Peter Bradd addressed graduates from the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology in the Great Hall, University of Technology, Sydney on Monday 13 May 2013, 2.00am.

Our speaker today is Mr Peter Bradd

Peter graduated from the University of Sydney in 2005 after completing a Bachelor of Agricultural Economics with Honours.

In 2008, Peter has established his own start-up called ScribblePics, a software that enables people to turn pictures into real postcards. The software is distributed through travel businesses and his clients include Qantas, Jetstar, The Hilton, Expedia and Contiki.

Since 2011, Peter has been the key person in the growth of Fishburners, a not-for-profit co-working space run by volunteers which aims to foster technological entrepreneurship in Australia. It was founded by the managers of recruitment startup GradConnect and investor Pete Davison. Peter is the Founding Director of Fishburners and continues to hold this position.

In 2013, he joined a small project group to work on a national initiative to accelerate the growth of Australian technology start-ups, which has now become Startup Australia and he is currently on the interim board.

It gives me great pleasure to invite Mr Peter Bradd to deliver the occasional address.

Speech

Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, Faculty Dean, Registrar, staff, distinguished guest, graduates, families and friends.

I would also like to acknowledge the Gadigal and Gur-ing-gai people of the Eora nation, upon whose ancestral lands the University now stands.

Graduates, congratulations on your being here today. It’s the recognition of years of effort and achievement. This is one of those moments in life you never forget. Take the time to celebrate today with your classmates, your lecturers, your family and your friends.

I’m honoured to be here right now. I’m proud to have been invited at such a young age to share with you some of the stories of my life. My invitation today is a shining example of the bright futures you all have, it was not long ago that I was at my own graduation. As I think back, I could not have possibly imagined then where I would be now. I won’t say it wasn’t challenging, but I got there, one step at a time.

As everyone is aware, we’re in an exciting period of time where business and everyday lives are being impacted heavily by technology. You have a significant opportunity to make the world a better place in which to live, and work on what you are passionate about from a country you love. In addition to you having the tech skills sets, never has there been a time where people in their twenties have been so respected for their vision, talents, and ability. If you want to brush up on some more skills, it has never been easier to learn any skill set you want.

I can hear you thinking, “what will you do with all this opportunity?” It certainly keeps me up at night. The challenge for you is to ensure you do only what you love to ensure you have the most impact. If you do what you love, the world will be a better place.

My first story, you don’t need to know what the end will look like to get started, is about Fishburners.

Fishburners started from a problem that another start-up had called GradConnection. They shared an office with another start-up, which was acquired and subsequently moved out. GradConnection needed to decide to find a smaller office, or to find a way to make their large office work. They decided to invite entrepreneurial friends they had met at Silicon Beach drinks meet up to share the space. That decision was the genesis of what is now a charity which aims to foster tech entrepreneurship in Australia and operates Australia’s largest Co-working space, a few hundred metres from this very spot. From the need for GradConnection to find extra tenants to fill their office, to this point, I can trace the exact path of at least 100 events that needed to happen in exactly the way they did, at the time they did for us to have achieved what we have. I can’t tell you why those 100 or so events aligned, but what I can say is that you don’t need to know what the end will look like to get started. I encourage you to explore without the need to know where you’ll end up.

I was speaking to Rob Coleman, Head of Animation, Animal Logic who said he was often asked how he got from his vision to the Academy Award-winning film. He said it’s like you’re standing on the edge of the river, knowing that you want to be on the other side, so you make the decision to jump onto a stone. From there, you make another decision to jump on to another stone, and from there you find another stone. Although you didn’t know the path when you made your first jump, from each point you had better information about what to do next and before you know if you’re on the other side. the decision making style at Fishburners aimed for the stars and ended on the moon.

That brings me to my second story, surface area of luck. A tenant of Fishburners coined the term surface area of luck. He said that in order for luck to find you, you need the largest surface area possible. Moving into Fishburners was expanding his surface area. He simply knew that the larger the surface area, the more luck he would have. He ended up at the most prestigious accelerator in the world, Y-Combinator, where he again expanded his surface area of luck. Now you’ve completed your current studies I encourage you to continue to talk to everyone about your values and your dreams, and I guarantee you that luck will find you.

My third story is a piece of advice that changed my life. A successful entrepreneur came to Fishburners to give us a helping hand. His advice was single focus. He said the problem with young people is that they don’t know how to make decisions. They spend too much time on reversible decisions, and it paralyses them. He gave the example of someone wanting to buy a house. He said the initial decision isn’t to buy a house; it’s to spend some time on a website looking for a house, to spend some time learning about how to buy a house, to spend some time looking at a house on the market. At any point, you can decide you don’t really want to be spending your time on these things. That is, they are all reversible decisions. When you find your perfect house, the decision to buy it won’t be as difficult as you first thought. If a decision is reversible, like looking for properties on a website, then don’t spend much time thinking about doing it just do it! If you are thinking of moving overseas, just move there! Each morning you get up and make a decision for your day. It’s more often than not very easy to retrace your steps if you find you’ve made the wrong decision. Living this way will give you more freedom than anything else.

My final advice to you:

Be a giver, not a taker. Always lead with value first. Give your time and knowledge freely.

People skills are your most important asset. Be obsessed with how to attract and lead a team of people to achieve great things.

Spend time each week to ensure you’re living life according to your values. If you’re not, take a leap of faith to make a change in how you’re living. Step by step you will lead the life you deserve.

Sometimes you need to be lost to find your own way. You will not always know where you will end up, but from each step of the journey you will have a new perspective that will allow you to make the right decision.

If you share your passion liberally people you meet will help you achieve them. If you keep them to yourselves, you won’t achieve half as much. Share your passions with everyone you meet.

In closing, I’d like to congratulate you on getting to this point. I look forward to you celebrating many more significant achievements. I hope the stories that helped me achieve so much help you achieve double that in half the time.

Thank you.