Chomp has received some solid coverage on TechCrunch and an interview with Robert Scoble (embedded below) in which Ben explains their value proposition:

This is really great news firstly for the Australian entrepreneurial ecosystem as it shows the calibre of the folks we are spawning and secondly for one of the most savvy young entrepreneurs I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with – Mike Cannon-Brookes. He has a bright future ahead!

I first wrote about Atlassian back in 2006, at which point they were doing about $15m in annual revenue. For the last financial year this had increase to $59 million.

You can listen to a talk Mike did in 2008 at Innovation Bay here.

More coverage: TechCrunch, Sydney Morning Herald

On the 40 minute drive I was wondering to myself – would there be a handful of stalwarts on hand for the paddle? Arriving at Pittwater I was blown away – both literally as the wind was up, and figuratively, as there were hundreds of paddlers on hand. All shapes and sizes, from surf boards through skis, SUPs through surfboards — all eager to show their support.

It was a tough paddle – my stand up board is a 10.6, which is great in the surf and as a hybrid on short flat water runs, but when the chop is up it gets very, very tricky. I was most stoked to not only finish the 5km course, but do it without falling in or having to revert to kneeling.

This video from Sean Smith, aka the Fatpaddler really sums up the paddle. I feature near the start of the paddle, but it’s the later sections where you can clearly see the level of chop on the water — great coverage!

Here’s hoping Pete makes a quick recovery.

As active angel investors (the group has invested multi millions of dollars to date), we see a lot of deals in different contexts and one thing we value above all is a quality pitch from entrepreneurs who are passionate and who have done their homework on their industry.

Our modus has been to ask entrepreneurs to submit an initial 90-second video pitch. That may not seem like a lot of time, but remember that most television ads only run for 29 seconds!

Those entrepreneurs who are chosen to actually present to the group at the quarterly dinners are given six minutes to pitch and may answer questions from the room for another six minutes.

Why all these time constraints and formats?

We’ve tried the unstructured, open ended approach and it simply does not work. Anyone can bang together a business plan or executive summary on a word processor and make it look good – but getting a message across via video in 90 seconds takes skill.

Standing in front of a room of 40 successful businesspeople and selling a business in six minutes takes further skill, discipline and practice.

Besides, investors have only so much bandwidth to hear from an individual entrepreneur and rattling on for 15 – 20 minutes won’t solidify your investment case, nor would it be fair on others who also want to garner the group’s attention.

What should your video be aiming to achieve?

One of the best comments made recently by one of our angels sums this up succintly:

“Short, sharp, punchy. Gives enough to establish credentials. There is enough in this quick summary to make me want to found our more.”

The videos we receive are placed on a private forum and members of the group are able to ask questions of the entrepreneurs who submitted them, and they have the ability to respond. From these comments (for the last round there were well over 300 comments) and the questions asked at the dinners, we’ve collated a set of Frequently Asked Questions, which I’ve set out below.

Entrepreneurs should know the answers to as many of these as possible and while they may not be able to cover off on each and every one in their videos, we would expect them to do so by the time they finish their six minute pitch.

THE ANGEL FAQs

PROBLEM/SOLUTION
How big is the problem you are trying to solve

What is your core value proposition

MARKET/CUSTOMERS
What is your customer make up – geographically and by industry

What is the return on investment (ROI) for customers

Can you give a bottom up outline of the market size rather than “a % of a $bn market”

How do you define your target segment, how many potential customers are there in this segment and what are they willing to pay for your product or service

What is the cost to acquire customers

If you are initially targeting a niche of early adopters, how will you get across to mass market adoption

Are there any regulatory or entrenched business practice barriers you need to overcome

Is there something about your space that means we need a local solution rather than a modified US solution

Are there any analogies you can use to explain your product, eg “the Farmville of Health Education” or “Groupon meets Zynga”

If you are initially targeting a niche of early adopters, how will you get across to mass market adoption

Are there any regulatory or entrenched business practice barriers you need to overcome

COMPETITION
What is your sustainable competitive advantage

Which are your major competitors and what do you do different

Not for everyone but: why are you best placed to win in this torturously overcrowded and undifferentiated space

While your product may in fact be different from others in the market, how do you get around the perception that it is the same as other products out there

TEAM/THE BUSINESS
Who owns the IP

Who will be on the team for executing

What are your views on the LeanStartup Model

What are the backgrounds of the founders

What is your backstory – how did you come to tackle this problem/market

Does your product exist already – if so, will you be able to demo it

BUSINESS MODEL
Outline some key figures – revenue predictions, staff

How do you make money, what is your revenue model

What is your distribution strategy

Are revenues primarily from product or services. How will that change in the future.

