David Gold

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The Road Less Travelled
David Gold CEO Igloo Zoo Pty Ltd
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• Background
• Getting started
• Business Models
• Board Shareholders
• Management Staff
• Dealing with Large Corporates
• Entrepreneurialism
• Innovators Dilemma
• Questions

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• Looksmart
• dstore
• Azure
• Cableman
• HomeXchange
• Simply Sold
• Igloo Zoo

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Business Models

• Business models MUST make sense
• Technology introduces new and varied models -
  INNOVATION is key
• BUT top business models are not enough
• People, people, people
• Understanding markets is critical but complex
• Competition
• Industry structure
• Communicate the business model

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Board, Funding and Shareholders

• Small number of large investors
• Debt v Equity
• Independent Board (not dominated by shareholders)
• VC money is important
• Exit strategy
• Markets are fickle

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Management and Staff

• Get the right team in place
• Dont be concerned about people earning more than
  you
• Hire multiskilled people
• Dont be fussed about being CEO
• Get rid of misfits FAST - they can lead to bad
  morale
• Ability to close is as important as ability to
  sell

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Dealing with Large Corporates

• Right people, right level
• Know them - company and individual
• Dont oversell
• Security increasingly important
• Credibility
• Beat the odds
• Strategise your approach

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Dealing with Large Corporates

• Easy to get depressed by large corporates
• Often individuals within them can be unimpressive
• Decision making is not always rational from your
  perspective
• Must understand bureaucracy and time-to-close and
  make sure you have accounted for it in your model
• Never be entirely dependent on one large
  corporate deal
• Never give up too much just to sign on a big
  corporate - must be justifiable economically
  intellectually
• If at first you dont succeed try and try again

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Entrepreneurialism

• Fight to shut down US patents office in 1901
• Fear of Failure vs Fear of Success
• Understand YOUR weaknesses and act upon them
• Room to change

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Innovators Dilemma

• explains why good companies that did everything
  right still lost their market leadership when
  confronted with disruptive changes in technology
  and market structure
• Sustainable Technologies
• Improved product performance
• Mainstream customers in major markets value
• Disruptive Technologies
• Innovations that result in worse product
  performance at least in the near term

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Innovators Dilemma

• Companies depend on customers value networks
• Small markets do not sustain the growth big
  companies need
• Markets that dont exist cant be analysed
• Right people and the right processes are
  different
• Technology supply does not equal technology demand

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Laying the Groundwork - teaching our young people

• Get involved in extra curricular activities
• Take activism seriously
• Have an interest in the family business (if there
  is one)
• Use studies as a grounding block beyond just
  formal education
• Do volunteer work
• Learn without the risk