Technical Due Diligence Checklist
From time to time, I get asked to perform technical due diligence on investment opportunities. I have a checklist, and I thought I’d share it with others in the hope that it might be useful. If you have anything you think I’ve missed or got wrong, please let me know in the comments, and I’ll…
Continue reading →Brian Christian on Algorithms to Live By
I’m a member of the Long Now Foundation, whose mission it is to “…provide a counterpoint to today’s accelerating culture and help make long-term thinking more common. We hope to foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.” One of their main activities is producing Seminars about Long Term Thinking, which are available…
Continue reading →Access Granted
The great folks at the Access Granted podcast published a wide-ranging interview with me today on “the mosaic of my life”, which you can listed to below: I cover a quite a lot of ground, including: Why shit just keeps getting better Startup Weekends and how you can create a business in 54 hours The…
Continue reading →Not because they are easy, but because they are hard
Every once in awhile, you come across something so inspirational it sends shivers up your spine. While watching The Martian the other night with Mr 12, they included a snippet from John F Kennedy’s Rice Speech, which JFK delivered when I was two years old. I’d seen the quote before, but I’d never seen the…
Continue reading →The Residents of Wellington
Thanks to Lucy Revill at The Residents of Wellington for doing a really nice article on me. An enthusiast, investor and business mentor he can often be found coaching startup companies through the Lightning Lab Programmes or mentoring teams of early-stage entrepreneurs at Wellington Start Up Weekend. #WhyWellington Why is Wellington such a great place…
Continue reading →The essence of creativity
Creativity is the spark that occurs when you combine seemingly unrelated things, shove an uncooperative idea into an unexpected context, or look at something familiar in a radically unfamiliar light. That spark of creativity is fun and essential, but much more difficult and rewarding is turning that spark into a steady flame or bushfire of…
Continue reading →Convince me to invest in your startup
What do angel investors like me look for in investable early-stage companies? It’s all about: You and your team Your market Your startup Your progress Your financial plan Your investment terms Your other investors (and a few other things too). Watch the video of a talk I gave on the subject at CreativeHQ‘s Startup Garage…
Continue reading →Two aerial photos
I recently arrived back in Wellington from the Startup Nations Summit in Mexico. On my flight from Auckland to Wellington on 29 November 2015, I passed over the Karori Rip just south of Mana Island. The Karori Rip is an interesting phenomenon, basically a standing wave formed in specific tidal conditions in Cook Strait. In…
Continue reading →The New Christchurch – You Beauty!
There’s only one thing I want to say today: Christchurch, you beauty! When people ask me what I’m about, I tell them I’m building the future I want to live in. We’re all doing that today, here at Lightning Lab Christchurch Demo Day. Look around you. The New Christchurch is filled with diversity and entrepreneurial…
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