Last week Dean and I went along to the BRW top 100 Australian web 2.0 company luncheon.
Nice wine and posh food and some very passionate speakers.
What did I take away from the luncheon? I took away the feeling that 99% of all web companies in Australia are struggling and that they are having to go off shore to find any VC firms that may be interested in their venture.
Speakers included Sean Aylmer - Editor-in-chief BRW, John Butterworth - AIMIA CEO, Duncan Riley - CEO The Inquisitr, Malcolm Thornton - Investment Director Starfish Ventures. They all spoke about the online state of innovation in Australia and all concluded that there are many Australian companies willing to have a go no matter how many barriers are in place.
I suppose thats the Australian spirit, no mountain is to high.
From my experience if I did not have such a great supporting wife and a successful business outside of Navsports I would have packed it in a long time ago. Passion is one thing but cold hard cash is by sure a major driving force of the worlds best entrepreneurial ideas.
My mate Mark Chen from Sportslogic sent me an ebook called Good to Great by Jim Collins, I have started to listen to it and it makes a whole lot of sense and is helping me put a lot of things into prespective.
Running a great company is about the people in the company and acquiring great people is a very hard thing to do, finding passionate people with a vision of what can be is hard.
I have come to realise that it takes time, I am glad I have hit hurdles (big ones at times) and some times encounted huge set backs. The vision I have had for Navsports right from the beginning has changed. It has evolved, it had to to have any chance of success and I realize know that its not always about the product but about the company you keep the people you bring along for the ride. Having people that share your vision and get excited about the possibilities is what makes Navsports great to work on, any more from here is just a bonus.
Stewart