What are your plans for scaling the business (what are the requirements and obstacles to scale)

How are/will you handle the huge amounts of data that you need to gather

THE FUNDING NEED
How will you spend the money

What your investors should contribute in addition to money

THE DEAL
How much equity are you offering to Angels

What will equity split be

EXIT STRATEGY
What’s your exit strategy

One final point – don’t go asking investors to sign a non disclosure agreement. You’ll likely get short shrift.

I hope these pointers assist you in your quest for funding and good luck growing your businesses!

After preparing a yummy Cajun dinner on Saturday evening, I had a rare moment’s reflection and Tweeted:

Wondering where to stand up paddle tomoz – start of training for Hawkesbury Challenge…

You see, I’d earlier that day made the decision to attempt this infamous 111km overnight race in October. My tweet was picked up via Facebook by the Fat Paddler, Sean Smith, who responded with a suggestion – let’s hit the water at the Spit Bridge at 5h30am.

It’s heading into winter here in Australia so that means it’s pitch dark at that hour and likely to remain so until around 6am. Sitting in the comfort of my warm home after a delicious dinner and a glass of wine, made the decision too easy – sure thing, I replied, see you down there.

Waking the next morning as my alarm jangled my senses at 4h30am was way harder, but I was determined to do this thing! Driving the 20 minutes down to the Spit Bridge was an interesting mix of shaking off sleep and shrugging on a deeper determinedness – both being a challenge as the darkness was shrouded deeper than usual by steadily pouring rain.

I arrived at the water and sure enough the Fat Paddler was ready and waiting. After some initial trepidation as there were also rather fresh gusts of wind, I offloaded my stand up paddle board and got ready to paddle out. The local wild life, a school of about eight baby sting rays wallowing in the shallows, were my final welcoming committee as I paddled into the inky darkness and headed under the Spit Bridge and out onto Middle Harbour.

Guided by the Fat Paddler’s lights and the reflections on the water from surrounding houses we made our way further up the waterway. The rain kept falling intermittently, but thankfully the wind eased – paddling on choppy and dark water is a challenge on a 10.6 stand up paddle board. I made a mental note to pursue the acquisition of a 14 foot race board post haste!

I soon relaxed into the paddle, rhythmically slicing through the water took care of any natural instincts to question one’s sanity at being out there at such an early hour.

It was an awesome session, returning some four hours later to the Spit Bridge and one I definitely will do many times over as I build up towards the Hawkesbury Challenge.

For more on our adventure and some pictures of our journey make the jump over to the Fat Paddler’s site.

I love some of their comments at the end of the video :-

* “don’t get boxed in”

* “push your horizons further”

I love the point made by Charlie Crowe of C Squared: “A brand can be built over generations, but destroyed in 140 characters.”

Definitely worth keeping in mind!

The most poignant comment, though, was made by Kamel Oudi, Digital Media Director for Louise Vuitton France: “Each brand has a heart, a DNA.”

He urged brand custodians to follow their brand’s DNA ‘down the natural evolutionary path of your story, your brand and your people.’

He discussed the recent Journeys Awards, a crowdsourced campaign in which Louis Vuitton showcased emerging filmmakers following a brief from Wong Kar Wai. As pointed out on the mipblog:

The work was particularly meaningful because it demonstrates there’s a use for social media by luxury brands, which sometimes worry there’s no way to maintain exclusivity and cachet on democratic media. But with clear boundaries in place (for example, the same “journeys” text appeared in all film festival videos) and a clear communications strategy, users followed the tone set by Vuitton, speaking in the same artistic, ephemeral accent that the brand used.

Here’s the video of Sho Tsukikawa, which won the jury prize. Well worth watching: