Introductions

[Elias Bizannes]

There's no plan on how to go about this. Seriously. The only thing I
do know however is that once you get people together, magic happens.

And it's been minutes since I created this group and invited people,
and already people are signing up that I have never met or heard
about. Success!

So with that, let's start introducting each other...

[Chris Saad]

Introducing each other?

Elias Bizannes works at PwC and is a co-founder of the DataPortability
project. His work has transformed the project into a structured
organization. He continues to diligently and consistently elevate the
aussie web scene with his actions and character and I am proud to call
him a friend and collaborator.

How's that? :)

Chris

[Elias Bizannes]

hahaha, thanks. But this could get messy if people introduce each other.

Here's my introduction of Chris:

Chris Saad is based in Brisbane and soon to be San Francisco where he just spent six months. I've spent a gazillion hours argueing, reflecting, laughing with Chris - and yet, the first time I met him was a few weeks ago at the Future of Media Summit! It's proven to me you can have a productive and stong relationship with someone even if you have never really met them - and inspires me to think online tools are a key enabler to building the Australian community.

He is the CEO of Faraday Media which is a company I have got to know as one of their advisers, and hot damn, it's a company to watch. He is a thought pioneer and most recently, he has shaken Silicon Valley at it's core with the DataPortability Project. He's become one of Australia's best known exports, and having worked with him closely, am glad to be able to collaborate with such a forward thinking individual.

[Elias Bizannes]

Ok - let's now stick to introducing yourself, because no one knows you better than you!

About me

My name is Elias Bizannes,  I'm an alcholic. It will probably also take you five months before you learn how to pronounce my name. Don't stress - you'll get it one day.

My life in brief

1984: born in Sydney. I'm 24.
1991: I wrote a story on my dad's computer, about a wizard who created some potion and threw it over a cliff over a town - and hence why people are crazy. My dad's secretary said it didn't make sense, but I reckon that's how I started having an interest in writing
1999: I started a school newspaper. My interest in writing turned into journalism
2002: A year after high school, I co-founded a Journalists Society at Sydney University. Sooooo many lessons it's not funny, but is also the reason how I started getting interested into the business of media and saw the potential for digital media. So that's how I got into IT - from the "information" side.
2004: I finished my Bachelor of Commerce (majoring in accounting and finance).
2005: Went travelling for nine months to over 25 countries in Europe.
December 2005: Started work at PricewaterhouseCoopers, in the audit practice, which I am still in today (as well as the climate change group)
November 2006: After six months of trying to find someone at my firm to sponsor implementing a wiki, I got more than I bargained for, and then went on secondment to rollout, basically, web2.0 at my firm, which was officially a culture change progamme with relation to how we share knowledge and collaborate...at a knowledge firm. As a consequence, I've developed a strong internal brand at my firm and recognised as an "intrapreneur" and have really come to understand how the enterprise works.
November 2007: Along with Chris Saad, Ashley Angell, Paul Jones, Stephen Kelly and some Americans I co-founded the DataPortability Project.
July 2008: As of last Friday, I have now passed all my exams, and pending some paper work, am officially a Chartered Accountant!

My future?
I honestly couldn't tell you, although I've just hit a big milestone in my life and expect a few changes in the next 12 months...

--
Elias Bizannes
http://liako.biz

[Geoff McQueen]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks Phil M for the tweet about this group; also, I couldn't agree with Elias more: "once you get people together, magic happens"...

** Have done **
After studying Telecommunications Engineering at the University of Wollongong in the late 90's, I dropped out and started Internetrix in the shadows of the dot com crash in 2000. Have grown the web dev and app dev business organically over the last 8 years.

In late 2005, I joined up with a former uni colleague, Nik Cubrilovic, and co-founded Omnidrive. Internetrix incubated and bootstrapped the business until early 2006, when interest from VC's in the valley had us head out to the US. I stayed on and off for 3 months, before deciding I needed to focus on Internetrix, after which I became a silent partner.

** Am doing **
Am currently managing director of Internetrix, which has grown into an web marketing business. We're the only Google's Technology Partners (for their website optimizer product) outside of North America, and we're one of a handful of partner companies in Google Analytics down under.

It probably won't impress many at the sharp end of new Web 2.0 technology, but it works pretty well for many clients who are still getting the hang of Web 1.0.

** Where to **
I'm currently in the process of spinning off the application development part of Internetrix into a new business, Hiive Systems, which I'll be heading up (and thus leaving Internetrix in the hands of an existing management team). So, I'll be running a start up again! We'll be taking our enterprise 2.0 applications for service businesses - Affinity, a CRM package, and Gravity, a workflow & tracking tool.

We're working to build a successful web software business that helps our clients to better manage their client relationships, work processes and overall businesses.



Looking forward to meeting a few more people in the AU scene...

Geoff

[Myles Eftos]

Hey all,

Three paragraphs is too much to read and write, so:

I'm Myles Eftos: http://myles.eftos.id.au

I freelance as MadPilot Productions in Perth: http://www.madpilot.com.au
and build 88 Miles: http://www.88miles.net as well as still doing a
lot of client work. I'm a geek and hard-core coder with Ruby on Rails
being the weapon of choice, which I blog about it here: http://www.sitepoint.com.au

I'm the event coordinator for the Australian Web Industry Association:
http://www.webindustry.asn.au and the chairperson for the Edge of the
Web conference: http://www.edgeoftheweb.org.au and the WA Web Awards:
http://www.wa.webawards.com.au

And that's me in a nutshell :)

Cheers,

----------------------------------------------
Myles Eftos
Mobile: +61-409-293-183

MadPilot Productions
URL: http://www.madpilot.com.au
Phone: +618-6424-8234
Fax: +618-9467-6289

Try our time tracking system: 88 Miles!
http://www.88miles.net

[Wolfbyte]

Howdy all.

My name is Mike Minutillo but I tend to lurk around the internet under
the title of Wolfbyte. I'm married with 3 kids and I've just purchased
my first house.

I was born in Rockingham, Western Australia in 1979.

When I was nine I got a copy of The Hobbit for my birthday and
suddenly became obsessed with reading (I hated it before this). It
took me a year to read that the first time, following which I read The
Lord of the Rings (including appendices) in 27 days (I counted). I
have not stopped reading since.

Some time around then my parents caved and bought me an Amstrad CPC
6128 computer. After two weeks I discovered type-ins in the back of
the manual and I have been hooked on programming ever since.

I spent 10 years in and out of tertiary institutions and finally
achieved a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science in 2006. I am now a
team leader/consultant in the Web Solutions Centre of Fujitsu
Australia and I am the chief librarian for the Perth .NET Community of
Practice.

I sometimes write about .NET (or Ruby as the fancy takes me) at my
blog http://wolfbyte-net.blogspot.com/ but it's been so long since I
regularly updated it's embarrassing. I also write a weekly web-comic
at http://matom.wordpress.com/

I have a twitter account at http://twitter.com/wolfbyte but as my work
blocked twitter I'm hardly ever on.

Tonight I have signed my life away to Infocom as I have booted Zork I
up and I am liable to be eaten by a grue.

[mbalara]

I'm glad we've switched to introducing yourself. No one in Australia
knows me well enough to introduce me, and vice versa.

I'm Matt Balara, which is not as complicated as Bizannes or
Liubinskas, and is pronounced ba-LAH-ra.

I was born in Washington D.C., moved to Canberra at 9 years old, back
to D.C. at 16, back to Canberra at 23, and during a planned 2 year
world wander got happily stuck in Hamburg Germany at 28, ten years
ago. I'd lived in 45 different buildings by the age of 18, and since
then I've lost count. These head-spinning continent to continent moves
earned me fluency in two languages, great friends all over the place
and two passports. I'm moving to Sydney in October, and plan to stay a
while.

I studied painting and scultpure at Virginia Commonwealth University,
but after meeting too many starving artists, decided that future +
money = good, and switched to a design major. During my studies I got
online for the first time in 1991, played the #2 bad-guy on a MUSH for
a few years, founded the VCU Virtual Reality Lab in 1992 and cobbled
together my first extremely ugly web page in 1993.

A brief foray into professional 3D animation left me missing
interactivity, and I started designing web sites for a living in 1995.
Since then I've worked for Volkswagen, TUI, OTTO, Mircosoft, ECCO and
plenty of other clients. Right now I'm an art director in a big German
agency, but I'm looking forward to a freelance future in Sydney, where
I hope to help startups improve their communication, brand image and
most importantly, their interfaces.

I blog about design at http://www.mattbalara.com, and about social
tools at http://www.stoweboyd.com/
You cna follow me at http://twitter.com/mbalara if you're into that
sort of thing.

[Paul Jones]

I'm Paul Jones. Born late-1982. I'd probably assert that's the simplest name in the group, and I can't actually ever remember an unintentional mis-pronunciation of it.

I've been developing software in a professional-ish capacity for the past decade, and have varied through a bunch of different fields. Almost every new job I start tends to be in a different development language, so I like to consider myself well-versed. I've got a Bachelors Degree in Software Engineering from the University of Queensland, along with a Master of Philosophy in a similar field from the same. I've worked for companies big and small, and have learnt a lot about how to operate within both types of structure.

I helped co-found Data Portability, and spent a fair bit of time trying to work out how a technical solution would look.

Despite being an Australian at heart, I'm currently based in London for a few years getting some more experience and doing a bit of travelling. Before that, however, I spent 7 years in Brisbane, with brief stints in Sydney during that time.

I've just started a new blog at http://fasterbigger.com, but I wouildn't really like to make any promises about whether it will stick.

[Stephen Kelly]

I'm Stephen Kelly, I missed the 60's by 50 days (born early 1970).

I have been playing / studying and working with computers since my
Apple //e days starting 1984.

I run a consulting company WWW.sjk.net.Au - that has been running for
nearly a decade now, with many varied clients, which always keeps
things interesting :)

I have a bachelors degree from James Cook uni, and a masters degree in
GIS from University of QLD

I am CEO of Peepel.com - an online office

I am chairman on the board of FaradayMedia.com

I am an adviser and investor in Emotf.com

I have a lot of pets (dogs / cats / fish / Australian native bees /
getting turtles soon )

I have traveled alot, but we tend to focus on smaller areas and see
them very for a long time, so far we have done UK / Holland and plan
to do more.

I am based in Brisbane, QLD

I am friendly and approachable, so never be afraid to ask me a
question or for help!

I look forward to this


Steve

[dekrazee1]

Hi, I'm Rai and I'm an addi....

oh wait... Lemme start again.

I'm the community and product manager at Tangler (www.tangler.com), a
Sydney-based startup.

Not much background to mention - I'm relatively new to the industry
(kinda fell into it).
I ain't an Aussie either, but I really wanna see Silicon Beach grow,
and will do what I can to that end.

I run Beer2.0, a regular event for start-uppers to get together and
swap stories. I'm hoping to grow it into a support/networking group
for those of us involved with start-ups.
I also organise Dinner2.0, a less-regular dinner for entrepreneurs.
I am not responsible for either of those names. ;)

Oh, and it's Rai as in 'rye'.

Look forward to the ideas meet and then hopefully action in here.

'Ave a g'day!

On Jul 27, 8:46 pm, Elias Bizannes <elias.bizan...@gmail.com> wrote:

[sheedz]

Hello Ya'll,

I'm Ben. Budding web designer/developer in Melbourne.

Will be coming back to read over this a bit more in a sec.

Stay Classy
-Ben

[Nic Hodges]

Nic Hodges.
Creative Director of digital agency NetX.
A bit older than the majority of the people here it seems, but I'm
just young enough that I'm a digital native; I don't recall a time in
my life I haven't had a computer.
I'm a big believer in technology enabling people, rather than
infuriating them, and in my work I try and turn around the way people
think about advertising. I'm here because to do this, we need great
thinkers creating great tools that allows every single person online
to find and engage in meaningful discussions. I know we have the
people here in Australia that are smart enough to do that, and I
believe we just need to enable them.

I also have a blog in which I go off on tangents about the digital
landscape, and the future of the consumer, online marketing and
advertising at http://nichodges.com

[Mark Daku]

Mark Daku

Been working in tech since punch cards.

