
Is Australia the next upcoming tech startup hotspot to watch? - jackyyappp
http://e27.sg/2012/07/03/is-australia-the-next-upcoming-tech-startup-hotspot-to-watch/
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pjin
Betteridge's law of headlines: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4092880>

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keyle
There are some serious problem with the immigration laws in Australia that
would make such ecosystem very fragile.

For example, we tried to hire a remote friend to move inland and work with us
- and he is over qualified - yet because he's over 30, his chances of making
it after 2 years of struggle with immigration are next to none.

So as long as this happen, startups will be dead in the water. Australia has a
lot of smart people, but that's not enough. The US west coast attracts all the
smarts and doesn't block them in.

~~~
bartonfink
Keyle -

As someone who's just on the cusp of 30 and is actively planning a move down
under, do you mind expounding a little further on what happened? I'd love to
avoid the same pitfall if possible.

~~~
kqr2
It looks like Australia uses a point system to determine visa eligibility.

[http://www.visabureau.com/australia/immigration-points-
test....](http://www.visabureau.com/australia/immigration-points-test.aspx)

For example, you get points for age. Applicants who are 25-32 years old get 30
points. As you get older, you get fewer points. Applicants who are older than
45 get 0 points.

Since you need at least 65 points for a visa, it seems difficult once you are
over the age of 45.

~~~
bartonfink
That's right, and unless someone uses a ridiculously strict determination for
some of the criteria (e.g. how fluent am I in English?), I should have plenty
of points. I'm more worried about some additional gotcha.

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djt
"[No] Australians are much more risk adverse" _I think they mean averse in
this phrase_

its not that Australians are more risk averse, its that we have a culture of
"tall poppy syndrome", which means that people that tend to become outliers,
especially highly successful, tend to get "taken down a peg". It's ironic
because we have quite a high work ethic.

I lived in Northern California for a few months and saw a massive difference
in the way that people believe that anything is possible and look up to
innovators (as a society).

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josephcooney
I wish it wasn't the case, but based on recent HN discussion[1] .au has a
number of issues to overcome (esp. re: dispersal of equity to founders)

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4169847>

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damian2000
There's been a long history of Australian inventors leaving Australia to get
backing in Europe or the US.

Hopefully things are changing for the better: E.g. Atlassian -
[http://www.theage.com.au/small-
business/entrepreneur/100m-so...](http://www.theage.com.au/small-
business/entrepreneur/100m-software-sold-a-year-not-a-single-cold-
call-20120628-214k1.html)

99designs - [http://www.theage.com.au/small-
business/managing/blogs/enter...](http://www.theage.com.au/small-
business/managing/blogs/enterprise/need-some-help-the-world-is-
waiting-20110602-1fh0j.html)

~~~
tfm
99designs did well from early investment from Atlassian, but their big recent
VC dollaridoos came from ... Silicon Valley.

Continuing the Australia/99 theme, we might observe that 99dresses was almost
thumped into oblivion (due partially to lack of investment) before it enjoyed
the expertise of YC and the attentions of the YC coterie.

Given geographic inevitabilities and the lack of local investment it is hard
to be optimistic about the Aussie startup scene, even given Fairfax media's
recent (and beguiling) attempts to toot the local talent's horn.

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jwilliams
If you're interested in the startup scene in Australia there are some great
groups. e.g. Silicon Beach. The Jelly events are great too. You tend to find
the same people at the occasional hack-a-thon and unconference-style events.

I'd also recommend getting over to some co-working spaces. Events are great,
but I've found them a better way to connect to a broader audience. In
Melbourne I'd recommend Inspire9, but there are others (The Hub, OpenHub).
There are similar counterparts in Sydney.

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pedalpete
"if there are two startups, one in Australia and one in the USA, both
targeting the USA market, which do you think is going to win?”

99Designs vs. Crowdspring,
[http://www.google.com/trends/?q=crowdspring,+99designs&c...](http://www.google.com/trends/?q=crowdspring,+99designs&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0),
leads me to believe that 99Designs is more popular, even though it was also
later to market.

~~~
tfm
I don't entirely trust these particular Google Trends figures as they show a
minuscule amount of USA-based traffic.

Regardless, though, of the particular instance, or indeed the reality -- the
problem for any would-be head-to-head of this type is not generally which
startup would "win in a fair fight", but rather which startup any potential
investors _believe_ would win. The problem for such Australian startups may be
just that the question of "which is going to win?" is being asked at all.

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djt
They didnt mention that a lot of Australians go overseas to work for
companies, which could be a boon for us if an ecosystem blooms here, as I know
a lot of entrepreneurs would love to move back to australia for the lifestyle.

~~~
underwater
They did: "...influx of quality talent into the Australia ecosystem. These
talents comes from the successful Australian engineers and designers who have
left or will soon leave their careers at huge tech companies such as Facebook
or Google to join or start new ventures back at home."

I think he is vastly overestimating the number of Australians over here.

~~~
nigelk
I don't.

I'm one of those Australians who moved to the US to work at Google, and then
left to join a startup, Puppet Labs.

There are a _lot_ of Australians in tech in the Bay Area, particularly working
in operations, and a regular topic of conversation is "what would I do if I
moved back to Australia?"

I'd still probably try to start a new tech company in the US, but I feel much
less strongly about that than I did a couple of years ago, and hopefully that
trend continues.

------
batgaijin
What's the current price of bandwidth there compare to america/eu? How laggy
is ssh/emacs to something close, like linode's japan instances?

~~~
joahua
Relatively high. Also from east coast AU latency is better to west coast US
than much of Asia in my experience. We just got AWS cloudfront in Aus which
might serve as a decent barometer for the relative cost of bandwidth:
<http://aws.amazon.com/pricing/cloudfront/>

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bmunro
Original page on Quora: [http://www.quora.com/Is-Australia-becoming-a-hot-
place-to-do...](http://www.quora.com/Is-Australia-becoming-a-hot-place-to-do-
startups)

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inopinatus
The left-learning government is not supportive of startup business. And the
economic indicators are not good.

Notable issues include

 _High income earners_ cannot offset business losses, thus deterring
entrepreneurs. _IR protections_ intrude on flexible working. _Border
protections_ make labour import difficult, despite the lack of a critical mass
for skills. _Government spending is high_ (although less than in the US), at
34% of GDP, leaving less on the table for investors to slosh around. This is
set to grow as the population age pyramid inverts. _Productivity is low_. The
only thing keeping growth competitive is the resources sector. This is
probably an economic time bomb. _Banks_ are massively risk averse and
unwilling to lend, although the problem is not as severe as in the UK.
_Business failure_ is perceived by many as personal failure rather than a
learning experience.

The current government is essentially the political branch of the unions.
They'd much rather prop up the dying manufacturing sector. Unfortunately there
is no credible alternative party.

If Australia is really unlucky then the ticking productivity bomb will explode
along with the demographic inversion, causing a welfare crisis, a debt
catastrophe, and probably a major recession.

None of this prevents anyone from having a crack.

~~~
femto
> Business failure is perceived by many as personal failure rather than a
> learning experience.

I'd content that Australians' bias isn't against failure, but against making
other people wear the cost of your failure.

The reason some failed businesses are held against owners, is because the
owners didn't make sure there was enough in company to pay the workers their
entitlements (salary, leave and superannuation) when the doors shut. While the
typically still wealthy owners hide behind the limited liability of their
company, the workers pay a cost they can ill afford. A failed company that
meets its obligations to its employees will be admired for "giving it a go".

~~~
inopinatus
Business is not a public service. Limiting liability is essential to fostering
entrepreneurship.

