Melbourne’s Top 100

December 8, 2011 11 Comments

Be sure to grab a copy or peek of The Age’s (melbourne) magazine tomorrow as the annual Top 100 list for 2011 is out and a panel of judges deemed me worthy for inclusion!

The Top 100 (which is apparently not ordered but for the record, I’m number 66) is a compilation of Melbourne’s most influential, inspirational, provocative and creative people for 2011. This year includes everyone from shadow ministers, philanthropists and authors, to basketballers, retailers and architects. I’m in there for creating The Fetch and Socialmelb, and it’s feels all warm and fuzzy to see my dedication and work in the digital communities recognised. I’d obviously like to thank everyone who’s been involved with either endeavour this year and beyond as I couldn’t do it without you. It’s such a pleasure to know and be around amazing people, and I’m truly grateful for the support and company. This coverage will be a nice opportunity to drive awareness about what’s happening in our industries and also a great driver for making what we offer better. It somehow makes every late night or weekend spent plugging away at my MacBook organising stuff worth it and I’m now wondering what I could do if I freed up my workload to focus more.

I’m particularly excited about where my new venture Cloud Peeps could go with helping people connect and find work/projects (beyond community management).

So, stay tuned, thanks again and here’s to 2012.

KK

P.S. If you’re new here, and interested in what’s happening in Melbourne’s digital, business and creative communities (events, jobs, local profiles, spaces and more), please subscribe at http://thefetch.org and follow us on @thefetchmelb.

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10 global women with gusto

November 27, 2011 12 Comments

Over the years, I’ve had to increasingly deal with the position of a somewhat budding public profile. This mainly started with some time editing Marketingmag.com.au and more recently with general digital commentary to a growing Twitter audience. I’m mainly stating this not to bang on about myself (#yawn) but because I’ve found it quite an interesting journey – especially as a woman. I feel as I’ve refined my beliefs, developed my voice and put myself out there, the more people either switch on or off. I’ve been pondering whether I should continue to express myself more and my opinions, or say less. I looked around me and noticed most people were in the non-polarising camp. I then thought about women that regularly reach me who have a strong fearless character. I therefore present you with a list (in no particular order) of passionate women (with a digital media slant) who really say something.

Penelope Trunk
Twitter: @penelopetrunk
Role: Founder of Brazen Careerist and blogger
Based: Some barn in the US
Why? The queen of unhindered commentary, I’ve been following Penelope’s posts for a while now and have become completely adjusted to her talking about work woes, Asperger’s Syndrome, miscarriages in the office, libido and relationships plus more. She’s not afraid to leave any topic untouched and sums it up with: “Most blogs suck because people write what they think others want to read instead of what they themselves want to read.”

Rachel Hills
Twitter: @rachelhills
Role: Freelance journalist, feminist blogger and upcoming author
Based: London via Sydney
Why? I instantly resonated with Rachel when I first started reading her work. She takes a balanced and modern approach to gender issues with a pop culture slant. She’s young, relevant, intelligent and Australian – a must-follow. I hope to enjoy another London-based high tea with her soon!

Cindy Gallop
Twitter: @cindygallop
Role: TEDster, entrepreneur, ex-adland
Based: New York
Why? Cindy’s Twitter bio really says it all: “I like to blow shit up. I am the Michael Bay of business.” She’s the ultimate free spirit and role model for women’s change and advancement. She created MakeLoveNotPorn (launched at TED2009) and IfWeRanTheWorld. She’s also excellent at curating the best women-related news and articles in her social channels.

Laurel Papworth
Twitter: @silkcharm
Role: Social media and communities consultant
Based: Sydney
Why? Laurel has been working in the social media space before it was the social media space, and as a result has quite the profile. I really admire Laurel, mostly for her resilience and stamina. There’s been a few times now when I’ve randomly checked Twitter and noticed an onslaught of negativity addressed at her and she still just gets on with it.