I hail from Saskatoon Saskatchewan Canada. It's a real place google
it. But I live in Aus.

Currently working in performance consulting for primarily web related
technologies. Go faster, go cheaper, last longer.

I'm constantly puzzled why companies outsource their ability to adapt
and be agile!
Technology is key asset in a companies tool chest for success. What
people forget is that IT is about the business and not about IT
itself. So don't give away the keys to the tool chest to some one you
will never meet.

[Jason Stirk]

Howdy all!

Jason Stirk - I'm a 23 y/o freelancer (Achernar Solutions) who does
things with Ruby, Rails, and a fair dash of Linux support and
consulting thrown in.

I've always had a fascination with programming (since I was 8) and
Linux (since I was in high school). I started work out of school with
a small ISP, and dropped out of Comp. Sci when I was learning more
from my mentors (and more thoroughly) than I was at Uni.

I've been freelancing since then (about 5-6 years) doing PHP, Ruby and
a few other bits and bobs here and there.

I'm originally from Perth, but been in Lismore, NSW - about 3hrs south
of Brisbane - for the past 12 months or so.

I occasionally blog at http://griffin.oobleyboo.com/ and more
frequently post items about what I'm eating (and other inane stuff) on
twitter (j_stirk).

[James Little]

Hi All,
I'm born in '78 and currently based in Wellington, New Zealand. I work
as a Java Developer building SOAish enterprise applications and I am a
co-founder of NZfusion; I'm enthusiastic about the web 2.0 landscape
and the direction that web applications are moving.

Silicon Beach Australia will be massive for the startup industry down-
under.

[Rob Sharp]

Hey all,

I'm Rob, originally from Scotland but I've been in Australia for about
four years now. I left behind the cold and wet of Scotland and
Northern England for the cold and wet of the current Sydney weather :D

I'm an Engineer at a huge Internet company you've all heard of, but
despite being a bit of a cubical commando and helping open them to the
community-at-large via sponsorship and developer love, I'm not here on
behalf of them! Prior to the mothership, I spent a couple of years as
a mobile app developer and then the architect of a busy music website
here in Sydney. I've also recently become a Dad, so I don't have as
much spare time as I used to, but still manage to find time to work on
personal projects.

I'm big into openness, awesome user experience and fun geeky stuff
like scaling and could computing, and so far I'm loving the discussion
on this list!

Rob.

[DistortedRhymes]

Hi all, I'm a little different to everyone else so far and am
essentially a newbie to the start-up scene. I guess you could say I'm
working in deep stealth mode at the moment during the nights while
working in my day job in the public service where I work for a
government agency in telecommunications, broadband, online related
fields. I'm currently crunching numbers and working on website and
database/application specs for my start-up idea which I'm hoping to
launch later this year or early next year (anyone else ever had their
start-up dreams temporarily squashed by the cost of an upcoming
wedding?!). The best I can say about my start-up idea is that it will
be in the online sales space and not in the web apps space.

Hopefully my start-up will take off and I can escape the bureaucracy
and bring my knowledge to more online / tech ventures as I've got a
number of ventures swirling round my head, and being in charge of my
own company and destiny is what I've always dreamed of. I would be
really interested in talking to anyone in a start-up that is looking
for assistance or has any job opportunities (I'm Melbourne based).
While I don't have the programming skills, I do believe I have that
entrepreneurial spirit, business acumen and drive that a start-up
needs and can contribute to the discussions here. I only wish I'd kept
up the bit of programming I could do back in the day on my old
Commodore 64 and Amiga 500!

DistortedRhymes

[ber...@gmail.com]

Hi everyone,

I am working for a large IT consulting firm, currently placed on a
contract for a Victorian Government organisation that my employer won
from another large consulting firm. I develop, enhance and support ASP
and .NET applications. Prior to that, I was an independent contractor
and freelance developer. As you can imagine, the increase in
bureaucracy and red-tape is stifling. It's took us 18 months just to
procure a new server!

I am doing what I can by helping to implement better source control,
continuous integration (On the said new server), and all the other
agile techniques (where appropriate) to improve our turn-around time
and bugs released to production. It's my small part to help this
cumbersome giant.

By night, myself and some colleagues from my freelance days are
working on a start-up idea. I guess you could call it stealth, but
we're just not telling anyone about it yet (Same thing?). It's nearing
the proof of concept stage, at which point, we'll be looking for VC
funding. Once we can finalise that, we'll be jumping from our steady,
secure, boring jobs for the fast-paced, agile, hard life of a
start-up!

From what we've seen so far, there are lots of VC groups out there
willing to offer financial support and managerial support. However I
think there needs to be a better pairing between the VCs with the
money and experience and the start-ups with the ideas and capability.

I look forward to seeing and hopefully contributing where this
(Already large) group steers Australian IT.

[Elias Bizannes]

Hi everyone,

We are getting ever closer to the 100 mark of people on this mailing
list - and there are still dozens of people who have yet to introduce
themselves.

As discussions evolve, this "concept" of silicon beach's purpose will
also evolve, but one thing I am adament about is that you introduce
yourself. I don't care how famous you think you are, or how "nothing"
you think you are - a key stepping stone to a strong community is that
people recognise each other. Don't underestimate this point - and
don't be afarid to toot your horn (it's just when you constantly toot
you horn, that things are different...)

Joining this mailing list puts you on the map as a 'dot', and
introducing yourself, helps connect your 'dot' to the other 'dots'.
The more lines we can connect those individual 'dots', the stronger
our community will become. And I am not just being cute with this dot
analogy, but there is solid research that backs this up, that being
the secret source of successful organisations.

So PLEASE, write a little bit about yourself. Of course, I would
prefer it if it was to this thread just to keep in in the one place,
but no big loss if you don't. The value of this mailing list will
evolve, but lets at least stick to some principles, because value will
only be extracted if people contribute something. So make yourself be
known to the group, because otherwise, you simply don't exist - and in
economics, that's called opportunity cost. :-)

[Stephen Collins]

G'day all!

For those that don't know me (and I think most do), I'm Steve Collins
(known everywhere as trib), founder and Chief Troublemaker at
acidlabs.

acidlabs is a small (me) indie consultancy focussing on web strategy
and social media strategy, new world KM, business communication and
IA/UX. I'm the guy that comes into businesses and helps them figure
out and implement changes to improve internal comms, to communicate
better with clients and to adopt social media and Enterprise 2.0 tools
in a successful way.

I have a background as a developer, Federal public servant in IT
management (so I'm used to working in big, conservative, bureaucratic
organisations), management consultant with a largish consulting firm
and communicator.

I guess I'm a little different than some here as I am not working in a
startup looking for funding - although anyone that wants to toss some
money my way is welcome to ;) - but looking to help business (you or
your clients) with their approaches to business online.

So far, way good on the list, everyone. More than happy to chat any
time about any of this.

Steve
--
Stephen Collins
Cell +61 410 680722
Skype trib22
www.twitter.com/trib
www.linkedin.com/in/stephencollins

www.acidlabs.org

acidlabs - strategies, tools and processes to empower knowledge workers

[Simon Sharwood]

I'm Simon Sharwood, a freelance journalist, editor, blogger who
writes about web 2.0 a little and is also involved in a startup that
creates niche B2B podcasts.
This makes me a lurker, observer, player and hideously conflicted.
Oh and for the record I will NEVER use anything I read here as the
basis for a story without explicit consent. My own conscience (and the
journo's code of ethics) means it is not sensible to do otherwise.
I can't code for shit.
Simon.

[SexySEO]

Howdy! I'm Lora Lufark aka Silicon Beach Babe LOL
@Elias and @Chris just joking :D

[snu]

I'm Maxim Shklyar (don't even try to pronounce it).
I’ve been in Melbourne for 5 years, from Silicon Wadi.

I've been in web development for 12 years; freelancing, running web
development agency in the last 8y - http://kisla.com
Overall during this time I've completed about 100 projects, working
with every major web technology, back-end and front-end.
I'm recently specialising in rich, interactive, multimedia, Flash-
based front-ends (but do all the rest web dev as well).

Some of the projects I've implemented in last few years includes:
Flash-based front ends and back-end integration for: Culture Victoria
- http://cv.vic.gov.au , Holden site - http://holden.com.au , Lee
Jeans site - http://leejeans.com.au ;
Full project development: SBS Tour de France portal 06 (http://
sbs.com.au/tdf) , Fuse Airplay http://www.fuse.com.au/products/fuse-airplay/
- (a youtube-like, 1 year before youtube established) , etc
Looking for more interesting projects and problems to solve.



I've recently invented, developed and starting to commercialise new
technology for interactive development - http://ximl.com
XIML [ksee-mel] is a technology for creating rich, interactive web/
mobile sites and applications with seamless video and audio
integration. It enables to create a full-featured Flash-based content
without the need in programming, knowing or owning Flash soft. XIML is
a simple XML-based markup language enabling functionality previously
available only with complex programmed applications. It is very easy
to learn and use - the entire developers’ reference fits on 1 page -
http://ximl.com/XIMLlangref.pdf
XIML is a front-end layer and works with any back-end configuration,
communicating with XMLs (incl RSS feeds, etc).

Some examples of XIML sites:
Culture Victoria for Arts Victoria (Australia) http://cv.vic.gov.au
flickr photoset RSS feed demo http://ximl.com/site/flickr_api_demo
youtube RSS feed demo: http://ximl.com/site/youtube_api_demo
Word Press skins: http://ximl.com/site/wp, http://ximl.com/site/wp_skin3
Animations demo: http://ximl.com/site/exanim/
On the website you can see source codes for every XIML site.

I’m looking for investors and partners to commercialise the technology
and to increase usage and awareness. I’m willing to discuss it further
with anyone interested to try it and can build proof of concept for
special needs.

[charlieperry]

My name is Charlie Perry. I trained as an acccountant and now work for
a small venture capital/private equity company in Sydney. I have no
real experience in programming or the tech scene but I've been an
interested observer for a few years now. I'm looking for ways that I
can participate more actively. Happy to bring what skills I have to
the table.

On Jul 27, 8:46 pm, Elias Bizannes <elias.bizan...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Allison]

Hi There

My name is Allison Reynolds, I currently work for AT&T after being
outsourced this year by IBM as part of their move to get out of
Networking.

My love affair with tech started when I was about 14 and was given a
TRS-80 when they first came to Australia (yes that should date me) and
while I LOVED the concept, I learned to hate coding as we had no
storage and so each BASIC program I wrote had to be retyped every time
I used the bloody thing.

Worked in the Videotex area before the internets doing graphics and
database work, did WAN work for credit unions, did Voice stuff for the
casino and IBM , and got into management. Along the way I had a couple
of small businesses ... antiques/second hand furniture /seafood,had a
couple of kids and a started (but not finished) Law degree.

My first love is the internet. My second is entrepreneurship.

I plan to leave AT&T on or before Dec 1 , 2010 and am looking around
now for what I can do to sustain an income on/from internet/tech/
communities while living on a bush property...

[David Novakovic]

Hey I'm David Novakovic from Varsity Lakes on the Gold Coast.

I work primarily on large scale natural language processing/semantics/
information retrieval technologies.

I'm presently finishing my masters by research at QUT in the above
mentioned fields. :)

I started a small company building and extending technologies in this
space, things are going very well.

I use the right tool for the job.

I like making big wins early.

I like encouraging others to think about entrepreneurship, this
includes public speaking and blogging. ( http://dpn.name )

cheers :)

David

[Gary Barber]

A few paragraphs about me. My name is Gary Barber.

I have been freelancing around the web since 1995, mostly out of Perth
(http://radharc.com.au).

Well I don't have any startups in stealth mode, but I was involved
with several failed web 1.0 startups, if that counts for anything (no
I didn't think so).

I'm an information architect , front end developer most of the time,
with a background in design and development. However I have been know
for a bit of code hackery from time to time. I have a passion for the
Australia web industry and bringing together of its community.

I blog and other things over at Man with no Blog (http://
manwithnoblog.com). In what little spare time I have left I'm the
treasurer of the Australian Web Industry Association (http://
webindustry.asn.au)

[Mick Liubinskas]

Hi everybody, Mick Liubinskas here.

