It’s been a while since I posted, which is symptomatic of high activity (in this case) rather than low.
After enduring the startup years between 2006 and 2008 with Christo Partners, I have managed to create a vortex of ventures which is keeping me very busy and forcing the business to grow as the commercialization advisory and consultancy it originally was intended to be. In fact, that description does not really tell the story of what CP does. It is now as much an investment business, as we have some sort of stake (equity or options) in most clients we deal with.
You’ll recall Pitch Club was spawned in 2007 in collaboration with BSB Australia and Anthill. That business continues to go from strength to strength having been recently profiled in AFR and now has its own offspring in Pitch Club Campus, a business dedicated to educating entrepreneurs and business angels. If you are not aware, Pitch Club has its next Melbourne event on the 25th of June at Docklands. I assure you it’s going to be big, and probably a sell out, so if you want to take advantage of some early bird deals go to the web site (www.pitchclub.com).
The next exciting adventure is of course Melbourne Coffee Review (MCR). From its humble start as a blog in 2004, MCR now has about 800 unique visits a day, and about 20 reviewers worldwide. I flicked it into a business after much deliberation, as a foody type review business will quickly become irrelevant if there is a conflict of interest evident (real or perceived). Other than the reviews, MCR offers a Job board for café owners, hotshot listings (mini web sites for cafes). The business has a part time staff of 6 and is rapidly becoming my main focus (for a while anyway). We recently committed to deploy the MCR café Guide for 2010 (a real hard copy publication), and review the top 100 cafes. The ex sub editor of Epicure Leanne Tolra has joined us on this journey along with 20 Melbourne based writers/reviewers. It’s a pretty funky project, (www.melbournecoffeereview.com).
Some of the more notable client projects that are going well are the Watch My Numbers business (www.watchmynumbers.com), and Medical Media (www.medicalmedia.com.au).
I’m still doing a part time lecturing gig at RMIT (call it an addiction) in 2nd Semester and am pushing into corporate commercialization advice. All in all, pretty good given this GFC thingy.
What I have learned is that it is very important to be organised, delegate, and manage people (not micro manage).
Peter
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