{"id":38262,"date":"2023-10-20T14:55:16","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/a-prominent-aussie-entrepreneur-on-the-problems-with-todays-startups-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:55:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:55:16","slug":"a-prominent-aussie-entrepreneur-on-the-problems-with-todays-startups-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/a-prominent-aussie-entrepreneur-on-the-problems-with-todays-startups-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"A prominent Aussie entrepreneur on the problems with today’s startups – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Technology<\/div>\n

Many of today\u2019s startups aren\u2019t profitable and are overly reliant on external funding, prominent Australian entrepreneur and TechnologyOne founder Adrian Di Marco says.<\/p>\n

Di Marco has grown the tech company into a $1.3 billion publicly-listed entity across its 30-year life, and says the secret to his startup\u2019s longevity is a focus on sustainability and being profitable from the very beginning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so we could stand up on our own two feet,\u201d Di Marco tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This emphasis eventually paid off, with the company able to weather a lack of external funding during the GFC.<\/p>\n

But Di Marco says today\u2019s generation of startups too often plan for profitability in the future and seek external funding instead, leading to a lack of revenue streams and products that are sustainable in the long-term.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s dangerous to build a business [that\u2019s] reliant on investors continually coughing up funding,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Unless you\u2019re building a Facebook-like product where you\u2019re making a \u201cland grab\u201d to make it commercial later on, most founders should be looking at how they can be profitable on their own or risk meeting a quick demise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s enough research and analysis being done on the reason why startup companies between one and five years fail,\u201d Di Marco says.<\/p>\n

Embracing the future<\/h3>\n

Another reason that tech companies often don\u2019t last as long as TechnologyOne has is that they\u2019re not constantly reinventing themselves, he says.<\/p>\n

Every seven or so years Di Marco says he pivots the entire company in order to prepare it for the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scariest decision has always been to embark on that next stage of the company\u2019s evolution,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

When he opened the company back in 1986, TechnologyOne was a traditional on-premise computer company.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s moving in an entirely new direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are rebuilding our whole business around the cloud,\u201d Di Marco says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a massive undertaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shift is seeing TechnologyOne reengineer all its software, recreate products and re-educate the development teams so they can reengineer the whole business.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a concept of constructive destruction where we say this product line is not the future, now this will be our future,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He says that by reimagining the world of software enterprise and TechnologyOne\u2019s place in it, Di Marco and his team are creating world-class enterprise software that will run on any device, anytime, anywhere.<\/p>\n

The tech company is also looking at new areas such as virtual reality.<\/p>\n

These massive shifts and an embrace of the unknown future has helped TechnologyOne stay ahead all these years, Di Marco says.<\/p>\n

\u201cComplacency, particularly in our industry, sows the seed of destruction,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

By integrating innovation into TechnologyOne\u2019s business model from day one, Di Marco says the team has always been able to stay at the cutting edge of technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven eight years ago we were an anomaly in Australia, we spend a lot of money on research and development and build [our] own products,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Leaders in the space<\/h3>\n

When TechnologyOne began, tech, innovation and creativity was not on the public agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was of no interest,\u201d Di Marco says.<\/p>\n

Now that these areas are starting to be recognised as the way of future of jobs, education and the economy, Di Marco says he\u2019s incredibly proud that he held on to this vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never gave up, we believed passionately that innovation, creativity, research and development is the way of the future and you\u2019ve got to be prepared to spend money that you won\u2019t recoup for four or five or six years,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were leaders in this whole area of innovation creativity in Australia going back 30 days ago from day one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paying it forward<\/h3>\n

Another way TechnologyOne has kept its startup heart beating is by giving back to the startup ecosystem and the broader community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like investing in startup companies, supporting them and mentoring and we encourage our senior staff here to do the same thing as well,\u201d Di Marco says.<\/p>\n

The company is also planning to open an incubator to help startups working on enterprise software build their solutions at TechnologyOne offices.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that we\u2019re looking at doing over the next 12 months,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And they have taken up the 1% Pledge creating its own TechOne Foundation to donate equity, product and time to not-for-profit causes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe it\u2019s very important to give back to the startup community and the wider community,\u201d Di Marco says.<\/p>\n

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Many of today\u2019s startups aren\u2019t profitable and are overly reliant on external funding, prominent Australian entrepreneur and TechnologyOne founder Adrian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38262"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}