Web-strategist for Pollenizer, who works with startups to help them
grow big and fast. We play part time roles and fill the gaps in your
team. Phil Morle, my co-founder, and Jon Tyson does the tech side.

Working on 3eep, Lingopal, Xumii, Getprice, and an iPhone Dev Lab.

Worked on Kazaa, Zapr, Tangler.

http://www.pollenizer.com/
http://www.liubinskas.com/blog

Trying to set up a coworking space in Sydney for startups. See my blog
for more info.

Cheers,

Mick

[Kim Heras]

Kim Heras (seeing as we're doing the pronunciation thing - it's
pronounced Hair-us...actually my background is Spanish, so it's air-
us) -

Editor TechNation Australia – www.technation.com.au - Australia's
Premiere tech startup news and review blog :)

Founder of Open Coffee Sydney - http://entrepreneur.meetup.com/1136/ -
a meetup group for the tech statup industry.

Commercial Manager, Ensyst – www.ensyst.com.au - A systems integrator
that has been a BRW Fast 100 company for the past 3 years. (exciting
place to work and pays the bills)

Degrees in Sports Management, Commerce and Law. Worked in IT and
marketing for most of my life (after stints in hospitality and
retail).

33, Married, Live in Sydney

Startup Experience?

Got a Government grant to develop an online gaming anti-cheat a while
back. Leant a lot about Government, people and startups during that
experience.

Co-Founder Half Square - An idea lab / development company for web
apps. We have a few different projects in the pipeline.

Goals?

Right now - help build awareness of what's going on inside the tech
startup industry both for those inside and outside of it.

Soon (getting sooner by the day) - move away from the 9-5 to focus on
helping startups more directly and also to work more actively on one
of Half Square's open innovation projects

Later - look back on these times when we've got a successful tech
industry and reminisce about how exciting things were when we built
this mutha! :)

Email me at edi...@technation.com.au if you want me to do a story on
you or want to have a friendly chat about your project.

[Christy Dena]

OK Elias, I received the Twitter kick! I'll toot my horn too.

I'm Christy Dena. I'm not a techie, but I'm self-taught in a number of
things and have worked as a technical & interaction trainer &
consultant in a few jobs.

I'm currently balancing the last few months of my PhD with
commissioned writing & lecturers & cross-media, narrative & game
design work.

I want to be able to develop any creative venture my mind desires, and
so for the last few years I've been working towards being completely
independent. Part of that plan includes being able to implement
projects that produce automated income.

I have always been an initiator, and so entrepreneurship is a sister
spirit.

I'm in Sydney, and met most of this motley crew through my efforts
getting BarCampSydney happening.

That's it from me for now. Good on your Elias, Mick and Bronwen!

Best,
Christy
http://www.ChristyDena.com
http://www.UniverseCreation101.com
http://www.Cross-MediaEntertainment.com

[Tim Bull]

Hi,

I'm Tim Bull, I blog on Web 2.0 and with my particular bent generally
being its application to large enterprises on my blog at http://binaryplex.com.

I work for PwC as an Enterprise Architect and have the opportunity to
get involved with a lot of vendors in understanding where they are
going with this whole Web 2.0 "thing" and sharing my bent on how large
organisations can take it up.

I've not been particularly active in the Australian tech community
having had more of a global focus and just recently returning from a
sceondment overseas, but I hope that's about to change. Like everyone
else here I've had my own small share of debates with Chris Saad and
Elias Bizannes over various topics. Despite Elias and I working at
the same organisation we are yet to meet in person.

I look forward to seeing where this goes and how I can get involved.

Tim Bull
http://binaryplex.com

[uvblue]

You want a pronunciation challenge? I'm Yuval Hertzog - but you can
call me U.V. 34, based in Sydney for the past 5 years.
My history starts at the age of 6 with a 2K RAM Basic cartridge on
Atari 600XL (yeah, the gaming console). Worked in the defense and
Telco market for 20 years (early start, I know), had 4 successful
start-ups in Israel, US, South Africa and Australia, registered some
patents but mainly had plenty of wicked kitesurfing sessions around
the world.
I believe an Aussie Silicon Valley is imminent as I’ve met some the
most ingenious people here but unfortunately not enough VC funding for
seed companies. Let’s make it happen. Where do I sign?

[Chris Saad]

Hey welcome to the list Tim! Good to see you here.

@ UV - I think u just signed with your intro :)

Chris

--
Chris Saad

FaradayMedia - For Audiences of One
Particls - Are You Paying Attention?
Engagd - The Open Attention Platform
Media 2.0 Workgroup - Social, Democratic, Distributed
APML - Your Attention Profile
DataPortability - Connect, Control, Share, Remix

[Bart Jellema]

Bart Jellema, born in the Netherlands, living in Sydney (Manly, the
"real" silicon beach ;)

Co-founder of Tjoos.com. Really glad we started our business in
Australia and happy to see this group already explode. Good work
Elias! I'm a regular at official Friday/FITSBAD and I'll claim
responsibility for hacking together the startup wiki http://www.startup-australia.org/
When not stuck behind the computer I'm watching movies or I'm teaching
people how to dive.

M +61 401 984 056
E bart.j...@tjoos.com
T http://www.twitter.com/TjoosDude
L http://www.linkedin.com/in/bartjellema
F http://www.facebook.com/people/Bart_Jellema/564306016
B http://www.technation.com.au/
W http://www.startup-australia.org/

[PaulM (WebEquity.com.au)]

Hi all, I'm Paul Middleton, founder of the recently launched
http://www.WebEquity.com.au/. This is a web biz development community
based on revenune/equity sharing and collaboration.

Originally from the UK, I've owned 'e' businesses there, in Canada,
the US and now Australia, where I live. I try to involve myself as
little in the day-to-day operations as possible, which allows me the
time to develop new ideas (hence WebEquity.com.au).

It's hours since the launch of this group and I already feel like it's
gaining momentum. I hope one day to proudly say how I was introduction
#36 :)

Looking forward to seeing this develop and adding what value I can.
--
Paul
paul.mi...@webequity.com.au

[vashistvishal]

Hi Shklyar,

If i recollect correctly you presented at Cebit this year at
Transaction 2.0 ...

Cheers...
Vishal

On Jul 29, 10:23 am, snu <shkl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm Maxim Shklyar (don't even try to pronounce it).
> I’ve been in Melbourne for 5 years, from Silicon Wadi.
>
> I've been in web development for 12 years; freelancing, running web

> development agency in the last 8y -http://kisla.com

> Overall during this time I've completed about 100 projects, working
> with every major web technology, back-end and front-end.
> I'm recently specialising in rich, interactive, multimedia, Flash-
> based front-ends (but do all the rest web dev as well).
>
> Some of the projects I've implemented in last few years includes:
> Flash-based front ends and back-end integration for:  Culture Victoria
> -http://cv.vic.gov.au, Holden site -http://holden.com.au, Lee

> Jeans site -http://leejeans.com.au;

> Full project development: SBS Tour de France portal 06 (http://

> sbs.com.au/tdf) , Fuse Airplayhttp://www.fuse.com.au/products/fuse-airplay/

> - (a youtube-like, 1 year before youtube established) , etc
> Looking for more interesting projects and problems to solve.
>
> I've recently invented, developed and starting to commercialise new

> technology for interactive development -http://ximl.com

> XIML [ksee-mel] is a technology for creating rich, interactive web/
> mobile sites and applications with seamless video and audio
> integration. It enables to create a full-featured Flash-based content
> without the need in programming, knowing or owning Flash soft. XIML is
> a simple XML-based markup language enabling functionality previously
> available only with complex programmed applications. It is very easy

> to learn and use - the entire developers’ reference fits on 1 page -http://ximl.com/XIMLlangref.pdf

> XIML is a front-end layer and works with any back-end configuration,
> communicating with XMLs (incl RSS feeds, etc).
>
> Some examples of XIML sites:

> Culture Victoria   for Arts Victoria (Australia)http://cv.vic.gov.au

> flickr photoset RSS feed demo          http://ximl.com/site/flickr_api_demo
> youtube RSS feed demo:          http://ximl.com/site/youtube_api_demo

> Word Press skins:      http://ximl.com/site/wp,http://ximl.com/site/wp_skin3

[Pierre Sauvignon]

Hi everyone!

My name is Pierre Sauvignon (yes like the wine, and yes I'm
french... ;)). I'm working at Tangler (www.tangler.com) and Pollenizer
(www.pollenizer.com). My uni background is Multimedia Project Manager,
but I'm more of a dev / designer / product manager... ;)
I'm also founder of www.pxcream.com which is a photoblogging platform
currently in private beta (if you're interested and want an invite,
send me an email).

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/pierresauvignon
Twitter: www.twitter.com/pierre_s
OnGoingProject: www.pxcream.com
Blog: www.thejuicycow.com
Photoblog: www.mcfull.com

[jedwhite]

Hi all, I'm Jed White (@jedwhite).

I'm an entrepreneur, writer and software developer who is passionate
about the future of media.

I'm from itechne. We're building and launching a new business and a
new cloud-based product (currently in development) into the US this
next year.

I can generally be identified by the scuffed shoes, spare batteries
and multi-stylus pen in my shirt pockets, and the fact I talk too much
and tend to bounce off the ceiling about interesting ideas.

http://friendfeed.com/jedwhite
http://twitter.com/jedwhite

Cheers,
Jed

[IanLyons]

I was born in Moscow but grew up in Melbourne.

I used to bug the Tandy guys to use the TRS-80 after school - first
computer was the Exidy Sorcerer. First memory upgrade was from 2KB to
4KB and involved soldering.

Have had a love / hate relationship with computers / technology. Love
when they are useful & make life better - hate them most of the time.

Got to work across Russia with Mars in the early 90s so can assist
with mafia negotiations if required. Also know all about starting the
wrong business at exactly the wrong time and having to hunker down to
keep people employed and pay back investors.

During the day I work for pureprofile.com and try convince companies
to move from thinking about us as passive consumers to increasingly
informed and connected participants.

At night I try make cash from cool at www.thecoolhunter.net -
hopefully without any advertising.

Oh yeah - also organise a TED inspired conference - www.interestingsouth.com

Favourite drink: Espresso Martini

[sheedz]

Hi All,

Now I'll Introduce myself a bit further. My name is Ben Sheedy. I'm
mainly a Sydneysider but was born in Brisbane and then lived in Perth
for 12 years. Since then I've lived in Sydney and now, for the past
year or so, living in Melbourne.

I've moved around in the land of study with Psychology and brief
stints with Accounting but have found a solid interest in graphic
design and the web. I'm on a huge learning curve at the moment which
I'm enjoying and expect to run for a while as technology continues to
evolve.

I mainly focus on building sites using HTML, CSS, Javascript (jquery
or mootools), PHP & MySQL. I've been getting involved with Drupal and
think it is a great CMS.

I've used flash here and there and like some of it's animation
qualities, but at the moment I'm preferring to avoid it.

My current site bensheedy.com breaks all rules I have now learnt to
follow (it's built in tables for pete's sake) so will be updating it
when I get a moment.

Non-tech side, I'm big on music and going to gigs and occasionally get
around to writing gig reviews for fasterlouder.com.au but have had to
put that on hold for the past little while.

That's pretty much me summed up!

[thegreenguy]

Hi:

I am Suhit Anantula from Adelaide.

I am 29 years old, born and brought up in Hyderabad, India. Moved to
Australia in 2005.

Finished my Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) in 1999 in India and MBA from
UniSA, Adelaide in 2007. (not sure what I learned but gained some good
contacts)

Worked in Sales and Marketing then in back office Investment banking
for US clients in India for 4 years. Moved to work with the top dot-
com millionaire in India (rajesh jain/www.emergic.org) in 2003 to
Bombay to work on a rural development startup (www.deeshaa.com).
Learnt the power of vision.

Launched a community site for the outsourcing sector in India which
did not do that well.

Then, after its failure, moved to Australia for my MBA.

I was part of the core team behind the Tsunami Help website and wiki
during the Asian Tsunami disaster. Learnt a lot about virtual
management and power of technology/information coupled with passionate
people.

Worked part-time in a govt. agency trying to green them and now in
Strategic planning with them.

