The Fetch Blog

Curated reads and events for professionals

Category: Interviews

Interview: Brisbane local, entrepreneur Chris Kettle of Hungry Hero — December 3, 2013

Interview: Brisbane local, entrepreneur Chris Kettle of Hungry Hero

/Sarina Quinlan/1 Comment

chris

Sarina Quinlan from The Fetch Brisbane recently caught up with Chris Kettle in the UK, where he is about to launch Hungry Hero to the masses.

What do you think of the Brisbane startup scene? 

There are great ideas in Brisbane and around Australia, but what I’ve seen is that people are too scared to try to get the money and then they’re really poor at presenting.

Get on YouTube, check out all the Disrupt, TechCrunch ones, to watch how they present and you can get a really nice pitch out of that. Everything you want is online. Go and get it.

Seth Godin’s Startup School is the best podcast on the planet. It’s free, there’s about 17 episodes and if you aren’t prepared to listen to that, then shut your startup down.

What is your advice for entrepreneurs – especially in Brisbane? 

I’m a big believer in not starting until you’ve got the funding to do it. I started my first business with my credit card, and don’t necessarily recommend that – what’s nice is that you can get your minimum viable product out cheaper than ever.

How did you secure investment? 

I already had an existing business, which has always brought decent cash flow, but for Hungry Hero I wanted to raise funds again to do it properly. Hungry Hero’s a transactional model, which gets users to pay and so again we looked at high network individuals and that’s what we looked for in Brisbane. They’re not going to find you. So I got out there, used my contacts and found an investor and we were able match their funds with Commercialisation Australia. For proof of concept, it’s fifty-fifty funding. Their mandate is to keep jobs in the country. That means if you’re looking at outsourcing to India, like we were in the early days, then they help you to do it in-house. It’s a fantastic program to get funds – although you have to get funds first to be able to match it.

What makes Hungry Hero different? 

There’s lots of similar things with discounts and offers, but what we’ve done is allowed the venue to have complete control. So instead of giving everyone a $10 lunch, they can use it as a filter. Venues have full control to add it to only customers that have been there before, or within a one kilometer radius. It’s sort of like giving the power to the venues to contact customers who are looking for somewhere to go.

How many people are using the app? 

We’ve been into six figures for a while now and if we can get to a million before Christmas in Australia would blast our goal for this year. We’ve seen downloads across the world too. We have a nice little campaign feature on the app that in any city which they download it, they can tweet “Bring HungryHero to our city”, we’ve had people from Vancouver to Singapore, across Europe and Asia tweeting out to get HungryHero in their country. Now we have our version one model working in Australia, next, is how to scale this around the world without having to be there.

What motivated you to develop Hungry Hero? 

The app was born out of the debacle of the group buying space. There was a lot of wrestling to run deals on living, social and Groupon. Businesses are giving up to $50 commission on these offers and it was costing them more than it was making them. There was a lot of false promises there, and it was a case of “how can we make a platform which allowed thousands of restaurants to add deals at any one time, and the restaurant is in full control.” That’s how the idea was born.

How does it work for customers? 

There are a few different types of business models. If it’s and exclusive offer, a customer can simply pay a dollar to secure it. We’re just about to bring out Gold Memberships, which means you can buy a monthly membership that allows to access unlimited offers and exclusive offers. Gold membership will be five dollars a month. We think customers prefer to pay their memberships monthly. It will pay for itself instantly with a 2-for-1 lunch, or a free bottle of wine with dinner.

How many venues can be accessed from the app? 

We have almost 600 venues across six major cities. Most of them are restaurants, but there are also entertainment venues, comedy theaters; it’s all about eating and drinking and going out.

What’s happening now? 

We’re very excited because we’ve just been one of the featured apps for Samsung for the new  Samsung Wallet. When you make a booking or secure a deal, you can add it into your Wallet  so that when you show up at the restaurant you just show them your phone. People want to have all these tickets and coupons easily accessible, and so that will be rolling out to eight million units in Australia.

Tell us more about the Samsung Wallet connection. 

We’re one of the official launch partners. So it’s a link in Samsung wallet, which gives us exposure. There’s some really great opportunities working with Samsung and Apple, and I’d recommend any entrepreneur to be looking for them. That’s why I think we can get to a million users by Christmas. With these opportunities, we’re now looking at overseas markets and taking Hungry Hero to the UK and US.

Why have you decided to visit Germany, UK and the US? 

