The Perfect Pitch Show

In this episode of the Perfect Pitch Show Brandon sits down and chats with Angel Investor, John Weste, who is also a partner at C2 Ventures and C2 Angels through C2 Capital. John has over 30 years of experience in some of the worlds leading consulting and advisory firms as an executive. He now collaborates with partners globally to help them build and grow their business, from early stage consulting to investment and capital growth. C2 Capital has a team of investment, capital property development and marketing professionals that support clients in their business ventures. John works on helping start-ups and small enterprises build and develop existing businesses, from building growth and obtaining capital in order to become a globally competitive business. He is passionate and excited about being a part of this process and as a partner at C2 Angels he is part of a community of 200 angel investors who co-invest in start-ups, providing funding to early-stage businesses and giving them the support they need.

You can check out more from John here!

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Lisa Teh is the Founder and Director of CODI Agency, a digital marketing agency that is taking the creative space by storm. Whilst specializing in areas such as, fashion, beauty and food, CODI Agency can create digital campaigns that will help you manage your content within your budget. Their goal is to use collected data to create quality content and drive insights with strategy, something they hadn't seen done before. Lisa found in the beginning that a lot of digital marketing campaigns involved chunks of data that was ultimately useless that didn't translate into actionable strategies. She decided to start her own agency in order to combat this issue and provide a service that was insightful and effective for business owners around the globe.

CODI Agency can help businesses of all sizes, from small start-ups to big name brands everywhere in the world. Their main office is based in Melbourne but they also have a USA team that is based in New York, making their services accessible for everyone. They can help you with marketing campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Content Production and are trusted by large brands such as UberEats, Myer, Just Jeans and more!

Learn more about Lisa and CODI here:

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How a 21-Year-Old Student from the USA Built an Online Empire and Became a Top 100 Podcast Host all Whilst Studying at University - Andre Haykal Jr

Welcome back to another episode of the "Perfect Pitch Show" where Brandon Burns, Head of Community - Runway Virtual, interviews small business founders / entrepreneurs about the secret sauce to their successful start-up journey.

On today's episode we are chatting to a special guest all the way from New York, USA, Andre Haykal Jr. Andre is a young, rising talent within the entrepreneurial space. By the age of 21 he is already a best-selling author, the host of Real Talk University (a Top 100 podcast), and co-founder of Incubate Media.

Work-Life Balance

As a busy college student and entrepreneur, Andre strives to balance his daily responsibilities by efficiently utilising each hour of his day. It starts with being an early riser, where he will use his first hours of the morning writing. He is working on his second book after the success of his best-selling breakout novel What They Won't Teach You released last year. After the writing session, he focuses on completing other work-related tasks that he refers to as 'small wins'. After attending his classes, he will then work on his homework until strictly 5PM each day. The evenings are dedicated to maintaining his physical and mental health, where he often spends time with the family or play his favourite sport, basketball.

Incubate Media

Incubate Media, Andre's newest venture, is a digital media agency which began development 10 months ago. The agency's flagship offering are its free online courses, which helps to educate and attract potential clients. The focus as a digital media agency is to then improve lead generation for its clients, which are primarily entrepreneurs or small business owners.

Entrepreneurism

Besides his own family, most of whom are entrepreneurs themselves, Andre is a great admirer of Gary Vaynarchuck. Gary is the inspiration that motivated Andre to begin his own podcast series. Ironically, Andre was able to film an interview in Gary's iconic office, a surreal but momentous moment for him.

Developing your Marketing Campaign

When asked about advice to small and remote business owners on how to develop a digital marketing campaign, Andre recommends studying your competition, and learn the steps they have taken to develop their success. Andre personally found using social media platforms to build an audience and generate free leads to be incredibly useful. To do so, one must consistently produce content to build a brand. Online platforms, such as Facebook can also be used as a powerful tool to test the response of your intended target audience to your product or service.

Life Lessons & Advice

Andre discusses a standout mistake he committed earlier in his career was rushing into raising capital for his app idea. He advises all potential entrepreneurs to research the target market. It is absolutely essential to first identify if they need or want the product in question, and then secondly whether they are willing to pay for it. Andre learnt early on that ignoring this process can cost you a lot of time and money.

Andre relays a message to the audience that he often received at a young age from his grandfather "you are who your friends are". Throughout his years he has learnt that there is real truth in these words, and he recommends to others to select your peers carefully. The people you are surrounded by represent and define your standards. Connect with like-minded, innovative individuals in order to motivate you to do the same.

Andre recommends you steer clear of the common but disruptive...

