Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Another Aussie tech company going to USA to make its fortune

From BRW

Appster co-founders Mark McDonald and Josiah Humphrey have chutzpah 
They pay themselves $350 a week . . . and want Elon Musk for their board: meet Appster’s ambitious founders
They are about to open in the US  and plan  to approach the likes of Elon Musk to become directors.
Appster already employs 20 people in Melbourne and 80 in India, bankrolled by clients including radio duo Hamish & Andy (for whom it built theFrenemies app/marketing gimmick) and Bluedot (Appster built the technology to execute founder Filip Eldic’s idea for a toll road instant payment app that did not drain the mobile’s power)
The founding pay themselves just $350 each per week – “our staff in India get paid more” – and McDonald lives in one of the several company apartments the firm has rented near its new head office in Collingwood. However, he will soon move to the US, where Humphrey is deciding between New York and Silicon Valley as a Stateside base for Appster.
Admitting they were no good as managers, the founders hired an executive team as soon as they could afford it.
Appster’s chief technical officer is Martin Halford, a Computershare veteran and “scrum” software development expert who’s “been coding longer than I’ve been alive”, McDonald says.
Its advisory board includes the former chief financial officer and early employee of iSelect,Paul Cullinan.
“It’s easier to attract great people once you work with great people,” says McDonald, whose dream board member is PayPal and Tesla co-founder, Elon Musk.

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