Innovating Cloud: lessons from the Front

Pivoting into the intersection of Cyber Security and FinTech

January 15, 2015 in Capital Raising, Cloud Computing, Entrepeneurship, Lean Startup, Pivot, Press Release, Startup Entrepreneur, Uncategorized | 2 comments

My team amazed me recently by pitching a new cyber security angle for GoPC. It was under our nose the whole time but it took Corrado Fiore our Solutions Architect talking to Peter McCredie our new head of Marketing for the lights to come on.

After days of grueling debate we tested our hypothesis in the market and over the last 2 months every single business we’ve pitched to has bought it asked for an evaluation. We even have a government department and one of Australia’s largest banks now evaluating it.

BankVault was born. It’s literally 10x easier to sell, it’s 10x higher margin, and spearheads everything else we do. We’ve lodged a new patent application and now investing behind success to grow this derivative product that runs on the Rainmaker platform.

Tags: Banking, Cyber Security, Finance, Security, Share Trading

Touching the Void – Lessons Learned

November 11, 2014 in Cloud Computing, Entrepeneurship, Events, Speaking Engagements, Startup Entrepreneur | No comments

One entrepreneurs journing: pitching, raising, hustling and risking everything.

Here’s a talk I made last week about my entrepreneurial journey and some of the war stories. I personally find the war stories to be the most interesting and so I decided to share some of ours.

Morning Startup, a vibrant group of entrepreneurs who turn up at 7:30am every second Wednesday. There were 70 registrations which is a remarkably strong group.

http://youtu.be/MWGRMbh1ywA

When the market turns, a bunch of Startup’s will vaporize

September 27, 2014 in Capital Raising, Cloud Computing, Entrepeneurship, Lean Startup, Startup Entrepreneur, Uncategorized | No comments

Andreesson and other Silicon Valley VCs have chimed in warning on the growth of vacuumous business models built on hype and hope.

My own lesson from surviving the GFC in Silicon Valley was the sooner you work on the hardest issue of all, what it takes to get a customer to pull out their credit card, the better off you and your investors will be. The day investment sentiment turns is the day you need to be viable. For most SMB entrepreneurs revenue is fundamental but Startup entrepreneurs think they can out smart that fundamental. Some do but for every one that does thousands vaporize. A proportion of those could have done it better and become viable businesses.

GoPC moved away from a Freemium model straight after the GFC. I remember meeting the CEO of Gh.o.st in 2009 when they had some 700,000 subscribers. I asked him how they were monetizing and he told me they had ideas but being funded by Sequoia Capital this wasn’t urgent. The following year they ran out of funds and were shutdown.

We actually tried a Freemium model again in 2013 with Rainmaker. Consumers were able to get a complete virtual machine free and simply pay for add-on applications and storage. We finally accepted that Rainmaker should just target SMEs, not consumers. They have much deeper pockets and real IT problems that need to be solved. I’m happy to say its working.

And this month we just starting trialing another consumer play with a new technology product called Raindrop, but it’s monetizing from day one. http://raindrop.gopc.net.

PetaFLOP (one quadrillion floating point operations per second)

September 25, 2014 in Astronomy, Cloud Computing, SKA, Supercomputing, Uncategorized | No comments

I seriously love this technology.

Western Australia is becoming one of the main two supercomputing centres on the planet in the coming years with the massive SKA project (Square Kilometre Array telescope).

The Pawsey supercomputer called Magnus has just been commissioned this month and has broken the PetaFLOP (one quadrillion floating point operations per second) barrier.

In one second, Magnus is able to perform more calculations than the entire population of Australia could in 21 years.

Reducing the IT industry to a Click

September 24, 2014 in Cloud Computing, Entrepeneurship, Events, Press Release, Speaking Engagements, Startup Entrepreneur | No comments

On Thursday 25th Sept 2014, I’m presenting the background story of technology innovation, evolution and entrepreneurship that went into creating GoPC.net.

Hosted by Engineers Australia, ITEE, IICA, IET and IEEE at the Engineers Australia Auditorium, 712 Murray Street, West Perth, Australia. The event is catered with food and drinks so includes small $30 cover charge.

If interested in coming along then here is the Flyer and Registration page: http://tinyurl.com/q5ju3gn

Interviewed by Robert Scoble

November 20, 2013 in Cloud Computing, Entrepeneurship, Speaking Engagements, Startup Entrepreneur, Uncategorized | No comments

The interview with Robert Scoble in San Francisco after GoPC.net was recognised by Rackspace’s Australian CTO Alan Perkins.

Big thanks to Robert for the invitation to be interviewed.

Tags: Robert Scoble, Scoblizer

GoPC shortlisted for the Million Pound Startup

September 10, 2013 in Cloud Computing, Entrepeneurship, Uncategorized | No comments

Woohoo indeed!