Even though I’m a big believer that you can run your global business from Brisbane, there’s nothing like having your foot on the ground and seeing how the culture works. Every area is different, with location based deals. In Brisbane, when it’s wet, people don’t go out. Whereas in London when it’s wet, people don’t have a choice. So there’s different cultures and opportunities. So I’m going to go out there, put the feelers out, and see if we can build on the relationships we’ve got already.

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About our contributor // Sarina Quinlan is a marketing consultant and the curator of The Fetch in Brisbane. Follow her on Twitter via @digitalsarina.

Interview: Sydney local, Andrew Rogers, web entrepreneur and founder of Anchor — November 25, 2013

Interview: Sydney local, Andrew Rogers, web entrepreneur and founder of Anchor

/Kate Kendall

andrew

Andrew Rogers is a Sydney-based entrepreneur that has lived to tell the tale of the dot-com era. His startup, Anchor, is one of Australia’s top web host service providers and now they’re going global. Here’s a snap of Andrew literally knocking down office walls to increase team collaboration.

You started your host company Anchor Systems in 2000, what was the web industry like then? Any shareable memories from the dot-com days?

We planned to get into hosting whilst the dot-com was going crazy and then it all fell over about the time we started. There weren’t really any hosting companies to speak of so we looked at the ISPs who were being valued at thousands per customer and decided we’d have a million dollar business in no time.

I hear stories from other people that worked in big companies in the dot-com era about the parties – we missed all that because we were chained to our desks 18 hours a day getting a bootstrapped startup off the ground. I remember eating pizza six nights a week at my desk for way too long.

You announced green web hosting services in 2011 – what’s the response been like? What do you envision data centers of the future to be like?

We actually launched it as a paid option a couple of years prior and the response was pretty much non existent. We probably didn’t market it heavily enough but yeah – a few passionate customers bought but that was it. Our industry uses a huge amount of power – we constantly use the equivalent of well over 100 households and we represent less than 1% of the space in one of the data centers we operate from.

In 2011 we decided we’d just pay for the green power ourselves and give all of our clients green hosting automatically. It was important to us so it was just something we decided to do ourselves in the end.

We’ve done a fair bit of work to reduce power consumption and over a period in which we’ve more than doubled the size of the business we’ve reduced our total power consumption. Unlike the green power we did this at a net cost benefit to the business, it has saved us a lot of money. Data centers are full of computers – these are the bits that change rapidly and have short lives so in the near future this is where I think all the change will occur. Surprisingly the industry feels like it’s been slow to move in this direction so there’s a lot of opportunity.

The buildings take a long time to build and recover costs and are very hard to change so I think the evolution will be much slower in this area.

We used to spend a lot of time in the data center upgrading and tweaking machines. These days we spec them up, turn them on and then everything happens remotely – mostly due to virtualization.

You’ve been working on a new tool called BuiltWith – what is it?

BuiltWith is very exciting. We track the technologies (think content management systems, advertising platforms, shopping cards, analytic tools) on 100 million of the busiest sites on the internet. When then turn this into a big data set and make it useful. For any website we can instantly tell you what it uses – at Anchor we’re often asking our clients if they use WordPress or do they have Google Analytics and a lot of the time the businesses just don’t know – with BuiltWith we don’t need to ask the question. The other thing we do is sell lists. We can compile lists of all the sites using say Magento – or any technology a company is interested in – such a list of their competitors customers. This has been the exciting bit because it’s helped some great startups like Optimizely grow and has brought on big clients like Google, Microsoft, eBay and Twitter.

What’s your ethos around building a cool company culture at Anchor?

There’s one really simple premise – recognize that there are things that make work fun for me and then try and ensure everyone has similar such things in their job. It’s just about looking after people. The environment is one part of it – flexible hours, an open account at the coffee shop, everyone chooses their workstation setup, comfy chairs. But the work and skills development probably more important – providing interesting projects to work on, employing and developing great managers, giving people the chance to move around and develop new skills.

You’re a mentor at Startmate and have supported community conferences like SydStart – do you feel you had the same level of assistance when starting your company?

I had a few relatives with businesses that I’d call for advice – they worked with wardrobes, airports and export grants. So it was a bit different but we still had help, advice and mentors – people who had started business and most importantly would listen to our challenges. I’m really excited about things like Sydstart, Startmate and Pushstart as they’re all great opportunities to repay that debt that I owe other people who helped us get started.

What Australia startups are you keeping your eye on?

