The journey of a Non-Tekky Tech Founder With special guest Sharon Melamed, founder of Matchboard

Small Biz Matters – #170 Providing the small business community with educational content and advocacy since 2014
with Alexi Boyd, broadcaster, advocate and small business owner.
Date: 11 August 2020

Not all Tech Founders are cut from the same cloth. We imagine an uber-cool twenty something hipster in designer ripped jeans in their inner west grungy garage,  spouting bourjois ideals and claiming their commercial idea is there to make the world a better place.

But what of those founders who fell into the role - coming up with one of those once in a lifetime nuggets that might, just might make them a fortune. Oh, and make the world a better place too.

Sharon Melamed, the founder of Matchboard is one such creator. She’s a self proclaimed Non-Techy Tech Founder who wears life experience and a distinct lack of IT fluency with pride. Her approach to nurturing what she recognised as a brilliant idea and turning it into a hugely successful company was very different and drew more on her past than the tech future she now owns.

Topics we’ll be covering:

• What’s it like to be a Non-Tekky Tech Founder
  • Some stats on tech founders - they’re not always millennials!
  • Discussion about what’ it’s like to come into this world after leading a successful internationally successful corporate JOB career.
    • With corporate experience you take the best of the best of their business
    • Building a network and collaborated with so many others.
    • Didn’t need an accelerator to understand the execution but rather it became around learning the tech.

• Setup & Collaboration - a different approach
  • So, rather than co-founding which is what techpreneurs typically do, you partnered with a company based overseas
  • Negotiating a different sort of contract with an overseas company
  • How did you think of that approach?

• How has social marketing has been important in developing your credibility as well as growing your business.
  • Organic LinkedIn strategy to get your business off the ground
  • What does it mean to be targeted by the LinkedIn gods in their ivory tower?

To find out more go to their website: https://www.matchboard.com.au/

About our Guest:

Sharon is a multi-award winning entrepreneur. Following a corporate career across 5 countries, she founded Matchboard, a free-to-use website where companies can enter their needs and get matched with “right-fit” suppliers. In 2018, Matchboard was crowned “Business of the Year” at the Optus My Business Awards. And in 2017, Westpac named Matchboard as 1 of Australia’s top “200 Businesses of Tomorrow”. Sharon was named Suncorp Innovator of the Year 2018, and Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2019 Women in ICT awards. Sharon has a double honours degree and University Medal from the University of Sydney and speaks five languages.