Welcome back to the Perfect Pitch Show, in today's episode we are having a chat with Fred Schebesta, the amazing multi-talented entrepreneur and founder of finder.com.au . Fred and his partner have striven towards developing a platform where Australians would be able to find, compare and most importantly, understand various financial products throughout Australia's market. This includes, but is not limited to, health insurance, credit card loans, home loans and much more. Fred and his team work tirelessly to research and explain the financial jargon most Australia's population don't understand because it is too complex and then present it in a way that is easy for everyday citizens to understand.

Fred believes there is a beauty in small businesses as they are nimble and fast and flexible, everyone has to start somewhere and small businesses are the first step to having a big business. Start small and do whatever you can to find the information and support you need, whether that be spending hours at your local library researching, connecting with mentors and advisors or just learning through experience.

Check out more from Fred on

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Welcome back to another episode of the "Perfect Pitch Show" where Brandon Burns, Head of Community - Runway Virtual, interviews small business founders / entrepreneurs about the secret sauce to their successful start-up journey.

On today's episode we are chatting with a special guest all the way from Vietnam, Shane Dillon. Over the last 4 years Shane has developed 2 major EdTech platforms specialising in international education. He is currently the Founder and CEO of Cturtle, and Co-Founder of UniAdvisor. Cturtle is an employment network who assists international graduates, of which 95% will return to their home countries after completing their studies abroad in Australia, UK, USA, Canada or New Zealand. UniAdvisor, on the other hand, is a university-ranking platform and comparison tool. UniAdvisor utilises the information collected from Cturtle, such as the experience of the international graduates and their employment outcomes upon graduating. Through Cturtle, graduates are able to connect with over 12,000 hiring managers across Asia. With a network of over 1.3 million international alumni and over 100,000 who have applied for employment through the platform, Cturtle has helped international graduates on a global scale. Similarly, UniAdvisor has developed exponentially with currently over 34,000 reviews from real students.

Real Value Proposition

According to Shane, International Education is a $300 billion yearly industry and is Australia's third largest export. Despite this prime market, there was previously no resource available to help returning students to transition from education into the employment sector. With the services that Cturtle provides, international students, potential employers and Universities all benefit as a result. Through Cturtle employers are able to connect with a bilingual, educated talent pool. On the other hand, Universities are able to assist their graduates smoothly transition into employment. By ensuring international students get a return on their investment, they are likely to recommend Australia to future international students.

Next Big Goal

Shane's overarching entrepreneurial goal is to shift the dynamics of international education from student recruitment and university revenue-focused to student outcome-centric. He plans to achieve this by creating a student-data driven ranking system and developing scalable employment outcomes. By using an innovative approach, Shane plans to capture a larger percentage of the industry.

Scalability

Shane reports that there are currently 6 million international students globally, and this is expected to double by 2030. With an industry that will allegedly overtake the global hotel industry within the next 5 years, there are plenty of avenues in which Cturtle and UniAdvisor can expand.

Cturtle and UniAdvisor are able to capitalise on their returns with three main revenue streams:

•Data reports - reports on the factors that affect university alumni opinions when considering whether to recommend an educational institute are provided to Australian state and federal governments, Universities, University groups and study clusters.

•Improving University Employment Rates - assisting alumni enter the employment sector.

•Marketing Universities & Courses - to attract international students to specific educational institutions.

The Highs & Lows

Shane admits that he spent too much time and effort on raising capital. Along with other mistakes, he had trouble hiring the right people, and was distracted by vanity metrics instead of focusing on revenue.

A proud achievement for Shane was the phenomenal growth in interest from international alumni. In the first 12 mon...

OurCrowd Managing Partner Dan Bennett Shares his Experiences on Investing in Startups from All Around the World

Get ready for another episode of the "Perfect Pitch Show" where Brandon Burns, Head of Community - Runway Virtual, has interviews small business founders / entrepreneurs about secret sauce to their successful start-up journey.

Today we get to know Angel Investor and Managing Partner at OurCrowd, Dan Bennett. With nearly 20 years' experience globally, Dan understands all the challenges that come with investing and venture capitalism. OurCrowd is a platform that aids entrepreneurs fulfil their dreams and comprised of investors led by co-investing and focuses mostly on deep science and deep technology. They then support those investments and mentor the founders of the start-ups to provide as much support as they can.

Dan talks to us about some of the brilliant start-ups OurCrowd have invested in and the criteria needed to join their portfolio. It is our hope here at Runway that our regional and remote entrepreneurs find a spark of inspiration and get in contact with Dan at OurCrowd to reach your full potential.

