Ryan Junee, is co-founder and former CEO of Omnisio, which was acquired by Google in 2008. Omnisio, founded in 2007 by Junee, Simon Ratner and Julian Frumar, enabled users to annotate and share videos from any website.
Omnisio was a web-based video editing platform that allowed users to enhance their YouTube videos with annotations, PowerPoint slides and more.
We were considering licensing the platform to companies and educational institutions as well as generating revenues from ads.
We started the company in Silicon Valley because frankly, there is no better place in the world to start a technology company.
There is a wealth of support here from other entrepreneurs, investors, lawyers, PR firms, etc, all well versed in start-up best practices.
The Australian market is very small and unfortunately is often ignored on the world stage. However, if you can build a successful company and dominate a particular market in Australia, you may have just as good a company as if you are one of 10 players in a market in the US.
Access to expertise from experienced entrepreneurs – Startmate is a great start – and access to capital at an early stage.
For example, more angel investors willing to take risks on start-ups at the earliest stages rather than VCs who tend to be more risk averse.
I guess one of my main pieces of advice is “Just do it”. You will learn far more from getting out there and building something than you will sitting at home pondering ideas. Even if the idea is not perfect, just get started because the idea is bound to change anyway.
To build another successful company or two, hopefully one that truly changes the world, and then spend my time angel investing and helping the next generation of start-ups.
