alan ramadan monash university graduate #7770904 bsc ...mams.rmit.edu.au/cqrkmawx8kq6.pdfalan...

Adventures in capitalism

Alan RamadanMonash University Graduate #7770904BSc (Comp Sci, Applied Maths) 1983

Agenda

Unnatural Liaison - An Entrepreneur in Australia in the 80’s and early 90’sAmerica’s Cup, Stanford and QuokkaHyper Growth IPO - dream or nightmare?Shit HappensBest is Yet to comeLessons Learned

Unnatural Liaison - An Entrepreneur in Australia during the 80’s and early 90’s

Talking about the period of 1983-199210 Years in Australian Business with BHP, BKS and OzWareSuccess and failureIn a small pond with big ideasThe inevitable draw of High Tech and Silicon Valley

The turning point - the America’s Cup and John Bertrand’s return

Playing on a world stage– A technology competition at the highest

level– Working with the worlds best– Benchmarking the worlds best McLaren

and BMWSomething weird is happening– People get off on this stuff!

Sun World 95 - what happened while I was away playing with boats?

Stanford Uni - it all makes sense

Thanks to George Foster, I attended the Executive Program for Growing Companies in 1995All my business experiences came together - successes, failures, questionsNetscape’s IPO (we were all wrong)Yahoo two doors down the hallThe “ah ha” moment and Hoover tower

What the XXXX is a Quokka anyhow?

A Kangaroo?A Rat?A Sports Entertainment Company?Huh?

Rosetta Stone

The Whitbread - proof point

Scrambling and early stage fundingCan we do this from Melbourne?Establishing an office in SFOThe missing Zero (4,000,000 not 200,000)Wall Street Journal - for the first time in history a sport is covered better on the Internet that by traditional media

OK now lets build a business

The Quokka Sports NetworkNew sports - Action, Motor Sports– Marathon de Sables– First Ascent– CART– Moto Grand Prix

The Olympics & NBC - I don’t believe itMore Oxygen - Series B, C

Hyper Growth

Keeping it together when every operating metric is exploding:– Headcount & DNA– Funding requirements– Valuation– Audience & Revenue

Exploding Headcount

FTE’s at the end of each year

297

360

200099989796

118

4017

Growing Funding Needs

$22 Mil

$38 Mil

CBASeed

$6 Mil$1 Mil

Series

Cumulative Capital Raised

Growing Valuation

$132 Mil

$320 Mil

Pre IPO 99

989796

$36 Mil$4 Mil

Growing Reach

681,000

Growth Rate: 75% per quarter

1999

Net

wor

k La

unch

1.25 Mil

2000MarDecSeptJunMar

Q3 98 Q4 98 Q1 99 Q2 99 Q3 99 Q4 99 Q1 00 Q2 00

Growing Revenues

Total Revenues(millions)

Net

wor

k La

unch

$.5 $.9

$2.6 $3.0

$.8

$6.7SponsorshipAdvertising

ConsumerContent

$9.5$10.4

Phases of development

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Dec-

95

Apr-9

6

Aug-

96

Dec-

96

Apr-9

7

Aug-

97

Dec-

97

Apr-9

8

Aug-

98

Dec-

98

Apr-9

9

Aug-

99

Dec-

99

Apr-0

0

Aug-

00

Dec-

00

Apr-0

1

Star

tup

Proo

f of

Con

cept

Scal

ing

IPO

Post

IPO

Dot

com

cras

h

1 2 3 4 5 6

Shit Happens

1995 - oneAustralia II Sank1997 - Whitbread servers died1999 - IPO stumbled2000 - Internet Stocks tank2001 - Terrorist attacks and world turmoil

oneAustralia 1995

Internet Stocks head south andtake us with them...

Sydney 2000 Olympics coverage

Sydney 2000 - the first complete Olympic coverage in conjunction with NBC

Rated #1 by ESPN magazineRated #1 by Sports IllustratedRated #1 by Media Metrics

Live Coverage (Olympic Mtn. Biking)

Live Viewers (Olympic Rowing)

Analysis - Olympic Track & Field

Analysis - Olympic Track & Field

Analysis - Olympic Diving

What’s next

BroadbandInteractive TVHDTVWireless

future (prototype DBS broadband display)

future (Interactive TV display)

future (broad-band HDTV display)

future (narrow-band PDA display)

A few lessons

#1 - Can Do#2 - the Australian Psyche#3 - be in the center of the action#4 - focus

Lesson #1 - Can Do

There is absolutely no reason why you can’t succeed in the high tech industryAustralians are smart, educated, hard working and innovativeBe confidentLearn to networkTake risks

Lesson #2 - You have to unlearn stuff

Australian psyche is a problem to be overcome– Its OK to fail - its an essential part of

long term success– Big picture is OK but long term value

comes from focus and executionShe’ll be right mate is valuable only in the very early stagesQuickly hire people smarter than yourself otherwise you can’t scale beyond your limits

Lesson #3 - Be connected to the big market & the center of action

The US market is 30X the Oz marketSilicon Valley is on a run away– 60% of the Worlds Venture Capital– 80% of the Worlds successful “early stage

experience” - Grey hair• Board Members• Finance and Legal Counsel• Advisors and Mentors

Its very hard to do it from Melbourne or Sydney without a lot of travel...It requires a HUGE commitment from you and your family

Lesson #4 - Stay focussed

Stay true to your vision and continually refine (not enlarge) your focus and overpower the challenges with twice as many resources as you think are necessary At the end of the day you are building a long term sustainable businessDon’t look behind you - its uglyAs Sy Kaufmann says - Al, at the end of the day if you keep executing the “street” will eventually get it