10 Aussie digital entrepreneurs with stars and stripes in their eyes

Home-grown digital entrepreneurs are storming the world’s most difficult IT market, the US. BRAD HOWARTH runs through 10 stand-outs.

By Brad Howarth

Home-grown digital entrepreneurs are storming the world’s most difficult IT market, the US. Here are 10 stand-outs.

The US market for information technology and digital media is an order of magnitude larger than Australia, and each year attracts a few dozen Australian entrepreneurs willing to chance their hand in this highly competitive market.

Some struggle to gain a foothold, others fail altogether. And every year a handful of Australians prevail, and go on to thrive.

If the comparative size of the US market is enormous, so too are the risks and difficulties in getting established there. But then so too are the rewards.

Over the last year SmartCompany has highlighted the success of many of Australia’s best and emerging entrepreneurs in the information technology and digital media sectors. The following is a listing of 10 who have survived and prospered in the US, sometimes the second time around.

They are helping to lay the groundwork for a new batch of market debutants.

1. Simon Arkell: Amazing Technologies

Simon Arkell’s transition to the US was probably not made easier by his experience as a two-time Olympian and Commonwealth champion pole-volter in the early 1990s. But his background in investment banking and four years working with early and mid-stage IT companies at the boutique investment banking firm Gramercy Venture Advisors definitely would have helped.

In 1998 he co-founded, spun off and successfully funded the US-based web application tools company Versifi, which was sold to a Belgian firm in 2001 for close to $US50 million. Now he is president of Amazing Technologies, a highly-acquisitive supplier of enterprise software systems with 2007 revenue of $US45 million.

2. Simon Anderson: Authenticlick and Ocean Avenue Ventures

A corporate and commercial lawyer by training, Anderson’s entre into the US came as a general partner for the venture capital firm Allen & Buckeridge during the dot-com boom.

From there he joined Affinity Internet, a provider of web hosting ecommerce and online marketing services that was sold to Hostway Corporation in April 2007.

His next venture was as vice president of strategy and business development at Authenticlick, which provides web traffic information. His latest venture however is as the managing director of Ocean Avenue Ventures, a private investment and consulting firm focusing on internet software, digital media and web analytics.

A would-be actor, Anderson even found time to make an appearance in the comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm alongside Seinfeld creator Larry David.

 Continues next page…

3. John Bailye: Dendrite

John Bailye’s launched Dendrite in Sydney in 1986 with the aim of bringing technology to the somewhat antiquated field of pharmaceutical sales. He had seen first-hand the chance to introduce automation to the profession through a previous business providing market research on doctors’ prescribing patterns.

In 1987 he moved to the US, and in May 2007 sold Dendrite International for $US750 million to the French company Cegedim, where he remains as chief executive officer of the Cegedim Dendrite division.

4. Jason Hart: Protocom Development and ActivIdentity

Jason Hart founded the security technology company Protocom Development Systems in Canberra in 1997, and over the next decade sold its password management products to clients including the US Federal Reserve Bank, British Telecom and British American Tobacco.

He was subsequently named the Ernst & Young Australian Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2002. In August 2005 he oversaw the reverse-merger of Protocom into the Nasdaq-listed company ActivIdentity, and served as chief executive officer of the company from February 2006 to November 2007.

He continues to hold a seat on the board and chairs its strategy committee. He also has a new start-up on the go – still in stealth mode – along with a Californian vineyard.

5. David and Kelli Fox: Astrology.com and The Astrologer

David Fox first became interested in ecommerce in 1995, but it wasn’t until a year later, when he began selling his wife Kelli’s astrological charts on the internet, that their fortune would take a turn even they couldn’t predict.

That odd pairing led to the creation of Astrology.com, and the eventual sale of the business to the San Francisco-based online portal iVillage in early 1999 in a deal worth around $US30 million. The couple have stayed in San Francisco and since launched a new company, The Astrologer, which uses web technologies to distribute astrological services.

Continues next page…

6. Stephen Kirkby: Maxamine

It’s been a long road for Stephen Kirkby, the co-founder and chief executive of Maxamine, a company that provides testing and optimisation services to help companies improve the marketing effectiveness of their websites.

From its inception in May 1997, he took the company into Europe and the US, eventually leading to its sale to Accenture in February this year for an undisclosed sum. Kirkby was also named by Ernst & Young as the Entrepreneur of the Year for Technology, Communications, and E-Commerce Life Sciences in 2003.

7. Phillip Merrick: webMethods and VisualCV

Phillip Merrick rode the heights of the dot-com boom with his Virginia-based company webMethods, reporting the strongest revenue growth of any US software company from 1998 to 2002, and the most successful software company IPO up until February 2000.

But the momentum couldn’t be maintained, and Merrick left the company in October 2004, before the company was sold to German company Software AG in April 2007. Now he is back with his new business, VisualCV. The goal of the new company is to provide an online replacement for resumes, with complete control and privacy for the user. It has already attracted the attention of some big hitters in the recruitment industry.

8. Andrew Nash: Intersect Software and Pseuds

Andrew Nash’s career highlights include a period as the chief executive of Deloitte Consulting in Australia to senior roles and a board position with the Dutch software maker Baan.

Since January 2000 he has launched and held roles in numerous start-ups in the US, most recently as the acting chief executive of Intersect Software, a maker of software for product development organisations. His latest role is as the founder and chief executive of Pseuds, an internet company still operating in stealth mode.

Continues next page…

9. Alan Ramadan: Quokka Sports and Adobe

Quokka was one of those companies that seemed like a good idea the heady days of the dot-com bubble but was probably a decade ahead of its time. The market – and advertisers – weren’t ready for a rich media sports portal online, and the company he founded in 1996 collapsed in the dot-com crash.

Ramadan bounced back to become a chief marketing officer at the internet software tools maker Macromedia (creator of Flash) in 2001, and today is senior vice president for the mobile and device solutions business unit at the company that acquired it, Adobe.

10. Adrian Turner: Mocana

Adrian Turner’s first claim to entrepreneurial fame came in 1996 with the rollout of 225 of the first coin-operated internet kiosks in Australia. From there he move to Philips Electronics’ connected consumer and business devices unit, and then became the US west coast-based head of business development and alliances for the enterprise communications company Kenamea.

In 2002 he founded Mocana in San Francisco, creating a company focusing on the security of applications and services for internet-attached devices.

And these are not all – Australia has also produced:

Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
Nam Do and Le Tran
Steven Goh
Larry Marshall
Con Nikolouzakis
Nik Cubrilovic
Ben Keighran
Martin Wells