2008 Events - Innovation Bay |  | Ryan Junee, Omnisio/YouTube
|  Tuesday 25 November 2008 at 630pm
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| Listen to an interview with Ryan that our own Randal leeb-du Toit conducted back in May 08
| This was a dinner with a true internet entrepreneur, Ryan Junee.
Ryan co-founded Omnisio about a year ago, and, within 8 months had sold it to YouTube/Google for $15m and a plum job. Ryan has now assumed the role of Product Manager at YouTube, responsible for community engagement.
We have a new venue, Table for 20, which is absolutely fantastic.
As the SMH put in in a recent article on him:
"If you have a technology idea, don't dawdle or doodle. Move to Silicon Valley and sell it to Google."
As CEO and Co-Founder of Omnisio, Ryan was responsible for driving the company's strategic direction and helping to push the envelope in online video innovation.
Prior to Omnisio, Ryan was Director of Strategic Partnerships for venture-backed startup Sensory Networks. As the first employee, Ryan helped guide the company through its exciting first four years of growth, and worked in a variety of roles from engineering to product management, marketing and business development.
Ryan sits on the executive committee of the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab - a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting the growth and success of high-tech entrepreneurial ventures. He also maintains a weekly email newsletter for BASES that lists entrepreneurial events in the bay area, and is read by 4,500 subscribers.
Ryan dropped out of the PhD program in Electrical Engineering at Stanford to pursue his passion for high-tech startups. He holds a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford, as well as Bachelor's degrees in Computer Engineering, Finance and Commercial Law from the University of Sydney.
Ryan lives in silicon valley, and in his spare time enjoys flying a Cessna 172 and writing music.
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| | | Tristen Langley, Southern Cross Venture Partners
| (brought to you by Viocorp)
| Thursday 6th November 2008
Breakfast - 730am till 9am
| Venue: Slide, 41 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst
| Tristen Langley presented at our breakfast event on Thursday 6th November at 7:30am.
Tristen has worked with Skype as their North American Business Development and Marketing Manager, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, www.dfj.com (one of the world’s leading technology focused venture firms) and is currently Investment Director at Southern Cross Venture Partners, www.sxvp.com.
Tristen whilst at DFJ has been proud to back over 500 companies across many sectors including such industry changing successes such as Hotmail (acquired by Microsoft), Baidu, Skype (acquired by eBay), United Online, Overture (acquired by Yahoo), Athenahealth, EnerNOC, TicketsNow (acquired by TicketMaster), Feedburner (acquired by Google), Interwoven, Four11 (acquired by Yahoo), Parametric, and Digidesign (acquired by Avid) where she initiated the firm’s investment in and led the due diligence for Skype Technologies (sold to eBay for US$2.6 billion), a peer-to-peer communications firm. She was also involved with DFJ’s portfolio companies, Xfire (sold to Viacom for $100M), Visto (wireless email), Anagran (flow routing), abazab (video telephony) and Media Lario (lithography optics).
Prior to DFJ, Tristen was a Senior Associate with the Australian technology venture capital firm, Allen & Buckeridge (A&B). At A&B she led the firm’s investment in the CRC-spinout Wedgetail Communications (sold to Quest Software for US$57M), a security software firm. She joined Wedgetail as Manager, Operations & Planning, where she was engaged in sales, IP management and budget planning,
Tristen holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She completed her graduate studies in software engineering at the Fraunhofer IESE, Germany. She earned a bachelor of science (Honours) from the University of NSW and was the recipient of the University Medal
This breakfast will start commence at 730am and run to approximately 9am or when the conversation ends. A light breakfast, tea & coffee and juice will be provided. This event will be held at Slide Bar 41 Oxford St, Darlinghurst.
Come along and her her story and how she feels the Australian market is shaping up.
PRICE = $10 cash on the door.
