DreamPushers

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Startup Grind Melbourne Hosts Patrick Llewellyn (Founder // 99Designs)

THIS IS A PAID EVENT PURCHASE YOUR TICKET HERE

Patrick Llewellyn, 99Designs

Patrick Llewellyn joined 99designs, the world’s largest graphic design marketplace, in 2009 after a decade advising Australian technology and media companies at NexTec Strategic Capital. In 2010 he moved to San Francisco to open a U.S. office and oversee U.S. and international expansion. Shortly after being appointed CEO in January 2011, Llewellyn guided 99designs to a $35 million first-round capital investment led by Accel Partners (Facebook, Dropbox, Etsy). He has since launched 99designs’ European headquarters in Berlin as well as localized-language sites in Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Latin America, and has grown the company from a handful of staff to more than 80 in San Francisco, Melbourne, Berlin, Paris and London. To date, 99designs has hosted more than 210,000 graphic design contests and paid out more than $50 million to its community of 220,000 designers around the world. About 99designs 99designs is the world’s largest online graphic design marketplace, connecting businesses looking for design work with more than 220,000 graphic designers from 192 countries around the world. Businesses can source graphic design work quickly and affordably by launching design contests to the community, working 1-on-1 with individual designers, or purchasing design templates from 99designs’ readymade logo store. The company was co-founded by serial entrepreneurs Mark Harbottle and Matt Mickiewicz (SitePoint, Flippa), and is backed by Accel Partners and angel investors Michael Dearing (eBay, Harrison Metal), Dave Goldberg (Survey Monkey), Stewart Butterfield (Flickr, Tiny Speck) and Anthony Casalena (Squarespace). To learn more about 99designs visit 99designs.com.au.

Buy tickets here on Meetup or via Eventbrite

Agenda

6:00 Networking and Food
7:00 Fireside Chat
8:00 Networking

Hosted By Chris Joannou, Director of Startup Grind Melbourne

Chris is a serial entrepreneur with businesses in everything from Tech to Skateboards. CEO and Founder of DreamPushers showcasing startups and visionaries, and Perceptar a live mobile to mobile video application. Outside of Tech he runs an ‘innovative private label’ food and beverage business that primarily imports for the Retail and Foodservice markets within the Asia-Pacific.
Email: Chris@startupgrind.com | Twitter: @DreamPushers

Global Partners

Google App Engine

Google is offering startups $1,000 of credit to start building applications on Google App Engine. App Engine is a development platform that makes applications easy to write, simple to scale, and trivial to manage. Use verification code: SGAE-02

Local Partners

99Designs

99Designs – Design Marketplace // Proudly Supports Startup Grind Melbourne!

Perceptar

Experience the world from a new perspective – Perceptar. Live Mobile to Mobile Video Sharing and Stream Jumping!

Zendesk

Zendesk // The ultimate customer service software proudly supports Startup Grind Melbourne.

What is Startup Grind?

Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. We host monthly events in more than 40 cities and 20 countries featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share personal stories and lessons learned on the road to building great companies. Our monthly fireside chat interviews, startup mixers and annual conferences provide ample opportunities to connect with amazing startups and the people behind them, tap into a strong support network, form meaningful connections and gain inspiration for the startup journey ahead. For more information visit StartupGrind.com or follow us on twitter @StartupGrind.

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TYNKER // TEACHES CHILDREN TO CODE THROUGH GAMES

As a kid growing up with games I didn’t learn much more than the value of a mushroom or star! Actually that is not true, collecting gold coins was perhaps also a pre-cursor to my world view on capitalism =)

Fortunately for us, Tynker a computing platform designed to help teach kids programming skills by playing games now exists. Great idea right? I mean, make something fun and kids will want to engage with it, make learning an invaluable skill the byproduct of playing a game , wel…that has real appeal as a tool for education and big venture capital firms agree.

Tynker has raised $3.2million in seed funding from 500 Startups, Felicis Ventures, and GSV Advisors, to name a few.

tynker

Programming knowledge in today’s world goes far beyond benefits for the IT sector, and learning such an invaluable skill at such a young age means that your child will be well-equipped for employment in the digital age, regardless of the profession they pursue.

