Ben Armstrong

In case you missed it: NZ is raising* the tax exempt 💰 thresholds for share scheme benefits companies offer employees. The maximum value of shares provided to employees will rise from NZ$5,000 to $7,500 annually, and the maximum discount on shares will increase from $2,000 to $3,000. This change to the tax exempt scheme will be good news especially for large (& particularly listed) businesses that want to implement a company-wide share scheme on top of existing remuneration and perks. Offering shares is a great way of aligning the incentives of teams and the business. It can give employees more understanding, a sense of belonging and responsibility for what is going on in the company. With that said, I don’t personally subscribe to the opening statement that “technology companies are among the startups which will benefit from increases to current thresholds…”. I'll follow-up with a blog soon unpacking why this tax exemption is largely redundant in this sector, and specifically what could be addressed to support early-stage ventures. *These changes are set to take effect on April 1, 2025, as part of the 2024-25 Taxation Bill.

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How much does a company waste on duplicated / unused technology? According to a report* NZ businesses are wasting $334M / year technology they don't use. For small business for $900 of spend, $600 of that was going to waste and when you scale.... phew.... it's not pretty! And while a 2022 report, I don't think this has got better. At STATE3 we see this a lot. A proliferation of similar technology all doing a similar job or technology subscriptions which were brought and used once if at all... why have one SaaS subscription / portal / CRM / app when you can have 6 that do the same thing and that are possibly never used! The reasons are pretty straight forward: Poor Processes IT Investment - The business goes off roading and buys something on a credit card without due diligence or engaging with the digital / technology team first. Shadow IT - total frustration with the processes in-house so someone gets a bright idea and buys something.... Mergers & Acquisitions - a company acquires another and they keep everything separate and ta dah! There will be others. In hard economic times, the belts get tightened so it makes perfect sense to aim for where the bloat is... in the spend that is duplicated or not used. And this means taking some steps, such as.... * Figure out what you have (Technology / capabilities audit) * Find out if its actually being used (surveying usage (if possible) * Standardise Technology Offerings via a menu of options * Move to a 'user pays' model * Undertake the very unsexy approach of strengthening technology Governance by making people accountable and responsible. We can help with this by showing you what you have, how integrated it is with the rest of your stack and what the TCO is. When you know what you have, you can optimise decision making and ditch the risk. #digitaltransformation #businessstrategy #success #state3enterprise * Report: https://lnkd.in/gRxU_7mC

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We can’t manage what we don’t measure and we can’t grow what we don’t fund. While the sucking sound of Aus super and VC investment going to US companies is becoming deafening, the Australian Business Growth Fund backing an ambitious cohort of innovator companies has flown under the radar. If Aus has a sovereign future, as opposed to vassal state dependence writ large and irreversible, we need 10 more commercially and globally funds to acknowledge a long forgotten asset class.

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🌟 Exciting news in Australian tech! 🌟 Cyan and Collis Ta’eed, co-founders of Envato, have achieved a $375.2 million exit as Shutterstock acquires their company. Envato, a marketplace for creatives, was built from scratch without external funding, proving you can build a massive business and a fulfilling life. 🌐 Key Highlights: $375.2M exit with Shutterstock acquiring Envato. Co-founded by Cyan, a notable female entrepreneur. Bootstrapped success, no external funding. Continued focus on work-life balance and philanthropic efforts. Cyan and Collis remain directors, with Cyan continuing to inspire women in tech. This story highlights the power of innovation and dedication. 🚀👩‍💼 Inspire future women entrepreneurs with “When I’m an Entrepreneur” https://ow.ly/MF4Q50SmWaN Read more: https://ow.ly/ROAa50SmWaM #TechNews #FemaleFounders #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #Envato #Shutterstock

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At the Launch Vic Awards Nights, there was a lot of talk about the VC’s in our ecosystem, and quite a bit of mention of Angel Syndicates, but no mention of Venture Studios. In fact when people ask me what I do, I often have to explain what a Venture Studio is. So let me make the Venture Studio pitch. Firstly, what is a Venture Studio? Venture Studios give life to startups in two main ways. 1. Ideas are incubated and validated within the Venture Studio, once validated, the team finds the external resources/ people needed to bring the idea to life. 2. External founders brings ideas to Venture Studios, in which the Venture Studio provides services and resources to the founder in exchange for equity. So who is a Venture Studio good for? High Quality Founders, with scalable ideas: The success of a Venture Studio relies on the success of the startups they work with so naturally Venture Studios are looking for the highest quality founders / startups. Early stage founders who are missing a technical partner: During the early days of your startup, if you don’t have a technical partner, you generally require investment or you need to take significant financial risk to fund your MVP build. While most investors won’t want to invest until you have a functional MVP, this is the exact stage many Venture Studio’s like to play in. Why choose a Venture Studio over a development agency? Your developers will have skin in the game The app development process often goes wrong, because building apps is hard. If things go wrong, it’s easy for relationships to sour, and shortcuts to be made. Since Venture Studio’s success is so heavily tied into the success of their startups, by choosing a Venture Studio you have the peace of mind that your developers are so heavily incentivised to deliver an awesome product. Support beyond development Again because the success of the Venture Studios are so heavily tied to the success of the startup, it’s in the our best interest to ensure you are supported beyond your product build. So when it comes to GTM, capital raising and beyond, we aim to provide support and introductions where we. De-risk your financial position So this is the obvious benefit, get to launch without paying or paying a lot less. All of this is not to say, VC’s, Angel’s, Dev Shops all don’t play an important role in this ecosystem, I just feel the Venture Studio voice needs to be heard a bit louder.