With an interest in blogging started a blog on rural India and
business called www.worldisgreen.com which has morphed into a website
on business strategy and sustainability/environment now.

Recently, launched the Adelaide Green Drinks networking event in
Adelaide. (http://adelaidegreendrinks.ning.com)

My passions: Technology, Sustainability and Business.

What next: I am working on a start-up bringing a great technology
product to Australia. Hopefully, I should be able to get the company
out of the stealth mode in August. Eagerly waiting for it.

I think this is a great initiative - Silicon Beach Australia, looking
forward.

Cheers,
Suhit

[Ross Hill]

I'm Ross, I live in Geelong but spend a few days a week in Melbourne
finishing off a BBus(Entrepreneurship) at RMIT Uni.

I'm a pretty heavy Twitter user as @rosshill.

I make websites for people, but have quite a few of my own.

* Yabble.com.au is the latest, a local reviews website.
* HatchThat.com is a blog where I interview entrepreneurs.
* CoverHunt.com finds cd covers for 40k people each month.

I'm also co-founder of The Hive (thehive.org.au), a monthly networking
event for entrepreneurs in Melbourne.

And recently I've been doing a bit of work with Rentoid.com -
Australia's ebay of renting.

--
Ross Hill
http://www.rosshill.com.au/

have you written your first Yabble review yet? http://www.yabble.com.au

On Jul 31, 10:12 pm, thegreenguy <anant...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi:
>
> I am Suhit Anantula from Adelaide.
>
> I am 29 years old, born and brought up in Hyderabad, India. Moved to
> Australia in 2005.
>
> Finished my Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) in 1999 in India and MBA from
> UniSA, Adelaide in 2007. (not sure what I learned but gained some good
> contacts)
>
> Worked in Sales and Marketing then in back office Investment banking
> for US clients in India for 4 years. Moved to work with the top dot-
> com millionaire in India (rajesh jain/www.emergic.org) in 2003 to
> Bombay to work on a rural development startup (www.deeshaa.com).
> Learnt the power of vision.
>
> Launched a community site for the outsourcing sector in India which
> did not do that well.
>
> Then, after its failure, moved to Australia for my MBA.
>
> I was part of the core team behind the Tsunami Help website and wiki
> during the Asian Tsunami disaster. Learnt a lot about virtual
> management and power of technology/information coupled with passionate
> people.
>
> Worked part-time in a govt. agency trying to green them and now in
> Strategic planning with them.
>
> With an interest in blogging started a blog on rural India and

> business calledwww.worldisgreen.comwhich has morphed into a website

[Pieter]

Impressed with the speed of dialogue here.
I'm Pieter Peach and my skills are predominantly in medical research
and clinical medicine. I know I know, a tech wannabe. I'm
comfortable with that label.
I've been an early adopter consumer since AARNET and have watched from
the sidelines (while spending one third of my life up to this point at
university, initially in molecular biology, then medicine, then
international public health, and now out of uni I'm still hauling
myself though the anaesthesia specialist program), but have now seen
what the web is really capable of and where it might head in the next
decades and plan to get amongst it.
I'm in the process of having my first real application developed,
having previously worked on the tech side of some basic content
projects (www.worldortho.com in a pre-Joomla iteration). It was then
I saw the potential of the web to be the great global equaliser, and
since then wikipedia and google have busted serious moves. I love
watching disruptive technologies unexpectadly brain big players.

Not sure what I can add at the moment other than insights into parts
of health informatics and biotech. Interests I'm developing are data
standards and the semantic web, and collaboration tools.

twitter.com/pieterpeach
ppeach.com

[Pat Allan]

Hi All

I've been lurking on this list for a few days now, trying to take
everything in.

My name's Pat Allan, a Ruby-focused freelance web developer who
dabbles in running events (www.railscamp08.org, www.ausdwcon.org). I'm
normally based in Melbourne, but am currently in the middle of a round-
the-world trip - in New York today, flying to Heathrow overnight. More
detail than needed can be found at:
http://freelancing-gods.com/about

Also, you can find me on twitter with the imaginative username pat.

As an aside (or should it be the focus, and the introduction is
secondary?) this list is reminding me of the ideas from Richard
Florida's The Creative Class - I'm guessing a lot of people here are
familiar with it?

Cheers

--
Pat
e: p...@freelancing-gods.com || m: +614 1327 3337
w: http://freelancing-gods.com || t: twitter.com/pat
discworld: http://ausdwcon.org || skype: patallan

[ClayCook]

Name: Clay Cook
Description: Tech Entrepreneur, Angel Investor, Property Entrepreneur,
Living in Perth
Here [ http://www.claycook.net ] is my homepage with much more detail.

[Alex North]

Hi all,

I'm Alex North, a Sydney based engineer and entrepreneur. I started
http://tiinker.com (R.I.P.), http://jobreel.com.au and am entering
into the growing world of the mobile internet with jamcode:
http://blip.tv/file/1067165 (available real soon now). I have a love
of machine learning and AI: at uni I taught robot dogs to play soccer.
I'm also passionate about making stuff people can use, something I'm
sure is shared with most people here.

During my spare time I'm an engineer at a large and colourful Internet
company.

Alex

[bengrubb]

Howdy all,

I'm Ben Grubb and I turn 18 this month.

I'm going to eventually move to Sydney to pursue something with new
media.

I currently work as a network admin for a couple of companies of which
I contract out to.

I also run a web hosting business.

You can learn more about me in my signature.
--
Ben Grubb
Cell +61 414 197 508
Skype techwiredau
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bengrubb
My personal site: http://www.bengrubb.com

[Lyynx]

Have been lurking since arriving a few days ago. Anyway, here's my
quick introduction. :)

I'm Stephen Price, http://www.littlevoices.com (for my cartoons) and
http://www.lythixdesigns.com (for my coding), and live in Perth.

I'm a Silverlight developer/.Net Developer/Cartoonist. One of those
lucky developers who can draw/paint and do UI. I'm very interested in
UI stuff and on the Developer/Designer curve find myself somewhere in
the middle. (The cartooning is a hobby...)

Currently studying at ECU finishing my last two units - Bachelor of
Science (Internet Computing) with some mobile units and some gaming
units.
I'm big on communities, love the learning and the networking with
peers. Belong to Perth .Net user group, AWIA (Sure you know that one),
IGDA (International Game Developers Association), ACA (Australian
Cartoonist Association) and I started PMUG back up. (Perth Mobility
User Group - http://pmug.info ). I'm also spread very very thin...
lol.

Nice to meet you all, should be interesting where this thing leads us
all!

cheers,
Stephen

[Appxweb]

G'day,

My name is Ian Hart, I am 35 years old and live in Perth with my wife
and kids. I do not work or have background in IT ( It just does not
pay enough). Instead I do this for fun. I am a self taught programmer
and created Appxweb Meta (www.appxweb.com) over the last decade as
personnel project to prove different theories that bugged me. Appxweb
Meta is runtime which enables web developers to create, run, manage
and distribute web based add-ons and web applications for Internet
Explorer. Meta Applications, are delivered as a service, on demand and
allow data and functionality to be seamlessly shared, integrated and
managed across multiple websites - the connected web. Sounds familiar
- think of it of a super set of Data Portability.

To date this has been something I have worked on when the wife is
watching Desparate Housewives or worse Lipstick Jungle. (Currently
its the final of The Farmer Wants A Wife and some bloke who looks like
a cross between Warnie and Steve Irwin is chatting up some chick with
a big nose. God have mercy) I guess I watched DataPortability.org
spring up and now SB Austalia and decided its time particpate in the
conversation and contribute to the community.

I hate complexity, overhead, philosophising and semantics word games.
Its probably because I can't spell and don't texted. I am looking
forward to this.

Cheers

Ian

[vashistvishal]

Guys,

This is vishal from Melbourne. I have been following tech startups
coming out of australia since 2005.
Published the first comprehensive list of web startups of australia in
2006 for RWW.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/australia_top_web_apps.php
Martin Wells provided lot of help in compiling this.

In March 2008, I conducted the first online startups carnival 2008
which was Judged by Duncan Riley, Ross Dawson & Justin Davies.
During the carnival I covered nearly 30 startups -
http://startups.sharmavishal.com/2008/03/summary-australian-startups-carnival.html

Since then I have covered additional 31 - so in total 61 startups -
http://startups.sharmavishal.com/2008/06/growing-list-of-australian-startups.html
There will be few more in coming days/weeks/months ..... :-)

In addition to this I'm interviewing lot of CEO's, Founders,
Journalists, VC's and others involved in technology based startups/
ventures.
http://startups.sharmavishal.com/2008/03/interviews.html

As far as background is concerned - Soln architecture/Tech Pre Sales/
Business & IT strategy.
Now as an independent IT analyst/consultant I'm engaging with few big
companies in helping their business transformation esp in term of IT.

I hope this gives enough info.

I must admit this is a good initiative and if people need any
contribution from my side, plz drop an email :-).

Cheers..
Vishal

[Gary]

Hello,

This thread is excellent insight into the who's who of Australian
cutting edge technology!

Gary Brewer, 28 years old / web application developer live on Silicon
Beach in Manly and attend the Manly Silicon Beach meetup with Bart and
Geoff. I am originally from England. I program everything in C# but
love looking at alternatives like python/django and RoR (although I
never find the time to properly learn them).

I run a couple of websites that I call "startups" depending on how
much media coverage they will get under a different name. http://builtwith.com
is my main focus at the moment (a website that tells you what other
websites are built with) I have also setup http://globalsurfari.com a
surf forecasting startup, http://gennit.com a code generation web
application and http://twitlinks.com which Michael Arrington didn't
like.

My website is http://garybrewer.com.au and I have a blog (which is
mostly about me going on holiday or a good film I've watched) at
http://g2007.com. My twitter is http://twitter.com/garazy


Gary

[Chris Carpenter]

Hey All,

My name is Chris Carpenter. I've been doing web development for about
10 years now. Worked for a couple of large investment banks in Sydney
on stuff from content management to secure client sites. I'm a geek. I
love programming, hacking things to get 'em working and learning new
stuff.

Recently created a web app called www.widgely.com - a free site for
people to easily create shareable document templates. Also just
finished www.australianbusinessforms.com which uses the same
technology, but in a commercial offering.

I'm very interested in the start-up industry in Australia, so it's
great to see groups like this popping up.

Chris.
www.digitalcarpenter.com.au

[Chris Hitchen]

Hi all,

Chris Hitchen here, CEO of comparison shopping site www.getprice.com.au.
I'm originally from Melbourne, have spent the best part of 10 years in
Europe (London & Munich) but am now in Bondi (rivalling Manly for
Silicon Beach title?).

I'm an entrepreneur masquerading as a corporate exec. since News
Digital Media invested in our business in October last year. They now
have slightly over 25% of the company and I'm really pleased at the
support we get (not that I ever had doubts! ;-)

Mick, Phil and the team at Pollenizer do some work with us and I met
both Mick and Elias at a media event on the Sunshine Coast earlier
this year.

I also invest seed capital in start-ups with a group of angel
investors. We're in an Israeli start-up making waves by monetising
downloadable video - see www.hiro-media.com - and a Melbourne-based
lead generation business for realestate agents called www.sellmycastle.com.au,
as well as several other businesses.

I'm not hardcore Web 2.0 (though Pollenizer guys are getting me there)
and am probably less technical than most here, but I have a reasonable
grasp on running and making money from a start-up, taking it out of
start-up phase, raising money from a large media company and investing
in start-ups.

Prior to Getprice I spent 5 years in Munich, Germany with Lycos Europe
(yes, the black dog!), with a bit of consulting thrown-in (bus. dev. &
corp. dev. for a mobile app. business & two digital agencies); prior
to that I was with an early dot com in London called Earthport.com for
4 years. I retain a keen interest in what's happening in Europe and
believe there are many opportunities to bring business models from
there and the US to Australia. I also have a couple of what I believe
to be good ideas, but don't have much time or the technical expertise
to build them myself (mainly large database-driven, consumer-facing
sites), hence am interested in surfacing for air at some point to see
who wants to get involved!

Good to be amongst it here, thanks Elias.

