Thursday, May 31, 2018

THESE FIVE BILLIONAIRES MADE THEIR FORTUNES AFTER 40

  • LATE BLOOMERS
    NOT EVERYONE IS A ZUCKERBERG. THESE FIVE BILLIONAIRES MADE THEIR FORTUNES AFTER 40.
    • SHELDON
      ADELSON, 84
      NET WORTH: $43.3 BIL
      The gambling kingpin didn’t get his start in casinos until 55, when he bought the Sands Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas strip for $128 million. He was no stranger to Sin City, though: Earlier, he had organized and run a computer trade show there.
    • DAVID
      DUFFIELD, 77
      NET WORTH: $8.9 BIL
      The former IBM employee started two business software companies after turning 40. At 47 he started PeopleSoft, which he sold to larger rival Oracle nearly two decades later for $10.3 billion. Soon after the sale, he started Workday, the HR and financial management software company.
    • DIETRICH
      MATESCHITZ, 74
      NET WORTH: $24.7 BIL
      After marketing goods like shampoo and toothpaste as a corporate shill, he cofounded Red Bull at 42. The master salesman pitched the energy drink as fuel for accomplishing daring feats (famous tagline: “Red Bull gives you wings”) and emblazoned the brand on skydivers, motorcyclists and big-mountain skiers.
    • JAMES
      DYSON, 71
      NET WORTH: $5.5 BIL
      When his family’s refurbished hoover vacuum gave him grief (it seemed to just push the dirt around), Dyson set about creating a better vacuum. Fifteen years and 5,127 prototypes later, at age 46, he brought the world’s first bagless vacuum to market. Now he has more than 60 products—from hair driers to fans.
    • DAVID
      CHERITON, 67
      NET WORTH: $6 BIL
      In 1998, the 47-year-old Stanford professor wrote a $100,000 check to two Ph.D. students named Larry and Sergey who came to his house and pitched him on a company called Google. Cheriton also cofounded three technology companies after his 40th birthday that were sold or taken public.

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Venture Capital in Australia: What does Anthony , Frank, Richard, GIna, Mike an...

Venture Capital in Australia: What does Anthony , Frank, Richard, GIna, Mike an...: The number one spot was recycling magnate Anthony Pratt ($12.6b) ,  with Meriton’s founder Harry Triguboff coming in a close second with a personal fortune of $11.45 billion. The Lowy’s who built  Westfield ($8.26B) , Glencore Mining’s, Ivan Glasenberg ($6.85B)  and Gina Rinehart’s Resources ($10.41B) made the top 10. Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes of Atlassian are up there as well with $5B each.

What does Anthony , Frank, Richard, GIna, Mike and Scott have in common? - They are all in the 2018 top 100 Rich List

The number one spot was recycling magnate Anthony Pratt ($12.6b) , with Meriton’s founder Harry Triguboff coming in a close second with a personal fortune of $11.45 billion.

The Lowy’s who built  Westfield ($8.26B) ,

Glencore Mining’s, Ivan Glasenberg ($6.85B)  and

Gina Rinehart’s Resources ($10.41B) made the top 10.

Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes of Atlassian are up there as well with $5B each.

There are 12 technology Richlisters and Ruslan Kogan aged 35, who grew up in a Housing Commission Home in Melbourne,  is back on the list after a 3 year break.


There have been interesting characters that have coloured the pages of the Rich List
Kerry Packer was a regular contender with the West’s 80’s entrepreneurs such as Alan Bond (of America’s Cup fame) and Robert Holmes a Court who  built and lost their fortunes.

The Rich List includes immigrants.  men and women, young and old, self-made millionaires, , and those born with a silver spoon in their mouths; both the  educated and uneducated.

Becoming rich can be a reality for anyone in Australia.

So, looking at the lists these are 8 gems that we can learn from them 


1. PROPERTY IS STILL THE NUMBER ONE SOURCE OF WEALTH


2. TIME AND LEVERAGE COMPOUNDS WEALTH 

They understand the power of compounding
Time and regular investing  grows their asset base.

The rich concentrate on building their balance sheets even more than they do on their profit and loss accounts, usually leveraging with other people’s money (which is why property is such a good thing)

The average age of this year’s Rich List is Stan Perron aged 95, is the oldest member of the list coming in at #15 and is showing no signs of slowing down.
ANYONE CAN DO IT

3. FOCUS ON YOUR KNITTING 

One core trait that successful entrepreneurs share is the ability to take a good idea and repeat it over and over again.
You become an expert by doing one thing one hundred times, rather than doing one hundred things once.

4. TEAM

Surround yourself with a good team because if you are the smartest person in the room you are in trouble.

5. VISION - PLAN - ACTION 

Have a vision , formulate a plan - write it down  and take action .

IN SUMMARY 

Invest your money and time into wealth-producing assets and a Vision you believe in. Have strong Values, a long-term Plan, and never lose sight of where you want to end up.

One of my mentors from Durban , John Moshal, said he likens himself to a farmer with a plough -  With rough and arid land in front, with the farmer ploughing the land , so that those following have the opportunity to farm on fertile ground!

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

100 Years Of America’s top 10 Companies




Who  do you think the 10 top companies will be in 100 years?

Will they be the same companies? 

What industries? 
  • 3D
  • AI
  • VR
  • Energy /food/water 
  • Hybrid of banking , communication and tech
  • ??
  • ??

What do you think the value will be ?
  • 1920 - $5-10b 
  • 1980 - $50b - 100b
  • 2020 - $500b - 1tril
  • 2050  - ??
  • 3000  - ??

Tuesday, May 08, 2018

Business as usual for SMEs looking to invest in r and d and claim the r&d tax incentive



  • So what is this R and D incentive 


it is basically a cash rebate to incentivise you for developing innovative products and services. 



It provides a rebate of between 13.5% to 41.5%

So if you spend $100,000 on developing a new product or service or innovating,
you could get back between $13,500 and $43,500 depending on your Companys' profitability.
(limited to $4m per year) 


  • Are you Eligible 

If you are 


  • an Australian Company
  • Undertake R&D Activities in Australia 
  • Spend Over $20k 

YOU COULD BE ELIGIBLE 

ps ... if you are 3 years old and your turnover is greated than $1.5m there are a whole host of other grants you can claim 


  • SME's don't claim for a whole host of reasons

INCLUDING

  • They dont have adequate systems to record R&D activities
  • They do not know what R&D actually is (the legislation is very murky and difficult to interpret - even by the experts 
  • They don't know what they don't know 

Some research indicates that at least 50% of SMES undertake R&D activities and could potentially claim this incentive - but only 1% do!


  • The Risk

Funds from the budget have been allocated to crackdown on non-compliance and rorting , so you need to ensure you have your ts crossed and is dotted 

Budget 2018 Changes 


  • Changes to percentages to be claimed with companies whose turnover is greater than 20m - giving more to those who spend more on r and d as a percentage of revenue .
  • Caps on spend 
  • Those that claim - names and amounts will be published 
  • Bigger budget to be spent on compliance - so ensure you have your claim verified and auditable! 

Let me know if you want a referral to the best r and d consultants in the country! 

Friday, May 04, 2018

Jennifer Zanich - 10xing startups

Andrew Ryan - Innovationaus.com

Entrepreneurs and new Aussie jobs

Jennifer Zanich: UNSW has a clear picture of entrepreneurship

With a decade in Silicon Valley under her belt, Jennifer Zanich knows her way around startup culture, entrepreneurship and venture capital.

She has recently started a role as head of Global Partnerships and Ecosystems, in the Department of Entrepreneurship, at the University of New South Wales, where she designed and led programs like the Founders 10X Accelerator, which identifies high potential startups within the University environment.

“UNSW has had an entrepreneurship initiative for the last five years,” she said. “We have a clear picture for everyone, staff and students, to embed the entrepreneur mindset in their learning and day to day.”

The idea behind embedding these values within staff and students is that the techniques used, such as problem-solving, resilience and the use of frameworks have value for everyone within the learning environment.

With the Founders 10X Accelerator, the University runs a ten week program for high-potential companies within the university. According to Ms Zanich, they’ve so far had unique ideas such as wearable technology in the form of a motorcycle helmet that improves rider reaction time, an asteroid prospecting company that looks for viable mineral reserves in space, and a domestic service designed to give parents back valuable me-time.

“When it comes to startups and entrepreneurship, we’re looking at it from both the domestic perspective, and the global perspective,” she said.

From a domestic point of view, the program is looking at how the university participates in the local startup ecosystem, and what sort of corporate partnerships should be involved. Microsoft is already on board as a partner in the Founder Lab program.

From a global perspective, the university is working with other international educational institutions and venture capital firms. A partnership has been developed with Berkley University in the US, with the international entrepreneurship program, designed to give startups with international aspirations a ‘soft landing’ when they arrive.

“These partnerships ensure the startups get the benefits of being in an international environment, and they’re not just stumbling around,” she said.

Jobs and innovation for the future

The entrepreneurship mindset that UNSW wants to instill in staff and students has a broader application to the Australian economy, and in particular to the future of jobs.

Ms Zanich said that there needed to be a change in the nature of the conversation around jobs in Australia, particularly with the rise of digitisation, automation and machine intelligence.

“There needs to be some leadership here, and a change in the dialogue,” she said. “[Governments] need to discuss the changing nature of jobs, and not lead with the rhetoric around jobs are going to be lost.”

We already know the workforce is morphing rapidly, she said, and that as students graduate there’s going to be a different workforce. This workforce is one where jobs for life don’t exist, and people could have three jobs in a week, let alone in the course of a decade.

“As a nation, we still don’t have any real vision about that,” she observed.

This is why an entrepreneurial outlook is vital for Australians, because those people with that view will be able to adapt and learn, and adjust to the jobs that are coming in the future.

“Right now the government has some focus in digital initiatives, such as promoting STEM, but the piece that is missing is the entrepreneurial skills, the softer skills and the founder focus,” she said.

“We need to cater for the next generation, and deliver students with the experience and abilities to determine, or create their own career outcome.”

Those people with an entrepreneurial mindset will go on to found start-ups, which are an increasingly valuable part of the economy, or become great leaders in industry.

“The debate needs to be lifted to the top levels of the country,” she said. “The focus on technology and innovation is absolutely vital for the ongoing prosperity of this country.”

The University of New South Wales is a valued partner of InnovationAus.com and a co-presenter of the Budget Insider 2018event being held on the evening of May 8 to coincide with Treasurer Scott Morrison's third federal budget. Seats are limited so please book here to attend this policy soiree