It’s hard because it’s easy to be biased towards the ones you know more about. I’ve seen BugCrowd executing amazingly from the start of this year and I think Kinderloop have a chance of owning their space. I really love the Airtasker service so I’m super keen to see them succeed so I can keep using it.

What community meetups and industry events do you recommend our readers check out?

It’s not one regular thing anymore for me, just keep hunting out the quality events and people, be prepared to take timeout from work to discover something new – set aside time for an event each week – it’s the only way to stumble on the good experiences.

What are you favorite suburbs in Sydney?

Not quite suburbs but the amazing parks that always feel so empty considering we have millions of people in our city. The headlands around Balmoral/Mosman, Botanic Gardens, the Spit to Manly walk and Centennial Park.

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About our contributor // Kate Kendall is the founder and CEO of The Fetch. She regularly blogs about startup life and advises businesses on the role of marketing and community. Follow her on Twitter via @katekendall. 

Image credit: Anchor HQ

Disclosure: Anchor has been a financial supporter of The Fetch throughout 2014, which increases

Interview: Steve Baxter of River City Labs in Brisbane — October 17, 2013

Interview: Steve Baxter of River City Labs in Brisbane

/Sarina Quinlan

stephen-baxter

“There are some really good businesses here, but when you look at the level of activity elsewhere you can see that we’re behind the eight ball. It needs serious local and state government help and support and if they want to do that, they have to be willing to spend the money.”

Steve Baxter has been responsible for pushing the Brisbane startup scene forward through his coworking space River City Labs and supporting global movements such as Startup Weekend. It’s never a rare occurrence for Steve to dip into his own pocket to help new tech businesses flourish. The Fetch caught up with Steve about his new gaming ventures and his Brisbane perspective.

What inspired you to open River City Labs?

I have several investments, and after travelling to Sydney I saw a great example of getting support for entrepreneurs and helping them get started in an organisation called Fishburners. I came back to Brisbane and looked for Fishburners, and other similar organisations and they didn’t exist, so that was the start of it. I looked at doing it commercially as a full profit business, but to be honest it’s not a big business. So I decided to launch the business, but with a bit more philanthropy involved.

After that, did you decide to invest in the gaming space, or did you invest before River City Labs?

The games were after River City Labs. The games side, with respect to Right Pedal Studios, is a different form of investment. It’s full profit, an accelerator fund. We take advanced prototypes and we launch them into the market through funding, mentoring and production resources, in a reasonably fast way. It’s definitely different.

How many games have you released so far through Right Pedal Studios?

We just released the first game in late March. The game is called Dragon Season. It’s an endless runner game, which is currently available on the Australian Google Play Store. Hopefully in a few weeks it will be available globally on Google Play and the Apple Store. It’s been discovered by a number of people in China, even though we only released it to the Australian Android market, and it’s found its way to about thirty-four thousand installations. That was really very surprising. It wasn’t what we’d planned, but we’re now pursuing some Chinese producers, which is quite interesting.

We also have one game out as a closed beta. It is due to come out as a world-wide release in the next few weeks. There are currently three others being worked on and we’re talking to another four teams about coming in.

Have you seen any major shifts in the startup scene in Brisbane since you started River City Labs?

Since River City Labs opened its doors last year (2012), there’s been a gradual shift. I’m actually a little disappointed with the startup scene in Brisbane. I spent some time in San Francisco and I travel to Sydney four times a month on average, so when I see the startup scene in Sydney compared to Fortitude Valley, it’s completely stark.

It’s been a slow growth. We were half full six weeks in, and we were half full in November last year; we’re still at about 60-65% now.

What do you think the Brisbane scene needs?

It needs a lot more people to take it seriously; it actually needs signals from Government. There has been market failure with regards to tech startup in Brisbane. There are some really good businesses here, but when you look at the level of activity elsewhere you can see that we’re behind the eight ball. It needs serious local and state government help and support and if they want to do that, they have to be willing to spend the money. It’s embarrassing when Auckland, New Zealand, have a higher angel funding rate than anywhere in Australia. That is because of direct government intervention.

How are places like NZ ahead?

In areas like matching investment funds, they invest in meetings with successful and respected entrepreneurs from the US to educate local angel groups. This was directly linked to the absolute increase in startup activity.