Meg Pickard
Twitter: @megpickard
Role: Digital Engagement for Guardian News & Media and creative geek
Based: London
Why? I heard Meg talk at the Media09 Conference in Sydney and was hooked. Her work seemed like an absolute dream job at a time when I was at the intersection of digital, publishing and communities. I recommend reading Meg’s personal and professional blogs as I love the style, tone, content and photography, and I’m sure it’s subconsciously influenced my own.

Kara Swisher
Twitter: @karaswisher
Role: Founder and co-executive editor at AllThingsDigital
Based: SFBA
Why? This one probably doesn’t need much elaboration… Kara’s incredibly influential as one of the tech community’s most experienced and heralded reporters, plus she’s a gay female in a straight male dominated industry. Respect.

Angie Chang & Shaherose Charania
Twitter: @women2
Role: Cofounders of female-founder focused organisation, Women2
Based: SFBA
Why? Continuing on with the tech theme, this duo pretty much created the only female network I’ve ever found useful and relevant. Each doing cool stuff in their own right, they continually give back with their work on Women2 and it’s great to see them be recognised by FastCompany, among others, as two of the biggest women players in tech. And yes, I know this breaks my list numbering!

Jolie O’Dell
Twitter: @jolieodell
Role: Writer at VentureBeat
Based: SFBA
Why? Having worked as a tech journalist for ReadWriteWeb, Mashable and now VentureBeat, Jolie’s had a stellar career. Plus she’s also studying computer science, which means extra cred! However, what stands out for me is her candid and reflective nature in her personal blog posts. Here she discusses everything from productivity and alcoholism to journeys into C#. She’s also brilliant on camera.

Rachel Botsman
Twitter: @rachelbotsman
Role: Co-author of Collaborative Consumption: What’s Mine Is Yours
Based: Sydney
Why? I saw Rachel speak at TEDxSydney 2010 and was inspired by her every word. She’s written a book, nurtured a movement, joined the Collab Fund, regularly unearths upcoming social businesses and has a beautiful new son. I really respect how she balances male and female leadership qualities with ease and blends thinking with doing.

Hermione Way
Twitter: @hermioneway
Role: Video Director for TNW, Founder Newspepper and Techfluff.TV
Based: SFBA
Why? A self-described “Natural born enthusiast for life”, I met Hermoine through the lovely Chloe Nicholls and instantly found her carefree attitude addictive. She’s social, speaks her mind and an entrepreneur in her own right.

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So, who do you admire for voice and strength? I’d love to read about more women in our everyday networks, so feel free to replicate, post and share.

Thanks,

KK

P.S. While on the topic of women’s evolution, you might like my post from last year titled: ‘Lifehacks for women‘.

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Welcome to Brisbane’s fetch

November 23, 2011 Leave a comment

Another post to briefly announce we’ve launched The Fetch in Brisbane. For those not aware what the fetch is The Fetch, I’ll recount some details…

It’s basically a what’s on guide to your city’s business, digital and creative communities. It goes out fortnightly (or ‘biweekly’ for those in the US) and curates all the meetups, events, industry news, must-read links, local profiles, coworking spaces and more happening in town. We’re already covering Melbourne and Sydney, and I’m very happy to be working with Lani Pauli for Brisbane and Queensland surrounds. If you’re from the area, be sure to check it out. I’d really appreciate your feedback and submissions as well – always looking to create a more useful product slash publication.

We don’t really focus on web delivery (email, social and mobile is where it’s at for us to start) so follow along on Facebook, Twitter and subscribe if you live or are visiting beautiful Queensland. Cheers!

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Transience

November 23, 2011 5 Comments

There is nothing permanent except change. ~ Heraclitus

I’ve been meaning to write a post about location independence for a while now… mainly discussing how I’ve been combining work with travel in the last two years and how a PO Box is now my official residence in Australia after recently selling a lot of my stuff. However, I’m going to focus on transience and impermanence, rather than the resulting actions.

You see, I’ve been pondering about how my life has been evolving and the role of the digital world in facilitating this change. I’ve noticed my outer world isn’t as simple or straightforward as it once was – I don’t have a well documented formula to replicate (hello 9-5) and I can’t look around me for guidance. After all, I only know a handful of people able to freely choose their current location, especially at short notice. In a way, it feels those of us experimenting with these shifts are pioneers – prototyping plausible existences in public forums for what’s hopefully the benefit of others. And don’t get me wrong, I understand this position is a rarity and somewhat idealistic in approach – I certainly won’t crave this lifestyle if and when I’m a mother!