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A Guide to Melbourne’s Startup Scene

Startups Melbourne
 

If you didn’t know already I live in Melbourne and I love Startups :) When I searched ‘Startup Melbourne’ guess what ranked #1? Surprise,Surprise – StartupMelbourne.com (Actually ranks number 2 now). Anyway, the site had been inactive for awhile and I wanted to revive it for two reasons, first I like that it was originally created by someone that was living here and working on startups in Melbourne it has history, and in the digital world that is rare. Austrian Erik Unger genuinely wanted to help people with his list of resources, and I wanted to continue that legacy.

Second, I thought it was needed – just a simple overview of the city, a guide to how we do things here, to tell you about local events (no one does this better than The Fetch, so that was just a link), the startups we are proud of, what makes us special and a list of resources for both locals, or people spending sometime here.

Showcase our local startup scene.

It was also a way for me to write about local start issues or just about my own personal experiences in depth, so people don’t have to hear me rant about startups on DreamPushers. DreamPushers is about Startups and Visionaries yes, but more so just about highlighting cool apps and websites to check out, not how to build them and accelerate.

DreamPushers is a lifestyle,  - Startup Melbourne is about Melbourne Startups, Learning, And Networking.

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MEET PRODUCER // BONES EL GALACTICO

bones

whoisboneselgalactico

Bones El Galactico is a Producer, Creator, Writer, Artist, Designer.

Describe your Style

Musically my style varies. One day I can wake up and work on Merengue or Reggaeton.

The next I’ll be completely sucked into my electronic work. I am not boxed into any package.

Everything is unpredictable.

What do you love about what you do?

The process of having an idea or concept, and bringing it to life.

Its an amazing feeling.   Creation.

Story about someone that loved your work  

My Momma loves my music = True Story.

Story about someone you worked with that truly inspired you. 

 When i was like 16 going on 17 I met my dude Fuego. (@Unavainaloca1).

Ok so at the time I was brand new to producing, and I saw all the noise he was making within the latin world. That being said, I had an opportunity to

work with him. So, I had a perception of him musically and the beats I had prepared for him were probably something he’d expect. He heard some other stuff I had

with electronic influences and he picked those over what I had prepared. We have been working together ever since, and he is like a brother to me.

The moral of the story is, I learned that I should just show all my ideas, no matter how crazy they may seem.

A personal Message to anyone that hates your work :)

God bless you.

What is your dream?

To have a positive effect on People through music and art.

Advice on living the dream?

Just be yourself, and take a leap at your dream. It’s better to have tried than to wonder “what if” later!

Favourite Artists? Why?

Growing up I was a die-hard Neptunes & N.E.R.D fan……   Aside from their amazing catalog , I admired the fact that they were what I called “The ultimate genre-jumpers” .

One second they’d be doing a song with hip-hops greatest, the next they’d be working with like, Spymob, or working on their own act with N.E.R.D. You couldn’t predict what they would do next..

I felt the same way about Timbaland.

Plus, they’re from VA like me. The best producers come from VA.

Prince. – Needs no explanation.

Favourite Social Network?

Twitter , Instagram.

Favourite Quote?

I don’t have one.

Any tattoos? Meaning to you.

No Tattoos.

3 Favourite Websites

CNN.com

NBA.com

BonesElGalactico.com

 

3 Favourite Brands (clothing / cars / whatever – brands you identify with)

You’ll probably catch me in Bape or Givenchy, I Love certain BBC pieces. Usually something with the season 0 logo.

 

What track is on repeat at the moment for Bones El Galactico?

INXS – Need You Tonight.

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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ASK BILL MURRAY FOR AN AUTOGRAPH?

New {fake} Trailer from David Walton Smith on Vimeo.

You have to love Bill Murray! The guy is a legend, and this story only reaffirms that in my opinion. So these guys ask Bill Murray for an autograph, but instead of giving them an autograph he gets another guy to film them all doing a slow-motion walk together :)

Who wouldn’t want a small clip of walking slow motion next to Bill Murray? :) These guys turned it into a mini-movie trailer, definitely much nicer than a pieces of paper with a signature on it!

