How did the first Australian tech companies find customers?

“The first tech company that I was involved with was a company called Future Technology Resources. Or For the Record. And that was in the early '90s. And we financed that ourselves and ultimately we backed it into a public listed company. But the most significant company was, of course, Aussie Mail, which Shaun Howard founded with the support of myself and Trevor Kennedy. And that was in '94. And at that time, there was no money available for tech at all. In fact, we showed Ozemail to a bunch of people and the internet was just getting going. And they turned it down. We had a very memorable meeting with Kerry Packer in which he dismissed the idea and said the internet— he wasn't impressed with the internet. It would only be used for gambling and porn. And I must say, when we got out of the meeting, We looked at each other and said, "Well, you know, even if he's right, it's still going to be a pretty big thing, isn't it?" Turnbull purchased a stake in the internet service provider Aussie Mail in 1994 for $500,000.”

“Well, I think that first generation of Australian tech startups were media companies. We put content on pages and sold ads on them.”