Firstly, I believe transience is coming about due to changes in our work, which are largely a result of advances in technology. As soon as flexibility and freedom from a physical world arrive, we are given the opportunity to decide on location for ourselves. I first got a taste for this flexibility when I started connecting with web developers – specifically the Ruby on Rails community. Here, these well-paid, mostly-male, mid-20′s programmers were deciding when and where they wanted to work. They seemingly had no problem travelling all over the world for some boutique conference or camp to enjoy some in-person time and global learning. While I wasn’t about to run away, clock up activity on my GitHub account and learn a cucumber isn’t just a vegetable – I was wondering how I could hack my life to make something similar work for me.

Working in a progressive area and on the web, I was fortunate to mash up a situation that’s allowed me to increase my awareness of the globe by seeing more of it. Working with companies that get it (especially travel-related) and creating something yourself has helped me to sustain my activities. Through these endeavours, I’ve journeyed through North America, Europe, Asia and Australasia in the past 12 months. I’m writing this post from a peaceful and tropical Port Douglas in Far North Queensland, before heading back to Melbourne via a Brisbane Fetch-launching stopover. I doubt I’d have seen as much as I have without having to quit everything to take time out for purely travelling.

One of the things I love about transience is it allows me to change and be agile in my existence. I feel like I’ve been growing so much as an individual in recent times, that having the freedom to take opportunities as they come or just be has allowed me to live more authentically in time and space. One of the things I don’t love so much is the impact of transience on relationships. I’m a fierce loyalist to my friends and circle, and it saddens me when I have to let go of a relationship. In my ideal world, we could all nurture each other and give attention to every connection. However when you’re on the go, the cherished face-to-face interaction dwindles and people soon forget about those not close by. In our often status-update-focused worlds, it’s now easy to have ambient awareness without ever having to ask a “How are you?”.

Above all, transience is about having no fear about what the future may hold. I understand what I am subject to now can change and change quickly, and what I thought were anchors and stability, gone. We’re all a target of this and even a 15-year commitment to one company doesn’t offer much security in the current economy. It seems I’m able to still arrive at the place I wanted to be though – with thanks to a vision and a rough plan. My energy and motivation levels flourish without having to fight an alternate path too.

The next steps for me involve embodying inner impermanence as a lifelong concept while returning to longer stints with my outer location. Thank you for listening and here’s to upcoming adventures and explorative living!

Kate

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Community management workshop

November 1, 2011 Leave a comment

EDIT: I’m running another workshop on Tuesday 7 February!

I’ve got a backlog of posts to come including a new Startups to Watch list, some thoughts on location transience and more info on my new project but for now, I wanted to share a workshop happening later this month.

After a whirlwind few years of managing social media communities in the publishing (or ‘audiences’ as the industry can’t stop referring to it) and travel arenas, I’m keen to share my learnings. Especially since the title seems to be popping up a lot of late. I particularly want to discuss the findings from my Grand Tour this year and what’s happening in the innovation and startup clusters of major cities from a community standpoint. The workshop will run for three hours and will cover changes in social media and online communities in recent times and what leading brands, especially in the startup and small business arenas (such as Airbnb and Instagram), are doing well. The full info is included below. Check it out.

