ai
Building with AI: Everything Except the Code
How I’m using AI to design, plan, analyze, and build a tech company - and why the most exciting things aren't happening in engineering.
Technology
Entrepreneurship
75 Books in 12 Months
Today is Election Day in the US, and after the “shoot-self-in-the-other-foot” results came out this time last year, I decided the news - which for me was mostly podcasts - didn’t deserve my attention anymore. I’ve always been a news junkie - from being an early user of
Entrepreneurship
The Corrosive Spiral of Poor Performance
In remote teams, poor performance isn’t just bad — it’s contagious. One disengaged person can corrode trust, effort, and culture faster than you think. Here’s what I learned the hard way about stopping the spiral before it spreads.
Entrepreneurship
Fifteen Years of Paying It Forward
Every few months, I’m reminded just how special Startmate is - and Demo Day for the Winter 2025 cohort today is another one of those moments. It’s a celebration not just of another set of ambitious founders, but of the community that has quietly shaped the startup landscape
BusinessWeb
Chapter 4: Building Ascendius in Public with AI
After two decades building and running technology companies, I wanted to approach Chapter 4 differently - not by forgetting what I’ve learned, but by questioning everything I thought I knew, because I believe with AI, the rules have changed. That’s what Ascendius is about - and this post
BusinessWeb
The Analytics Trap
Analytics sounds smart and data-driven. But for most people, it’s just homework they’ll never do. Here’s why analytics is a trap for founders who build it - and for the leaders who buy it.
Entrepreneurship
The End of Chapter 3: Expert Mode
Earlier this month we sold Accelo, a company I co-founded 15 years ago, and last Friday was my last day at the company. With this transition, I wanted to share a few reflections on a massive journey, appreciation for the work of our amazing team and thanks for support of
Entrepreneurship
The SaaS Fundraising Death Zone
TL;DR: the ecosystem of early-stage investors (angels, seed and VC) has a structure and set of incentives that creates ideal (or even necessary) points in a SaaS startups life for raising capital. Unfortunately, changes in the ecosystem have created what I call a "Death Zone" between Seed
Personal
Cutting your Comcast Bill in Half - Part 1, Internet
Introduction Comcast's business model is simple - sell to new customers on a good deal and then rely on their laziness and ignorance to increase average revenue per account to thousands of dollars a year. Over the last month I've upgraded the internet at my house,
General
Bubbles & Tectonics
My reason for moving San Francisco almost three weeks ago was to pursue investment for AffinityLive, and with that money grow the R&D team in Wollongong as well as establish a sales and marketing team here in the US. Of course, implicit in this is the assumption that
Technology
Solved - apache serving corrupted files via virtualbox vboxfs shares
TL;DR version: the 4.1 version of VirtualBox (or possibly more correctly, the VirtualBoxAdditions that provide the vboxfs) makes it impossible for Apache to correctly do its Kernel hand off, known as EnableSendfile. If you're experiencing problems with files that are stored on a vboxfs share on
Entrepreneurship
UOW Occasional Address - It's what you do with it that counts
Introduction Today is one of the days you'll remember for the rest of your life. It might be because you feel proud - it is the culmination of thousands of hours work and study. It might be because you feel relieved - no more cramming for exams and