Growth

May 21, 2012 1 Comment

I was walking through Montgomery BART station in San Francisco last week when déjà vu came upon me.  The creamy hexagonal wall tiles (which coincidentally can be admired in Greenday’s When I Come Around video) triggered a long-forgotten one-time avatar from 2010. It was during that summer I’d quit my full-time job in the magazine world to follow my digital dreams and check out the Bay Area. It was first of many comfort-zone-breaking steps I’ve taken over the past couple of years and I’ve never looked back on choosing this path.

I took a moment to quickly snap a portrait in the present day – especially since further serendipity prevailed and I was wearing the same hippy-esque scarf. I used a photo-stitching app to tee up the two pics and there you have it… the same spot, two years later. On the one hand it could almost appear I’m (metaphorically) in the same place. However, if there’s anything I’ve learnt since then – it’s the art of self, balance and resilience. My experiences have taken me through many challenges with amazing life-changing highs and tiring lows, and I reflect on and celebrate this as having lived.

So, here’s to trying, doing and learning – and further growth for us all throughout the years.

KK

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10 cool global startup initiatives

May 17, 2012 1 Comment

A quick, curated list of things I’ve come across this month that are making waves in digital and startup hubs around the world… click the screenshots for the links through.

1) Made in NY Digital Map

Launching this week, Rachel Sterne and the City of New York team have delivered another leading city-level tech initiative with the NYT Digital Map showing which companies are hiring.

More @ http://www.mappedinny.com

Could this be where the next iteration of Made in Oz goes? Once Australian startups get access to more funding and can actually hire… ;)

2) Startup Abroad

A two-week #GTD coworking retreat in Bali? Sign me up!

More @ http://www.startupabroad.org

3) Hackatrain

Call me a train spotter but there’s something about the trains in Chicago (perhaps Source Code did it to me?!) that resonates. Combine this with a hackfest and you’ve got me! We’ve seen this kind of thing happen before with Startup Bus so will be interested to see where this goes next month…

More @ http://hackatrain.com

4) Startup Caravan

Follow on with number three’s style but in a caravan? Ha, no this event is more of a ‘static’ endeavour where Parisians head to London to check out the local startup scene.

More @ http://startupcaravan.eu

5) The Kernel Tech Blog

I tend to consume a lot of startup and tech media but should give it all up for the pimping analysis and investigative commentary currently offered at London-based The Kernel. I was introduced to the masthead when I was back in London at Easter and have been following closely ever since. The writers aren’t afraid to take on the big wigs in Silicon Valley either – with a particularly insightful post about Pando Daily last month. Check it out!

More @ http://www.kernelmag.com (Other great examples are Silicon Allee @ http://siliconallee.com and Tech in Asia @ http://www.techinasia.com)

6) Silicon Milkroundabout

More cool stuff from the UK, this time with Silicon Milkroundabout (some of London’s tech community call themselves Silicon Roundabout)… Milk’bout is a job fair aimed at recruiting peeps for UK startups. We’ve got a bit of education to do about what’s involved with startup life and it’s great to see initiative like YC’s Work at a Startup 2012 and this leading the conversation.

More @ http://siliconmilkroundabout.com (Also check out http://workinstartups.com and Germany’s http://jobslike.me)

7) ηReduce (formerly ηCombinator)

The open-source antidote to Y Combinator – ’nuff said.

More @ http://nreduce.com

8) Startup House and Startup HQ

More coliving/coworking spaces to share… this time in SoMa, San Francisco with Startup House and StartupHQ. Despite the similar names – these are two different entities, which were both kicked off by Australian and New Zealanders. StartupHouse is like a hostel for founders and offers budget accommodation in the heart of the tech scene – consider being based here if you’re in town for a short trip. StartupHQ is my first official full-time coworking space and I have to say, it’s been rather incredible so far. The space is massive, recently renovated with no scrimping spared in the fit-out and the calibre of residents is also pretty special (with plenty of repeat entrepreneurs and the latest from the rounds of YC and 500 Startups). Check out a video tour here or hit me up for tea one day if you’re in town and want to visit in person.

More @ http://startuphouse.com and http://www.startuphq.com

9) Tech Open Air Berlin

This will be the very first open air festival to unite the European tech community. It’s certainly ambitious and I’m keen to see how it’s comes off!

More @ http://toaberlin.com

10) The Fetch

I know, I know, you could say I’m incredibly biased and being cheeky with this one. ;) It’s just we’ve been expanding pretty rapidly over the past couple of months and have just started bringing you the best of the digital, creative and business communities in Berlin (HT to Lisa) and Perth (HT to Justin) with San Francisco on its way next week.