An Overview of OurCrowd

OurCrowd was started back in 2013 and is a leading equity crowdfunding platform designed for investment in global start-ups. They are a platform for accredited angel investors and allows them to invest in hand-picked, vetted start-ups alongside the team at OurCrowd. They have a number of offices all around the world, including Australia, Europe, the USA, and Canada just to name a few. Their goal is to help entrepreneurs live out their dreams and fulfil their mission by connecting them with investors and high net wealth who share common interests and goals. This allows for investors to make the decision to invest based on opportunities that resonate with them. OurCrowd will look at around 3,000 to 3,500 deals in a year but will only invest in about 20 of them! They have invested in over 200 companies in total with 40 exits when they were bought out by larger companies such as Uber, Oracle, Snapchat etc. and they have raised about $2billion in the last 7 to 8 years.

What Kind of Start-Ups do OurCrowd Invest In?

Dan and his team at OurCrowd are heavily focussed on deep science and technology and this is reflected in the types of companies they invest in. Dan listed a few of the specialised areas they look to finance; agriculture tech, drones, AI solutions, healthcare and cyber security are just a couple. Getting into the more detailed criteria, OurCrowd look at a variety of different attributes, from the quality of tech to the business model, from the quality of the market size and how the company is going to make money. But the most important standard is the quality of the founder. Are they hungry? How much experience do they have? Are they flexible? These are all questions that Dan has in the back of his mind when he is deciding whether to invest in an idea or not. While there are many other elements that come into play, Dan stresses the importance of getting along with the business founder, he says that a partnership is "like a marriage" and that the most vital thing to him is that this is a person he can connect with. Dan describes himself as being a super active angel investor, he is very hands on with the team and the founder of the company. These kinds of investors are highly desirable and extremely hard to find. This is where the importance of connecting with the founder comes from, because as an active investor Dan plans on spending a lot of time with you.

A classic example of the type of business OurCrowd will invest in is that of a start-up named

Tracey Hickmott Placed First at La Trobe's Accelerator Program and Scored $10k for Her Business! Now She's Sharing Her Story With Us

Are you ready for another installation from our "Perfect Pitch Show" where Brandon Burns, Head of Community - Runway Virtual, interviews small business founders / entrepreneurs about the secret sauce to their successful start-up journey?

In this edition, we talk to the Founder of Natural Approach, Tracey Hickmott, as she breaks down her adventure into entrepreneurship. Tracey has recently been awarded first place in the La Trobe Accelerator Program 2019, a high caliber program with over 60 applicants. She has shared with us her experiences, regrets and the future goals for her business with the hope to inspire other regionally based founders to take the plunge into starting their own. She makes her sales via attending local markets and events, her online shop and has stockists in nine different locations across the country.

We hope to share Tracey's insight with aspiring founders in regional areas around Australia so that they may learn from her knowledge. Tracey is committed to growing her business and helping local communities expand with her. She is proud to say she has some clarity on what she was meant to do for her career and encourages anyone who is wanting to make a rewarding and challenging change to take the plunge.

Getting Natural Approach Off the Ground

Tracey is no stranger to the afflictions of struggling to find the right products to fit her needs. Natural Approach was founded out of necessity, Tracey knew she couldn't be the only person in the country experiencing excessive sweating and body odor, nor could she be the only person enduring the low amount of self-confidence that can come with that. She was overwhelmed with the various ingredients that were added into the products she was using, many of which she wasn't even confident in knowing what they were. She began to make her own deodorant with natural ingredients, feeling much better about herself and what she was putting on her body. "We all think about what we put IN our body, it's now time we think about what we're putting ON our body." This is the foundation of what she does, providing her consumers with natural alternatives to the harsh products we usually use in our daily life.

At first, Tracey began to gift her deodorant to family and friends and soon she was getting feedback on the product. It didn't take long for her to decide to build a business and began to sell her product at the local markets and events. She believes it is imperative to listen to your customers or your consumers to really understand what it is they love about your product or your brand so that you can continue to provide this. In her case, most of her customers comment on the fact Natural Approach offers the largest range of scents for natural deodorants and most of all, they love knowing what's in the products.

What Makes Natural Approach Unique?

Natural Approach is 100% natural and where possible Tracy uses certifiably organic and ethically sourced products to make her deodorant. She is proud to say she puts back into local communities and sources a lot of her ingredients from rural areas and believes that by expanding her own business she will help others around her grow and prosper.

