TWISTA - This Week in Startups Australia

TWISTA visits the other side - Perth! From our temporary digs within Perth's Spacecubed co-working space, TWISTA chats with Matt Macfarlane of Yuuwa Investments, Justin Strharsky of Unearthed, and Brodie McCullough of Spacecubed, and learn about the scene and strengths of the startups coming out of Western Australia. More mind-blowing startups are coming out of the West than we'd ever dreamed, and we hear about them on this episode of TWISTA.

Australia has produced three tech unicorns: Atlassian, Freelancer and Campaign Monitor. TWISTA talks to Chris Strode, founder and CPO of Invoice2Go, well on its way to being Australia's fourth unicorn! After we talk to Chris, Sydney Seed Fund founder Benjamin Chong joins us for a discussion of the kinds of qualities the very earliest startups need to survive and thrive. It's another huge series opening, so join TWISTA on a unicorn hunt!

TWISTA's final episode of Series 2 opens in conversation with Peter Bradd, Fishburners co-founder, and the new CEO of StartupAUS, with a mandate to build bridges between politicans and the tech community. Then we talk to Alex Haggerty, founder of Taggd, which has launched one of the most unusual - and unusually lucrative - startups in recent memory, connecting Instagram to ecommerce to close more sales. Finally, we'll review and reflect upon the highs and lows of Series 2. Moving foward and looking back on this episode of TWISTA!

Failure is part of the life-cycle for almost every tech startup. Yet it's the one thing most entrepreneurs will never discuss. TWISTA shines light on this darkest of subjects in conversation with Nikki Durkin, who fought the good fight with startup 99dresses, but eventually ran out of money. Then Jesse Black talks about the journey from winning a Startup Weekend to drawing the final curtain on a product that even he didn't want to use. Finally, Melbourne Matt Allen interviews a notorious serial entrepreneur - by the name of Mark Pesce - about what it felt like to liquidate his own startup. We fearlessly confront the entrepreneur's darkest hour in this episode of TWISTA.

On our latest news special, TWISTA is joined by Dean Dorrell, Principal and Founder of Carthona Capital, and ZDNet's Josh Taylor. We start off speaking with SparkeHelmore's Daniel Atkin, who's developed a set of open-source legal documents startups can use to assist them in preparing the paperwork for seed funding. Then we're off into a discussion of changes to immigration law (and how it will transform VC in Australia), Ingogo's crowdinvesting raise with VentureCrowd, and why every telco has to have an incubator. All the news important to startups, on this episode of TWISTA.

At every stage of its existence the startup faces challenges relating to growth. Vinomofo co-founders Justin Dry and Andre Eikmeier talk to TWISTA about the sacrifices involved in growing one of the country's most successful online retailers, then Blrt founder Anurag Chakradhar talks about what it's like to have a product that's so hot, he's worried he can't grow fast enough. Finally, TWISTA reconnects with GoFar co-founders Danny Adams and Ian Davidson, who just finished a successful $200K Kickstarter campaign, and have grown from a 2-person shop to (at times) nearly 20. Mo growth, mo problems, on this episode of TWISTA.

The universe next door - or as it styles itself, New Zealand - has a thriving startup ecosystem. TWISTA talks to Chris Twiss, who runs the Seed Ventures arm of the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund. Then, Nick Sherwing and Jonah Merchant of BizDojo talk about creating a co-working space that helps startups in Auckland and Wellington thrive. Finally, we visit the offices and factory floor of Auckland's hottest hardware startup, StretchSense. What's it like to be the first employee at a startup growing like mad? We ask Antoni Harbuz and Shin Jeong Park. All of that and more in this episode of This Week in Startups Australia - and New Zealand!

The tech industry is a very imperfect reflection of the world it builds products for. How can mostly-white, mostly-middle-class, mostly-men build great products for cultures they've never experienced? We see lots of young girls interested in coding become discouraged and quit the field by the time they go to university. Where are the women founders and women investors? Paul Wallbank joins TWISTA to discuss a recent article he's written detailing some of these persistent problems. Then we have a long chat with Scale Investors CEO Laura Mckenzie, who is building a strong network of female angel investors and female tech founders into something completely unique - and uniquely potent - in Australia.

TWISTA is from our break to get some schoolin'. First up, MyEdApp co-founder Rowan Kunz tells TWISTA about the importance of listening to teachers before you design a product for the education market. Then, legal eagle Kurt Falkenstein talks us through the right - and wrong - ways to incorporate and organize your Australian startup. So put your learnin' cap on, and tune in!

Legendary entrepreneur and investor Pete Cooper and Fairfax tech editor Ben Grubb sit down with TWISTA to

discuss the news of importance to Australian startups, including positive changes to the Employee Share Scheme; BugCrowd's

$6M raise; politics, politicans, metadata collection and startups; why so many fintech accelerators in Australia? and the business of Apple Watch.