Combine, Share Knowledge and Conquer

mitchellake on October 27, 2015

If you’re a VP, you’ve got enough on your plate to spend sweating the small stuff that others in your position have already solved. Right? Yet time and time again we see closed-up competitive industries leading people to continually reinvent the wheel. So it’s a nice change when you see something bucking the trend.

Enter The Bay Area Operators (The BAO), an intimate group of VPs across business, finance, operations and strategy. They host a bi-monthly in-person catch up, to keep the conversation flowing in between, they’re all involved in what is probably the most active Q&A Google Group forums in existence.

Founded by MitchelLake’s Jamie Ceglarz and Casey Woo from Pantheon, The BAO – a hugely simple yet effective knowledge-sharing group – has been operating for close to 12 months, helping solve issues through other people’s learnings.

We spoke to co-founder Jamie Ceglarz about the inspiration and execution of this group.

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Q: Who is The BAO?

Jamie Ceglarz: Casey Woo from Pantheon cofounded The BAO with me. Everyone within the group come from companies that are VC-backed technology companies in The Bay area.

Q: What was the impetus for getting this group up and running?

JC: I’d caught up with folks in my network over a series of coffees – most of these people were ex-bankers or ex-consultants who had turned into operators within tech companies (VP finance, VP strategy, VP operations, VP business) and they all were talking about the issues they needed solving – and the same things kept coming up. So I decided to get them all together for lunch. I shopped the idea around to a few of them beforehand to make sure people were interested, and we found that there was some real interest here.

Q: You’ve spoken about people experiencing the same type of problems: what type of questions are being brought up?

JC: The questions are incredibly varied, but we’ll always find that others have solved similar issues in the past, so the fact they’re vastly different doesn’t matter. Topics and questions have ranged from “what is your paternity policy?” to “how much travel allowance do you give to your sales team?” to “has anyone ever used [XYZ] service provider as we’re thinking of using them” or ”how often does everyone do staff reviews?”

Q: What’s the format of the bi-monthly catch up?

JC: It’s typically a lunch, with rotating hosts. One of the rules of the group is that everyone has to participate, which includes hosting an event.

It’s otherwise pretty informal. We figure out ‘top of mind’ topics in the week leading up to the event, and list them up front at the 90 minute session. People then start spit-balling ideas and the rest takes care of itself. The conversations are always very fluid. Outside of this there is lots of chat between sessions via a Google Group – so people put out topics and try to get other’s 2 cents. Yesterday for example it was “Hey everyone, we need to incorporate in Singapore, does anyone have any suggestions?”.

Q: Why does the group work so well?

JC: I think because everyone is in a similar role, within a similar size / stage company, it means they’re all looking to solve similar issues.

Q: Sounds great! How does one get involved?

JC: We do take on new people but they have to be the right fit. We’ve got a pre-agreed set of criteria to make sure we’re getting the right people in the group who are effective, proactive, involved. We also make sure that everyone agrees to new inclusions. Having said this the group works well because it’s pretty small so everyone is accountable for being involved.

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We’re excited to see such collaboration within industry, and we hope that this extends far and wide, allowing people to be more efficient in their role, and focus on the biggest tasks at hand.

To get in touch with Jamie Ceglarz email him on jamiec@mitchellake.com

Why recent graduates are the best generation yet!

mitchellake on October 13, 2015

I was lucky enough to be invited to present to a group of Masters and PhD students at Melbourne Uni last week about careers in data science in the context of digital transformation. With the increasing competition for placements in academia as well as the pressure this puts of people who have already spent close to a decade in institutions, I wanted to offer some insight into other ways their careers might unfold. Australian Data Science needs the kind of intellectual horsepower some of these people could bring, whether that be to start-ups or enterprise employers.

What I didn’t expect was just how different these people were from what I was expecting. This is a different generation from when I was at Uni and they’re going to blow our minds and make the world a better place. Here’s why.

Collaboration
The current generation of graduates have grown up in the digital world and they are extremely familiar with open source software and finger-tip answers to any question they can ask. Knowledge isn’t a commodity anymore – it’s free. For example most people are polyglots – sure they have their preferences for programming but they know categorically they can learn anything new they need to on stack overflow or just by googling it.

