Today we catch up with Mike Forster, Marketing Director at Yum brands in Sydney, and previously co-founder of the red-hot UK Fintech startup Onfido. 

Onfido now a dominant player in the identity space having raised over $60m USD. In this episode David and Mike chat about lessons learned the hard way and what Mike calls street fighting your way to series A, how the marketing landscape is evolving with big data, plus what Mike really looks for in Angel investments. 

Huge thank you to Dave Insull for the intro that made this episode possible, and we hope you get a lot out of this episode with an exceptional Kiwi expat. 

If you have any feedback or suggestions please feel free to reach out to us at team(AT)diaspora.nz. 

Transcription: http://www.diaspora.nz/transcript-mike-forster-charging-customers-more-makes-startups-stronger-understanding-big-brand-marketing-and-angel-investing-at-the-bottom-of-the-world/

We caught up with Steven Banerjee, founder and CEO of Mekonos. After studying towards a PhD in Mechanical Engineering in Canterbury, NZ, Steven translated his research and passion to Mekonos—working on the edge of medicine, developing nano-needle arrays that allow the manipulation of cells at scale, helping reduce cost and time to develop cures. 

In this episode David and Steven discuss moving into highly specialized fields without prior deep background (in Steven's case going from mechanical engineering to medicine), how Steven has built relationships + secured investment from leaders at the top of the industry, and finally how he'd love to see other scientists and academics following his footsteps and building startups. 

If you have any feedback or suggestions please feel free to reach out to us at [email protected]

We caught up with Alex Kendall, an ex-pat Kiwi currently living in Cambridge, UK, where he’s a research fellow Trinity College finishing off a PhD in computer vision and robotics. Alex is blending his research into a business with the launch of Wayve.ai. In this interview, you’ll hear about Alex’s path into the cutting edge of computer science, learn about what machine vision really is and how has accelerated development in fields such as Autonomous driving. Alex also drops a few gems for founders back home in New Zealand, and predictions about the future of the industry. Big thanks to David Gawith for the original introduction to Alex! You can listen/follow on SoundCloud below, or subscribe on iTunes to hear more!