As mentioned, Natural Approach is stocked by nine different retails across the country, but most importantly Tracey herself offers free shipping all across Australia when you buy directly from her! We will include the link to her store at the bottom of this article.

Lessons Learned

Tracey shared with us her biggest regret when she made the decision to start-up Natural Approach. She admitted that she...

Welcome back to another episode of the "Perfect Pitch Show" where Brandon Burns, Head of Community - Runway Virtual, interviews small business founders / entrepreneurs about the secret sauce to their successful start-up journey.

Today we sit down with a seasoned Australian entrepreneur and scale up specialist Paul Jansz. Paul is currently the network development and partner of the C2 Group. He has worked in the accounting industry for close to 25 years, where his coaching and training academies have helped others to grow their business, increase profitability and improve cash flow. He has expanded his expertise throughout Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Over the last 10 years, Paul ran a private equity firm, during which time he grew and managed almost 300 professional service firms who invested in startups. He continues to build upon his experience in the startup and scale-up field with his latest venture with C2 Capital and C2 Angels, a division of C2 Capital.

Community

Despite Paul's adventures overseas, he is thankful to finally be able to return to his hometown, Melbourne, after 17 years away. He currently has the role as Network Development Manager of C2 Capital, and he also leads the leadership team for C2 Angels, a subdivision of C2 Capital, that allows investors to invest in business models and start-ups. Paul is particularly fond of the monthly Breakfast Series that he hosts with C2 Angels. He describes the Breakfast Series as a community for startups trying to build their business and brand. He believes it is a great opportunity for business owners to develop connections with like-minded individuals and gain useful, applicable knowledge. For example, at a recent event on the 29th January 2020, he organised a talk centring on investable companies lead by two outstanding speakers: Nick Stanley and Ron Lesh. During the speech, Nick and Ron provided insight into the desirable aspects of a company that they look for in a startup before they choose to invest. Those who were able to attend gained an invaluable understanding of the business characteristics that tend to attract investors.

Microsoft Accelerator Program

Paul expresses his gratitude for being able to participate in the Microsoft Accelerator program, an experience that few others can understand. The program, which is based out of London, is described as an intensive 5-month educational course. When discussing the experience, Paul speaks with admiration regarding the expertise and knowledge of the mentors. The angles and methods in which they would tackle concepts consistently challenged Paul's preconceived notions of the business models he had developed. His main takeaway from this experience is that the focus should always be on what people want to buy, rather than what the business wants to sell. The tactic that Paul refers to as the Richard- Branson technique, is to first find out the needs of the people, and then to cater to them. Oftentimes, people are more interested in the benefits, or the reasons why they should be making the purchase, rather than the actual product. Unfortunately for most, the emphasis during marketing tends to be on promoting the product's features instead of the problems that it solves.

Greatest Achievement

Without hesitation, Paul describes his greatest achievement in life is becoming the parent of three beautiful young boys, aged 9, 7 and 4. He warns those that might underestimate the difficulty of parenthood for he understands firsthand the emotional triggers and drivers that can come with parenting. He describes that despite having gone through a divorce with his partner, they maintain a healthy relationship for the sake of their children. Paul describes the great lengths he has gone through to provide a safe environmen...

How an Entrepreneur Dad Juggles Business, Fatherhood and one of Australia's largest co-working facilities!

Welcome back to our "Perfect Pitch Show" where Brandon Burns, Head of Community - Runway Virtual, interviews small business founders and entrepreneurs in their respective fields about the secret sauce to their successful start-up journey.

Meet Tobi Skovron, CEO and Co-Founder of CreativeCubes.Co. In this article, we will explore the story of a founder, entrepreneur and Angel Investor who has successfully expanded his business into a global environment. In this article, we break down the stories from our interview with Tobi Skovron and discuss how his personal start-up experience sparked a desire to create a company that helps other lonely and isolated entrepreneurs with their own adventures.

We hope regional and remote entrepreneurs can take inspiration and motivation from Tobi's story and resonate with the level of which he is still very active across many of his entrepreneurial endeavours. We believe these insights will help start-ups in regional Victoria with tips & tricks in setting up small businesses. Our breakdown of Tobi's insights begins with the introduction of his business.

Vision of Creative Cubes

Creative Cubes originated from a simple idea as a father, Tobi says. As a parent, he wanted to give his kids what his parents couldn't give to him. With this idea in mind, Tobi made it his mission to give other entrepreneurs and small business owners what he didn't have; a co-working office space to help their business grow and maximise their workflow. The space includes an onsite gym (Orange Theory) and a Yoga Studio (Rebel Monk) to promote a healthy work-life balance, in which entrepreneurs can improve their overall health and wellbeing and better execute their goals. Tobi strongly believes that these key ingredients help people and their businesses go to the next level and beyond.

