21 August, 2020

E93 – David Shein, Our Innovation Fund

David Shein first emigrated from South Africa to Australia in 1986. 9 months after touching down he founded his company Com Tech, a specialist supplier of networking and communications products. He grew the business for 14 years and eventually sold it to Dimension Data for over $1bil. At the time of David’s exit, Com Tech employed over 1,400 people, had offices Australia wide, and achieved revenues of $700 million. After leaving Com Tech, David transitioned into becoming an investor and mentor to a number of startups. He is the GP and cofounder of Our Innovation Fund, an early stage venture capital fund that invests in exciting Australian startups, as well as a founding partner in the Israeli Venture Capital enterprise, OurCrowd, the first Global Equity Based Crowd Funding Platform.

In this episode, David discusses:

-Where his love of mentoring startups comes from-Why he feels lucky to have landed a terrible job when he first arrived in Australia-How customer service fueled his company’s growth-Why he was called a “one minute manager”-The challenge of transitioning out of the role of founder after exiting-His philosophy towards the investor-founder relationship

…and a whole lot more! Ian loved having a chat with David and we think you’ll love giving it a listen.