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🚀 Unlock the Power of Funding for Your Startup! Join me for an exclusive webinar with Tim Clark from Hyper Startup Studio! In this session, we will be unpacking and guiding you through: 🌏 Navigating Australia’s Grants Landscape – Discover what’s available, how to apply, and which grants are best suited for startups and scale-ups at every stage, from pre-seed to high-growth. 🔍 R&D Tax Incentive 101 – Get a clear understanding of how the Australian R&D Tax Incentive works, eligibility criteria, and top insider tips to maximise your claim and drive innovation. 💡 Maximise Your Funding Potential – Learn strategic, actionable tips to secure grants and incentives that can fuel your growth journey and set your business up for success. Whether you’re in the early stages, heading to market, or scaling up, this webinar is packed with essential insights to help you harness grants and incentives for your startup’s advantage. Don’t miss out! DM me to get the link to access the webinar.

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For those interested, in what 4DS Memory Limited and Elsight - UAV & UAS Connection Confidence are all about. and some other very interesting stories.

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Post 0225: stocks of great companies will always rise Shares of Wisetech (WTC on ASX) increased by 18% in one day, taking it to $112 per share. What’s interesting is that this same stock, dropped to $84 two weeks ago, when employment data came out poorly than expected. At the time I posted an article explaining how you can build wealth during bad times: “Be greedy and buy more shares when the world is fearful and selling off. But be fearful when you see people rushing to buy shares of a company.” On Wednesday (21 August 2024) WiseTech Global reported a 28% revenue increase to $1.04 billion and a 24% rise in net profit to $263 million. The result was an increase in share prices. Share prices of great and profitable companies will always ride in the long term.

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"𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘀𝗵 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆." There's a reason Kairos works with Start-Ups! There's even more of that same reason, that got me building Aussie Founders Club. And while I think a lot of the time, Elon is a knob, he's articulated it here. I've worked with large enterprise, I've spoken to many big business hiring managers, I have placed 100s of candidates into mature businesses. 𝐍𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐈 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭-𝐔𝐩 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 & 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬. And we need smaller companies to lead the way! Because, as perfectly said by Elon, what is the constraint for innovation? Its not money, money is not a scarce commodity - the world is awash with money. The scarce commodity is the ability and willingness to take risks. Which leads me to think: 1) 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐘 𝐂𝐎𝐎𝐋 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓-𝐔𝐏𝐒 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒋𝒐𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝒃𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒔 2) Start-Ups are important and we need to be supporting them

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The Australian VC landscape is thriving, but gender disparity still casts a long shadow. As revealed by Cut Through Venture's Cut Through Quarterly Q3 report, women-led startups are gaining traction but face an uphill battle as they mature through funding rounds, with participation dropping dramatically from 50% at pre-seed to just 14% at Series A. In our latest Antler article, we explore how persistent barriers are widening the funding gap and why it’s critical to support women founders from day zero - supporting them from the start and providing continued backing throughout their journey. https://lnkd.in/gZds-cyk We're dedicated to pushing forward for a more inclusive and resilient ecosystem and invite all ambitious founders to join our February 2025 residency in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.

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Scaling isn’t just about resources—it’s about networks with “boots on the ground” insight. Startup ecosystems like French Tech Australia (FT AU) connect founders to mentors, resources, and markets, offering local knowledge that is crucial for expansion. These networks lend credibility, open doors, and provide on-the-ground insights to navigate new markets with confidence. From strategic partnerships to market access, ecosystems are invaluable in a startup’s journey from local success to global presence. Tip: Use your ecosystem’s resources proactively—growth is faster with the right boots on the ground. How has your network helped you scale? Share your experiences below! 👇 https://lnkd.in/gmuYeYDB #StartupGrowth #ScaleUp #BusinessNetworking #GlobalExpansion #StartupCommunity #EcosystemSupport #InnovationHub #EntrepreneurTips #MentorshipMatters #CrossBorderBusiness Resumption - Sales, Marketing, and Operations Consulting

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There's a limited number of venture capital firms with over 300 companies in the portfolio, and of those, an even more limited number who have over 3,000 investors making up a large and diverse network of Kiwis (around the world) who want to back New Zealand startups. These days, we also have a nice mix of financial institutions, KiwSaver funds, family offices and other institutional investors backing our larger flagship funds. This week we caught up as a team to hear directly from our investors (large and small) and from our startups (new and old) on what we can do better. There's definitely some homework for our humble tech team and much to my relief, most of the feedback on investor reporting and founder network effects lined up nicely with our product roadmap. We'll be rolling out some big changes to the platform coming soon to improve the investor, founder and startup operator experience. My favourite insight was that the more time a founder or investor spends with us (and with the wider network), the more they like us. So good things will continue to happen from more time in the market and from bringing people together. This week was a good reminder of how privileged we are to do truly world-class work from a remote island in the middle of nowhere, with world-class founders, world-class investors and a team who cook a mean taco.

