If it feels right - do it
If it doesn’t - don’t
Go with your gut
Be authentic
Sunday, December 24, 2023
Thursday, August 31, 2023
How to build a $100m business
There are 75 things you need to have in place to build a $100m business
Thursday, August 10, 2023
Jon BURGESS shared some amazing insights at The 2023 Sydney 1 Asia CEO community - with Gary Lam
John Burgess shared his insights on the power of advocacy .
Who are your advocates? Each probably has 50 connections and 500 contacts
Are you
- On mind - contacts
- Front of Mind - connection
- Top of mind - advocates
What do you want people to know about you? - ask them to help you!
How do you get them to trust you?
How do you build know like and trust?
Trust is key - - how do I make you feel
John asked a great question…. What do people want ?
Some responses
- To Live and learn
- Network family
- Feel relevant
- Build relationships
- Leave a legacy
- Build a model make commercial sense
How do I start ?
In each interaction -
Ask these questions - “I am curious to know - How can I help ? how can I be helped?
*Attendees:*
1. Gary Lam, CEO of Asia CEO Community
2. Jon Burgess, Founder & Director, KWAN International Management (VIP Speaker)
3. Alan Chan Ka Fai JP. 陳家輝. 太平紳士, Project Manager – APEX Investment Alliance, Chairman of Lions Club International, District 201N5 of Sydney Zone 5. President of Lions Club of Sydney Incorporated-Host (VIP Speaker)
4. Aries CHEUNG JP, President, Australia Chapter – Managing Director - Onteam Global
5. Anthony HARRISON, Committee, Australia Chapter, CEO of Twelve8 Technology & Onteam Global and SOULU
6. Deborah Biber 白碧仪 - Chief Executive at AustCham ASEAN
7. Sylvia Huang - Founder at bMightie
8. Ivan Kaye - Director at BSI Learning
9. Sam Phillips - CEO at Reach Alternative Investments
10. Christine LAU, Client Services Officer – TopAus Services
11. Deb King, Co-Founder and Coach – The Wisdom Playground
12. Greg Smith, CEO – BUNTU
13. Geoff Hetherington, Founder - Elite Business Institute
14. Terry CHING, Director-Terry Management & Principal-Metro Property Agent
15. Patrick Wong, Executive Director – Digilink Media Group
16. Henry Song, P.E., P.Eng., Director of Investment & Strategy - P & H Financial
17. Rico Wing Chau, Executive Director at FINET
18. Md Mizanur Rahaman (AWS, SAFe, NFVi, ITIL, PRINCE2, SQL), Principal Member of Technical Staff at Aus NewTechs
19. Jamie Pennington, Senior Principal, Energy & Resources|Finance Transformation Lead – Australia
20. Alexander Soeriyadi, Co-Founder, CEO of LLEAF Pty Ltd
21. Daniel Moore, Sentinel Security Group
22. Alice Chan, Senior Director BD at MCA Dedeng Law Firm
23. Alex Lin, Chief Futurist & Founder at MetaValue Group
24. Jessica King, Managing Director at Ausvina Project Development Co Ltd
25. Blake Harrison, Operation Manager of Onteam Global
26. Vincent Chan, Partner - APEX Investment Alliance
27. Ken NG, Project Manager – APEX Investment Alliance
28. Steve SHAW - Business Development Director at INTIUM CAPITAL
*ASIA CEO COMMUNITY*
WWW.ASIACEO.CLUB
Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Monday, March 20, 2023
David Sacks - the Burn Multiple
David Sacks of PayPal, Twitter and All in game talks about a burn multiple
- Hype Ratio = Capital Raised (or Burned) / ARR
- Efficiency Score = Net New ARR / Net Burn
David think Bessemer has the right idea but prefers to flip the numerator and denominator, so the ratio is an annualized version of the Hype Ratio.
He calls this the Burn Multiple:Burn Multiple = Net Burn / Net New ARR
In other words, how much is the startup burning in order to generate each incremental dollar of ARR?
The higher the Burn Multiple, the more the startup is burning to achieve each unit of growth.
The lower the Burn Multiple, the more efficient the growth is.
For venture-stage startups, these are reasonably good rules of thumb:
For example, Q1 just ended and it’s time for a board meeting. The startup reports that it burned $2M in the quarter while adding $1M to its ARR. That’s a 2x Burn Multiple — reasonable for an early-stage startup. On the other hand, if the company burned $5M in Q1 to add $1M of net new ARR, that’s a terrible Burn Multiple (5x). It should probably cut costs immediately. That company is spending like a later-stage company without delivering later-stage growth.
