Vumero has recently been announced as a featured startup in the Microsoft BizSpark Program.
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It starts with an Idea
I first met Johann Odou and John Persico in June 2011 when they approached me for coffee at Deloitte. They told me they had recently quit their jobs and had a vision that global Professional Services could be more valuable if crowdsourced. They saw opportunities to make professional services more accessible, transparent and affordable to Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs. They saw a major gap in the market between predominantly price-driven online marketplaces such as Freelancer and Odesk and the big professional services firms such as Deloitte.
I was impressed with the vision of these two aspiring entrepreneurs and distinctively remember them making the comment – “Deloitte Digital was the only place who would “get” what we are trying to achieve in online Professional Services”. To me it’s a great compliment when the outside Community recognised the vision and culture we have created here at Deloitte Digital.
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Bluewire Media recently published an article written by Vumero CEO, John Persico.
Read the full article here:
http://www.bluewiremedia.com.au/blog/2012/03/89-web-tools-for-business/
We might remember 2012 as the beginning of a golden decade – the era that small business value creation became easier and more abundant in driving Global GDP. There has been no better time to own, start and run a small business than right now. Particularly online businesses. The economics of the internet has profoundly closed the resources gap between the haves and have nots. With cheaper and more accessible technology combining with an emerging global middle-class of several billions (e.g. China, India, Indonesia, Brazil) – it should be unsurprising that small businesses will play a more active and vocal role in the global business policy agenda in the decade ahead.
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Forums are a great way to get connected and learn more about the “pulse” of the global Finance and Banking industries. The word “Forum” and “Community” very much go hand-in-hand these days – they are often tribal, entertaining, addictive and powerful resource for both new comers and experienced hands.
The list has been prepared and shortlisted based on Community size, valuable content, topic structure, active moderation (e.g. avoid spam, flaming) and Community engagement.
Pervasive informational goods marketplaces
The online world continues to unleash an immense innovation machine where anyone, anywhere can create, share and add economic value through informational goods such as software, videos and music. In simple terms, an information good is a type commodity whose main market value is derived from the information it contains. Extensive academic literature has been written on the subject, its behaviours and unique properties.[1] Informational goods typically exhibit several key economic value characteristics. Namely they are:
1. Made by human brains
2. Made of pliable symbols
3. Consumption by one human does not exclude consumption by another
4. Almost costless to reproduce
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Looking Back 100 years
I recently presented at the Global Creative Innovation Conference. The audience was challenged with identifying three industries that had barely changed systematically over the past 100 years. The final list:
1. Religion
2. Education
3. Professional Services
Understandably, few would argue that churches, temples and synagogues and their followers have embraced change (rightfully or wrongfully) despite the tremendous technological progressions over the past century. Plenty of people appear to be committed to ensuring the next generation have no need to learn in a grid-like classroom from the 1800s - but learn in ways that truly enrich educational learning and critical thinking.
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I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
George Bernard Shaw
Sometimes we forget to say thank-you to those special people who help us along important, pivotal moments in our lives. As we prepare to launch Vumero in the coming weeks – a leading global marketplace for spreadsheets, financial models and financial expertise – we’d just like to say big thank-you to a few important people who have been incredibly supportive of us in our very early steps as a company.
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The Dilemma
Last week a talented 22-year old finance/law student I mentor recently faced a dilemma between joining a “bulge-bracket” Investment Bank and following his online dreams. Several of his University colleagues and recruitment specialists I subsequently spoke with confirmed that this daunting career cross-road had quietly become commonplace. Is it possible that the best and brightest finance graduates are viewing an “apprenticeship” within investment banks, management consultancies, private equity and hedge funds as a sub-optimal career path? My mentee shared some insights around the growing number of global finance graduates opting for a new career alternative – the online world – and it seems there is no turning back.
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To help explain what Vumero is and how it can benefit the financial modeling and numbers community, we are pleased to release our demo video.