More @ http://thefetch.com

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Seen anything else worth checking out and sharing? Feel free to drop me a line… kate@thefetch.com.

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Which mindset are you?

May 7, 2012 2 Comments

‘Two Mindsets,’ Stanford, magazine article, 2007

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Interview with Thom Chambers about publishing

February 28, 2012 Leave a comment

I’ve been following In Treehouses for a while – a magazine that inspires freedom business – and noticed Thom had launched a new publishing house called Mountain & Pacific. I decided to put some questions to him about what’s happening in micro- and self-publishing, and how to stand-out in a crowded world. I’ve pulled out some quotes below but be sure to check out the full interview over on The Fetch Blog.

“With a computer, you can now be your own publishing house. You can commission work from yourself, you can ship it to the world, and you can build a business around it – all on a personal level.

In essence, micropublishing combines the intimacy of blogging with the professional approach of a traditional publisher.”

…

“Publishing houses are, amongst many other things, curators. If they publish something, it’s got a stamp of approval that gives a reader confidence.

But now that self-publishing is a legitimate destination in its own right – not just a backwater for the desperate and delusional – how do readers know where to look? Amid all the writers rejoicing that they can publish to millions, very few people are considering the reader.

One of the aims of a micropublishing house is to improve the quality of the work you produce. As I said before, micropublishing combines the intimacy of blogging with the professional approach of a traditional publisher.

When you set your own high standards, readers come to trust you. It’ll take time, and it won’t be easy, but that’s all you can do – establish trust and earn permission and build your small tribe of dedicated readers by publishing exceptional work.”

…

“Before the internet made it easy to start a business as an individual with minimal overhead, things were more clear cut. Artists went to workshops and sought out patrons and publishers. Entrepreneurs started businesses and went to networking events.

Now, artists can build an audience online by starting a one-person business. And entrepreneurs can take the risk of funding out of the equation by doing the same. They’re vastly different approaches, but have started to look the same from the outside.

Now that it’s hard to tell at a glance whether an individual is approaching things out of love for their craft (the artisan) or out of trying to grow their business (the accountant), they’ve started to be lumped together online. The artisans read the same blogs as the accountants. They start worrying about conversion and click-throughs and building their business more than their art.”

…

More @ The Fetch Blog

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Aussie Startups relaunches

February 17, 2012 1 Comment

Quick post to let you know that aussiestartups.com has relaunched with a YC Hacker News style board and I think it’s a great idea. The aggregated community-selected approach should do the trick in getting important, relevant and well-crafted content out there to interested peeps. It should also co-exist nicely with the HN due to the localisation and focus. Anyway, check it out and submit items to get it bubbling away. And for a bit of weekend reading, check out this post on Hacking Hacker News!

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Building a community for PlanBig

February 14, 2012 2 Comments

I recently did an interview for PlanBig, for those not familiar it’s a place for sharing ideas and making them happen. Kind of like a Kickstarter or Pozible without the crowdfunding aspect. The video touches on how to build a community around your brand, so it’s community from a business sense and differs in some ways to how I would approach a community like Socialmelb for instance. I didn’t know the questions or what I had to do beforehand so while my top five tips are mentioned, I’m sure I could find another top five with more time. It was also raining outside (ah, Melbourne) so excuse the bad hair day!

If you don’t have time to watch, here’s the tips:

  • Make your first action now
  • Encourage your community to meet offline face-to-face
  • Remain nimble and small in your culture
  • Think like a publisher
  • Maintain a curious and beginner-like mind

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Mixed bag

February 4, 2012 Leave a comment

I’ve been meaning to write a few updates and announcements over the past few weeks but things have been a bit hectic. So, for the sake of getting it done – I’m doing a mixed bag post now.

The Fetch London

First up, The Fetch officially launched in London. That’s right – we’re now covering what’s on in the digital, business and creative communities in the UK, and oh my, there is so much! It’s been fun ‘armchair eventing’ and perusing all the amazing things to do, especially with unique offerings like de Botton’s The School of Life. I’m pleased to be working with fellow pom/Oz-heritage mashup Chloe Nicholls on this. Check it out if you’re a resident or in town visiting –>

Dumbo Feather

Secondly, I’ve started collaborating and working with Dumbo Feather magazine. The name leaves everything to the imagination, but in a nutshell it’s a publication and community around extraordinary ideas and the extraordinary people behind them. Originally started by Kate Bezar, Dumbo has now been ‘passed on’ to the great team at Small Giants – a company founded in 2007 that focuses on and supports social enterprises. The beautiful thing about the magazine’s content is that it’s largely long-form interviews, something I find incredibly refreshing online. To get a taste, delve into some recent interviews with Chris Anderson (curator of TED) and Brené Brown (a grounded academic and vulnerability thought-leader). I’m sinking my teeth into their digital offering and online community, and will be experimenting with everything from Kindle Singles (check out Alain de Botton’s here) to video stories and Instagram campaigns. Follow along at @dumbofeather and /dumbofeather.

