impact on how we think about workspaces and what skills and capabilities we look for in executives, managers and employees.
Expert360's Bridget Loudon on leading a digital revolution in the global consulting sector
By digitising the conventional consulting model and stripping it of its inefficiencies, the brains behind Expert360 have made waves in the $600 billon global consulting industry. According to co-founder and CEO, Bridget Loudon, sheer resilience, a commitment to quality and a mandate to become an irreplaceable aspect of their customer’s working lives have also been central to the success of her online consulting marketplace.
What's that, you say? Entrepreneurs don’t have time to be healthy? Think again!
Do you produce your best work when you have the flu? I didn’t think so. When your body is worn down, it makes it hard to stay focused and productive. The same thing goes for your mind. The stress of deadlines and client demands, the weight of starting up a business and the 24/7 commitment we’re told is required for success weighs heavily. And that stress makes it difficult to be at our best when it really counts.
Online Chinese consumers demand ‘Made in Australia’
Since its inception in December 2015, the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement has presented potential advantages for Australian businesses, including driving exports. Between 2015 and 2016, more than 25 percent of total Australian exports went to China, earning Australia as much as AU $85.9 billion in revenue[1]. In 2015, the National Bureau of Statistics of China recorded a 39 percent increase in online retail sales over 2014 [2].
Why employee engagement is crucial
“At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel” ?
Let's Talk… Social Networking
“Can social media generate fruitful business partnerships?” That’s the question Dynamic Business put to 17 entrepreneurs and industry experts, this week, for our exclusive “Let’s Talk…”, investigating the value of social networking for SMEs. Although the consensus was “YES”, some commentators qualified their response, pointing out that a business partnership formed on a social media platform, such as LinkedIn or Facebook, will only be fruitful if it develops organically, the benefits flow...
Are you really an entrepreneur? Probably not.
“I’m an entrepreneur”. Youngprenuer, Mumpreneur, Investorprenuer – it seems these days that everyone is their own business idol. I put to you that if one calls themselves an entrepreneur, then they probably aren’t one. If other people call you an entrepreneur, then you probably are – word of people’s success spreads like wildfire, and if you aren’t recognised by the general public as an entrepreneur you either aren’t doing enough or you need to get yourself a publicist.
Rural and regional NSW businesses to benefit from $50m phone and data connectivity fund
The NSW Government has pledged to invest ‘at least’ $50 million in improvements to phone and data connectivity in rural and regional areas of the state. The $50m+ Connecting Country Communities fund was announced by Deputy Premier and Minister for Regional NSW John Barilaro, this week. “For people living in regional and remote NSW, poor mobile and slow internet coverage are two of the biggest issues they face on a daily basis,” Barilaro said in a statement.
CancerAid first-ever Aussie startup selected for prestigious LA-based health tech accelerator
In being selected for Cedar-Sinai Medical Centre’s health tech accelerator, CancerAid has become the first-ever Australian startup to participate in the Los Angeles-based, Techstars-powered boot camp.
Tricks of the trade: How to keep on top of your cash flow
Whether it’s a side gig or your full-time career, you’ve invested a lot of time (and money) in your business. While you hope that your hard work will pay off, unfortunately many small businesses will suffer from poor cash flow at some point, which can inhibit flexible trading, prevent growth and ultimately lead to a failed business. Unlike big corporations, small business owners have very little flexibility when it comes to finances.
How to tame the cash flow beast
What one monetary factor can force even a highly profitable business to close its doors? Cash flow. Sneaking up on you without warning, running out of cash is a common killer of businesses. I learnt this lesson the hard way when I was building my first business. Our revenue was growing exponentially, surpassing $1 million, but our profits were hardly shifting, and our cash reserves were dwindling – putting enormous pressure on cash flow.
Square launches new point-of-sale solution
Global payment tech company Square has launched a countertop device that enables customer-facing businesses across Australia to transform iPads into full-integrated point-of-sale systems. According to Australian Country Manager, Ben Pfisterer, the Square Stand for contactless and chip payments “replaces the need for clunky cash-drawers, piles of paper receipts and cluttered countertops”.
The business benefits of an agile workplace
Organisations across every businesses sector are constantly searching for ways to boost staff productivity and lower operational costs. Making more effective use of office space is one way both these goals can be achieved. The need for a re-think stems from the fact that traditional working patterns have changed. This means the office designs of the past are no longer the most appropriate fit for many organisations.
Dyson announces plans to launch an electric car in 2020
Vacuum company Dyson has revealed plans to invest £2 billion (AUD: $3.4 billion) into building an electric car due to be launched in 2020. In a letter to staff, Dyson founder, James Dyson, announced that the company had begun work on the battery electric vehicle. “We’ve started building an exceptional team that combines top Dyson engineers with talented individuals from the automotive industry. The team is already over 400 strong, and we are recruiting aggressively,” Mr Dyson said.
Five startups join clean energy accelerator
Five startups have been selected to participate in Australia’s first clean energy accelerator, EnergyLab, joining the initial cohort of four startups. Founded by Piers Grove and Nick Lake, EnergyLab is a not-for-profit business incubator operating out of the Blackfriars School House, UTS in Chippendale. It launched, earlier this year, with support from principal sponsor Origin Energy along with UTS, Jobs for NSW and Climate-KIC.
Chaotic, rewarding hyper-growth: zipMoney's Larry Diamond on the fintech startup's success
Any way you slice it, 2017 has been a blockbuster year for zipMoney. The Sydney-based fintech startup – a provider of point-of-sale credit and digital payment services – has been onboarding around 1200 new customers per day, with CEO Larry Diamond attributing this growth to traction with millennials. Significantly, Zip landed the two largest fintech deals of the year.
GoGet launches new carshare-enabled airport
GoGet are continuing to realise their vision for a national network of carshare-enabled airports, with the introduction of their car sharing service at Adelaide Airport, following on from Melbourne Airport a year earlier. Founded in 2003 by Nic Lowe and Bruce Jeffreys, GoGet (originally Newtown CarShare) was Australia’s first car sharing service, and now has 2,300 vehicles and more than 95,000 members across Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Canberra.
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