In a collaborative setting, you’ll discuss:
  • What community managers are tasked with day-to-day
  • What role do community managers play in marketing and broader business goals
  • What skillsets do community managers need to have and develop
  • How to manage the blurring lines between personal and professional
  • How community management is moving beyond the days of forum moderation
  • Techniques for switching off (a rarity for CMs!)
  • Short- and long-term community engagement
  • The importance of vision, agility and getting things done
  • The role of offline in growing online
  • A case study about growing a community from scratch
  • Who are the community managers in Australia
  • Resources and networks for community managers
  • Who is hiring in Australia
  • Opportunities for consulting- and freelance-based work
  • What are renumeration expectations in client-side and agency settings

Who should attend:

  • Professional community managers and social media peeps looking to further their knowledge and awareness
  • Individuals interested in working in community management and social media
  • Individuals keen on building the local community management community (double c’ whammy!)
  • Entrepreneurs keen on exploring how to build community around their brand or product
  • Learning geeks who couldn’t think of anything more fun to do on a Monday night

This event will first run face-to-face in Melbourne’s CBD (venue TBC) with the chance to take it to Sydney in early 2012.

The attendee fee basically covers the cost of the venue and putting the content together. I was thinking we could get dinner or drinks afterwards if people aren’t too tired!

Sound interesting/applicable? Book over at Eventbrite!

http://communitymanagementworkshop.eventbrite.com

Thanks and hope you can make it!

Kate

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Melbourne: hot off the event press

October 10, 2011 Leave a comment

Sorry another post!

Anyway, I’m due to arrive back in Australia this week and have duly organised some activities to keep us busy before year’s end. :)

* Update 13/10 – I’ll also  be at Socialmelb from 8am tomorrow and Hub Melbourne from 5pm. :)

  • To start, there’s the Worldwide Instagram Instameet on 26 October at 1000 £ Bend. This is a non-photowalk meetup so come along and be a filterist (i.e. share photography tips) with me and the IgersMelbourne community!
  • While on the topic of Instagram, Misho Baranovic and others are leading an amazing competition with BlurbOz this month. The aim is to uncover and celebrate the beauty of Australian suburbia (no, not a paradox), so tag applicable photos #instaburb. I’ve got my Melbourne judges hat on for this so am looking forward to being blown away by the submissions. More here + below.

  • I’m also looking forward to reconnecting with Melbourne’s startup community at Silicon Beach Drinks on 3 November.
  • After that is the final Travel Massive Melbourne meetup for 2011. We’ll be having drinks on the rooftop of The Emerald Peacock from 6pm on 29 November.
  • Then we have the already-well RSVP’d Christmas #socialmelb drinks at Honey Bar  – this is set for the following evening on 30 November from 6pm.
  • The final Socialmelb breakfast of the year will be on 16 December at the usual spot.
  • Finally, I’m still waiting on the confirmation, but there’s likely to be another Women2 Founder Friday on the evening before Startup Weekend Melbourne. Stay tuned for the details.
And of course, all this information will be available fortnightly as usual in The Fetch.
Hope to see some of you around town.
Cheers,
KK

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Uncovering the Berlin web community

October 10, 2011 6 Comments

Last month I was lucky enough to check out the creative and digital scenes in Berlin as part of the Grand Tour. As a city with a gay mayor, in a country with a female chancellor and a polarising past, I knew I’d like it. I started researching before I landed and was soon surprised, not to mention rather excited, with the sheer volume of stuff happening. Unlike San Francisco, which tends to be a bit tech-community myopic – I found the beauty of Berlin lay in its diversity. You’ll find more artists, vintage store owners, local-movement foodies, late-20′s students and pop-up venue instigators than tech entrepreneurs. It almost reminded me of Melbourne but about five times less expensive. That’s right, you can find rooms as cheap as €200 per month so it’s definitely an attractive place to startup. Plus, you can always squat for free – it’s the Berlin way. ;) However, salaries are adjusted to the affordable cost of living. One of the sticking points of Berlin is the comparatively low remuneration – if you’re thinking about staying long-term, be prepared to be greeted with a salary of what’s often less than a graduate in Australia.

Something important to note is that German web workers are moving toward doing most business in English, so don’t be afraid if your speaking skills are non-existent. There were people I met who’d lived there for three or four years, and still couldn’t pull out more than a danke schön. Berliners are also really passionate about their craft and it won’t take you long to figure out if a product was founded in the city.

The often spotted Berlin website credit. This one's courtesy of 6Wunderkinder.