They commodity they deal in is imagination. If you can dream it, you can build it, so it’s imagination that is closely guarded and personal. On everything else, such as how to bring dreams to life, they collaborate. They expect to do things for free as well, for the betterment of communal knowledge. Is that altruism? Possibly. It’s just as possible they will reap a reward from that at some stage whether they know it or not.

Careers
Overwhelmingly this generation doesn’t care about title or career progression. Perhaps that’s the fact they’re only just starting out as professionals, but all the conversations I had centred on just wanting to build something amazing. They want to work together to build something that no one else has thought of before, or something that has been thought of but ruled out as impossible. So their journey is one of learning, not one of status or title. They will measure their career success by results, not dollars or titles. My message was that Data Science was a good place to start down that achievement path and I think they generally agreed.

Leaving a legacy
Ok not every graduate has the self-belief that they will change the world, but many of these PhD and Master’s graduates genuinely do believe they will. These are the people who will solve our climate problems, or send us to a new planet, or make significant steps towards world peace.

I was reading recently that astronauts often come back from space with amazing vision for humanity. Even if they were deeply patriotic before they left there’s something about the miracle of looking down on our blue planet in the middle of nothingness that makes people abandon nationalism and become dedicated environmentalists. Many of these graduates must have had the same sense of transcendence because they are totally driven to change the world and leave humanity enriched as a result. And that makes me grateful to be alive.

If anyone is interested in my slide deck from that talk, you can find it here.

The MitchelLake Group is a global executive search and talent acquisition firm dedicated to helping great ideas succeed. From start-ups, to scale-ups and multinational brands we supply talent for innovation to some of the most dynamic organisations on the planet. We seek to be transformational, not transactional.

Event Review // UX Australia

mitchellake on October 9, 2015

This year I attended UX Australia again, this time in Sydney so I got to go home in the evenings…. Not always a benefit when the social gatherings are as good as these.

It was held in the last week of August and was once more a sellout and a great success, with 600 attendees and 50 speakers.

The event this year held more of a buzz than previous events which I believe is largely due to the seismic shift we are experiencing in the Australian market affecting experience design. There was an almost tangible sizzle. Experience design has, in the last 12 months, earned its place at record numbers of executive suite tables as the country’s best and finest battle to win over users and consumers with best-in-class experiences. Knowledge of the power of design is becoming commonplace instead of the exception, and the language of service design, customer centered design and design thinking, is being spoken by more and more C level executives than ever in Australia. The knock on that I believe made it so clearly felt in the air at UX Australia, has been the growing sense of importance: more willing ears, more sponsors, numerous talent scouts, record levels of demand.

Testament to this was that the talk I was on the panel for, UX Careers, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, run by Matt Magain of UX Mastery, attracted a packed audience. Seating was full and spilled over to the floor, aisles and cupboards at the back. That’s a pretty clear message. Especially as it was not just people looking for portfolio tips, or a market view, many of the audience were employers, looking to glean some intel on talent attraction.

Another difference I noticed from last year was the amount of talks that felt like pitches. I don’t think anyone goes to these conferences looking to learn something entirely new. Instead people seek insights and inspiration, as well as enjoying the sense of community and sharing that is so wonderfully strong here. So it was surprising (and slightly irksome if I’m to be honest) to see so many businesses appearing to talk themselves up, with a “what we do is…” slant, rather than a “think about this…”.

Lastly, I’d like to mention a couple of standouts for me on the day. The first was the opening keynote by Greg Petroff, Chief Experience Officer at GE Software. What I took from his talk on Designing At Scale, was the concept of the democratisation of design, creating a community. He suggested we all become “possibilitarians” and that smart organisations have a Community Manager in them.

The other one I particularly enjoyed was Harriet Wakelam’s presentation – Connectors, Enablers & Scouts. Harriet has just returned from London and brought with her a superb insight into the trend there towards fintech innovation, but with the added twist of a banks vs start-ups ‘mash-up’. This is valuable stuff to be shared with the Australian market and is super-relevant to our current fintech landscape.

