On the ground at BarCamp Sydney

The conference's star entrepreneurs were from GoodBarry, a web-based business solution that integrates a content management system, a customer database, an online store and email marketing. It is aimed at small businesses with an existing online presence. Since its product launch in October 2007, GoodBarry has created integrated web systems for over 2,000 customers.

Developer Brett Welch said, "This is the first truly integrated, consumer-ready system for small businesses. When we started, we realised that a customer database should be at the heart of the system, in the very core of everything we've done.

"When you log into GoodBarry, the first thing you see is a dashboard:
all your sales, customer tracking and visits are displayed. My favourite thing is the live feed: you receive instant updates whenever customers interact with your site. 'Brett bought a t-shirt. Mike read your newsletter.' It's like running a real store: you can see customers coming in, browsing, buying and showing interest.

"Our system is so comprehensive that you can even see how much money your email campaign brought in."

The company will open a sales office in Silicon Valley in May. "In five months we've come to a lot of realisations," said Welch. He emphasised the need to develop a good product first, then focus on marketing. "You need a tech roadmap for your PR minivan. Use your milestones and events to drive marketing, not the other way around."

Welch advised conference participants to experiment freely as they developed businesses. "Make mistakes properly. If you're going to do something, do it properly and do it passionately. Don't be afraid of messing up."

Welch's presentation attracted attention from Bart Jellema and Kim Chen, the entrepreneurs behind Tjoos.com, a comparative price shopping website aimed at the United States market. "Our experience is very similar," said Jellema. "It took us six months of hard work to create a viable website, but now we have everything we need to expand." An audience member asked Jellema whether Tjoos.com needed venture capital or other support. "We don't need anything," replied Jellema; "just more customers."