I attended last night’s ANZA Technology Network kickoff to the “Gateway to US Executive Summit” at Silicon Valley Bank last night and I think Viki Forrest may have put forth one of her best programs to date.
The companies that attended this year were: 8 Shot International, Australian Survey Research, Aviator, Evanscorp, iAsset, inference Communications, Jasondb, Red Lizard Software and X-Ped. Mick Johnson Whereoscope and Bardia Housman Business Catalyst (both of whom we interviewed previously) were also there as guest speakers. Whereoscope looks pretty interesting as it is focused on using an iPhone App to find out where your kids are. Putting the obvious big brother implications aside and being a parent myself I’m confident there is a market for it, if it is properly positioned and marketed.
The speech by Andrew Lacy (Tapulous / now owned by Walt Disney) was especially entertaining as he provided the entrepreneurial audience with some sage advice (at least from my perspective). He didn’t come out and say this but the theme was don’t let your business plan get in the way of success. Tapulous’s business plan was not focused on “Tap Tap” but Andrew saw an opportunity when an Engineer / inventor he was looking at hiring came in and although he knew he wouldn’t be a good fit as an employee, he bought the App and 40 million downloads later he “guessed” right. The other item he brought up which I also though was prescient was the element of luck.
Many times you have the right idea but the timing is wrong, the team is wrong or something just doesn’t click the way it should. In his case the App was a bit of luck and Disney coming in was also lucky as they were looking to raise capital rather than “exit”. Having created a site for selling photography back in the late 90’s I completely get the timing thing as I had the right “idea” but it was too soon, (internet speed for most consumers, was not ready for buying photo’s on line). Today there are many successful photography sites; RedBubble, Art.com etc.,.
The other take away I had was savvy. For many CEO’s it is much easier to stay the course than to jump on something in midstream, especially when you’re playing with Venture Capitalist money. The VC’s bought into Andrew’s idea (meaning the CEO “sold it” ) and the rest is a bit of Aussie history.
My take away from last night was “don’t let a business plan get in the way of success”!
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