For those who couldn’t make the full event, there is a slimmed down one-day version called Redux on in both Sydney (5th November) and Melbourne (29th October).

Looking forward to next year, Brisbane I believe…

Want to read more? Copies of presentations are now up.

Confessions Of A Successful Recruiter

mitchellake on August 24, 2015

Ok…huddle in, I want to share with you some trade secrets that have been gleaned for close to 16 years in the dark art of recruitment…

Before you roll your eyes and prepare yourself to also read a passionate defence of an often-maligned industry let me assure you this is not a ‘woe is me’ tale.

Neither is said ‘Successful Recruiter’ an autobiographical account of ego grandstanding and a world according to me viewpoint. The rich tapestry of talent acquisition is woven with a myriad of personalities and opinion and this is certainly no claim to the sole magic formula or blueprint.

This post is about ‘The Secrets Of Success’ and the aforementioned ‘Recruiter ‘is a composite gleaned from the hundreds (possibly thousands of recruiters) I have worked alongside, managed, reported to, respected and and thankfully only a few I have actively avoided.

Easing back into the proverbial recruitment rocking chair of a few years of experience (I do remember faxed CV submissions!) I reflect on the evolution, revolution and in some cases devolution in the talent acquisition market. Over this time a lot has been written about the challenge to, demise of and need for iteration of the recruitment industry (of which I will not attempt to address in this blog given the plethora of commentary by some well informed and respected professionals who offer some thought-provoking insight and others who simply have an axe to grind about recruiters and provide a whinging platform for others to rally round – not constructive/not interesting).

I have aimed to distil via my interactions in the industry to what I believe makes a really successful recruiter and highlight attributes that demonstrably and consistently have driven a great outcome for all parties.
Let’s assume you have assimilated the Recruitment 101 manual that regurgitates the perceived traits that a good recruiter must possess…you know the ones I mean: persistency, sales focused, be a people person, work hard play hard, multitasker, be driven……..Yawn! Zzzzzzzzz! I am not questioning the validity of these rather trite descriptions, they are just a little…well, self-centric. We work in a services based industry that surely is about providing counsel, expertise and solutions to others not introspectively rehashing an outdated stereotype.

The recruiters that I have had the pleasure to work with that have long and successful careers have quickly read the tired old recruitment manual, placed it back on the bookshelf and written their own personal oeuvre to recruitment that places both candidates and clients front and centre and challenges the stereotype every day. They excel not at the obvious, stereotypical or classroom trained school of recruitment but they embrace the high touch, service-led approach because that is what they truly enjoy about the job.

Give a S&@% – be intellectually curious
Showing a heightened level of awareness backed by market knowledge and intelligent questioning raises your credibility stock immeasurably. We have all heard about the importance of the 80/20 rule, 2 ears/one mouth approach when it comes to business interaction…shame it is so often ignored. In my experience and wherever possible people do business with people they like. Certainly give your opinion, insight and perspective but respect that the person in front of you has taken time out to talk about what is most important to them….themselves or their business. It occupies their thoughts every day….let it occupy the majority of the time with you.

Provide a solution that reflects what your client or candidate needs
If you have applied the first point, listened and understood and thus provided a strong sounding board through a proper business conversation rather than a recruitment conversation (very different interactions) you will be much better placed to actually help that person/company. By applying latitude and flexibility and building a career path or commercial model that aids both parties you again will show you have comprehended and tailored what is right for them. This will not only enhance the relationship-building process (critical in today’s market) but increase the strong likelihood of your services being recommended again and again.

Pay it forward
Great recruiters have a default switch in their brain that is not – as some commentators would have you believe – fixed permanently to ‘How can I make money from this’. The best ones in our profession have an intuitive trigger that is set to ‘How can I help or improve this situation?‘. Without sounding too much like a recruitment hippie I am a firm believer in business karma. Be generous with your advice, network and brokerage of business relationships that sit above the immediacy of a current recruitment transaction. This is not a gratuitous plug more of a gentle endorsement, but something I am confident and proud that we do at MitchelLake and have done for 15 years is exactly that. One of the greatest statesmen that lived summed it up perfectly. “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give” – Winston Churchill.

