00:05 hi everyone welcome back to the get 00:07 chatty about your local businesses 00:09 series 00:09 and today i have my friend lucas here 00:12 with me 00:12 how did you meet arthur the attorney 00:14 curator we worked at a college together 00:17 and i was a business trainer there and 00:20 you were brought in as the marketing 00:21 manager 00:22 and you brought in a really good spirit 00:24 into the place it was good to see 00:26 somebody come in and really 00:27 you know this is not to work i’m just 00:31 being 00:32 loud and myself and never shallow 00:37 vanilla out there vanilla’s not going to 00:38 change things up is it 00:40 absolutely from my understanding that 00:42 place was a startup 00:44 and many startups that they just feel 00:46 look i mean if you’re being a startup 00:49 um one of the ways to approach it is 00:51 being a disrupter 00:52 and sometimes that you can’t 00:56 be vanilla when you want to be a 00:58 disruptor 00:59 do you mind uh letting the audience know 01:02 a little bit about yourself and what you 01:03 do 01:05 yeah sure so um i’ve been working in 01:08 innovation entrepreneurial space for 01:10 like a number of years now i used to 01:12 i’m just finishing a phd actually so 01:14 phds are part of this story but 01:17 really what i’m interested in is helping 01:19 small businesses to evaluate their 01:21 businesses 01:22 and i used to be pretty interested in 01:24 the technology side of it but now i’m 01:26 sort of looking at solutions for small 01:28 business that are 01:30 technology agnostic or not so novel i’ve 01:33 found that 01:35 lots of benefits can be got to small 01:37 business just from applying existing 01:39 marketing and technology type equipment 01:42 out there software out there 01:43 so that’s pretty much from work 01:45 perspective what i’ve been doing 01:46 fine-tuning the way i deliver that for a 01:48 number of years 01:49 it’s a very interesting thing because if 01:52 if we look at 01:52 for example all the news and public 01:54 funding and all of the support 01:56 in australia and 20 uh offered in 2020 01:59 there’s a lot there’s a bit of an 02:01 imbalance of 02:03 some sector got a lot and then some 02:06 other sector 02:07 virtually got nothing i mean yeah so 02:11 um actually speaking of that what do you 02:13 see as an 02:14 area of improvement for like for example 02:16 allocation of resources to support 02:19 a small medium enterprise say public 02:21 sector or or such as all capitalists 02:23 yeah okay so i am a little bit biased in 02:26 that i do think they got the sectors 02:27 correct 02:28 i think focusing on food and agri 02:31 business 02:31 focusing on companies that make products 02:34 with advanced materials 02:36 biomedical tech pharmaceutical 02:39 most of those sectors that they’ve 02:41 announced i think 02:42 are pretty good you know but the thing 02:44 is the money only goes to the ones that 02:46 are already successful within that 02:48 industry 02:50 so it’s kind of like they’re just 02:51 expecting a flow down effect from giving 02:53 the already successful companies more 02:55 incentive 02:57 that it’s going to flow down to all of 02:58 the small medium businesses 03:00 [Music] 03:02 and what i’m finding is companies i’m 03:04 talking to that 03:05 they don’t want to speak out because you 03:07 don’t want to get the government off 03:08 side because you think well money could 03:10 be just around the corner 03:12 but largely i mean how many of us out 03:14 there have benefited from government 03:16 grants like genuinely i just 03:18 i think it’s not there now look i mean 03:22 it’s yup 03:26 no it’s almost like we’re all sort of 03:29 too scared to say 03:31 what’s really happening because it’s 03:32 like well maybe my little handout will 03:34 come but 03:35 i just think we have to get in there and 03:37 get help for these smes it’s affordable 03:40 and accessible 03:41 and stop waiting for the government to 03:43 hand out the money 03:45 it’s it’s very interesting because what 03:47 you just said kind of 03:48 um it’s a it’s because one of the areas 03:52 that i work with a lot is actually 03:54 the art and yeah last year that 03:57 there are many there are some grants 04:00 available there are some 04:01 loans available but even within the arts 04:04 that there are some 04:05 areas that get a little bit more than 04:07 others so 04:08 um it’s and i think for me 04:11 one of the key