GoPC.net is through to the penultimate round of a startup competition being run out of London. 1,000 startups from 72 countries vying for $1.7m investment.

I’m not reading too much into this but its reassuring to make the shortlist. I’m not surprised – we have some cracking good innovotions. I expect there would still be 100 in the race which puts us somewhere amongst the top 10% of startups applying from all over the world.

Next to sharpen the pitch. I’m also preparing to return to Silicon Valley in 3 weeks and for Robert Scoble’s video. Although its busy these things layer on one another as good practice runs.

Tags: Million Pound Startup

Touching the Void – an entrepreneurs awakening

September 1, 2013 in Capital Raising, Cloud Computing, eGroup, Entrepeneurship, Speaking Engagements, Startup Entrepreneur, Uncategorized | No comments

eGroup.org.au have asked me to present the background war stories behind GoPC.net It’s very much a personal story of an entrepreneur’s awakening which I hope will be interesting and useful.

GoPC was recognised at Silicom Ventures Summit at Stanford University in 2009 as one of the leading Cloud Computing startups in Silicon Valley. When the GFC hit we elected to self fund and keep control but the last 4 years have been as tough as a long dark winter. This month however I am returning to Silicon Valley to launch a truly ground breaking new technology code-named “Rainmaker”. Rackspace.com invited us to present Rainmaker and have recommended further investation be done. Robert Scoble, a prolific technology evangelist followed by 4,000,000 influential early-adopters, has arranged a video interview with me next month that will launch GoPC like nothing else could.

So what are the lessons learned over the last 9 years that increase our likelihood of success? Where are the risks? Should we raise more capital and lose control after having conquered all the hurdles? This will be an interactive presentation where I’ll be happy to share my own insights and answer questions.

Registration beforehand is needed for catering: https://egroup.tidyclub.com/public/events/394-september-forum-gopc-case-study

I apologise the event isn’t free. eGroup charge $25 to non-members to cover costs which includes finger food and drinks. The venue is at Wray and Associates Patent Attorneys in West Perth.

I’m personally inviting those who have in some direct way helped or inspired me along this journey. I really look forward to sharing Tuesday evening with you.

Robert Scoble/Rackspace – Cloud Computing Pitch Event

August 25, 2013 in Cloud Computing, Uncategorized | No comments

I’m back from Rackspace’s “Cloud Computing” pitch event in Sydney. We weren’t chosen for the line-up which was devastating. I decided to go along anyway to learn why.

When Rackspace heard what we were doing they setup a special meeting for me to meet their CTO, Alan Perkins. Alan is recognised as one of the 20 most influential people in IT in Australia. The meeting went exceptionally well. He was particularly interested in how we had solved the Boot Storm problem and on our angles for monetization based on applications from the Appstore. In fact it went so well that he has written a report recommending Rackspace investigate GoPC further. I also learned it was a PR company who had organised the line-up and was told that they had made a mistake – Alan said we absolutely should have been included in the line up. I was so happy to hear him say this!!

We didn’t pitch at the event so couldn’t win first prize, but we earned it – I’m going to Silicon Valley again in October to be interviewed by Robert Scoble for his video blog. Robert is Rackspace’s technology evangelist with 4,000,000 followers, mostly early adopters. Peter de Prins ( be.linkedin.com/in/peterdeprins ) advised me to find a Maven, a trusted person with an extensive network to talk about GoPC, and I believe that we have exactly that with Robert Scoble.

I’m announcing the release of the new GoPC.net Rainmaker technology tomorrow. Anyone reading this is welcome to create a Free account while the launch is on. I’m asking for help to identify niche target markets.

Here’s a photograph of Robert Scoble and myself at the Rackspace pitch event, Small Teams Big Impact.

Rackspace “Cloud Computing” pitch event.
Small Teams Big Impact. Sydney, 6th August 2013

Tags: Boot Storm, Boot Storm Problem Solved, Google Glass, GoPC Rainmaker launch, Maven, pitching, Product Launch, Rackspace, Robert Scoble, Small Teams Big Impact

Thanks to all who attended – Innovators Pitch Night

August 10, 2012 in Capital Raising, Cloud Computing, Entrepeneurship, Uncategorized | No comments

A quick acknowledgement to everyone who helped run this evening.

It was an amazing success. We told the VC’s to be gentle and I think next time we should just let them be themselves.

It was jammed to the rafters, standing room only and with many people having to watch from outside the doors. Well over 100 attendees plus judges, pitching teams and organisors.

Special thanks to Kris Borgraeve for volunteering to MC the event. To Barry Winwood for helping manage the flow and ensuring everyone’s pitch deck was ready to go. To IBM for agreeing to host the event within their offices.

I’ll look at doing another one of these for LESANZ in 12 months time.

Graeme