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| | | Simon Baker, Realestate.com.au
| Monday 15 September 2008
Drinks 630pm
Dinner 715pm
| Venue: Slide, 41 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst
| Simon Baker, the man behind the stellar rise and rise of Realestate.com.au was our guest speaker for a dinner on Monday 15 September 2008.
Until recently Simon was the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the REA Group.
He joined realestate.com.au Ltd in 2001 and during his 7.5 years as CEO, the business increased revenues from $4 million to over $155 million, turned around a loss of $6m to an EBITDA profit of more than $30m, grew staff from 25 to over 750, and increased its market capitalisation from $8 million to $600 million.
Today the business operates 22 residential, commercial and holiday rentals sites in 10 countries - Australia, UK, Italy, UAE, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, parts of France and Germany, Belgium and New Zealand. These sites list 1.5m properties from 25,000 paying agents and are viewed by 9m people (UB's) each month. In addition the business publishes 8 print publications and 4 agent office software products.
Prior to becoming CEO, Mr Baker was Chief Business Development Officer at News Interactive, was Chief Technology Officer in a US start up and spent five years with McKinsey and Company providing strategic and organisational advice to Senior Management at major Australian and international companies.
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| | | Mike Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian
| (brought to you by Viocorp)
| Friday 25 July 2008
| Slide Bar, Sydney
| Mike Cannon-Brookes from Atlassian was our guest speaker for a breakfast on 25 July.
Mike is co-founder and CEO of Atlassian Pty Ltd an innovative, award-winning enterprise software company. As well as being frighteningly young and good-looking, Mike has been instrumental in building Atlassian into one of Australia's brightest technology exports. Amazingly, Mike (along with his co-founder Scott Farquhar) has done this with no external funding. Come along and hear this amazing and inspirational story in the unique Innovation Bay environment.
Atlassian produces tools that help technical and business teams collaborate, plan projects and build software. Based in Australia, Atlassian currently has over 10,000 enterprise customers around the globe and has been named one of the "Fastest Growing Companies" by both Deloitte and BRW Magazine.
Mike has received international recognition for his work including the Australian IT Professional of the Year in 2004 and being named Australian Entrepreneur Of The Year in 2006. Outside Atlassian, he is an active investor and advisor to a few technology-focused ventures, and participates in a number of open source projects.
His blog is entitled rebelutionary
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| | | Steven Marks and Rob Hazen - Guzman y Gomez
| Wednesday 25 June 2008
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| An awesome dinner with Steven Marks, founder of Guzman y Gomez, www.guzmanygomez.com.
With a passion for innovation and entrepreneurialism, Steven came to Australia leaving behind a successful business career in setting up hedge funds in NY and London.
On arriving in Australia Steven realised there was a lack of quality and healthy Mexican food, especially compared to his native New York. The fact that Mexican food has never succeeded to gain hold in the Australian market did not deter Steven but rather cemented his belief in the need for a healthy, quality focused Mexican fast food chain, such as Chipotle in the US (NYSE:CMG; Mkt Cap US$3bn).
Steven talked through his experiences in setting up Guzman y Gomez's three existing stores, with a fourth about to open and their recently expanded wholesale manufacturing store. How has it been possible to establish a Mexican food chain in Sydney with limited funds, no existing market and a need to change historical perceptions? This is a very exciting opportunity for the Innovation bay network to sit down with Steven on the cusp of a new brand identity within the Australian market and gain an understanding of how this all came about. Steven has not spoken about his experiences in public, which represents another Innovation bay exclusive.
Steven Marks, founder of GyG, is a former hedge fund manager and entrepreneur. Inspired by the success of US-based Chipotle (NYSE:CMG; mkt cap. US$3 billion), Qdoba and other "fast-casual" Mexican concepts, and the explosion of Mexican food across Europe, Steve recruited chefs from Mexico, Chipotle's Operations Manager Chris DeHuff, and founded GyG.
Steven, a native of New York, shared his experience of growing a retail food brand from scratch, the challenges of introducing a new segment to Australia's landscape of fast food, and the ability to inspire and attract great people and partners.
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