part about being the 04:13 telegrapher is for 04:15 treating creative people or even small 04:17 to medium businesses to give them 04:19 the knowledge and the understanding they 04:22 need about their marketing need 04:24 and how to promote themselves and 04:25 operate as a business because 04:27 um unfortunately it is part of language 04:30 uh sorry part of the 04:31 landscape to survive um at this point in 04:34 time 04:35 it’s you know i i wish that there is 04:38 another way 04:39 but 2020 hit everyone 04:43 quite hard if i’m not being an 04:45 understatement 04:46 so uh yeah so i think you know it’s a 04:49 i i think that’s one of the things that 04:51 we go along quite well is like you know 04:53 well let’s be proactive let’s give it 04:59 say product design the technicians the 05:02 designers 05:03 the engineers they’re they’re the 05:05 underrated work in the market 05:06 they’re the underrated workers because 05:08 they’re not really recognized because 05:11 out the way our government rewards 05:12 innovation they don’t believe that these 05:14 people are actually coming up with new 05:16 inventions 05:17 yeah because a lot of them think 05:19 engineers they apply existing knowledge 05:21 in order to 05:21 innovate and that should be rewarded 05:23 because that is very important 05:26 it’s i think it’s really important that 05:29 to just 05:30 um r d is super important for the 05:33 economy in general 05:35 to push things forward and when there’s 05:38 a gap 05:39 that means that some are not being not 05:42 being able to progress as far as the 05:47 the other ones and when fundings and 05:49 resources 05:50 are available for someone’s already 05:52 quite successful 05:54 um yes they are safe bad but then that 05:58 also means that 05:59 well look i mean it’s just it’s not very 06:03 balancy if you think about how values 06:06 created so after r d then you go in and 06:09 you’ve got 06:09 your relationships with suppliers your 06:11 materials right before production and 06:13 then you go you 06:14 understand the customer marketing 06:16 segment all the way out to sales after 06:18 service 06:19 so what’s happening is the government 06:20 says well let’s just throw everything 06:22 into new product development because 06:25 they are right in saying the more 06:26 product innovations we have 06:28 we will be more competitive as a country 06:30 but that’s one of going for the end goal 06:33 and not worrying about the means 06:34 so we can reward people on all those 06:36 steps within the chain 06:38 to add value to the product itself and 06:41 get the same goal that everyone benefits 06:44 it comes down to the way that they 06:46 theorize or the philosophy for the 06:48 philosophical way that they actually 06:50 look at innovation and if you read about 06:52 how that’s changing 06:54 the government at the moment is at 06:56 loggerheads 06:58 it’s for me in my opinion sometimes it’s 07:01 just focusing 07:02 on the top of the mountain where the 07:04 ending gold is 07:05 and kind of not much of the way 07:10 you know it’s it’s look i mean i got the 07:13 same mistake with my new year’s 07:15 resolution try to lose a little bit of 07:16 my lockdown weight 07:17 still didn’t happen because i was just 07:20 looking at 07:21 how many how many kilos i want to lose 07:24 now didn’t happen lucas thank you so 07:27 much for your time for 07:28 taking part in this interview get chatty 07:31 about your local businesses 07:32 now do you mind telling people how they 07:35 can find you 07:36 linkedin you can find me and newledge.io 07:39 which is 07:41 n-e-w-l-e-d-g-e dot io 07:44 and feel free to contact me my email 07:47 address as well 07:48 lucas l-u-c-a-s at new ledge 07:51 dot io i’m happy to help and i think we 07:54 can create a lot of value together so 07:56 be happy to hear from any small 07:58 businesses with a with a product that 07:59 they want to increase the value of 08:01 and or save some money in their business 08:04 there’s 08:04 no harm to start a conversation thank 08:06 you so much for taking part in this 08:08 and good luck with newage and all the 08:12 contact information are underneath this 08:13 video and 08:15 yeah so let’s keep on chatting about 08:17 businesses 08:18 thank you
Lucas can be contacted via:
[email protected]
www.newledge.io
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/lucasmerlo
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