Presidential Ponderings
President Kelly eulogised about Peter Steven's remarkable "Living Wake" held yesterday evening attended by hundreds of friends, colleagues and immediate family. A celebration of a life well lived and Peter's is definitely one we will all remember.
Induction of Peggy Leung
Dietmar Mazanetz introduced Peggy to the club and Lew Thomas carried out the induction.
Peggy works for the State Government as Director of Financial Accounting Planning, Land and Heritage department and her classification is Financial Management. Peggy was welcomed by Director of Community Services Rick Sneeuwjagt, and President Kelly Gillen. Peggy will join the Community Services committee and be mentored by Dietmar.
Guest Speaker Charlie Gunningham - Start Ups
Charlie Gunningham (note Gunningham, not Cunningham!)has spent more than 25 years in Perth’s startup sector. He's been a startup founder himself, through to exit, has invested in and sold multiple startup businesses.
Originally from the UK, he lived and worked in Singapore before arriving in Perth in the late 90s. He graduated top of UWA Business School with an MBA and co-founded property listings site aussiehome.com in 1999, which was later sold to REIWA in 2010. He then ran reiwa.com, went on to be CEO of Business News, and also worked for a federal government startup fund and then ran the WA government's New Industries Fund.
In 2021, he was awarded WA Entrepreneur of the Year (at the Incite Awards), and last year was voted a top 10 startup mentor in Australia.
Charlie thanked the Club for inviting him and noted Cunninghams (with a C are Irish and there are lots of them around….)but there are not so many Gunninghams - it’s an old 11th Century Anglo-Saxon name meaning “battle friend”.
25 years back in 1999, everyone was talking about “Dot.coms”, they weren’t called “Startups”. Charlie was a school teacher then, coming from the UK via Singapore. He had first been to Perth in 1991, busking in Murray Street Mall. He observed you couldn’t busk in Singapore as two or three people gathered together meant “Communism”…However he made $800 in the first week and paid for the airfare.
Moving here in 1997 he did his MBA and was back teaching at Hale School. But he then threw way being Head of Commerce for a “crazy Dot.com”. His good mate Nick, from his MBA course, rang him up saying “Hey man, we’re going to do a property website on maps…”. In his words, it was the year of the Dot.com and “anyone coming out of an MBA with a pulse, they threw money at them”. They raised a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Seven weeks later they launched Aussiehome.com the world’s first map-based Real Estate site. This was six years before Google Maps!
Back then it was all very slow. The internet connection was via dial-up modem and the webpage took up to five minutes to load and open. If you were using the internet, no one could use the phone or someone on the phone would cut off your internet!
Ten years later they sold to REIWA. He met a lot of people along the way, including Veronica, and did a lot of websites. Back when they started in 2000, about 90% of the Real Estate advertising money went to newspapers. They saw the gradual shift from print to digital and, by the time they sold, 90% of it went online.
Like most startups, they had been disrupting an existing large, comfortable market with a dominating incumbent who didn’t understand its digital strategy. Startups are about Scalability – scalable technology and scalable business models. Aussiehomes.com was lines of codes, that’s all.
A Startup is a new, innovative, probably tech-enabled company that has a scalable business model and scalable technology. A law firm, jewellery store or fish and chip shop are not scalable. To open a second shop it’s bricks and mortar.
As Aussiehomes.com added more real estate agents, they hit profitability at about 75. Clients were given a user name and password, they uploaded the property and paid up front. After you hit critical mass, every new client is pure profit. A nice business model…a scalable business model…that’s “why I keep banging on about Startups”….
Looking around the world, the top six companies by value are now scalable Tech companies, not oil companies, not media companies – Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta and Tesla.
But where
are the Aussie/Tech companies?
The big companies are all overseas owned and pay very little tax, they create few jobs here.
WA has a very small innovative ecosystem compared to other states. However, it is growing and now valued at 10 billion dollars. Of that, 3.4 billion dollars is one company Virtual Gaming world (VGW)
Everyone thinks technology kills jobs. But Tech companies create five more jobs than they displace. The key to success is:
- A big market
- Global vision
- Founding team quality
There is also a lack of Venture Capital Funding here in WA. There needs to be early government support. As the old saying goes “the time to plant a tree was twenty years ago…”
Charlie’s presentation can be view at:
millpointrotaryclub.org.au>members only (password)> this link>Guest Speaker Presentations>GUNNINGHAM Charlie – Startups & Their Importance to WA
Remember the password changes on Sunday 1st September
Directors Reports and Announcements
The Sewing Sisters - Jenny McLean
The sewing sisters have just finished a contract with Curtin University adjusting 500 chair covers for their graduation ceremony tonight, and have raised funds to supplement their budget for the year. Another contract is in line for another 500 for Curtin's January graduation ceremony. Well done Jen!
Club Service - Brian J
Password for the members only page on the website will change on 1 September. Please visit and support the website.
Youth - Astrid M
RYPEN applications close next weekend. Please consider nominating a young person to apply.
The Fine(s)print
- Wayne Muller guilty of 3 counts of atrocities - last week for gazumping Joy as Fines Master and the week before for his debilitating exposé on numeracy which left 110% of us gob-smacked AND not knowing that there was 123 days left to the remainder of the year - in itself a PRIME oversight!
- Footballers - yes Eagles and Dockers, pay up!
- Brian Adams name-sake of THE Bryan Adams soon to appear on these shores (unfortunately our Brian can't sing)
- Striped shirters Kelly and David R - cough up!
- Last Friday hangover was Sponge Cake Day - all those who like a bit of a Victoria Sponge time to pay.
- Brian Adams AGAIN for organising his social life around football results!
- Peggy - newest member or not - whether you're good, bad or indifferent is no excuse not to pay a fine.
- Peter Dowling - ostracised as you may be or hiding on the back table doesn't excuse your partner Judy for clapping at last night's event with a glass of red wine in her hand!
- Mike Collett dreaming of stars during the SKA presentation last week (zzzzzzz).
- Badge dodgers - if you've not got it on, pay up!
- Everyone who has had 30 years of JOY! Yes our Joy joined us 30 years ago - and worth every dollar!
Winner of Heads and Tails
Two tails; one of each x 2 and Brian Adams won by a single head.
Attendance
44 attendees in all, including guest speaker Charlie Gunningham, visiting Rotarians John Cahill, President RC of Como; Geoff Martin member RC of Como, and Peggy Leung.