Now for some background reading…

First up, don’t think Germany is all Samwer-esque US clones – there’s a lot of progressive stuff happening and the German community is keen to embrace an “anti-copycat revolution”. One of the must-read posts, which is now a few months old, is Founders STAND UP! The anti-copycat revolution starts now.

It also features a neat visualisation of original startups and their HQs:

There are also two local content offerings doing a stellar job of covering the community:

  • Silicon Allee, which was started by a couple of expats has a frequently-updated blog and runs monthly meetups
  • TechBerlin does a great job of curating news and Skype video interviews with founders

Events

I ended up getting to my fair share of events. Hello Etsy was a special summit on small business and sustainability, and featured the best name tags ever. CoHackDay at coworking space co.up was a fun cross-discipline hack weekend. Hack and Tell was a nice insight into what’s being created, with monthly demo evenings. The social business innovation conference, CoThinkTank was a more-corporate style event and I particularly enjoyed hearing from frog design. Fatsix by Third Wave Berlin was a chilled weekly Friday drinks event and finally, Open Coffee Club was a #socialmelb-style coffee meetup but with more males and tech entrepreneurs! I also couldn’t help myself, I ended up coorganising something while there via kicking off Berlin Travel Massive.

Travel Massive at St Oberholz

  • For a what’s on in tech perspective, the well-curated Startup Digest is worth viewing. You can check out archived emails online here
  • For another point of call, Tobias Jordans just created a fantastic Google Plus update with comprehensive event listings
  • We’re also looking to launch The Fetch Berlin later to represent the city’s breadth, so stay tuned

Where to cowork

When you hear the word ‘cowork’, think Berlin. Due to the low rents, less-stringent building regulations and mid-rise properties in abundance – there are countless places to work out of. The city is also home to the best online coworking publication going, Deskmag where the editors work out of the co.up space. They also created the useful Deskwanted, which is a marketplace for desk hunters and coworking spaces. Worth the view if you looking for something in one spot.

  • For a well-rounded introduction, check out this post: Berlin – Europe’s coworking capital
  • Don’t bother much with the coworking wiki as the info is outdated. For instance, there isn’t a Hub in Berlin
  • St Oberholz, put simply, is the Red Rock Café of Europe! This double-storey, beautiful and relaxed venue is jam-packed full of power points,  MacBooks and relatively-stable free WiFi. This month, they’re also expanding into a more formal coworking space on the upstairs levels and have a hilarious blog worth a look. If the net is playing up or you want somewhere quieter, I suggest heading over to Café Hilde.
  • One of my favourite options was the multi-storey Betahaus. This place is coworking on steroids and features numerous spaces (like Jay’s Open Design City), events, upcomers and a cool cafe down the bottom. Just buy some mint tea and a bean burrito to enjoy the large light-filled venue and complimentary guest WiFi.

Betahaus

Where to stay

Like coworking, you won’t have a problem finding accommodation in Berlin. A quick Airbnb search will list many extremely affordable and hip options. I ended up staying at the super kind and friendly Ferdinand‘s place, which is only a few U-Bahn stops from Alexanderplatz (central).

You can also check out Airbnb-clone Wimdu for more listings.

In Berlin, gentrification is an ugly word so there are locations to stay in and there are locations to stay in. I’m trying to keep up with what’s what but let me just say, Berliners are pretty evangelical toward their suburb and prefer not to travel across town. If I have it right, Prenzlauer Berg was the place before it became baby town. So now it’s Kreuzberg, which is likely to be replaced by Neukölln. But alas, it’s mostly fun and games – I can tell you most places will be cheaper, cooler and closer than you have at home.

Startups to meet, people to remember

While there are always so many people to see and startups to talk about, I’m going to keep this quite brief!

  • SoundCloud are obviously killing it and must be seen as the success story of late from the Berlin community. Unfortunately Alex and I could never cross paths so I didn’t get to discover as much behind the scenes
  • 6Wunderkinder has quickly established itself as a serious and precise player in the productivity market with Wunderlist (over two million downloads), and there’s more the come with the Wunderkit. Thanks to Jess and Javier for a great chat, and to Christian for having me along
  • I’m really excited about Gidsy. While travelling, Mat and I constantly kept saying there should be a site for peer-to-peer local travel experiences. While Gidsy is broader in nature, be it an “authentic experience marketplace”, it’ll naturally cover travel and exploration. While it’s yet to launch, the way I think of it is as a Skillshare for everything (not just learning) and a less event-focused Meetup. I’m keen to see what Edial and the team do once launched
  • The Ashton-backed Amen has also got tongue’s wagging both in it’s private beta and now post-launch. Describing it via a blog post doesn’t really do it justice but it’s basically a platform for voicing strong opinions – including “the best and worst of everything”. Interestingly, Twitter’s first engineer is one of the founders. Aussie web guru Tim Lucas is also on the team as a lead developer after recently making the switch from Sydney. We really enjoyed hanging out with him and the lovely Carla during our stay! Thanks guys
  • OK, so you all know how much I love and bang on about Instagram. The only problem is it’s just available on the iPhone. Enter EyeEm – a photo capturing app that’s also Android base. Furthermore, Florian and the team have added a beautiful interface and additional social tools
  • For the social entrepreneurs among us, I also met Daniel from Doonited. This site encourages its users to do one small good deed a day. It seems there’s a new site every minute aiming to change the world through social but these guys are executing well
  • Another startup worth a look is social-reading platform Readmill. I gave my iPad to my mum so won’t be able to use the app for now, but from what I’ve seen so far – the experience is amazing
Now for some specific people:
  • A big mention to Dominik and Simon Wind of Palomar5 and Until We See New Land fame. These guys were so welcoming, kind, aware, intelligent and more – it was great to spend time with you! Be sure to say hello
  • Another mention to the lovely, smiling and social Svenja from Yelp Berlin – the person to know for eat/drink recommendations
  • And to Duana from ThoughtWorks for hosting us and watching me relive teenage years by playing too much Zelda

Away from it all

Now finally, if you want to get out of the city and switch off – here are three non-web activities:

  • Tempelhof: this airport closed in 2008 and has since managed to turn itself into a massive community urban garden with more planned. If you want to get the feeling of pure open space only minutes from the city centre, this is it. You can even hire a Segway to ride around the tarmac or gasp as the sheer size of the Nazi-era terminal.
  • Teufelsberg: this is one of the best non-tourist tourist things I’ve ever done. The abandoned post-Cold War US listening post features breathtaking view of the city, sweet-ass graffiti and scary shadows. We woke up at 5am on Mat’s birthday to catch the sunrise – I’d definitely recommend a visit although I’m not sure it’s technically permitted :)

Teufelsberg

  • Potsdam: OK, so this recommendation is more mainstream but worth it nevertheless. Especially for someone who appreciates history and palatial architecture. Hire a bike and ride around for the day, admiring the stunning lakes and ostentatious properties along the way.

So, that’s about it for Berlin. Oh, I nearly forgot the most important thing – don’t forget to eat lots of scrumptious German bread!

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Apologies in advance if there’s anything or anyone I’ve missed. This post is a bit of a WIP and will likely be updated.

Would love you feedback on the usefulness of this as an introductory guide to Berlin too. Email me or leave a comment.

Cheers,

KK

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Five Australian startups to watch

October 1, 2011 8 Comments

In 2011, we’ve witnessed an explosion of enthusiasm in the startup scene with many people (especially journalists from traditional media) keen to feature what’s going on and who’s making it happen. While I’m strong advocate of any attention towards Australian startups in general – I’d love to see some more upcomers being mentioned. After doing some research and crowdsourcing, the following five startups (many pre-launch) piqued my interest. This list is by no means definitive and provides merely a small snapshot of what’s being created around the country. I should also refer to what my version of ‘watchability’ is… this includes the product being relatively-new, scalable, innovative, fast-growing, problem-solving, complete with a sound business model and long-term prospects. I would also like to include that my suggestions are independent – I (unfortunately) haven’t met any of the founders below.

