There are countless guides to venture capital for budding entrepreneurs on the web. Marc Andreesen, the founder of the seminal VC success story Netscape and the recently launched Ning (an extremely interesting social networking platform), among many other ventures, has provided his own guide in a three part series:
Part 1: VC basics and what they look for
Part 2: Going deeper, including comparing VC firms
Part 3: Long-term perspectives, including why VCs continue to be successful today
The most interesting by far is Part 3, looking at long-term cyclicality in the industry, and how venture capital has become accepted as an asset class for professional investors. Over the last couple of decades I’ve spent in and around the capital markets, I’ve seen a number of “new” asset classes struggle for acceptance among institutional investors. Portfolio theory shows that if the investment performance of different asset classes are not fully correlated, you can get better returns for a given risk by including additional asset classes. As such, investors actively want to bring in new asset classes into their portfolios, but there are all sorts of hurdles to cross. High-yield debt, emerging markets debt, venture capital, hedge funds, and other investment vehicles have all gone through a process of being examined by trustees and committees, recommendations provided by asset consultants, eventual approval for small investments by innovative investors, and then larger allocations across most institutional investors. In the US, university endowments have substantially outperformed mutual funds and other institutional investors over the last decade or so, partly through being ahead of the pack in taking on new asset classes such as venture capital.
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Video interview of Mick Liubinskas, Tangler
By Ross DawsonThis one minute interview of Mick Liubinskas, Chief Customer Officer of Tangler, was made in conjunction with the Web 2.0 in Australia event, where Tangler was showcased as one of the leading examples of Web 2.0 in Australia. The video was produced by One Minute World, which specializes in one minute video content for streaming and mobile devices.
Mick talks about Tangler and its future.
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Video interview of Richard Giles, Scouta
By Ross DawsonThis one minute interview of Richard Giles of Scouta was made in conjunction with the Web 2.0 in Australia event, where Scouta was showcased as one of the leading examples of Web 2.0 in Australia. The video was produced by One Minute World, which specializes in one minute video content for streaming and mobile devices.
Richard talks about Scouta and the need to cope with a world of unlimited content.
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Video interview of Phil Morle, Omnidrive
By Ross DawsonThis one minute interview of Phil Morle of Omnidrive was made in conjunction with the Web 2.0 in Australia event, where Omndrive was showcased as one of the leading examples of Web 2.0 in Australia. The video was produced by One Minute World, which specializes in one minute video content for streaming and mobile devices.
Phil talks about Omnidrive and its role in the Web 2.0 space.
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Video interview of Peter Russell, KPMG
By Ross DawsonThis one minute interview of Peter Russell of KPMG was made in conjunction with the Web 2.0 in Australia event. The video was produced by One Minute World, which specializes in one minute video content for streaming and mobile devices.
Peter talks about the benefits and applications of Web 2.0 for corporates.
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Video interview of Brad Howarth, Lagrange Communications
By Ross DawsonThis one minute interview of Brad Howarth, freelance journalist and Director of Lagrange Communications, was made in conjunction with the Web 2.0 in Australia event. The video was produced by One Minute World, which specializes in one minute video content for streaming and mobile devices.
Brad talks about the state of Web 2.0 in Australia, including in start-ups and corporates.
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Video interview of Ben Naftzger, Atlassian
By Ross DawsonThis one minute interview of Ben Naftzger, Sales Director of Atlassian, was made in conjunction with the Web 2.0 in Australia event, where Atlassian was showcased as one of the leading examples of Web 2.0 in Australia. The video was produced by One Minute World, which specializes in one minute video content for streaming and mobile devices.
Ben talks about what distinguishes Atlassian, including its open architecture and policies.
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Video interview of Allan Aaron, Technology Venture Partners
By Ross DawsonThis one minute interview of Allan Aaron, General Partner of venture capital firm Technology Venture Partners, was made at the time of the Web 2.0 in Australia event. The video was produced by One Minute World, which specializes in one minute video content for streaming and mobile devices.
Allan discusses shifts in the Web 2.0 space in Australia from a venture capital perspective.
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Keynote speech on influence networks at Evolve
By Ross DawsonKimberly Palmer of Networx has put together what looks like a fantastic conference on 14 June in Melbourne, titled Evolve. Its highly diverse content is refreshing after the usual run-of-the-mill marketing events. I’ll be doing a keynote titled: We, Evolved: networks of influence:
In my keynote I will start by going through some of the underlying network science, which surprisingly few marketers and online people are familiar with, considering how useful this is. I will then drill down into the critical distinction between the crude “identify the influencers and influence them” approach to word of mouth marketing, and the value of uncovering the structure of influence networks, the better to craft effective influence strategies. I’ll discuss both consumer marketing and B2B marketing, drawing for example on my research into technology purchase influence networks. I’ll then cover the specific dynamics of online influence, including blogs and recommendation systems such as Digg and Techmeme, before looking at some case studies and concluding action steps for the audience. I will post on this blog again soon on some of the detail of what I’ll cover, including my commentary on the latest research coming out on influence networks.
The coming segmentation of venture capital as an asset class
By Ross DawsonThere are countless guides to venture capital for budding entrepreneurs on the web. Marc Andreesen, the founder of the seminal VC success story Netscape and the recently launched Ning (an extremely interesting social networking platform), among many other ventures, has provided his own guide in a three part series:
Part 1: VC basics and what they look for
Part 2: Going deeper, including comparing VC firms
Part 3: Long-term perspectives, including why VCs continue to be successful today
The most interesting by far is Part 3, looking at long-term cyclicality in the industry, and how venture capital has become accepted as an asset class for professional investors. Over the last couple of decades I’ve spent in and around the capital markets, I’ve seen a number of “new” asset classes struggle for acceptance among institutional investors. Portfolio theory shows that if the investment performance of different asset classes are not fully correlated, you can get better returns for a given risk by including additional asset classes. As such, investors actively want to bring in new asset classes into their portfolios, but there are all sorts of hurdles to cross. High-yield debt, emerging markets debt, venture capital, hedge funds, and other investment vehicles have all gone through a process of being examined by trustees and committees, recommendations provided by asset consultants, eventual approval for small investments by innovative investors, and then larger allocations across most institutional investors. In the US, university endowments have substantially outperformed mutual funds and other institutional investors over the last decade or so, partly through being ahead of the pack in taking on new asset classes such as venture capital.
Read more →
Web 2.0 in Australia: The birth of Silicon Harbour?
By Ross DawsonA few initial reflections on the Web 2.0 in Australia event held yesterday… Overall it was a great success, with 100 over invited guests filling the KPMG conference facility, and all requests for invitations having been turned away over the last couple of weeks since we reached capacity. Everything ran smoothly on the day, and some great insights emerged.
For many attendees the highlight was the showcase of five leading Australian Web 2.0 companies (full details here), which amply demonstrated the calibre of local companies and talent, as well as BEA’s demonstration of their new enterprise 2.0 suite. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the Top 60 Web 2.0 applications in Australia we’ve identified (I will be posting shortly about some of the applications I missed in my first go at the list).
We jammed a stack of rich content into the event’s 2½ hours, and while the primary theme of attendee feedback was that they wanted a longer event, I think we did justice to the topic, with some great panel discussions in addition to the showcases. Video coverage of the event done by our event partners Viocorp and One Minute World will be released shortly and will be posted on this blog and elsewhere. In the meantime, a few quick thoughts on what was covered:
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