Cheers

Chris
http://www.linkedin.com/in/hitchen
http://www.digitalministry.com.au/component/option,com_myblog/Itemid,41/blogger,Chris+Hitchen/.

On Aug 6, 10:54 pm, Chris Carpenter <chrisca...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey All,
>
> My name is Chris Carpenter. I've been doing web development for about
> 10 years now. Worked for a couple of large investment banks in Sydney
> on stuff from content management to secure client sites. I'm a geek. I
> love programming, hacking things to get 'em working and learning new
> stuff.
>

> Recently created a web app calledwww.widgely.com- a free site for

> people to easily create shareable document templates. Also just

> finishedwww.australianbusinessforms.comwhich uses the same

[Cam MacRae]

Cam MacRae, tech body at carsales.com Ltd. since the days it was half
a dozen newly minted dot-comers stuffed in the corner of someone
else's office. How things have changed...

I'm 31 and based in Melbourne but frequently travel to NYC as I'm
married to a New Yorker.

Mostly hacking python (and javascript) these days, but have plenty of
C, Java, pl/sql (shudder) under my belt too.

Looking to do another startup end of FY09. Well that's the plan
anyway...

cam.

[Victor Tsen]

Hi folks,

Victor Tsen, 21 year old student studying Computer Science and
Commerce at UWA majoring in Marketing, Management, Computation and Web
Tech. I'm hoping my education can give me a good foundation on both
the business and technical side of a startup. I've worked on a couple
of small projects using LAMP and also through these projects picked up
some knowledge on online marketing.

Recently I won the Google Online Marketing Challenge and as a prize
I'm heading to San Francisco this September. I'll be given a tour of
the Googleplex and will get a chance to meet the Adwords creators and
some executives, so it should be really awesome. Also as a consequence
of the win I'm now working part time at ineedhits.com as a PPC search
specialist.

When I'm not studying or working I spend my spare time developing a
small social online experiment/project as well as finishing off my
business plan for my own startup.

I'm here on Silicon Beach to check out Oz's startup scene as well as
to network.

Cheers,
Victor

[AB]

Hi there everyone... I'm finally de-lurking and introducing myself...

I'm Andrew Ballard, although most of the world simply calls me 'AB'.
Unless there's clash of nicknames, feel free to choose either way...

I've been in the online world since the days of Gopher, so I've
watched the internet's ups and downs with great interest: I started
the design studio Design Central in 1995 and sold out in 2000 to pave
the way for 'The Internet Craft Shop' - a partnership with my wife, to
cater for all the thousands of hobby/hand craft businesses in
Australia. Some seed investment couldn't rescue us from the dot-com
crash (craftshop.COM was the first big-name US dot-com bust), plus a
magazine publisher effectively stopped us from reaching our target
market through, in 2000-2002, was the way most consumers in the craft
world found their information. 8 years of hindsight would have helped,
too, no doubt.

Personally, I'm a one-man jack-of-all-trades: a designer/developer/dba/
consultant/etc... I'm sure that I'm not alone in wearing many hats
with this crowd: I guess I consider it a crime *not* absorb new skills
sets, since, for me, everything is simply an extension of something
else. Every new skill has just 'another' mix of creative, technical
and interpersonal requirements.

My most exciting venture to date, though, was only launched last week,
after a year in stealth mode. I've come to the realisation that
traditional search engines are hard work for most people, in that the
traditional query first/browse results is getting more complex, not
less so.

So I developed a series of web sites, with the hub at http://myperfect.com.au.

I've coined the phrase 'choice engine', since it's the polar opposite
of a traditional search engine. Instead on starting with one query and
finding thousands and millions of results, we *start* with thousands
of unique products, and play a very smart game of 20 questions, until
you're left with your one, perfect product... (or as few as possible -
that's the fallback!) Essentially, we refine your search for you, but
only based on published (unbiased!) technical specs. Once we find your
perfect *whatever*, we then link off to business who can fulfill your
research or purchasing needs. For those businesses, it's a very highly
qualified lead - not like other search engine advertising. Power users
can add reviews, as well as add new items to the choice engine - in
the next month, we'll unveil a system of 'kudos points' to rank our
users from 'novices' all the way up to 'experts', 'gurus' and
'legends' - the higher your activity, the more weight your reviews
will have.

We've started with myperfectphone, camera and beer... (yes, lads -
beer!) We'll roll out career, car, homeloan, man, woman (yes, lads -
woman!), and about 12 others this year - but the sky's the limit. One
day we'll aggregate our separate data sets into one world view, so you
can traverse from myperfectcamera (still cameras) over to videocamera
without a hitch...

Since we only just launched, I'd be appreciative of any feedback on
the site or the concept: good, bad or ugly. Don't hold back - I handle
rejection well... : )

I'll be out and about in the investor/pitch world in the next 6
months, too - so I'll look forward to meeting any and all of you in
due course. For starters, I'll be pitching at GeekIdol in Sydney on
Thursday Aug 28th, then again with BSI in Sydney on the 2nd September
the following week - I'll start a new thread to see who's up for a
coffee - my shout.

Thanks for your time, your collective expertise - and any feedback
you're able to give...

AB out

[Haino]

Brand new member here - John Haining, and came across this group
whilst preparing for this morning's Open Coffee.

I'm an owner of Michael Johnson Associates (http://
mjassociates.com.au) an independent consultancy in the R&D tax
concession and government grant space - we've got a team of about 20
and clients all over Oz, and I've got a law degree and a masters in e-
business.

Somehow I made it through Web 1.0 without jumping into any of the many
startups I met, (don't know how really) which means I am either lucky
to have my shirt or missed out on making squillions :)

Either way, I'm a big fan of the startup and tech sectors, and believe
that we can create the best businesses in the world from Sydney.

I'm working on my own little project in the recruitment space, and
look forward to meeting you in person as opportunities arise.

[Emily Wearmouth]

Hi folks,

I have been watching the group but only today remembered my Google
Groups password to join!

Ahem...

I am a public relations consultant for companies within the technology
industry - aiming to help translate often very technical stories to
less technical audiences, or to spread "the word" of my clients among
their target audiences, whether they be developers, potential
partners, customers etc.

I moved to Sydney three months ago to take up an executive director
position with Kinetics, a tech specialist PR agency. I came from
Kinetics' sister agency in Europe, Hotwire, where I most recently
headed up the mobile and wireless practice. In five years there I
looked after the likes of Acision, the Mobile Wimax Acceleration
Group, BlackBerry... Before Hotwire I worked at another European tech-
PR shop, AxiCom, getting my hands dirty with LUGs for Red Hat and
generally hanging around the enterprise software space for folks like
Citrix and VMware.

I can be found tweeting on EmVicW and blogging about nonsense on
http://thoughts-on-everything.blogspot.com

[Dean McEvoy]

Hi All,

Dean McEvoy Founder and CEO of www.bookingangel.com.

What we do:
Booking Angel enables any web directory to quickly and cheaply satisfy
overwhelming user demand, and offer online reservations for all
restaurants; while using familiar, fully automatic, interactive
telephony for communication with restaurants, maximizing their comfort
and ease of use, and minimizing sales and operations costs.

Booking Angel is a win-win for all parties: greater convenience for
users, better service and qualified leads for web directories,
increased business at minimal cost and effort for the greatest
possible range of restaurants - and a large, proven and rapidly
growing market.

Why am I here:

I'm passionate about Australian startups and can hopefully share a few
experiences to help other Entrepreneurs. I dont think the goal of this
discussion should be about creating a Silicon Valley in Australia. Its
like trying to turn Ayers rock into the Grand Canyon. You cant change
the fact there are 400M consumers in the US the majority of which are
active consumers of the Internet. If you want to build good products
for your customers in any market you have to be close to them and that
means being in Silicon Valley if you are building and Internet /
technology product. The question is how do the smart people with good
ideas get the support they need to get over here. How do we educate
people about the Entrepreneiral process and who is willing and able to
lend a hand to get the balls rolling. I'll do what I can to help. It
doesnt mean it cant be done from Australia. The word cant isnt in my
vocabulary much...but doing it is like having a long distance
relationship with your girlfriend though and we all know there are
benefits to seeing each other face to face ;-)

[Daniel Parker]

Daniel Parker...

I'm 22 and live in rural Michigan. (Not Australia! But I might live in
New Zealand someday...)

Programmed Perl for 7 years, introduced to Ruby last spring, began
contributing Rails plugins, soon got on the Merb+DataMapper boat.

You're encouraged to check out my projects on github: http://github.com/dcparker
I've contributed to merb, merb-oauth, and other stuff.
My techy blog is at http://blog.behindlogic.com.

[engenuity]

Hi everyone,

Elias, this is a fantastic initiative. I'm sure the group will thrive,
and who knows what it can achieve!

As to introducing myself…

I’m Liz Turner and I run Engenuity Innovation, an Innovation and
Marketing consultancy. www.engenuity.com.au

Prior to that (2000-2007) I founded 'The World on Tap', which was an
early pioneer in Mobile Hyperlinks (e.g.: mobile barcodes/QR codes
etc). We created many dozens of applications; from apps that capture a
consumer’s Moment of Interest ™ in the physical world, to apps using
mobile hyperlinks to instantaneously pay for parking, restaurant
ordering with your Mobile etc etc etc.

We also lodged early patents on mobile hyperlinking that went past
barcodes/QR codes (which after all aren’t really aesthetically
pleasing!)

We’ve gone past all that now, and my new company creates new
businesses and innovations in many realms of industry: tourism,
banking, retail to name a few.

I’m definitely interested in meeting groundbreaking entrepreneurs –
the ones genuinely creating new ideas as opposed to copying them.
Australia has major talent, and we don’t need to look overseas to find
awesome new ventures. We too can lead the world.

Onward Silicon Beach!

[Dexter]

Hi everyone i am Dexter or formally know as Kurt Wells.

I work for a small business called Midcoast IT in Port Macquarie doing
my Certificate 4 in IT.
A little about me:
I am 19 and have lived in Port Macquarie for 16 years, I finished my
HSC in 2007 and during that year i got a traineeship in IT. Once i
finished my HSC i went to work straight away. I have a love for Apple
Computers, i also love the beach and cannot wait till daylight saving
kicks in so that i can go for a surf in the morning and after work. I
also have a saltwater fish tank with all my fish and coral in it. i am
also interested in web design but have not had time to to learn. I am
always keen to learn new things.

Cheers Dexter

[Chris Hitchen]

Good on you Victor, well done on the win. When will you be in San
Fran? A few of us will be at TechCrunch50 from this coming Monday -
Wed. Cheers, Chris

[Michael Harries]

Hi Everyone,

Let me add my congratulations - good on you, Elias, this is a great initiative.

I'm Michael Harries, presently doing driving strategy, futures, etc for Citrix CTO Office and labs here in Sydney. It is fantastic seeing such a great enthusiasm for the startup here in Sydney. I'll echo Liz's comments that we have major talent and innovation here in Oz.

Cheers,
Michael

http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelharries

--
__
Michael Harries

[Chris Hitchen]

Hi Liz, welcome. Whilst I appreciate that in your particular line of
work you’re interested mainly in meeting “groundbreaking entrepreneurs
(who are) genuinely creating new ideas as opposed to copying them”, I
want to highlight the contribution made by businesses “copying”
existing models and challenge the notion that it’s only innovators
that benefit our industry and have broader things to offer (I realise
this isn't what you are saying). Rather than do that here, I’ve
started a new discussion:
http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia/browse_thread/thread/824dce999e84dece?hl=en

[Victor Tsen]

On Sep 3, 7:20 pm, Chris Hitchen <hitchen.ch...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Good on you Victor, well done on the win. When will you be in San
> Fran? A few of us will be at TechCrunch50 from this coming Monday -
> Wed. Cheers, Chris
>

Thanks Chris! I'll be flying out next Friday on the 12th
(unfortunately just after TechCrunch 50, which I wanted to go) and
will be visiting the Googleplex on the following Tuesday. I'm really,
really looking forward to checking out Google and Silicon Valley since
I've read and heard so much about it.

Cheers,
Victor

[Chris Hitchen]

Sounds great Victor ... come back and tell us all about your
experience once you're back. Cheers, Chris

[Phil Morle]

Greetings all,

I am Phil Morle. I am a founder of Pollenizer (www.pollenizer.com)
with Mick Liubinskas. We work with a number of start-ups to assist
them in building great web businesses.

Some of start-ups we are working with 3eep, 2Vouch, GetPrice, Xumii,
Switchwise, Tangler, Linqia, Lingopal, MoGeneration.

We are also incubating our own projects.

I have been lurking since Elias booted up this list and it is a real
pleasure to see such activity.

Blog: http://philmorle.com/

Cheers

Phil

[Gavin Heaton]

Hello all ...

My name is Gavin Heaton. By day I work for SAP and by night I write a
marketing and branding blog at www.servantofchaos.com.

Over the last 10+ years I have worked at IBM and Fujitsu in online or
innovation related roles. I have also spent quite some time
establishing and heading up the digital division of a global marketing
agency.

I have extensive experience working on global, collaborative projects
and have a particular interest in getting new ventures off the ground.

I try to "do good" where I can -- I am the co-publisher of Age of
Conversation (a collaborative book on social media marketing with 100+
authors from 14 countries), on the coordinating committee for
Interesting South (a conference of interesting things) and have
recently launched www.socialmediajobs.com.au which connects people
with jobs for free.

[contactdjy]

Hey - Dan Young here. I have worked in the technology industry for ten
years+ (Europe and Australia). I am a PR consultant and a blogger
(www.justanother24hours.com). I am currently reading George Monbiot
(www.monbiot.com).

On Sep 18, 2:14 pm, Gavin Heaton <serv...@servantofchaos.com> wrote:
> Hello all ...
>
> My name is Gavin Heaton. By day I work for SAP and by night I write a
> marketing and branding blog atwww.servantofchaos.com.
>
> Over the last 10+ years I have worked at IBM and Fujitsu in online or
> innovation related roles. I have also spent quite some time
> establishing and heading up the digital division of a global marketing
> agency.
>
> I have extensive experience working on global, collaborative projects
> and have a particular interest in getting new ventures off the ground.
>
> I try to "do good" where I can -- I am the co-publisher of Age of
> Conversation (a collaborative book on social media marketing with 100+
> authors from 14 countries), on the coordinating committee for
> Interesting South (a conference of interesting things) and have

> recently launchedwww.socialmediajobs.com.auwhich connects people

> with jobs for free.
>
> On Jul 27, 8:46 pm, Elias Bizannes <elias.bizan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > There's no plan on how to go about this. Seriously. The only thing I
> > do know however is that once you get people together, magic happens.
>
> > And it's been minutes since I created this group and invited people,
> > and already people are signing up that I have never met or heard
> > about. Success!
>

> > So with that, let's start introducting each other...- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[daniel]

Hi all,

this is Daniel Jarosch. Or better Dan Jarosch, as I was renamed by the
Australian custom officer when I first arrived in Sydney in ‘87.
Originally German, now Aussie with creative spelling.

Good stuff, this blog! Not only interesting but also great to see some
familiar names in here….

To briefly introduce myself online (hopefully offline as well sometime)
…. PwC, eBay, Germany - Football World Cup 2006, …. now working with
an online startup (in Berlin and Sydney) that is going to save the
world. At least, maybe the universe too. Keen to tell you more offline
soon.…. make sure to have another catch up in in November.

Take care, and enjoy the Shelbourne tonight

dan

[beddoes]

G'day,
Just came across this group while looking through some of the tweets
I've been too busy to deal with lately :).

My name is Bradley and I am based in Brisbane QLD. I run a software
development company called Intient ( http://www.intient.com ), which
is also Brisbane based. We specialise in identity security and online
collaboration tools. We love open source software and commit heavily
to many open source communities.

So far we've worked with some great clients, we're continuing to grow
by the day. Being able to be involved in a community like this is an
awesome opportunity, most of my peers in this regard are currently
based in San Francisco and that 16 hour flight to catch up is a real
killer.

Looking forward to being involved in the community. Feel free to join
up with me on Twitter! (bradleybeddoes).

[Steve Dalton]

Hi Guys

Steve Dalton here, Lurker on this list - only just getting around to
posting.

I have been in this game for about 12 years. I started off in the UK
at IBM, then 3Com, coding embedded software for Switches/Routers. I
moved into business software and the web just in time for the first
dotcom boom and then moved here to Australia (Sydney) in 2000 where I
worked for at my first startup... which failed... lot's of lessons
learned (was interesting to look up at it all happening around us from
our lowly programming positions).

Was doing a lot of C/C++/Tuxedo around this time a crossed over into a
good Java/C++ developer (via BEA) and did some work at the SFE and a
bank for several years, before moving up to the Gold Coast 3 years
ago. Since moving up to QLD, I've been working mostly for Government
in Brisbane, but more recently have been working locally and hooked up
with Lee Butts & Rob Nielsen to form another company Refactor -
http://refactor.com.au

We do Agile Web development with Groovy/Grails mostly, but also do
plain Java/J2EE/Spring and Ruby on Rails. I've also been doing a fair
bit of Scrum lately and I've managed to stumble into become a
ScrumMaster which is something I never planned on getting into - but
find it quite interesting. We have a few product ideas that we are
working on - but at the moment we are mostly just doing consultancy.

Personally I am a bit of a Linux nut and will be at OSDC and LCA this
year if anyone wants to catch up with me. I am on twitter as @spidie
if you want to follow me.

Steve

ps. Me and Lee are hoping to come to the December meetup assuming it's
on - just so happens to coincide with the end of OSDC.

[chris hulbert]

Hi all,

My name's Chris Hulbert, i work during the day as an asp.net developer
and have a couple of personal ruby on rails projects that i work on in
my spare time.
My current project is quickrosters.com which is a rostering system for
cafes/restaurants that allows managers to post the rosters online, and
staff can check their shifts from their mobile phone. I used to work
in retail and i remember the pain of having to visit work every week
when the rosters were posted on the notice board.
I'm here from the open coffee club, which i used to attend when it was
in parramatta.

(apologies if i double posted this - i'm not sure if this posted the
first time)

[gradconnection]

Hi all,

The drinks on Friday was great fun and a great way to meet some
similar minded people. My name is Mike and I have build a graduate
program consulting company called GradConnection (http://
www.gradconnection.com) with my two fellow directors, Dan and Dave.

We all met on the Westpac NZ graduate program and are now offering end
to end products and services for organisations that run graduate
programs. This includes marketing, software and HR frameworks to make
sure graduate programs are a positive return on investment for
companies.

We took the leap of faith a few months ago and moved to Sydney from
Wellington. We are now at the stage of living a very modest life but
surviving as we look to grow in the Sydney market.

Looking forward to getting involved in Silicon beach and helping
further everyones business.

Hopefully I will meet you all over time, and might meet some of you at
the open coffee meetup tomorrow.

Warm regards,

Mike
Director
GradConnection.com

[Brendan Quinn]

Okay as I promised, here's my introduction.

I'm Brendan Quinn, a 35 year old geek sort of trying to become a
business guy. I spent my first 28 years or so in Australia and have
been living in London since 2002. I hope that doesn't immediately
disqualify me from Silicon Beach membership...

Going way back as people seem to do in these intros, I started in tech
with the obligatory Vic 20 / C64 / Amiga route, from the age of 8 or
so I was writing BASIC programs on the Vic 20 as there wasn't much
else you could do at the time! My interest in computers really
blossomed when I started at high school (Mazenod College in Mulgrave,
Vic) where we had a network of BBC Micros. You could write assembly
code on them really easily, and do fun things like send chunks of
random data to another machine's sound buffer, which kind of surprised
the kid doing his word processing assignment a few machines down in
the lab. Our teacher let us come in at lunchtimes, after school etc so
I built up a good background in programming/hacking and some good
friends -- for example I built a little electronic mail program on our
network in 1988. It wasn't until I read about the "10,000 hours
theory" in Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" that i realised the value of
this experience!

I was very lucky to go to uni at an amazing time -- I was doing a Comp
Sci honours degree at Monash (taught by some greats like Damian
Conway, now a legend in the Perl scene) when the web came out, so i
already had an understanding of the protocols behind FTP, TCP, NNTP
etc before HTTP was invented. And having access to Sun and SGI
machines we were able to use the very first browsers in 1993 and 1994.
So I knew that the web was the place to be.

After part-time jobs at an ISP I worked for Sofcom Internet Publishers
as a developer from 1996 to 1998. But I missed out on the crazy days
of their ASX listing because I went to work at Fairfax, becoming their
"Online Editorial Technology Manager", ie the boss of the webmasters
for the Age, SMH and AFR. We implemented a new content management
system, grew the editorial tech team to 12 people, built the first WAP
news site in Australia and created some of the first RSS feeds, and
ended up running the tech side of the award-winning
olympics.smh.com.au, which was the only site to stay up throughout the
Sydney 2000 games (the official olympics.org and the news.com.au site
both fell over on day one and ours stayed up... I'm pretty proud of
that ;-) I worked with some amazing people and built up my frequent
flyer points, having a team split between Sydney and Melbourne.

After that I set up a one-man consultancy, Clueful Consulting Pty Ltd
(www.clueful.com.au) doing specialist work around web content
management systems, syndication and metadata, which was fun for a year
but in early 2002 when I got a call from a Fairfax colleague who had
gone to work for the BBC, the lure proved too great and within two
months I was living and working in London.

I'm still at the BBC (after more than seven years!!) but I've moved
around a bit, doing metadata, content management, digital
infrastructure and large-scale web architecture for what is one of the
world's biggest web sites. I've worked with people like Tim Berners-
Lee and the W3C, the Apache crew, most of the big tech companies you
can think of, and spoken at conferences all over the world. Fun times.

In the meantime I've just completed an Executive (ie part-time) MBA at
London Business School through which I got a taste for startups,
entrepreneurship and innovation. I was lucky enough to go on exchange
for a term to UC Berkeley, living the dream in Silicon Valley for the
last half of 2008.

I'm just about to start a new role at the Beeb looking at
commercialising the technology coming out of our Research &
Development unit, which will give me a great taste for how the venture
capital industry works, how to get new businesses started and build a
network of contacts in London and hopefully around the world.

On the side I've been looking into some startup ideas, and my current
plaything is www.mycharitypie.com, a new way of donating to charities
through direct debit. It works in prototype form but I haven't formed
a company, worked out the payment side of things etc. I started the
project through www.launch48.com, started by fellow Aussie expat Ian
Broom with his friend Adil Mohammed, nice blokes.

Eventually I suppose I'll end up back in Australia so I want to keep
in touch with the startup scene, hence why I've been lurking on this
list. Hopefully I can provide a bridge between the Australian and
European startup community, and help make connections where I can.

Phew! That's a big intro, sorry to bore you all :-) Looking forward to
some interesting discussions!

Brendan.

[Geoff McQueen - Hiive Systems]

Brendan,

Awesome intro mate: great to have you on the list.

Geoff

[Nick]

Hi,

After nearly 15 years of software design, development, deployment,
support and deconstruction for some of the worlds largest
corporations, Minno's founder and CEO, Nick Mayall, decided that the
time was right to head out into the wild blue yonder and turn his hand
to what he believed to be a much more rewarding and technologically
innovative pursuit. Namely, the development of cross-platform, fully
functional, bespoke mobile applications. Nick's major experience in
the software field has been with Microsoft technologies; being
instrumental in the implementation of enterprise class VB6 and .NET
applications for blue chip clients. His expertise also extends to the
back-end with significant time spent developing in SQL on Microsoft,
Sybase and Oracle platforms.

So - that's me and my lil' startup.....

I currently blog for AppVee.com (one of the 'Big 3' iPhone app review
sites), and am a Microsoft profiled developer and blogger.

I am looking for ways to keep the momentum going with my venture
whilst still retaining control over my little baby.