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STYLE FOR ALL GALAXIES

daniel_simon

Futuristic concept designer Daniel Simon is behind some of the greatest concept cars and automobiles from Hollywood blockbusters Captain America and Tron.

His work for clients Formula 1, Bugatti, Lotus, and Lamborghini has made him one of the most sought after designers worldwide, in fact it’s beyond this world! The title for this post is actually his tagline and for good reason..Daniel’s designs (and ‘Cosmic Motors’) are from another time, they take you to a new and exciting world, full of possibility which is absolutely critical for automotive innovation, and a perfect fit for Hollywood.

It is this wow factor that has become his trademark. To check out his amazing body of work click here.

tron_concept

captainamerica_danielsimon

daniel_simon_bike

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ZENDESK MAKING THE HELPDESK SEXY (STARTUP GRIND ARTICLE)

Sometimes the biggest problems out there in startup land that are yet to be solved aren’t that sexy, Mikkel from Zendesk knew that “working on a helpdesk won’t get you the girls” but he also knew that solving big market problems comes with a chance to be extremely profitable.

Companies were investing heavily in helpdesk infrastructure only to find the cheapest employees possible (usually outsourced) to be their interface with their customers. Sounds crazy right? But you are all familiar with this scenario.

At a time when a customer is in obvious need to be shown support it just wasn’t there and that meant unhappy customers. Unhappy customers of course ultimately leads to a loss of business.

This was the opportunity that Zendesk Founder Mikkel Svane pounced on, and in a candid and entertaining fireside chat enlightened us on how his business developed to solve this problem and how he tackled it.

I might also point out that recently Derek, our CEO and Founder retweeted a story from Techcrunch highlighting the tremendous opportunity ($192 Billion Market) that exists in government. So while I never advocate starting a business purely for financial gains and without passion, I am sure that some of you out there maybe just have a big idea that could work in this market and wanted to give you something to think about. The truth is opportunities come in all shapes and sizes and don’t necessarily have to be as sexy as entertainment, mobile, or social media as was the case with Zendesk, so be sure to take note on any frustrations you may have on a daily basis.  At the end of the day if you genuinely set out to truly help improve people’s lives in one way or another the money will come with time, persistence but most importantly listening to your customers.

 Zendesk built a business around it!

Mikkel’s story was extremely powerful to me for the simple fact that he had real world problems, fights with co-founders, venture capitalists that shut their door in his face, all of these things that we seem to forget when we see someone that has achieved so much in such a short timeframe. The fact is that we are all human, and each and every successful entrepreneur comes with a unique set of tales that more often than not involved tremendous struggle and sacrifice on their way to the top… I hope you enjoy the story of Zendesk.

(Article I wrote for Startup Grind)

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THE FUN THEORY BY VOLKSWAGEN

The Clever people over at Volkswagen are working on some very interesting stuff, I came across this site while I was searching ‘gamification’, which is a bit of a buzz word in the startup world but for good reason. People love to play games, it really is that simple, so if you can add elements of gaming to your business, even its management, it will increase productivity and engagement in your product.

Think..you have to complete a particular mission to make it to the next level, that kind of thing. Anyway, Volkswagen have been running a series of experiments to test their ‘fun theory‘ basically making mundane activities (like recycling and choosing the stairs over the escalator) – fun! =) Basically proving the fact that people will engage in just about anything if you can make it fun. Just watch…you will love this video!

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TRANSFORM THE OUTDOORS INTO YOUR PLAYGROUND

dtv_shredder

Perhaps you look back at the fun you had with your skateboard and reminisce? Maybe think your a little too old or don’t have the energy to skate? Well problem solved, because this one is definitely not for kids! Meet the DTV Shredder all terrain vehicle (for lack of a better description) that you stand on and can tackle any surface including snow. Jump on this thing, hold on to the handle bars and take off. I call this a big boys toy! And it definitely looks like a lot more fun than a skateboard = )