The problems for Australian startups are cultural more than anything, I feel. There's such a strong off-the-shelf culture here that it is near impossible for a

The problems for Australian startups are cultural more than anything, I feel. There's such a strong off-the-shelf culture here that it is near impossible for a small player to get local traction even with a demonstrably better product. Sadly IT is seen by parties on all sides - government, business, consumer - as something Australians are just not very good at and should be left to others. This is a bit of a catch-22, the attitude is justified by the lack of really big, high profile Australian IT companies doing anything useful. If a few companies had big exits (as Atlassian may do soon) then local investors might start to take an interest in funding early stage startups. But it is really more about attitude and culture more than anything and that is so deeply rooted (tall poppy syndrome, etc) that I don't think much can change it and startups with genuinely innovative ideas are far, far better just to move to the US and get started there.