Here’s a pic of the latest mag’s cover:

Tripping 2012

I’m off again to San Francisco next week and London in April. Part of the San Francisco trip will be to immerse myself in the Valley’s culture and get some feedback from investors and industry peers about The Fetch. I’m currently refining the core offering but really need to have these conversations to take it to the next level. Part of the trip is to also get to some rather cool conferences:

If you happen to be at any of the above or would like me to cover any specific elements –  say hi or ping me on Twitter/email and I’ll do my best with updates. Content will be published here and on Dumbo Feather.

Startup World

The inspiring Hermione Way of Newspepper and The Next Web has initiated a global startup competition called Startup World. Much like competing on American Idol, the competition will be held in 36 cities world-wide, with the regional winners flying to Silicon Valley to battle it out in front of a panel of judges to be crowned the world’s best startup. I’m an advisor along with some other peeps, so check it out and shoot any questions through. There’ll be more updates re: Australian dates soon.

“Whilst there’s certainly advantages to building startups in Silicon Valley due to the sheer amount of entrepreneurs, venture capital and access to talent, startups and entrepreneurship is a global story.”

Tumblr

Not really much to report here but I’m totally three years to late to Tumblr and absolutely loving it. I’m unsurprisingly katekendall.tumblr.com.

Workshop

I’m running another Melbourne Community Management Workshop this week but have decided to head to Sydney in mid-April. If you want to hear what social media is really about (i.e. the people not the tools) and what brands are doing it well, come along! –> http://communitymanagementworkshop3.eventbrite.com

Press

And before I bore you to tears, there’s been a few media features I haven’t mentioned here yet. For completeness on this mixed-bag update, here they are:

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Enjoy the rest of your weekend and keep on fighting the good fight!

KK

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Attention Australian startup founders

February 3, 2012 14 Comments

Edit 7/2/12: Enter madeinoz.org!

Someone was recently chatting to me about the lack of awareness of Australian startups by VCs (even local ones), with poor national press coverage doing us no favours. I agree with this to a large extent and as result have been posting more about our startups here and also over on The Fetch Blog. However, I also think Australian startups need to stand up and own the fact that they’re Australian. I think we can often be obsessed with trying to appear global and appeal to certain markets, like the US, rather than pushing our own story and roots. What I’ve witnessed in other startup communities around the globe is that they have a real pride and bond around origin – particularly their city. New York is perhaps the best example of this – and likely a result of the ever-present dominance from the West Coast. ‘Internet Made in NYC‘, which lists all the NYC-based startups is one of the most useful startup resources to have. It’s visited by job seekers, journos and investors alike.

You can read more about the list in the FAQ at the bottom but the following will give you an idea about the structure.

“What do these companies have in common?

  1. They are mostly coded in nyc
  2. They have 10K+ people use or visit their site monthly
  3. They display “Made in NYC” as prominently as its copyright — and it links to this page (http://nytm.org/made). [Optionally, (a) spell out “New York City” and/or (b) precede with an adverb/verb]“

No denying where Skillshare is based

In Australia, I believe a crucial step in evolving our ecosystem is bonding cross-city and providing transparency around who’s here. We should create our own version of ‘Made in NYC’ as ‘Made in Oz’, and pop links in footers everywhere! It’s good to see leaders like 99designs have kicked things off.

99designs is "Proudly Australia" (although only on the .com.au domain)

Perhaps we could even add some green and gold into the mix… ;)

So cheesy it's back in fashion

And one for good measure – 6wunderkinder wearing the badge:

A proud Berlin-based startup 6 Wunderkinder (check out Wunderlist & Wunderkit)

Thoughts, commentary, discussion?

Have a good weekend.

Cheers,

KK

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Community management workshop take two

January 15, 2012 2 Comments

In celebration of the annual Community Manager Appreciation Day coming up on 23 January and after a pretty amazing sell-out 30-person event last November, I’m going to be running another workshop to discuss current happenings in community management. I’m off to San Francisco on the 9 February again so am hoping Tuesday 7 February date suits people!

