Jamie Pride is a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist & author on a mission to make entrepreneurs, executives and enterprises failure proof.
As an entrepreneur, Jamie sold his first startup, Velteo, to New York–based System Integrator Bluewolf, and has founded over six technology startups. As an investor, he has raised more than $16 million in funding for startups via private and public markets, including completing an IPO on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2015. He has more than 20 years’ experience with international technology and digital media organisations, including leading realestate.com.au and senior positions with Deloitte Digital, salesforce.com, Red Hat, Veritas, and Cisco Systems.
Jamie is also a sought-after public speaker and regularly comments on building resilience, overcoming failure, how to be successful at startups & small business, disruptive innovation and design thinking. He is the Managing Partner at Phi Digital Ventures, an early-stage, social impact venture fund that seeks to invest in Australian companies looking to change the world. He is also the co-founder of The Founder Lab, an educational institution for entrepreneurs that seeks to build and support better founders. Jamie is the author of Unicorn Tears: Why Startups Fail & How To Avoid It - published by Wiley, February 2018
Jamie Pride describes himself as 50% entrepreneur, 50% venture capitalist. His story is 100% fascinating.
He started his career as a psychicist, spending the early part of his working life in the software and IT space with Cisco and Veritas Software. He gained the experience of working in both Australia and overseas – primarily the United States – before settling back in Australia as the CEO of REA Group. It was an important time for REA during a period in which it was experiencing rapid growth and leveraging off the boom of the classifieds market.
Jamie took these learnings to a move into the world of professional services with Deloitte as a Partner to lead their CRM practice, focusing on all aspects of customer related technologies. Despite his rapid rise to success, Jamie describes the feeling of dissatisfaction in the corporate world and the drive to make more of an impact.
Entrepreneurial Pursuits
Jamie had an entrepreneurial spark at an early age. Whilst working at REA he founded a customer engagement consultancy practice called Velteo, which he sold to Bluewolf – a US-based systems integrator. On the other side of the scale, he has also had tremendous success as an investor. Jamie has raised upwards of $16 million in startup funding in both private and public marketplaces.
His entrepreneurial pursuits have taught him as much about business as they have about life. Jamie tells the story of building not only his competencies and skills but also his capacity in the form of physical health, mental strength and overall wellbeing and mindfulness.
He has a passion for helping founders along the same path that he has trodden many a time, leading to the emergence of The Founder Lab, an initiative sparked by Jamie to assist founders through the trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship.
Take More Risks
As we grow older, we naturally become increasingly more risk adverse with the natural introduction of families, mortgages and the like. Jamie wishes he really pushed the envelope more and aggressively took risks – especially when he was young.
Enjoy Yourself More
Jamie feels that as we go through the journey it is vital to be present and smell the roses once in a while. “You’ve got to love the game, not necessarily the outcome”.
Build More Capacity
Whilst a lot of us focus on building capabilities: skills and technical competencies for example. Jamie believes it is equally important however to spend time on yourself in building your capacity, physically, spiritually and emotionally.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
— The Man in the Arena by Theodore Roosevelt
On the back of his experience and exposure, Jamie has written his own book: Unicorn Tears: Why Startups Fail & How To Avoid It.
In it he shares the lessons learnt from 20 years working across corporate and the startup space, including his take on the entrepreneurial lifestyle, leaving the corporate world and reasons why startups fail – all from a pertinent Australian lens.
You can contact Jamie via his website (jamiepride.com), his Instagram (@jamiepride) or his LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/jamiepride).