I’m just going to read you some statistics:

  • The number of startup incubators in the US is 1400, compared to 30 in Australia
  • The number of angel investors in Australia is 500, compared to 300,000 in the US
  • We do approximately 50 Angel deals per year, compared to 63,000 a year done in the US
  • There are eight early stage VC funds in Australia; there are 420 in the US

Do you think angel Investors lack direction, or does it take too long to get funding in Australia / people are more hesitant?

Probably all of the above, to be honest. Had Australia given birth to Facebook or Google or something along those lines, it would be a different story. But if we don’t take the initiative, we’ll never make these advances. For example, in Brisbane there are three coworking spaces/incubators – in Auckland there are six.

In the same year, Auckland recorded 45 Angel Investments per annum, while Brisbane had two. Auckland’s 40 venture capital investments trumped Brisbane’s 30, and the whole of Australia was only marginally higher at 72.

Are Brisbane startups are having to leave and go to Sydney to try to talk to Angel investors?

I am doing some work with the state government to try to prevent this. At some point in time, we have to actually understand that if this something we want to do, it’s going to cost to play. We are that far behind.

It’s a tragedy. There are a lot of issues that we’ve got to work through. But first we have to want to fix it, and put in the extra miles.

Where should they be putting their energy: sales channel or online marketing?

It depends on the type of business. There are a lot of businesses that are hesitant to spend money on sales and marketing yet still expect to gain the interest of investors. You need to do put in the effort and prove to investors that your business is a worthwhile prospect.

What turns you off a startup?

People or groups that generate an idea in the mobile tech sector, who don’t have the skills or knowledge to develop it, and expect investors to spend their money on a team to build their product. I believe in doing majority of the work yourself, and if you don’t have the knowledge or experience in the area of your idea, that you should take the time to learn and not just rely on others to do all the heavy lifting for you.

What makes you decide that you want to invest in a startup?

Teams. A good team can have a bad idea to start with, but will realise it’s a bad idea and change it. If the idea requires any creative and technical work build it, then you need a strong technical team. A lot of others will outsource, but it isn’t as appealing for investors. As for the business, the idea has got to be something that makes a splash. Technology has such great potential to have a huge impact, and it just takes the right idea to ;p the world on its head.

Are you going to Sydney to scout for new startups or angel investors?

Not really scouting, I already have 11 investments – I had 12 – which is too many. I would love to get back down to maybe seven or eight. Right Pedal Studios and River City Labs take up a fair bit of my time. Really what I’d like to do is less, and be able to spend more time with my 11-week-old daughter to be quite honest.

How do you relax?

I don’t at the moment. My hobbies are fishing and flying, of which I get to do precious little; and I’m sure that now with a young girl I’ll probably get to do even less. It’s surprising what can take up time in your day.

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About our contributor // Sarina Quinlan is a marketing consultant and the curator of The Fetch in Brisbane. Follow her on Twitter via @digitalsarina.

Hello Yi – our new Berlin curator — October 14, 2013

Hello Yi – our new Berlin curator

/Kate Kendall

“Berlin is a very diverse and vibrant city and has something to offer everyone… Berlin is a great city to embark on new adventures, start a creative project, or collaborate on fresh ideas.”

Yi

We heard you! We’re coming back to Berlin this coming week. We have a brilliant new curator in Aussie expat Yi Chen. Yi has been in the city over 18 months and was looking for something like The Fetch to help her discover what’s happening. She’a a perfect curator in that she’s worked across our core verticals of business/startups, creative/design and tech. Stay tuned as we bring you the best events, jobs and more in our new weekly format.

If you’re new to The Fetch, don’t forget to subscribe here. A big welcome to Yi!

How did you end up where you are today?

In 2009, I left a cushy office job in Melbourne as I was tired of being in a cubicle all day. I decided to head to Asia and fund my travels through freelancing. I eventually ended up at Saatchi & Saatchi in Taipei as the lead digital strategist. Nevertheless, I was itching to explore Europe so I packed up my bags again in 2012 and headed to Berlin. Currently, I’m a marketing freelancer and work with various creative agencies and startups.

Why did you want to get involved with The Fetch?

I enjoy discovering new things and my calendar is often filled with various events, from seminars and conferences, to workshops and meetups. When I stumbled across The Fetch, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to curate events on a regular basis and share them with others.

What things excite you about our community right now?

I like how The Fetch is tailored to the growing number of professionals in different fields and industries. It’s great to see additional cities being added with new subscribers everyday. I’m excited to kickstart Berlin’s newsletter again and catchup with some of the fetchers at the events.

