The Great Australian Rip-off: What we are doing to #StopTheRipOff

I can’t believe that it’s already the end of March! I didn’t even do a New Years post! Have I been that busy? Yes, yes I have!

It’s been incredibly rewarding and challenging working full-time as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Kyco Australia. As much as I would like to say that it’s been smooth sailing with nothing but wins but that has not been the case. We have suffered many setbacks and even forward steps often resulted in us going backwards. That is, however, the reality of startup life with the journey being more of a zigzag then a straight line.

Onwards with new partners and a new plan! On Thursday the 24th of March we launched The Great Australian Rip Off campaign to expose the secret payments and incentives many Australians don’t realise are driving up their cost of living for services including electricity and the internet. 

 Insurers have admitted secret commissions paid to commercial comparison websites – some as high as 40 to 60 per cent – end up being passed on to most Australians through higher premiums. Our startup was created to address the market inefficiency born from this rip-off. So it makes sense for us to shine a light on the problem. So join us to #StopTheRipOff, your wallet will thank you!

UQ Ventures Entrepreneurship Bootcamp - MVP Development + Kalvitree

A new experience for December and Thursday, I got to have a nice “fireside chat” style session with Marvin Fox for the MVP Development Workshop as part of the UQ Ventures Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Business Bootcamp for Australian alumni and ex-pats in Mumbai. The BootCamp is delivered in partnership with the Australian Consulate-General in Mumbai.

The session went for two and half hours, during which I discussed my experience developing MVPs, pitfalls when developing and releasing MVPs, finally engaging in the philosophical discussion of what even is an MVP!

It was a great experience and I hope to do more of these types of sessions and give back to the university and startup communities in 2022.

Another thing I am looking forward to in 2022 is continuing to assist in the growth and development of Kalvitree as their tech advisor on their brain trust. Subha Chari and the Kalvitree team had a big win recently by being chosen as one of the recipients of the Techvista, Catalysr Migrapreneur Activate Grant (MAG). Here’s hoping for more good things for Kalvitree in the new year to come!

Kyco is LIVE!!!

I have a contract dated from May 2019 hiring me as the chief of technology with the holding company of what is now Kyco Australia. It’s been a long journey but we are finally live! The Kyco website soft-launched on the 18th of November and officially went “live” on the 22nd of November when our advertising campaign kicked into gear.

The launch party was on the 24th of November at the Cielo Rooftop bar! It was a bit thank you to everybody who helped us get here. Our marketing company, our developers, our lawyers and more! The whole team was there and a good time was had by all!

It was also the day for the RiverPitch Live 2021 and I bought in-person tickets. But it was raining and I wasn’t feeling 100% so I didn’t end up going. I tried to catch the live stream but that didn’t happen. So, I ended up not going to the majority of the events I signed up for and paid tickets for but that’s life sometimes!

The important thing is that Kyco is now fighting the good fight against Comparasites and I am happy to be on the team! Why not join us?

Not to bury the lead, but I am also now full time with Kyco as their Chief Technology Officer. What that means is that I will not be taking on new clients for Start with Tinni for the foreseeable future. But I’ll still be helping existing clients and one off events like my recent speaking engagement! That was a lot of fun and I wouldn’t mind doing more but for now, Kyco is my main focus.

October Ends with Headshots!

October did not bring everything I was expecting and it had a lot more downs than I wanted. But I managed to finally get around to moving my business name, Start with Tinni, to a new ABN. Also, and more excitingly, I got new professional headshots!

My last set of good headshots were done through Josari. I love them but they were due for a change. If only because there was a pandemic between the headshots and now! Also, I plan to do some marketing for my consulting business come 2022. So it made sense to update my images.

I got three shots done:

1. A plain headshot with a nice background, you can see it on my “career summary” page

2. The image with this post that I hope conveys that I am Brisbane based without having to say it!

3. Lastly, a meeting short that I felt it was better to have than not but I suspect my uses for that will be super limited

I hope the new professional headshots and my new business structure will help me grow my business in the new year. In the meantime, it’s head down and working hard towards Kyco “go live” and Christmas sales for Sharka Bosakova!

September Update: Kyco, Mentoring for Catalysr and Josari

By the time this post is published Kyco would have been at its new home in Plumridge House for over a week and what a week it has been! You can really tell that we are hurtling toward “Go Live” on the 1st of November.

I am glad we are no longer homeless vagabonds, borrowing boardrooms and spare offices from our partners. We have needed an office for some time now but we had some false starts and had to shift last minute. But having experienced Plumridge House before with Birnam Wood, I can honestly say that we are in good professional hands and can now settle in, put our head down and do work.

As I said, "Go Live” for Kyco is on the 1st of November. So watch this space for updates!

While I do my part for the Kyco “Go Live”, I am also volunteering as a mentor for Catalysr’s Accelerator. The first mentoring session was on the 15th of September. There were some familiar faces among the founders as some were graduates of the Catalysr Pre-Accelerator, including Kalvitree, which was in the cohort I was leading as 1 of 2 chapter leads. Also, since the pre-accelerator, I have joined the Kalvitree advisory panel. So here’s hoping Kalvitree has a successful accelerator journey.

Lastly, unfortunately, Josari’s paid marketing campaign has not had the traction that we wanted on Facebook and Paul has asked the marketing agency to switch focus to LinkedIn. I hope it performs better on LinkedIn. We have some great advisors ready to go, I think they can add some great value to small businesses and startups everywhere!