Nick

On Jul 24, 7:44 am, Geoff McQueen - Hiive Systems

> plaything iswww.mycharitypie.com, a new way of donating to charities

> through direct debit. It works in prototype form but I haven't formed
> a company, worked out the payment side of things etc. I started the

> project throughwww.launch48.com, started by fellow Aussie expat Ian

> Broom with his friend Adil Mohammed, nice blokes.
>
> Eventually I suppose I'll end up back in Australia so I want to keep
> in touch with the startup scene, hence why I've been lurking on this
> list. Hopefully I can provide a bridge between the Australian and
> European startup community, and help make connections where I can.
>
> Phew! That's a big intro, sorry to bore you all :-) Looking forward to
> some interesting discussions!
>

> Brendan.- Hide quoted text -

[sim]

Hi all,

I migrated to Melbourne from Finland a few weeks ago and am trying to
get my bearings around the local startup-scene. This seems like one
good place to do that.

My background is highly technical, but over the past years I've also
drifted increasingly towards the "dark side" of business while also
keeping a foot in the techie world. I have an MSc degree in Computer
Science and went to the same university with Linus in the 1990's (and
subsequently developed an affection for Linux and other *nixes).

Work-wise, I have experience from a couple of successful startups and
as an entrepreneur, though the past five years I spent at the other
end of the spectrum at Nokia & Nokia Siemens Networks. Internet,
mobile and mobile Internet services have been my focus area for the
past 10 years. I'm basically looking for a job here in Melbourne and
would ideally like to join a startup with a product / service that I
can believe in. I have a experience from conducting VC rounds from
North America and quite a bit experience from business model and
business case analysis as well as from strategic planning, all of
which might be useful for someone out there.

I've got a blog at http://www.groundswell.fi/sim/ and write in a
couple of others also. If anyone has or knows of an interesting
startup looking for people (contract or P/T can also be discussed), do
drop me an e-mail and we can chat further.

Apologies for the "job wanted"-type of an introduction, but
considering I have loads of varied experience from the US and Europe,
it's hopefully useful to someone over here too.

Sami

[Paul McLachlan]

<obligatory introduction>

I'm an Australian living in Seattle.  Co-founder & Chief Architect of Apptio, a 2 year old SaaS enterprise software company focused on the relatively new discipline of IT financial management.  We just raised a $14m series B from Shasta, Greylock, Andreessen-Horowitz and Madrona.  Some nice PR out of it, eg, http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2009/08/18/how-frustrated-cios-helped-create-start-up-apptio/

</obligatory introduction>

I still think about moving back one day, this list is fascinating.  From my experiences working in Australia and hiring here in the US (it's difficult, even in this economy, to find really great engineers) -- there is a pool of relatively untapped technical talent down-under, it seems like it should be turned into a competitive advantage.

I think someone here referenced an article - "The Paypal mafia" recently (or I found it somehow) - and it's an interesting effect.  I can draw an analogy even from the very small startup community in Seattle - there are definitely friendly groups of good engineers that have worked together at previous startups and have now spread out over a few of the newer ones (eg, Skytap, Doyenz)

Regards,
Paul

[alan jones]

I've just realised that I was participating in the SB group all this
time without introducing myself. Sorry! Here's me:

I'm Alan Jones.

I'm an online product strategist with community-building, creative
marketing and editorial background. That's a nice way of saying I have
no formal qualifications in internet development, like the sound of my
own opinions and once worked in PR. It's not easy putting a positive
spin on that, but I can do it.

I consult, write and present on a communications-forward approach to
product strategy, team leadership and communications. I'm usually
working with new startups and the investors who back them.

Why the internet? I like working with ideas, in environments where the
rules are few and fast-changing. The internet is the industry with the
shortest time between the conception of an idea and its execution, and
changing ideas costs less online than in other industries. It's
perfect for me.

I'm no developer but I've always enjoyed the company of coders. I have
a favourite t-shirt from Cheryl and Scott at www.moltn.com that
shouts, "I LIKE CODE" in big Helvetica Black type. It would be more
accurate if it said "I LIKE PEOPLE WHO LIKE CODE" but my chest isn't
broad enough. As a teenager I was happy to be the monster-bait in a
D&D party just so I could hang out with the geeks. I have O'Reilly
books I can't understand just so there's something at my house for
coders to read when they come round.

And I think many coders like me too. Coders are awesome at math but
they sometimes have trouble communicating with non-geeks. I'm awesome
at communicating with non-geeks but I'm terrible at math — coders and
I complement each other.

After a few years editing computer magazines and doing PR I started
doing contract web production work for Microsoft for what was then
called Telstra On Australia and later became MSN Australia and later
still, ninemsn. I co-produced one of the world's first online video
shows (a soap called "Friday's Beach") and ran a weekly live text chat
series which regularly rated audiences in the thousands. Guests
included Graham Richardson, Andrew Denton and even Reg Mombassa (who
couldn't yet use a computer and had his pre-teen son type all his
answers while Reg paced nervously around our office, trying to figure
out what the hell was going on.)

I joined Microsoft to work as a content production producer on an ill-
fated city guide product called Sidewalk. Eventually, the bad karma of
working for the evil empire forced me out. In my desperation to escape
I took what seemed like a big risk and took a job with a tiny web
startup that really only my geek friends had ever heard of. Turned out
it was called Yahoo! and I was an early hire there. To setup the AU/NZ
business they transferred a hundred thousand dollars to a personal
bank account, gave us the phone and pager number of one of their
developers, and told us they'd send someone senior out for the launch
in a month's time. Holy shit! But we made it, and sold some ads too.
For the first 12-18mths (not sure exactly, it was all a blur) I
personally hand-coded the entire front page of au.yahoo.com — the only
way you saw anything on that page change was if I coded it. gmake was
my friend and emacs my constant companion.

I spent five years accruing good karma at Yahoo! and was able to leave
in 2002 in a karma-positive position. I loved that company back then —
cut me and I'd bleed purple and yellow. We'd built a great team in
Australia and across Asia and rather than move to the US to work at HQ
I chose to go back to startup life again.

We got the ex-Yahoo! band back together to start an online DVD rental
service called HomeScreen Entertainment, inspired by Netflix. We
secured CPH Investments as investors (the "Packer Backers") built an
awesome front and backend and thought we were on a real winner...
until Telstra decided it would be fun to play in that space.

Tip: never try to build a profitable business in a market where your
biggest competitor doesn't ever have to care about breaking even,
never has to acquire you and never has to sell out. You can't win. But
at least we got to build a kick-arse platform with a smart, agile team
and we were able to find a reasonable exit.

Since then I've consulted to a wide variety of early-stage startups in
entertainment, news, mobile and social media. Now I do most of that
under the auspices of the hard-rocking, brutally-focused, preaching-
what-they-practice team at Pollenizer (www.pollenizer.com) which has
frankly been better for my personal brand than mine has been for
theirs. "Startup incubator" doesn't feel right to me, since it sounds
like a too-warm room with poor ventilation and a mould problem.
Pollenizer is more like a set of orbital booster rockets.

I'm always nursing a startup idea of my own or two.

On the side I do some writing gigs through www.doingwords.com, sell
tiny volumes of music through www.littoralrecords.com and sell a gift
for new dads and their new babies at www.milkooler.com. And I will
always and forever be "bigyahu" (www.bigyahu.com).

Cheers!

- alan

[lfeuerstein]

Hey,

I'm Lukas Feuerstein and I'm already studying IT at University of
Technology Sydney while completing my MA thesis for my German degree
at University of Regensburg (Germany). Also I'm working as student
trainee at Detecon the consulting branch of Deutsche (German) Telecom
in the Technology Portfolio practise.

The focus of my thesis are data-centric business models and to
evaluate a concept called Information Value Chain. More info on this
blog post http://blog.lukasfeuerstein.de/2009/09/08/surveyfeedback-data-centric-business-models/
- please participate at my survey http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=9IFmNdKnOqMNdosE8q_2f4FA_3d_3d

The main reason for joining Silicon Beach is that I'm a frequent user
of Web X.0 and now want to be more active and feed back some of the
knowledge I gained through the years. Also I would love to work in
this field in the future - maybe even in Australia. I'm already the
2nd time in Australia, felt in love with the country, nature and
people during an exchange program 2007 and decided to come back and -
here I' am.

Furthermore I have worked for Mieschke Hofmann and Partner the IT
Service company of Porsche (yeah the nice sport cars) where I gained
insights into true German software development and customizing (SAP) -
it was a struggle. My main task there was to establish proper BI
software engineering methods and support the new founded business
field Business Intelligence Software Engineering. I also implemented
severs SAP BI/DWH solutions at clients like Porsche, Bosch and
L'oreal.
Before that, I have worked at SiemensVDO the automotive branch of
Siemens (now Continental) in the Group Strategy department and have
developed and launched a competitive intelligence platform as well as
conducted market analysis.

As my current work experience demonstrates I'm more interested in the
interface between business in IT then pure programming - I'm simply
not smart enough to do hard coding. I'm also contributor on the book
"Business Model Generation" that will published be soon and is a
design approach to business models and - highly recommend it to read.
http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/

Despite my IT interest I'm also rowing and try to enjoy the Australian
beaches as much as possible. Can't wait for the summer to appear...

Here my social footprint

lukas.fe...@gmail.com
https://www.xing.com/profile/Lukas_Feuerstein
http://www.linkedin.com/in/lukasfeuerstein
http://twitter.com/lfeuerstein
http://blog.lukasfeuerstein.de

Cheers Lukas

> On the side I do some writing gigs throughwww.doingwords.com, sell
> tiny volumes of music throughwww.littoralrecords.comand sell a gift
> for new dads and their new babies atwww.milkooler.com. And I will

[Jeromy Evans]

Hi, I thought I'd make a quick introduction. I'm Jeromy Evans. I
learnt of Silicon Beach through Bart, Kim and Brian's Bootup Camp
(http://www.bootupcamp.com/) in July this year. I've been to a couple
of the Friday nights inSydney but I've only met a few people on the
list so far.

I'm responsible for the development and operations at PeopleInsite, a
Sydney-based startup launched in March 2007. I've been involved since
the first line of code was written in 2007 but only just committed
exclusively to the business. Finally we'll have in-house developers! I
made the emotionally-difficult decision to shelve some of my "going-to-
be-awesome-but-never-quite-finished" side-projects to take on
PeopleInsite as my own. I'm an engineer with a background mainly in
the defence industry (in R&D and submarine combat systems) but more
recently made up for that dark-side by becoming a committer for the
open-source Apache Struts2 project.

PeopleInsite is an online contract manager for mid-size to large
businesses. Larger organisations invest in good commercial and
employment contracts but often just file the executed copies away in a
cabinet. For the businesses that understand the risk they're carrying
(usually after something goes wrong), or those operating across
multiple sites, we provide a platform to create contracts from
templates, link them to artefacts, records, workflow and milestones,
keep metrics on how they're being executed and similarly useful
things. Although the website (http://www.peopleinsite.com.au) doesn't
do a good job explaining all that yet.

We've been fortunate to gain some great customers through our
networks. We were funded by a mid-tier law firm that dared to step
outside their traditionally conservative world. That's worked well,
especially for pooled resources and credibility, although a tech start-
up embedded within a law firm presents some challenges. It'll be a
while before I convince them to install a foosball table in the office
for instance.

We've had our ups and downs; PeopleInsite was originally created for
employers to manage Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs). That was a
great market because AWAs were ridiculously complex for everyone. If
you hadn't heard though, that market vaporised. That's a tale almost
worthy of an elevator fail pitch.

That, and our first outsourced-IT provider went insolvent after
spending our money but before coding anything. More lessons were
learned.

We run a SaaS model, except by the nature of some customers we have
the necessary evil of some long sales processes and custom
integration.

We've still got a way to go before we're out of start-up mode and I
hope to get a lot more active in this community because there's still
so much to learn. Thanks for your interesting posts so far.

cheers,
Jeromy Evans

http://twitter.com/jeromyevans


On Sep 9, 12:37 am, lfeuerstein <lukas.feuerst...@googlemail.com>
wrote:

[tahpot]

Hi All,

I can't believe I have only just discovered this great mailing list.

I have just resigned from my day job so I can head to silicon valley
and raise funds for my startup, so now seems a good time to introduce
myself (and put a call out for any assistance with this process)

I'm Chris Were, a 25 year old Adelaide based software developer. I've
been building websites since my early teens and I'm an avid follower
of the latest web technologies and trends. In high school I started a
business building websites which was great fun until I headed to
university to study Nanotechnology. I couldn't get away from software
development though and was soon working full time for a ticketing
agency, designing their new ticketing system.