1. mmMule

When the new MacBook Air came out a couple of months ago, annoyingly, I’d just left the US. With many people in our industry flying back and forth to Silicon Valley, I wondered if I could just ask someone to bring one back for me for the ~15% saving. But how to ask without it feeling a bit one-sided? Enter mmMule. Launching in September, this service combines community and travel with mutualistic social exchange. Although the name might prove hard for users to recall, people helping each other à la Airbnb, will mean it’ll be off to a promising start.

Founder(s): @avismulhall
Funding: Believed to be bootstrapped

2. Discovr (aka Filter Squad)

I must confess I haven’t had much of a chance to play with this app yet but have been duly impressed with I’ve learnt so far. With more and more apps flooding the Store, our obsession with data visualisation growing daily and poor meta discoverability the norm – Discovr App seems like a no-brainer. The guys from Perth have also enjoyed some global coverage, over one million downloads and a “Greatest Potential Award” at the recent Tech23 awards.

Founder(s): @stuartkhall | @davidkmckinney
Funding: $200K (via CrunchBase)

P.S. Check out the Australian founded and well-funded Chomp for more app search and discovery.

3. MeeMeep

I’m still trying to get my head around the focus of MeeMeep although in short, I guess, it’s simply social moving. It creates a marketplace and turns every one of us into a potential removalist or courier. As someone who is soon to be moving out of my house, I would use this service over an official company just as I would rather stay at someone’s house instead of a clinical hotel while travelling. The service is currently in beta mode and they appear to be rocking the social media wagon solidly, with an impressive 1000+ fans on FB.

Founder(s): Rob Emmett | (and Jodie Emmett is active)
Funding: “Bootstrap-funded from a small group of Melbourne-based private investors”

4. Pointpal

When I was at Startup Weekend San Francisco last year, one of the more-promising ideas was one that took your loyalty cards and whacked them onto one app. As someone with a bulging plastic-filled wallet/purse, I’m so glad this issue is being addressed in Australia by way of Pointpal. I’ll be interested to see how many retail partners they can bring on-board in order to ensure the success of the user experience. The revenue opportunities are also plentiful.

Founder(s): Andrew Lowe
Funding: Being confirmed

5. WeTeachMe

WeTeachMe was a startup out of the Launch48 event in Melbourne back in early April. The literal name really explains it all – this is a service where you can ‘Learn’ or ‘Teach’ people new skills and the delivery is either on or offline. Boostrapped for under $400 with five cofounders, the guys have done well with the publicity machine pre-launch – even getting coverage for a recent overseas fundraising and networking mission. I absolutely love the idea and only time will tell if they can grab a share off the first-to-market NYC-based and not-too-far-off-launching-in-Melbourne Skillshare.

Founder(s): @kymhuynh | @apaddyinoz | @demitint | @lampit | @martykemka
Funding: Bootstrapped

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Working on something that you’d like to share? I might make these posts a regular event. Get in touch.

Cheers,

KK

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What’s on in Sydney

September 12, 2011 Leave a comment

So, today marks the launch of The Fetch Sydney! And of course, it follows on in the 80′s style tennis fashion of The Fetch Melbourne. The biweekly email curates the same style of content, so you’ll find a neat summary of what’s on in the business, digital and creative communities. There’s also a dose of news and articles, cool jobs and yet-to-be-seen interviews and profiles. Feel free to subscribe via the site. You might have seen the post about the search for a curator over on theFetch blog? Well, I’m happy to announce the amazing and super approachable Hannah DeMilta will be the go-to person from now on. You can submit items to her here or shoot me an email with collaboration opportunities. I’d be especially keen to hear from you if you’re interested in taking The Fetch to your city!

Fluro inspiration

Sydney's first fetch

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Photos from a Grand Tour

August 26, 2011 3 Comments

For those not on Instagram, I’ve been cross-sharing photos of my travels on Flickr here.

I  will also try to post a wrap-up of my findings from each city visited soon. The idea is to produce a Startup City Index measuring different parameters from each city such as affordability, community, access to funding and more-subjective things such as vibe and energy. There’s especially much to report about Berlin – it’s blowing my mind how amazing the stuff going on here is. For now, our leave you with these pics – can you guess a couple of the sights?

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