Be genuine and responsive…in every interaction
Know where your limits stretch to and either aim to improve on them or feel comfortable recommending other recruiters (I know… shock! horror!…something I have been ‘guilty’ of in the past) or partners that can provide the best advice. Humility and responsiveness across all channels of communication speaks volumes about not just the type of recruiter you are but more about the type of person you are.
Undeniably the market demands and talent landscape have changed. As we have moved quickly from the information age to the networked age the recruitment industry needed to equally adapt. Access to information is unprecedented and social media platforms have given focus, profile and a voice to those who previously sat on a dusty ATS system or whose network extended to only those they had had direct or referred contact with.

With this dynamic shift has come a plethora of tools, systems, data science-led analytics, social, SEO, digital strategies, online employee referral companies, specialist job boards each trying to reinvent the wheel with ‘new’ products and businesses…the list is a long and mind boggling one and technology has become an incredible enabler of one or more stages of the process.

BUT…

You would not throw the Aston Martin car keys to a pre pubescent teenager or your Gran for that matter. The performance ride of that particular journey is entirely down to the experience, skills, awareness and subtleties of navigating an often very undulating and fraught road.

Place the right human behind the wheel and you are far more likely to get to your destination much more smoothly. Clients and candidates rightly have incredibly high expectations of recruiters when it comes to handling a business critical appointment or highly sensitive career transition.

Before joining my previous company I was a candidate trying to create a personal brand that resonated and build a referral network that could get me that killer job. My own experience and insight highlighted some alarming naivety and arrogance from recruiters, internal TA and hiring managers (that’s for another blog) but crucially gave me some encouraging rays of light and reinforced my own personal belief.
That fundamentally, however impressive your algorithms are in applying data to recruitment, however pervasive your social media strategy is, whatever you might think the shiny brand and mission statement might represent, The Secrets to Success in Recruitment, are often more innate, altruistic and selflessly driven and as such for some could be harder to achieve. But as my Gran always used to say, before she headed off to the shops in her DB9… “if it was easy Luke, everyone would be doing it!”

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. Let us know on Twitter at @mitchellake or @LakerLuke.

Brown bags and the power of listening

mitchellake on August 17, 2015

MitchelLake has always hosted interesting events. In fact, we nurture our ecosystem perhaps a little too much at times. Where our competitors are stalking through LinkedIn or cold calling their clients, we’re much more likely to be kicking back with a beer at our Beertech event or tucking into a breakfast wrap in the crowd while we listen to a couple of our mates talk about growing their fintech startups in Melbourne.

But recently we’ve changed our approach from the ephemeral to the cerebral. Over the past month we’ve been honing our skills as hosts of brown bag lunches in our office where we’ve been entertained by some of the sharpest minds and most passionate voices in Melbourne’s Digital landscape. We’ve been lucky enough to borrow time from probably Australia’s leading API evangelist, certainly one of its best and most well-rounded analytics minds, a world leader in UX / UI /Human Centred Design and an astrophysicist-turned-astronomer.

For the price of a sandwich
We spend $70 on a plate of amazing sandwiches from Mason Dixon and open our boardroom up to our amazing guests. We don’t give them guidelines, we don’t tell them what we want to hear or request a slideshow. We just provide an open, interested and engaged group of intelligent minds and a blank canvas. From our point of view these lunches are a rare opportunity for our team to get together in a stress-free environment where we can just learn. It’s like a lecture but about things we’re interested in and from people we respect!

For an hour of their time
We have learnt so much and been inspired by some great people. But what I’ve really been surprised by is that our speakers have benefited perhaps more than we have from this collaboration. Let me give you some examples of the benefits they’ve shared with me afterwards:

− In a group dynamic there are so many more questions and challenges to the status quo – our speakers have left generally feeling invigorated and with a fresh set of eyes.
− Rather than telling their story to one person they’re immediately multiplying their audience amongst people who will remember them and who can crystallise career opportunities for them.
− They benefit from the experience of speaking in front of a group about things they’re passionate about.
− Beyond career interests our speakers often leave with a sense of renewed pride and confidence that they’re making an impact.