After a couple of years there, I left to work on my own startup that
was going to be an easy to use RSS reader. Just as I was preparing to
raise funds and launch properly, Google came out with Google Reader --
which was eerily similar to my platform. The game was up and the
window of opportunity gone, so I went back working as a freelance
programmer. It certainly wasn't a waste of time however as I learnt a
lot through the whole process.

Next up, I moved to Perth for a change with my girlfriend (now wife)
where I worked for a financial services company. After two years in
Perth we moved back Adelaide where I continued working from home for
the same company. I was in charge of a small team of software
developers and responsible for scoping out new projects and
technologies we could make use of for our trading clients. I have just
resigned and will shortly be able to work full time on a new startup
I'm preparing to launch in the realtime search space.

I have got my startup to the point where I have a scalable alpha
version running, but to launch properly needs some staff and lots of
servers. I'm planning to head to the US in a couple of weeks, so if
anyone is able to provide any assistance that would be most welcome.
Anything from advice, introductions to others in the valley, or even
couches to sleep on will be gladly accepted!

I'm also after alpha testers of the product, so contact me off list if
you're interested.

Cheers,
Chris

[Kain Tietzel]

Dude. What's your start-up? We've started to build some relationships in the states, but until we know what your business is we can't help you! :)

p.s. welcome to SBA

Kain Tietzel
Creative & Marketing Director / PhotoMerchant / 

Mob: +61 (0) 438 045 042 / www.photomerchant.net / Blog / Twitter / Tumblr / LinkedIn

[Chris Were]

The startup is in the "realtime search" space (similar to topsy or oneriot), but with a twist to make it much easier to discover new content and share on social networks. Being a search engine at heart it is server and bandwidth hungry, while revenue will be from advertising.

I'm cautious not to say too much on a semi-public list, but feel free to email me for more details.

Cheers,

Chris

[Samuel Bishop]

Hi Chris

Congrats on getting as far as you have. Real time search is not just a tough nut to crack, but a tough nut to crack inside a bank vault you don't have keys to half the time. 

Speaking as someone that tried to get into real time search bootstrapping my project on my own. I know how tough it can be. I managed to complete my design, work out the monetization strategy & test enough code to prove my methods could work. I just didn't have the resources to quit the day job and keep developing it to a pre-alpha demo. ( being in Perth doesnt help this a lot lol )

I'd love to help test your service out when your looking for alpha testers... However i'd love it even more if you wanted to talk more technical details off this list. I'm pretty sure you won't find many that have reverse engineered their own Twitter "firehose" feeds. Who knows, maybe you could find a use for it.    

In any case. Kudos on the progress, goodluck and Welcome to the group! 

Regards

Samuel Bishop

 
Sent from my iPhone

[Elias Bizannes]

> I have just resigned from my day job so I can head to silicon valley
> and raise funds for my startup, so now seems a good time to introduce
> myself (and put a call out for any assistance with this process)

Email aussi...@siliconbeachaustralia.org - will grow the list with
time with Aussies in the Valley. Make your pitch there and someone
will respond.

[Jacob Watkins]

Hi All,

By way of introduction, I am a Business Manager with OzForex, a wholly
Australian owned specialist in global foreign exchange payments and
hedging solutions and a subsidiary of Macquarie Bank.

I am also slowly learning my way through open source CMSs and design
work, about 50% of the way through an alpha of my side project.
(outside of office hours ;-) )

Always happy to help anybody in the group especially in regards to FX
or international payments, we all know some international domains can
be pricey (among other things) and there is no point sacrificing
further dollars to the banks when there are other great ways of doing
exactly the same thing.

Always feel free to contact me,
Direct: 02 8667 8009.
Email: Jacob....@ozforex.com.au
LinkedIn: http://au.linkedin.com/in/jacobwatkins

Kind Ragerds,
Jacob Watkins

[Khee Seng]

Hi all,

Didn't know there was a thread for intro, so here's mine after lurking
in the forum for a while

My name is Khee Seng and I have been doing coding for more than two
decades. Done GW-Basic, Assembly, Clipper, Pascal, C++, Java, C# and
VB 6.

I have developed a call filtering software Callernizer which I selling
in the Blackberry AppWorld and am now working to bring it to Windows
Mobile 6 and looking into how to develop it further and how to market/
sell it better as there are pirated copies of it circulating around :(


The call filtering software performs normal call filtering such as
blacklisting and whitelisting of numbers as well as allowing/blocking
of contact list numbers.

The distinguishing feature of this software is the ability to block
unimportant calls from contact list and yet allow important calls from
these same people to get through. It determines an urgent call based
on the number of times the caller has called in a certain duration,
hence 3 calls in 10 minutes from your best mate would be considered
urgent and the 4 time he/she calls, the call would be allowed through.

Regards
Khee Seng

[Charles Ma]

Hi Everyone,

Just heard about and joined this group yesterday.

I'm Charles, a comp sci student at UNSW; I developed an interest in
the startup scene last year after going to a couple barcamps, reading
a whole bunch, and seeing some pitching/business plan competitions.

I'm still a startup virgin having never started my own business, but I
recently became head of a relatively new university news publication
called βETA where we interview and write about computing in both
academia and industry (archive of old issues http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~theswitch/beta,
new website http://beta.csesoc.unsw.edu.au/). Most of the readers are
currently students and academics at the school of computer science &
engineering in UNSW, I'm hoping to expand that this year.

There's a lot of talent in university, and one of the main goals of
βETA is to encourage computing students to use that talent to work on
their own projects. We do that by writing about what other people are
working on and about what they could be working on in the future.

If you're doing something interesting and techy, run your own web
startup, or just enjoy talking about yourself (you know who you
are ;)), I'd love to have a chat and maybe write an article about who
you are and what you're doing, especially if you're looking to recruit
grads or people to join your project.

Some more about me personally:
originally from china, lived in a small town in mississippi, USA for a
while where I discovered the internet and programming (not much to do
in a small town), currently in Sydney
You can find me occasionally blogging about random usually not so
techy things at http://blog.cmalabs.com or answering/asking questions
on stackoverflow.com

-Charles

[Rebecca Paget]

Hi Charles,

Welcome to the group. Actually I think we have met before at University.
Thanks for your generous offer of publicity and connection to your networks.
I'm in the prototype stages of a new venture at the moment, so in the near
future I'd love to take you up on your offer and meet with you offline.

Rebecca.

2010/1/6 Charles Ma <chuc...@gmail.com>

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list.

Guidelines on discussion: http://tr.im/ujKF

No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself: http://tr.im/ujMm

To post to this group, send email to
silicon-bea...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
silicon-beach-aus...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en

[Peter]

Hi all,

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a Patent and Trade Mark Attorney,
formerly a partner in a large firm, and have recently started a new
firm (dare I say a start-up) with one of my colleagues, Adam Hyland.

I studied law and science at The University of Melbourne. My science
studies included a major in physics, and quite a few units of computer
science. I went on the qualify as a Patent and Trade Mark Attorney,
and have worked in this field ever since.

I have been involved with a lot of IT startups over time, many of
which have gone on to become much bigger companies, such as Keycorp,
Atcor Medical, Symbiotic, Valorem, and others. I have also had some
exposure to how the 'big end' play the game - I have in the past
acted for companies like Ericsson, Nokia, Fujitsu, LG and UTC. I have
drafted and taken to grant hundreds of patents in Australia, US,
Europe, Japan, China, South Korea, Canada and many other countries.
What I try and bring to a new venture is a strategy driven approach,
where we try and focus on what is important for the business strategy
about the IP position. This informs where to focus efforts, and allows
for staging of IP protection processes ( and hence costs) to match
cash flows and needs as far as possible.

I am very happy to provide some free initial input for anyone who is
starting out. There are no cookie cutter IP solutions - it is all
about matching protection to your business plan. I am available on or
offline.

Looking forward to learning from and contributing to the group.

Peter

[Kim Chandler McDonald]

My name is Kim Chandler McDonald, and I am the Executive Vice
President / Director of Communications for KimmiC.

KimmiC's innovation FlatWorld is an IT/Web evolution which speaks
semantically and is totally cloud based. It allows you to leverage
existing knowledge assets, build new knowledge assets, and 'play well
with others'. It is BUSINESS WITHOUT BORDERS, and it is 'Here and
Now'; it has made the Semantic Web for B2B a simple and secure
reality.

FlatWorld allows a federation of identities or communities to behave
as a unified face to a consumer while maintaining their individual
identities and needs, which are being met.

Traditional approaches are, effectively, a dictatorship, in which the
lowest common denominator is rigidly enforced, which impacts the level
of customer service and also impairs individual entities from having
their information and process needs met. FlatWorld focuses on the
human dynamic, rather than focusing on the abstract, technical view,
therefore, it is also a social innovation.

FlatWorld provides everything you need to compete globally. Using web
3 technology, FlatWorld enables you to customize your own personal
brand and style, simply and securely, while enhancing and expanding
your relationship with your end consumers. FlatWorld provides web3
(semantic) business solutions to the world's software and services
providers enabling the end consumer to do business more dynamically,
and less expensively, than ever before by leverage existing
information and technology assets.

We have formed a synergy which not only makes the Semantic web easily
understandable, but also accessible to existing commercial development
resources, i.e., they don't have to understand the Semantic
technologies to get the benefit from it. This has been combined with a
deep understanding of large scale business to offer an immediate
business benefit to users of this technology and approach.

To find out more about KimmiC and FlatWorld, please visit our website
at:
www.kimmic.com

I look forward to connecting with group members, and I'm really
pleased to have found this group!

All the best!
Kim

[Michael Cindric]

Hi Guys,

My name is Michael Cindric and l run a software development company
based in the Sydney CBD called Senita.
http://sentia.com.au

We specialise in .Net, Ruby on Rails, iPhone and iPad frameworks. We
offer software development, software integration, training. IT
consulting,
iPhone Development , User interface design and application
development.

We have been going for over 4 years and have been working for some
great clients. We offer a unique approach with a emphasis on client
interaction and test driven development

I have been playing around with computers since the Commodore64 days
and never looked back.

I look forward to connecting with other like minded people.

Michael

[simononline]

Hi folks,

My name is Simon Watson. I'm a freelance web developer with 9 years
experience in the industry.
I'm originally from New Zealand, now based in Melbourne, Australia.
I specialise in web applications and information systems built in open
source technologies.

I guess my biggest claim to fame was that I was involved in the
development
of the Election Management System for the Chief Electoral Office in
New Zealand
during the build up to the 2005 General Election.

Before I began my career, I completed a BSc in Computer Science at the
University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Only too happy discuss start-up ideas with others.

Simon
--
http://moonbuggymedia.com

[Andrew Bucknell]

Drop by little creatures on a Wednesday night we're trying to get
Melbourne silicon beach drinks buzzing.

Sent from my iPod

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon
> Beach Australia mailing list.
>
> Guidelines on discussion: http://tr.im/ujKF
>
> No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself: http://tr.im/ujMm
>
> To post to this group, send email to
> silicon-bea...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> silicon-beach-aus...@googlegroups.com
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en
>

> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia
> +unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words
> "REMOVE ME" as the subject.
>

[Goldy]

Hi all,

My name is Andrew Goldstiver. My background is in engineering, product
management, financial planning and now usability consulting. I've been
on the group a little while, about time I spoke up!

I'm been trying to start my own web business for a while, the most
success I've had is with Sprixi www.sprixi.com which I designed and
built (in rails) with some hired help.

Sprixi is an image search tool that focuses on free, creative commons
images that are easy to find, choose and then use. Due to competing
commitments I took it offline a few months ago but I'm going to
attempt to get it up and running again over the next month or so.

By "success" I mean I've built a useful free product that is in
demand. So while I'm confident there is a return on investment
somewhere to be had, I'm now trying to find it and grasp it! Hobby
project + monetisation = business. In any case I've learnt a lot from
the experience.

Nice to meet you all,
Andrew (aka Goldy)