Limited Time = Maximum Productivity

When asked about how Tobi successfully manages multiple businesses, he says, that he chips in something small and contributes an extra thing every day. He claims that rest, a good diet and meditation (10 minutes a day) is critically important to his busy work schedule. To make the most out of his day, Tobi wakes up at 4am before working across all divisions of the business. He explains that being a father is one of the biggest privileges of his life and being a present father is something he really wants his kids to have, so from around 4.30-8pm he is unconditionally focused on his wife and two kids and being a family man. It is critically important he gets enough rest to execute the tasks ahead, so he is in bed at 9pm every night at the latest. Tobi is also hyper focused on intermittent fasting and as a goal for 2020 he is trying a pescatarian diet. Tobi explains that he tries to implement these 1% changes every month to take himself to a higher place at all times.

Going Global

During our interview with Tobi, we asked him when an entrepreneur should take their idea global and how to best capitalise on this. Tobi's previous experience provided us with some helpful insight on this topic. He says, you must be the King or Queen of your domain in your own backyard. If you are not, then there is no way you are ready to go interstate let alone international. He shared with us how he took his first business, Pet Loo, a dog toilet/grass/potty system into the global market through exporting. Tobi explained that it was critical to have all the best pet stores in Victoria marketing, selling and promoting his product range before entering a new market in NSW. Once he felt like he had a solid recurring revenue business from repurchases in Victoria, Tobi took a flight to Sydney to duplicate it. Onc...

How a Geelong Entrepreneur is Disrupting The Digital Advertising Landscape Globally!

Welcome back to another episode of the "Perfect Pitch Show" where Brandon Burns, Head of Community - Runway Virtual, interviews small business founders / entrepreneurs about the secret sauce to their successful start-up journey.

Today we are excited to introduce you to one of our own in-house scale-ups and tenants, Simon Larcey. He is the co-founder and CEO of Viztrade and is an industry leader in the media sector. He's spent over 20 years in the field, including telecommunications, advertising, sponsorship, and work with broadcasters in Australia and in the UK. Simon's latest venture, Viztrade, offers an alternative to the sometimes questionable and often opaque practices of the digital marketing industry.

How Does It Work?

Simon developed Viztrade as a solution to the issues that are strife in the digital marketing industry. Traditionally, business owners who wanted to display their ads in premium media outlets could not communicate directly with the publishers. Instead, advertisers had to go through a convoluted supply chain which involved third-party agencies each taking their own cut. This resulted in less revenue and return for both the business owner and the publishers. Viztrade is an end-to-end digital marketing platform that entirely cuts out the middlemen. It functions as a transparent self-service digital advertising marketplace that connects business owners directly with regional media outlets.

Greater Accessibility

The development of Viztrade drastically improves accessibility for advertisers with regional media outlets in a way that was previously not possible. Any small start-up can use the Viztrade platform to find relevant, highly targeted media environments for their digital adverts.

Viztrade is a unique programmatic platform that provides advertisers with a fixed price for guaranteed exposure. Other programmatic platforms, such as Facebook and Google function like an auction. Advertisers often must compete with other advertisers, where they must bid to reach the same target audience. The result of such intense competition is reduced display for elevated costs. Viztrade offers a straightforward, transparent process that allows advertisers to know how much and exactly what they are paying for. Viztrade alleviates the often-confusing practices of other programmatic platforms with a simple four-step process to start an advertising campaign.

Prevalence

Viztrade has quickly developed an extensive reach among regional media networks, having partnered with hundreds of regional newspaper and radio sites who offer their services on the Viztrade platform. Simon believes that regional areas offers an immense potential for advertisers. Australia's regional areas is home to one third of Australia's population, whilst the regional market is rarely targeted for advertisements. As a result, business owners can reach a large number of people at affordable prices.

Despite the extensive digital reach Viztrade has already managed to accrue, Simon does not plan stop there with plans to continue expansion into billboard advertising, and audio platforms as well.

Ethos of Complete Transparency

Simon developed the business model of Viztrade on the foundation of complete transparency. The company name reflects this belief, where the term VizTrade has been inspired by 'visible trading'. Unlike large digital advertising outlets, like Facebook and Google, Viztrade does not need to collect third-party cookies to allow for targeted ads. Third-party cookies allow such digital advertising websites to obtain demographic information from its users, but with the growing the controversy and concerns for privacy in...