So are we just tooting our own horn?
Of course not. I genuinely think collaboration is key to Australia becoming the tech and innovation hub which is its destiny. And don’t get me started on why we need to set our differences aside across the world and just listen to each other. Just open up with honesty and sincerity and you’ll be amazed what you can learn. You’ll also be amazed at how much listening can do for the speaker.

Where once we were spurred on by competition in a world where knowledge was the currency and the power, we’re now entering a new economy. Knowledge is easy and readily available – seriously there’s so much free knowledge out there we’re drowning in it. The new source of power is imagination. That’s something you can’t steal or acquire over a sandwich.

My overriding message goes back to my hippie roots. We should be doing the business version of lighting a bonfire and singing kumbaya. We should be sharing and encouraging each other and finding the best in each other. Only by doing that, in my opinion, will we get ahead as a country and as a technology and innovation-led community.

To quote a guy who knows a thing or two about listening and the power of words,David Amerland, “collaboration is the new competition”.

List, Borrow, or Deal? Exploring Funding Alternatives to VC, for Emerging, High Growth Tech

mitchellake on July 22, 2015

The overcast skies didn’t dampen the event – or the view – for our most recent event, an intimate lunch for CEOs and founders to discuss fundraising alternatives for tech companies. Held in Norton Rose’s finest boardrooms – complete with sweeping views across Sydney Harbour – the event was a collaboration between myself, Nick Abrahams – Legal Futurist, Tech and M&A Lawyer at Norton Rose, Jason Georgatos – Partner at Partners for Growth (PFG), Stuart Foster – CEO Foster Stockbroking and Phil Alexander – Director at Overture Capital.

Twenty-six founders, CEOs and chairs attended the lunch representing some of the leading companies across Sydney’s growth tech market including; Employment Innovations, I Quit Sugar, Bulletproof, ReadiNow Corporation, Carsguide, OneShift, ParcelPoint, Audinate, Oneflare, BridgeLane Group, Reffind, Deputy.com, BrickX, LawPath, Movideo and Equity Ventures to name a few.

Jason of PFG and Stuart of Foster Stockbroking shared their insights on debt funding and listing, respectively. PFG specialise in providing a debt solution for funding revenue-stage tech companies. Having completed 14 deals in Australia, Jason is spending time in the country to educate Australian tech founders in this option. PFG recently provided Employment Innovations with $4mill, having previously provided debt funding to Viocorp amongst others.

Foster Stockbroking won ‘Best Corporate Deal for 1-Page’ this year, and have completed listing for Reffind, 1-Page, Jayride, x-TV and are currently completing the listing for Yatango.

It was a pleasure to hear Jason and Stuart talk openly about their experience, and hugely beneficial for the audience to be able to ask questions of our speakers. Key takeaways from the event were:

Debt funding
1. Businesses should have a run rate of at least $5million and a growth story to fit PFG assessment criteria, although profitability is not required.
2. PFG require the loan to be paid back over an agreed period of time, typically 2-5 years.
3. The average interest rate of PFG deals in Australia has typically been between 12–14%.
4. PFG take a small equity stake in the business as part of the deal, however PFG are entirely passive and don’t act like a VC, nor, take a seat on the board.
5. Typical PFG loan size is $3-5mill although they will lend between $1MM and $15MM.
6. PFG provide funding for both public and private tech companies.
7. PFG have provided over $80mill of historical loan commitments in Australia.

Listing for growth
1. Clean listing with no debt.
2. Good board composition and exec management team.
3. 50% of stock to list i.e need a decent free float.
4. Management & board stock to be in escrow for 24 months.
5. List at a reasonable valuation so everyone wins.
6. $1mill worth of trades a day is normally a good indicator that there is interest in the company. All investors like liquidity.
7. Listing gives the business the opportunity to make significant investments that they would not be able to make without the funds.
8. Front door listing is the way to go. Whilst it is more expensive at roughly $1mill all in, it’s a clean way to list and you avoid disgruntled investors looking for a quick win. ASIC are more vigilant on back door deals.
9. Any business thinking of listing should hire a consultant to look after this process. Re-find hired an ex-PWS consultant at the cost of $80k. It allowed management to get on with running the business.

