#129 Entrepreneurship Tips from Australian Shark, Steve Baxter – Partner & Investor
As part of our Innovation and Entrepreneurship series, we have Steve Baxter. He is an investor, a partner at TEN13, and you may also know him as one of the sharks from the show Shark Tank in Australia. His journey in entrepreneurship and investments began over 25 years ago when he started his first company in the telecommunications area. He sold his second business in 2010 and went on to become an investor. Currently, he has an existing portfolio of over 30 companies.
In this episode, Steve shares with us the knowledge he acquired along the way as he went from being an entrepreneur to an investor. He advises everyone in start-ups to make the most of their relationship with their investors, whenever that’s possible, and to take advantage of their investor’s experience to boost their company. Felipe tells his own story of starting a business, and the things he thinks he could have done better regarding his relationship with investors.
Different events in Steve’s life helped him become a critical thinker. For example, he was 15 years old when he went to the army, he worked at Google in the US for a year, he was Queensland Chief Entrepreneur for three years, he does mentorships and is also a qualified pilot. Steve has several investments in the US and he draws a comparison between the start-up scene there and in Australia.
Stay tuned as Steve shares his life experience and provides both tips and inspiration for anyone thinking of starting their own business or already working in their start-up.
Enjoy the show!
We speak about:
[4:19] Changes between being an entrepreneur and an investor.
[8:39] What does the investor due diligence process look like?
[12:20] What does the engagement [with the startup] look like for you once the investment has been made?
[16:10] Felipe talks about his first startup experience, relationships with investors and things he could have done better.
[17:18]What advice do you give to people like me who get personal?
[19:15] How was your first investment outside of telco?
[25:30] How have you seen lean startup affect investment space and ideas coming out of Silicon Valley?
[27:45] What are your thoughts on corporates getting into startup land?
[39:45] Being a critical thinker and not afraid to share it – when did your personality take that turn?
[43:50] Critical thinking – was that there from the start?
[56:45] What does good execution in a business look like?
Resources:
Steve’s Website: https://www.stevebaxter.com.au/
Steve’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-baxter-021448/
Steve’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbxr
TEN13 on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ten13/
TEN13’s Website: https://www.ten13.com.au/
Quotes:
“Really bad investments are easy to find… if you can sell to your customers it is a far easier way forward.”
“If you're doing it and you know it's wrong, stop it and do anything else.”
“The thing about bad news is when you hide it, it just doesn't get any better.”
“You're either shooting the lights out or shooting your brains out”
“I've been trying to understand my points of view on things. I've found Twitter to be unbelievable at that. What you do is you roll a hand grenade into the debate and see what happens, essentially. There's no shortage of opinions in that cesspit.”
“Too many people have been cowed into not actually saying what they're thinking and actually being cowed into using someone else's words”
“When the information changes if you don't change your mind then I think you're mad.”
“Networking doesn't scale, unfortunately.”
“We have to see that they have data that's driving their decision making”
We are now on YouTube! Watch the episode here: https://youtu.be/lbkbzERxjJE
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