What events do you recommend in Berlin?

Besides music events and art festivals, I really enjoy attending hands-on workshops and classes. For example, learning how to screen print at Betahaus or creating vinyl stickers at the Fab Lab. If you’re also a foodie, you will enjoy the cooking classes at Goldhahn and Sampson and Street Food Thursday at Markthalle Neun.

What’s your favourite thing about your city?

Berlin is a very diverse and vibrant city and has something to offer everyone. I love summer in Berlin as the city really comes to life and everything is happening outside.

What’s unique about Berlin?

It’s a popular European city where the cost of living is still very affordable. Berlin is a great city to embark on new adventures, start a creative project, or collaborate on fresh ideas. There’s a chilled vibe everywhere you go, meaning you can dine at a Michelin-starred restaurant in your jeans and t-shirt.

Where can we find you in Berlin?

During the week you can usually find me on my bike rushing between offices. On the weekends, I’m either brunching or picking up knick knacks from flea markets.

How can we connect with you?

Drop me a message on Twitter via @yiiee or About.me.

If you didn’t live in Berlin, where would you be?

I would love to one day live in New York or Tokyo!

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You can also follow Yi and The Fetch Berlin via @thefetchBER and on Facebook. Sign-up to receive our events-packed digest via theFetch.com and get your work life covered!

Interview: Meet Mike – sustainable citizen, coffee lover and creator of Kokako in NZ — October 13, 2013

Interview: Meet Mike – sustainable citizen, coffee lover and creator of Kokako in NZ

/The Fetch community

“Maintain your integrity by not cutting corners or taking short cuts. A sustainably focused business doesn’t happen overnight and requires graft and a commitment.”

Mike Murphy – the man behind Kokako coffee, one of the great cafés in Auckland, is a local hero when it comes sustainability. Deirdre Dawson chats to him about his recent trip to Papua New Guinea and involvement in this weekend’s Sustainable Showcase.

Was there a light bulb moment you decided to follow the path of a sustainable citizen or was it a gradual movement?

I think I’ve been working towards it. I studied Social and Coastal Geography at University and also took papers in Anthropology. However as an 18 year old I never really thought of the context of what I was studying and how this could be applied in a commercial way. I was delivering pizzas at 17 and have stayed in food and beverage ever since, I never actually thought I’d use my degree. My interest in sustainability comes from a personal belief that we must look after not only our natural resources but also the people within it.

You recently travelled to PNG on an origin trip, why PNG?

Papua New Guinea is one of the main origins that we source our fairtrade organic coffee from. In April, I joined a contingent from Fairtrade Australia/NZ to PNG. I wanted to validate the core proposition of Fairtrade but more importantly spend time with the coffee growers and their families.

Memorable moments?

Heaps of memorable moments! Highlights would be the amazing people of PNG and their generosity, helping to harvest coffee cherries, intensive four-wheel driving through mud tracks to remote villages and sleeping in local schools at high altitude with no power. The most memorable thing is the poignancy in the simplicity of life. To us, life in the Highlands may look like it has its challenges – and it does.

However to put it in context, coming back to the pressures of running a business made me consider other ways I could add value to communities in PNG.

What’s your involvement with this weekend’s Sustainable Showcase?

We are running a coffee brew bar and espresso bar at the Sustainable City Showcase. We’ll be highlighting specific coffee origins along with our cold brew coffee. It’s a pretty exciting product – the coffee is soft brewed for eight hours in cold filtered water to create a naturally sweet and chocolaty beverage. We will be collaborating with our friends at All Good, Nice Blocks and Cosset to have a really interesting selection of fairtrade and organic treats for visitors to try.

Why should people come along?

People should come along to see how cool a future sustainable city can and will be. The people and companies that will be at the showcase are progressive and represent innovative thinking and ideas around how we should live our lives and do business. Sustainability, for all its connotations, is essentially about using considered, innovative and simple mechanisms for the people and the planet.

Hints for businesses wanting to shine sustainably?

1) Maintain your integrity by not cutting corners or taking short cuts. A sustainably focused business doesn’t happen overnight and requires graft and a commitment.

2) Collaborate and innovate. Seek out like-minded businesses who are doing innovative things in a sustainable way and work together.

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About our contributor // While city ambassador Deirdre Dawson is currently working on the person-to-person rental startup Rentaholic, her background includes being an official ambassador for Kohu Road ice cream, teaching English in Japan and Secretary of the K Road Business Association.

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