Steve Baxter Quotes
105 Steve Baxter Quotes (Pipe Networks, River City Labs, Shark Tank Australia, Steven Baxter)
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[In November 2014.] Go make a job, not just go get a job.
Steve Baxter
[In October 2014.] I invest in people who want to do things that are cool.
Steve Baxter
[In April 2014.] We’ve got to dream big, or go home.
Steve Baxter
[In April 2014.] When you’re young you are far more willing to take the risks you need to succeed.
Steve Baxter
[In November 2014.] To succeed, they need to be willing to take risks, start businesses, to fail and try again.
Steve Baxter
[In November 2014.] I was 24 years old when I launched my first business out of my spare room. Pretty much everyone I knew, from my commanding officer to my girlfriend, thought I was crazy to leave a safe and secure job and risk everything.
Steve Baxter
Everything does come with a price.
Steve Baxter
[Like Coca-Cola having an advantage versus Pepsi’s ownership of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC.] We did not compete with our customers. That is the single most important thing that any intermediary can do.
Steve Baxter
Fiber optic, you can probably make more money in fiber than by selling drugs. It's got just a fantastically high margin.
Steve Baxter
[On the Pipes Networks profit margin.] Every second customer we got was probably 80% to 90% gross margin.
Steve Baxter
[On a secret to get big.] Understand what it costs and sell it for more.
Steve Baxter
[In April 2012.] I would like to start to redefine what it means to have a go in this country… Failure is not actually tolerated in this country… I want to do my little part in my little sector and in my favourite space in this country, to actually change that.
Steve Baxter
[In October 2014.] Flying is about as much fun as you can have fully clothed.
Steve Baxter
[In October 2013.] A good team can have a bad idea to start with, but will realise it’s a bad idea and change it.
Steve Baxter
[In June 2008 on Pipe Networks’ new cable.] It is fully backed with customer contracts. It will be EBIT positive from day one. And we will have all the construction finance payed off within six months.
Steve Baxter
[In February 2012 on River City Labs a not-for-profit co-working space with room for 72 entrepreneurs.] Queensland has been lagging in this area. We’re trying to create a place where a person with a good idea can come down and experiment and not send themselves to the wall.
Steve Baxter
[In February 2012 on having sold Pipe Networks to TPG Telecom which he founded with Bevan Slattery for $373 million in 2010 and becoming an angel investor.] I made a lot of investments in the mobile, internet and telecommunications space. I found more investable businesses outside of Brisbane, than in.
Steve Baxter
[In March 2012 on River City Labs.] I haven’t done too bad over the years so this is half philanthropy on my part, but I’m also an active investor in the community. In travelling to Sydney and Melbourne, they have similar facilities [such as Fishburners and Hub Melbourne] but we didn’t have one in Brisbane. I’m a Queensland tragic, so thought I’d give it a crack.
Steve Baxter
[In March 2012 on discussions with a bunch of ex-commandos about an investment of up to $2 million in a virtual wind tunnel they are planning to build in the western Sydney suburb of Penrith, which would be used for indoor skydiving.] It’s nice to be involved with people from the army again because they have a certain brutal honesty that I’ve missed in business life over the years
Steve Baxter
[In March 2012 on River City Labs and Angel investing.] You don’t need to be from a technology background but you’ll probably make the best investments in the areas you know most about. You have to ask yourself how much you’re prepared to lose. If you stick to what you know best, you’ll probably lose the least.
Steve Baxter
[In April 2012.] My original occupation was as a soldier… My first business actually began when I was a soldier in 1987. I started an Internet Service Provider in Adelaide South Australia.
Steve Baxter
[In April 2012 on looking back where he took his home deposit of $11,000 and instead put it into his first business.] We installed 16 phone lines into a premises that we didn’t even own. We had very temporary tenure on it.
Steve Baxter
[In April 2012.] I sold that business in two tranches between ’99 and 2000 for about five million bucks.
Steve Baxter
[In April 2012.] The next business was Pipe Networks… Ultimately we put about the equivalent of ten homes loan deposits into that business to get it going. I put one into the first business, it took ten into the next business and we sold it for about 9 and a bit years later…
Steve Baxter
[In April 2012.] I tend to mentor before I invest.
Steve Baxter
[In April 2012.] I’m trying to give a little bit back with River City Labs. We’re about bringing a silicon valley feel to our valley [Fortitude Valley in Brisbane.].
Steve Baxter
[In April 2012 on River City Labs.] It’s a not for profit company… It’s a place where it’s really cheap to fail. [And to try new things and to make getting up again easier.]
Steve Baxter
[In November 2012 on a ICT skill shortage.] Unless we augment from other sources then there will be substantial growth issues for companies needing ICT staff, leading potentially to higher costs and probably more offshoring as work goes to places with labour supply and probably cheaper supply at that
Steve Baxter
[In March 2013 on his string of part-times jobs with his older brother including moving and being a cleaner at a tennis centre.] We were paid $15 each per week for four days before school, so I guess that is $2.50 an hour.
Steve Baxter
[In March 2013 on what he did with the money from his first part-time jobs.] We bought an Atari 2600 and a ping-pong table.
Steve Baxter
[In April 2013.] I thought, ‘What if we could bring in a good team with a good idea and fund them so they don’t have to flip burgers while they’re building their game?’
Steve Baxter
[In April 2013 on the ‘Pirates V Ninjas’ game.] One that makes our hair stand on end. It feels like it could really break out and be a massive success.
Steve Baxter
[In August 2013 on ICT graduates and government support.] Encourage them to start a business, have the support structures in place to help them and ensure that the current obstacles to business growth in the start-up space are removed or minimised
Steve Baxter
[In September 2013 on being asked if you had to be a 16 year old to be a tech entrepreneur.] I’ve got about a dozen different companies that I’ve invested in and my best one is run by a 47 year old. I wouldn’t say you have to be young… It’s open to all ages.
Steve Baxter
[In September 2013.] You can’t open a store in every city in the world, but you can open one store online.
Steve Baxter
[In September 2013] I’m a Queensland boy.
Steve Baxter
[In September 2013 on a dream he would like he would like some Australian start-ups to have.] I want to be a billionaire in ten years. If we have more of that then we will have more millionaires and more of a knowledge economy in general.
Steve Baxter
[In September 2013] I’m a bit of a traditionalist. I actually like companies that have revenue and I like companies where their revenues exceed their expenses and they’re really safe bets to invest in. You need to see traction…
Steve Baxter
[In September 2013] It’s very easy to experiment with an idea.
Steve Baxter
[In September 2013] A large part of a start-up philosophy is ‘It’s all about experimenting with an idea.’
Steve Baxter
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