Too many startups report their growth without contextualizing it as a function of investment. If extraordinary investment (3x burn or more) is required to deliver that growth, it’s an indicator that product-market fit isn’t quite what it appears to be or there’s some other problem in the business
These are some of the things that can affect the burn multiple and your business
For example:
- A gross margin problem — If the company spends too much on COGS in order to deliver the product or service, its burn will increase rapidly as it scales. If there’s not operating leverage in the business, the Burn Multiple will not improve with scale.
- A sales efficiency problem — If CAC is prohibitive or sales productivity is diminishing, burn will increase relative to new ARR, causing the Burn Multiple to worsen even though growth continues.
- A churn problem — Churn will net against the denominator of the Burn Multiple, causing the multiple to increase. A leaky bucket makes it hard to grow efficiently.
- A growth challenge — If growth is stalling, the company may seek to compensate by spending more on marketing, give-aways, discounts, or promotions. That will be picked up in a higher Burn Multiple, as burn rises faster than new sales.
- A founder leadership problem — If the founder lacks the skill or will to control burn, that will show through in the Burn Multiple.
Burn Multiple by Stage
The Burn Multiple should improve as the startup matures.
For example, a seed stage company might have a Burn Multiple of 3 because it just started selling. After the Series A, it might drop to 2. After the Series B, when the sales team should be operating at scale, the expectations for efficiency increase even more.
Eventually, for a company to become profitable, burn must reach 0, which implies that the Burn Multiple should also approach 0 over time.
If the Burn Multiple is going in the wrong direction as the startup matures, that’s a indicator that something is wrong, even though headline growth might still be increasing in nominal terms.
What Founders Can Do
1. they should keep salaries and expenses low in the early days —
2. strengthen the impression of product-market fit for when they go out to raise a venture round.
3. cut costs, the Burn Multiple doesn’t care about sunk costs and always gives founders the chance to improve.
4. It be worth giving up some revenue (e.g. unprofitable growth) if it brings the Burn Multiple down to a much healthier ratio.
It’s not just about growth but the efficiency of growth .
It’s an indicator that incremental spend is working
As everyone in the startup ecosystem scrutinizes their runway and makes tough decisions about how to extend it, the Burn Multiple is a useful rule of thumb for founders and investors alike to keep in mind.
Great advice by my friend Mark Gustowski as you potentially have to navigate a down round
To say that the current capital markets are challenging would be an understatement.
The tech ecosystem has come out of what can only be described as enormous orchestrated bubble, fuelled by
- endless printing of money during the pandemic, that ultimately led to
- high inflation,
- interest rate hikes, and
- massive job shedding.
Could it have been avoided with foresight and measured fiscal policy? Sure but let’s not let a good fiscal management in the way of government elected terms.
But what does this mean for our startup sector? Well if you raised during the bubble well done, hopefully you raised enough to give you another 24-30 mths of runway. If you didn’t, and you find yourself going to the well again in the next 12 months, be prepared for down-rounds. Valuations have dropped, from Meta and Stipe through to startups.
Is it all bad? Not necessarily, it’s a normalisation of the market and valuations but I do worry about the 2021 and 2022 investment vintages, returns are going to be a real challenge for them.
Cash is king
So what now? What do VCs like Mandalay Venture Partners look for in a deal? Well for starters you better be sure to be raising for 18 months or more, preferably 24 to see you through the current period. Austerity means slowing growth, managing burn and understanding the all important ‘burn multiple’.
Growth for growth sake is no longer the metric, it’s now efficiency of growth that will make you stand out.
If you’re a founder you best get your head around the concept of ‘burn multiple’ really fast. Investors will be looking at your spend (burn) vs your revenue and doing back-of-the-napkin assessments to ascertain how sustainable your business is going to be.
So when raising Seed to Series-A and beyond, consider the following:
👍🏼18 months runway is ok, 24 months is better
👍🏼cap salaries and remunerate via ESOPs that can reduce burn
👍🏼if new markets are exceeding a burn multiple of 3-4, reconsider for now
👍🏼managed growth is ok, cash is king
👍🏼mark to market regularly
This is not the environment you want to be raising in twice in the same 18 months. Money is going to get tighter as interest rates continue to rise to curb inflation. It’s going to be hard to attract dry powder as venture returns become less attractive with other capital allocation assets.
Learn about the concept of burn multiples in austere times (see attached article). Great opportunities will still be funded but we are no longer in a ‘blitz-scale’ era; your growth and market strategies need to reflect that.
A good investor will help navigate these waters. We don’t expect founders to understand all the underlying macro economic issues, but it is our role to help you chart a sustainable path forward.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions, test assumptions or reach out as it’s the best way for us to get through this together.
