The Public Policy Lean Canvas

I’ve been invited to participate in the Startup Nations Summit in Tallinn, Estonia this coming November, representing New Zealand. The central event at this year’s summit will be a Policy Hack, in which delegates from all over the world will get together to collaboratively nut out government policies relating to startups. If you’ve ever spoken…

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Early stage investment tradeoffs

I was asked recently by one of the companies I’m working with that is post-prototype, but pre-revenue: How can I make this deal sweet enough for early stage investors without jeapordising future investment or diluting founders further? That is the dilemma. As a founder, you need to get cash into the company to grow, often…

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Publons angel exit

Publons, a company that came out of Wellington’s Lightning Lab accelerator in 2013, and of which I was the first investor and (until 31 May) Chairman of the Board, has been acquired by Clarivate Analytics. Publons provides a platform that gives academics credit for the peer review work they do, and whose mission is to…

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Pre-seed advisory board agenda template

I recently took on the role of Entrepreneur in Residence at the Kiwibank Fintech Accelerator, powered by Lightning Lab.  Consider me the “Mentor-in-Chief” – as well as advising the ventures and helping them make great connections and destroy roadblocks, my main job is curating the relationships between the ventures and their mentors, and later in…

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Farewell, Julian Carver

Very early this year, one of my closest friends, Julian Carver, died. This post told the story of his death from my perspective, along with my learnings from the experience. Sadly, one of Julian’s surviving family members has asked me to remove this post, as “it’s too soon”.  In respect to them, I have removed…

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