I really enjoyed the discussion we had on the night so thanks to those who came to the first workshop and yes, an email will be coming your way shortly with some follow-up material! It was also great to get a feel of the level and background of the audience. Most of the people in the room were senior full-time social media and community managers working across a mix of government, non-profit, retail, academia, enterprise, startups and small biz. Nadia from ElliotOwl did a write-up of the event, which you can check out here. There’s also some lovely feedback below, which might help convince you to come hang with me at the next event. :)

The workshop’s agenda can be viewed here and will cover both strategical big-picture stuff and detail-oriented tools and tips. I also include some of the research I did in my master’s thesis so there’s deep insights, stats and charts involved too.

To RSVP and book your ticket, please head over to Eventbrite: http://communitymanagementworkshop2.eventbrite.com

Thanks and hope you can make it!

Kate

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Five more Australian startups to watch

December 27, 2011 4 Comments

Following on from the first post titled ‘Five Australian startups to watch‘, I’ve now researched some more startups that’ve piqued my interest coming into the New Year. Part of this series is to highlight great stuff happening in our community and to bring awareness through link love to those innovating and creating in Oz. As per my last write-up, I’d like to stress this list is independent – I’ve only met two founders below and pick startups based on a loose-’watchability’ criteria. So without ado…

1. Kaggle

You know you’re off to a good start when a company has a CrunchBase profile! Here’s Kaggle’s. Last month, the now-SF-based startup raised $11 million in Series A from Index And Khosla Ventures – a promising and hefty amount for an Australian startup. Founded in 2010, this site hosts competitions to find analytical/statistical and predictive modelling solutions. Not dissimilar in concept from the multiplying logo-contest sites, Kaggle rewards big data scientists with thousands of dollars in exchange for the IP they provide on the challenges. Unless you’re a PhD from a quantitive field or in need of access to the collective Kaggle community brain, it’s unlikely you’ll ever use or take notice of this startup on a consumer level. Brands like Nasa and Microsoft will and do though.

Founder(s): @antgoldbloom
Funding: Series A of $11M

2. Pygg

Pygg is a recently-launched app based out of Pollenizer in Sydney that allows you to pay someone in a fun and social way. It’s quite simple – after you’ve registered with Pygg and integrated with PayPal, you can pay another user via Twitter and email. The service currently charges $2.50 (inc. GST) when you fill up your account, which is just a little more than the PayPal fees – it’ll be interesting to see how the business model evolves over time.

Founder(s): @pollenizer
Funding: Though Pollenizer’s fund

3. Open Shed

Following in the collaborative consumption style mainstreamed by the likes of Airbnb, Open Shed is a peer-to-peer marketplace allowing people to rent stuff off each other. The wheels were set in motion a year ago today after one of the founders saw #collcons leader Rachel Botsman give a talk at TEDxSydney and referenced such sites in the US and UK. Seeing the opportunity for a local equivalent, Open Shed launched a few months ago and has since won $10K from Nokia’s In Hindsight competition. It’ll be interesting to see how the concept goes since we’ve seen rental sites before in Oz through Rentoid and one of Angel Cube Melb’s startups has moved from renting to tasks.

Founder(s): @_lisafox & Duncan Stewart
Funding: Bootstrapped

4. SneakingDuck

Recently launched by the founders of Shoes of Prey, Sneaking Duck follows a similar online retail trajectory – this time as a glasses and eyewear version. I know what you’re thinking, who buys glasses without trying them on first and making sure the prescription’s right?! Well, the ex-Googler team have successfully done it before with hard-to-fit shoes and seem to have most things covered in their FAQs. These guys also know how to bootstrap, check out this informative post on funding as well as some of the other golden tidbits on their blog. Oh, and as the popularity of non (plano) lenses is proving, you don’t even need imperfect vision to get a pair!

Founder(s): @mikeee, @jodiefox, @mmmichaelfox & @ausmark
Funding: Self-funded/bootstrapped

5. Barkles

When I was in Berlin this year, I met up with the Ashton- and Madonna-backed app Amen, which touts itself as the best and worst of everything. So when I first saw the Melbourne-based Barkles, I thought it might be similar in the way that a user posts something other users agree or disagree with. However Barkles is predominantly web-based and allows for lengthier discussion on each statement. While some of the more accessible ’dogfights’ like ‘Is Glee shit?’ or ‘Is Christmas a horrific, commercialized excuse of a celebration?‘ get your attention, in-depth and highly-engaged debate could make this site a long-term player. Add a bit of Quora’s tone to it and you’ll have something really powerful in this space.

Founder(s): @diesellaws & @jaydwhiting
Funding: Bootstrapped

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Working on something you’d like to share? Email me.

Cheers,

KK

P.S. Please feel free to rejuice this post when people are back at their desks mid-January.

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