#startup #capitalmarkets #tech #investment #venturecapital #venture
Monday, March 13, 2023
How to become a centre of influence
Billy Connolly talking business planning
and
what people said about Ivan Kaye's talk on "becoming a centre of influence" about how to become a centre of influence
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Ineffective Marketing and how to stand out in Social Media
A great post by Steve Ballantyne
Are you being stimmied by ineffective marketing?
- Ineffective marketing is like an awful first date.
- It's pushy and tells you what you should want.
- Puts its own needs before yours.
- It's insensitive.
There is no incentive to stick around.
On the other hand, an ideal first date can lead to a second date and a long-term relationship.
Here's how to do it:
- Be attentive to what your audience wants.
- Anticipate their needs – because you paid attention to who they are.
- Be mindful of the message you send, both in language and appearance.
- Woo your audience, not your ego, to create lasting relationships.
How do you stand out in Social Media - Insta , Linkedin and Facebook?
On Wednesday the 29th March , join Sydney’s leading Social Media Gurus as they share their secrets on how to stand out in Social Media.
Holi Jade - talking InstagramKaren Tisdell - talking Linkedin and Matthew Mackow talking Facebook
This will be a face to face event (in Lindfield ) and on Zoom.
This is a forum not to be missed….. even if you take home one takeaway…. This could be a game changer.
Tuesday, February 14, 2023
So what are the ingredients of resilience to overcome adversity ?
Whatever your situation is - whether you are rich or poor, educated or not , a professional, Tradie, traveller, king or servant - you and yours will suffer a chronic and life-limiting illness or disability and death - and you will feel pain , hurt and suffering .
During your journey on this fragile rock - you'll face challenges that will test your character, willpower, strength and resilience .
And the feeling will be difficult or unpleasant and get to the core of your being and fears …
The good news as my mother says (who’s doing it tough at the moment - she was 88 last month) is that if you feel the pain and adversity - you are alive!!
And if you are resilient , and find your inner strength and push through - you will be able to write another chapter to your story, and be wiser happier and stronger and be a step closer to finding the key to living a successful , abundant and fulfilling life.
So what are the ingredients of resilience to overcome adversity ?
- Stop overthinking, overidentifying with your suffering, blaming others, and becoming a victim. By doing this - you will create your reality of being a victim
- Build a positive mindset
- Have a mindset of love, self-compassion, and hope
- Have a mindset where you control your destiny - not be controlled by others .
- Have strong values that will guide you to your true north and find those that share those values
- Have A team of people that will help you along the way - and give your support and encouragement to them - celebrate their successes and wins as if they are yours - you choose those people - celebrate them - and lean on them when you feel you need to - be vulnerable and authentic with them . (Your BBG Forum? )
- Know that it is up to you on how to handle a situation - and treat the challenge as a learning experience
- Know that you are awesome and have a burning light within you - that can be inspired enthused and engaged - visualise it - nurture it
- You are not superhuman, you are not able to control everything that happens to us but you can control how you deal and feel about what happens to you
- and you can choose to turn lemon into lemonade
It is your choice which doors you walk through and the extent to which you feel as you live or die.
Make your choice. It is up to you to choose life, to choose living, to choose your reality.
It is up to you to choose your mindset.
Sunday, February 5, 2023
Join us on 18 and 19 February
Join our #bbgforum yarning circle and #bbgforum with our friend Martin Stark on 18 and/or 19 February and be part of a world's first accredited amateur bout for the LGBTQIA+ community and allies - part of Sydney World Pride.
Nelson Mandela declared that: “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does."
Come and watch upcoming stars showcase their courage, skill, and prowess where they battle it out over three by 2-minute rounds.
Besides tough-fought boxing matches, there will be drag queens and a great DJ getting you in the spirit to support and cheer on the fighters. This is fun authentic boxing and the crowning of new world champions!
This is a 2-day amateur boxing competition conducted under Boxing Australia rules with safe participation the number one priority.
Take your place and witness sporting history happening by joining us at the Championships and inviting your clients and teams.
You will be:
• Championing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
• Showing your authentic and visible support for the LGBTQIA+ community.
• Part of Sydney WorldPride - Australia's largest event since the 2000 Olympics!
You will get to know the boxers as they are announced and will love singing along to the walkout songs hyping up the fighters, injecting energy into the fans getting the crowd pumping.
The event is being held at The Ballroom, Australian Turf Club, Royal Randwick. The session times are 2pm – 6pm.
Tickets are $50 per person.
Click here to purchase your tickets
Saturday 2pm - 6pm
Sunday 2pm -6m
Let me know when you can make it
I look forward to seeing you there
Best
Ivan
BBG Members will be reimbursed the price of the tickets