The Morgo Blog

The Future of Everything Festival 2019. The opportunity to hear about new technologies and where they’re going and to mix with other people who are interested in this. The Festival is put together by the uber-connected WSJ, and it’s held in Tribeca, New York.

It was a treat to have Guy Haddleton talk to us about his 10 year journey in building Anaplan to its US$3.5bn listing on the NYSE. A great story. A great speaker!

Tim is relaxed as we sit down to chat on a sofa inside the entry to the extremely crowded shophouse that is 90Seconds Singapore HQ. He’s just finished raising a good Series B round, and a few months ago he appointed a Chief of Staff. The wonderful combination of money and people!

Who knew that in a plain building in South Auckland sits a quiet entrepreneur who owns a very high tech Boston company that is installing a sophisticated huge medical device in Finland?

In the early 2000s, Paul Collins developed world-leading parking sensor technology to detect parking space usage, he then founded Meter Eye to sell and expand his offering. Now Paul has grown two immensely successful global companies: the first to help issue parking tickets, the second to help drivers find parks.

During his battle with cancer, David was the lucky recipient of treatment in a US clinical study for a new immunotherapy regime, CAR-T cell treatment. Following his return from Boston, he was amazed to discover that a group at New Zealand’s own Malaghan Institute is preparing to trial a next generation CAR-T cell therapy.

Carmen Vicelich took our breath away at Morgo Queenstown. Not only does she talk fast, she lives life at a running pace. She heads not one but two successful companies: Valocity and Data Insight.

Andy Prow, founder of cyber security firm RedShield, told Morgo delegates that he and his co-founder, wife Diane, will have travelled 150 thousand air miles by the end of this year. This punishing schedule is necessary if the couple are to achieve their ultimate goal

You may wonder what a cyber security guy, a brain augmentation specialist, gamer, parking expert and various others could possibly have in common, and when I add that they were all in a bar, your guess is that I’m probably telling a bad joke. But such is the diversity, and the magic of Morgo!

When Ben Gleisner and Melissa Keys started Conscious Consumers, their goal was to create a sustainable business that helped consumers make ethical purchasing choices. Now with a user base of 400 retailers, 100 suppliers and 12,500 consumers signed up, the company is indeed providing evidence of demand for new commercial practices, and firms are responding.

Aaron Ward, co-founder and CEO of AskNicely, has headed to the States to progress the company’s ambitions to build the global standard in customer feedback. He reflects on the journey so far.

At Morgo Noosa there was an amazing group of people: all prepared to open up and share their downs as well as the ups. That is truly inspiring — if they can pick themselves up and go hard, so can we.

Kylie said to me, “Why do I do Morgo? That is what people want to know.” Well, I’ve been on big company boards, I’ve worked in investment banking (love closing deals) and I set up and ran a venture capital fund. So what am I doing running Morgo? The answer is that I’m having fun!

The first Morgo in Australia, in the Barossa Valley last week, brought together an eclectic group of high growth entrepreneurs to share their stories and hang out together.And the themes? Data data data.