

Melbourne Australia Hackernews/YC Meetup, this Sun 4th Oct - tomhoward
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=141595103826

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tomhoward
For those not on Facebook...

By popular demand, we're inviting Melbourne's Y Combinator/Hackernews devotees
to come together for a lazy Sunday afternoon of sunshine & startup talk.

Tom & Fenn, alumni of the Winter 09 Y Combinator program will be there. If
you're considering applying to YC, either for the upcoming Winter 10 cycle, or
in a future round, this is your chance to talk to Melbourne's only YC startup
about their experiences and seek their advice.

But you needn't be a YC aspirant to attend, anyone who procrastinates with
obsessive re-reads of PG essays and eloquent dissections Michael Arrington's
character is encouraged to come along, as is anyone who manages to avoid such
distractions in the pursuit of startup success.

Get along and help make Melbourne the startup hub we know it should be!

Details:

3pm, Sunday, October 4th

The Order of Melbourne - Rooftop

401 Swanston St Melb

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KiwiNige
Also for us not on Facebooks; can you give us the time and location?

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tomhoward
Oops sorry,

3pm, Sunday, October 4th

The Order of Melbourne - Rooftop

401 Swanston St Melb

~~~
gord
cool.. like a real hackers conference.. you have to engage in social
engineering and pick a lock to gain access to the rooftop?

oh, you mean the Rooftop on Swanston.. um, ok :]

~~~
tomhoward
The line breaks didn't help me much there... It's at The Order of Melbourne,
at 401 Swanston St, on the rooftop level

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joshsharp
Looking forward to it. Whenever someone's brought up the idea on here
previously there's been a fair bit of interest, so hopefully we get a decent
turnout.

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mahmud
Booo!

A friendly troll on behalf of NSW :-D

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jwilliams
Well -- after guys turned all of Sydney YC-orange the other day, I guess they
felt they had to top it...

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tomhoward
Sydney turned orange the very night Fenn and I rocked into town. Co-incidence?
Hardly.

~~~
jwilliams
... And Melbourne turned grey.

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jwilliams
Looks like people will be tweeting with the hashtag #ycmelb
<http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23ycmelb> Thanks Tom et al.

~~~
jwilliams
Plus the awesome follows of @tomhoward and @ycmelb naturally.

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dschobel
A bit off topic but I'll ask hoping to take advantage of all of the Aussie
HNers who will surely drop by---

How are the startup scenes in Melbourne and Sydney?

Are they startup up friendly cities? Is the technology meet-up phenomenon
present there as it is in the States?

(All this talk of sunshine has rekindled my desire to get out of Chicago
before winter comes...)

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joshsharp
I don't feel qualified to answer your question, but seeing as nobody else
is...

Melbourne has a lot of technology meet-ups. Twitter meetups happen at least
monthly, and there are also mobile tech meetups, social media meetups, The
Hive for entrepreneurial talks and the like, and regular meetups for
[programming language of your choice]. Sydney has a lot of similar things
happening, but I'm not as familiar with the scene as I'm not there.

In terms of startup scenes we have a long way to go to match the US. Sydney
and Melbourne have a friendly rivalry going -- Sydney likes to think they're
more Silicon Valley-like, and Melbourne beg to differ ;) Both have good,
albeit small, groups of enthusiastic hackers trying to create a tighter-knit
startup culture.

This Melbourne meetup is one of the things we're doing here to try and bring
everyone together and get more of a community happening.

One of the other things everyone mentions is how much harder it is to get VC
funding in Aus, which is one of the reasons the startup culture is a little
stifled.

~~~
jwilliams
Probably also worth mentioning Melbourne Jelly, which is a great regular
event: <http://wiki.workatjelly.com/JellyInMelbourne>

------
pm
Surprised Adelaide hasn't turned up (must be all the serial killers). Any
folks interested in meeting up at some point?

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nopassrecover
Heh short notice to fly from Adelaide.

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pm
Actually, I was referring to people from Adelaide, meeting up in Adelaide. My
mistake. There are very few startup related events, and it would be good to
meet some fellow HNers.

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nopassrecover
Yeah not sure about HNers but there is The Startup Club.

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pm
Yeah I've been to a couple of recent presentations - am part of it on
Facebook. There are a couple of characters, but most attendees seem to either
be aspiring life coaches or business parasites. I've yet to meet a programmer
(at least one who knew what he was talking about).

~~~
nopassrecover
Yeah similar experience, hence haven't really been back.

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pm
Hence, why I made the original suggestion - anyone else we can coax into a
meet up?

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gstar
Melbourne is brilliant.

With all the banking (and money) in Melbourne, wouldn't it be the logical
place for the startup ecosystem to thrive in Australia?

I really hope it does - if I ever go back to Australia, Melbourne is where I'd
probably settle. It's one of my very favourite cities.

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nedwin
Looking forward to meeting more of Melbourne's web/tech startups.

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jay_kyburz
Any interest in a Canberra meeting?