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Some more great coverage off the back of the #GlobalSearchAwards win, this is in New Zealand from the Fairfax Media, The Southland Times & #ThePress Stuff, telling the story of Ben McIntyre's journey, teaming up with Dan Sim and taking the world by storm with Kia Ora Digital. One helluva story - congrats Ben, Dan, and the whole team. It's a privilege being part of this SEO 2.0 movement, where it's all about generating revenue from organic search for our eCommerce and SaaS clients worldwide. #EveryConversationIsGold #BuildingAnOrganicRevenueRocketShip #WaitUntilTheTechnologyIsReleasedForKeywordRevenueAnalysis

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Helping startups thrive in Australia requires a deep understanding of their needs. The previous Startup Muster report offered crucial insights into the sector's current state. It's essential to refresh this knowledge base to gain an updated perspective on opportunities for fostering innovation. #Startups #Innovation #AustraliaTech

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Get around this everyone!!! surveys need people to complete them, regions need to complete to highlight geographic distance, women need to complete to show the footprint we have across ecosystem, First Nations need to complete to ensure programs are relevant, etc, etc... summary = please complete!!

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Showcase your people in the best possible way. Let's deep dive into how this benefits, what you can do and what good looks like. Most Mortgage Broking firms are a collective of excellent people. People with brand equity that they have established their whole life. Yet a teams page is often the most poorly done part of a website and this is a huge mistake for any business owner. Getting it right will increase the pride people have at work while also increasing traffic to the website which benefits the business owner. We're also seeing a big shift from broking firms to invest in assets for employees so that they can have a great online presence to share with their personal network. In doing so, business owners amplify the reach of their content to the networks of employees while driving more traffic back to their website. Before we talk about what good looks like, let's share what's common: 📌 No team visible at a firm You want clients to trust you with the largest transaction of your life, yet don't want to show your people. This not only reduces trust, but reduces traffic to your website. 📌 Team head shots only In a word of mouth industry, people are referred to your personal name. If you don't have a bio, google doesn't know to send traffic to your website. 📌 Small Bios We see brokerages with 2 staff and 60 years of life and brand equity between them. Yet when they establish a new business, they barely talk about themselves. Having great bios means that when people search for your employees, your business comes up. This is important traffic until your company brand establishes a large amount of equity. 📌 1st Person Bios There are lots of people who refer to themselves as 'I'. Switching to the 3rd person means that search engines know to send traffic your way. 🔅 What Good Looks like At Broker Studio, we had the absolute please to build the new custom website for Margin Finance. Damian Medici is excellent to work with and one thing in particular we focussed on was pages for each staff member. We created pages that showcased his people in the best possible light. We also built these in a way to increased traffic from Google. Check out Damian's profile and a few of his team members. Damian Medici https://lnkd.in/g-wYXeMj Andrew Bird https://lnkd.in/gKgZ8xS6 Sam Polizzi https://lnkd.in/gGmEMM6T If you recognise the value of your team, please get behind this post and like. Better yet, if you've invested time in creating great profiles for your people or yourself, please share in the comments section.

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Startup founders and supporters Startup Muster the only comprehensive survey of Australian startups and their supporters. The survey reaches throughout the ecosystem to count every person that contributes to supporting founders and startups 🎉 Calling all diverse founders - we need you and your voices and experiences to be seen and heard 📣 We can’t measure what we can’t see and we can’t change what we don’t know - this survey is so important ✊🏼 Fill in the survey today 📝https://startupmuster.com #startup #diversity #entrepreneur #founder #culturaldiversity String Nguyen Mikaela Jade FTSE Dor Akech Achiek Nirary Dacho 🌏 Usman Iftikhar UNSW Founders UTS Startups

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12 deals before Christmas! A massive few weeks ahead here at Birchal And female founders getting it done. Congrats to Jay Curtin and the team at Got Bakey for closing their $180k raise last week. And thrilled to see Andi Lucas founder of X-Hemp Pty Ltd in The Australian over the weekend. Closing in on $500k raised, doing an amazing job! Other things that piqued our interest this week: IPO market thawing according to Simon Evans at The Australian Financial Review. Klarna announces its plans to list in NY and not London. Australian Business Growth Fund (ABGF) commissioned report released last week identifies $38b equity funding gap holding back growth businesses and Australian productivity. Lots happening over the next few weeks, check it out in the comments. #equitycrowdfunding #csf #investment #startups #australia #founders

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Where is the opportunity for Aotearoa NZ in blockchain and crypto? As these technologies progress from hype (and disillusionment) to realistic expectations, NZ has an opportunity: to attract talent and align with leading global regulators to look at on-chain and fintech solutions that can amplify NZ solutions and drive global impact. This can be a powerful conversation - Aya Miyaguchi and Paul Salisbury (with a third Fellow to be confirmed) will paint a picture of the future and where NZ might fit. Cannot wait!

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