To expand on point 7, 1-page (1PG) listed in November with Foster broking at 20c and is currently trading at $2.53. It was the best performing tech stock on any listed market last year. With a market cap of $30mill when it listed, 1-Page now has a market cap of $340mill. 1-page was able to acquire another business shortly after listing with the funds it raised from the list. This acquisition has totally transformed 1-Page’s offering to market and has facilitated the growth of the stock by 1200% (12*). Read about it in full here.

Testament to the volume of questions asked in this session, there is certainly a healthy amount of interest in both debt financing and listing, as a way to raise capital for early stage high growth Australian tech companies.

Thanks to Nick Abrahams at Norton Rose for providing the wonderful setting.

Author

Kevin Griffiths leads MitchelLake Executive for the ANZ Practice. Based in Sydney, he is focused on supporting startups, NewCo’s, scale-ups, and established tech companies with C-suite and board requirements, in addition to working with Australian SME’s and enterprises undergoing digital/technology transformations.

Since joining MLE in 2012, Kevin has led over 100 searches. His time has been divided into three key areas – CEO searches for scale-ups or tech companies going through transformation; CTO/CPO searches for tech companies with a global requirement to bring talent to Australia with technology and/or product leadership at scale; and consulting to and leading searches with clients looking to innovate, who are seeking advice from the MLE practice on the question of build, buy, or partner.

Prior to joining MLE, Kevin was a Partner at BMS where he built and led the Midlands commercial practice in the UK, before moving to Australia to help scale the business in Sydney and Melbourne.

Join Us To Jumpstart Your Startup With $30,000 Investment Funding And Support

mitchellake on July 7, 2015

With startups close to our heart MitchelLake are proud to be partnering once again with NRMA’s Jumpstart program and you can join us at this year’s info session. Reserve your tickets here

Following the successful inaugural initiative in 2014 the accelerator program is back, with Jumpstart – powered by Slingshot – helping the next generation of entrepreneurs in two ways, via both a startup and scaleup program.

This year The Startup Program will provide a structured three-month accelerator program and $30,000 to get your startup business idea off the ground.

If you’re an existing business, you can leverage NRMA’s large and engaged customer network to help scale quickly under the Scaleup Program.

In the first instalment, Careseekers were named the winner across the startup category, receiving mentoring and financial support that provided a huge boost to their online service that connects people requiring in-home careers with those looking for care-based employment Australia wide.

Thanks to the wonderful network and connections that are created from being a part of the Jumpstart Program, four of the original Jumpstart finalists have attracted funding from investors that is close to topping the $2mill mark.

Please join us for this exciting event, and you could be getting the Jumpstart that your concept or established business deserves. Book your free spot here

Fishburners
Level 1, 608 Harris Street
Ultimo, NSW
Thursday 16th July, 5.30-8pm

For more information visit MyNRMA.

MELBOURNE // Join Us To Jumpstart Your Startup – $30,000 Up For Grabs

mitchellake on July 7, 2015

With startups close to our heart MitchelLake are proud to be partnering once again with NRMA’s Jumpstart program and you can join us at this year’s info session. Reserve your tickets here. Following the successful inaugural initiative in 2014 the accelerator program is back, with Jumpstart – powered by Slingshot – helping the next generation of entrepreneurs in two ways, via both a startup and scale-up program.

This year The Startup Program will provide a structured three-month accelerator program and $30,000 to get your startup business idea off the ground.

If you’re an existing business, you can leverage NRMA’s large and engaged customer network to help scale quickly under the Scale-up Program.

In the first instalment, Care-seekers were named the winner across the startup category, receiving mentoring and financial support that provided a huge boost to their online service that connects people requiring in-home careers with those looking for care-based employment Australia wide.

Thanks to the wonderful network and connections that are created from being a part of the Jumpstart Program, four of the original Jumpstart finalists have attracted funding from investors that is close to topping the $2mill mark.

Please join us for this exciting event, and you could be getting the Jumpstart that your concept or established business deserves. Book your free spot here.

Inspire 9
Level 1, 41 Stewart Street,
Richmond, VIC
Tuesday 14th July, from 6.30-9pm.

For more information visit MyNRMA.