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Half of the comparisons in the article are irrelevant, nit picking on stuff that isn't important. However I do agree that Australia doesn't have enough post see
by semerda 12y ago
Half of the comparisons in the article are irrelevant, nit picking on stuff that isn't important. However I do agree that Australia doesn't have enough post seed money.. but Blackbird Ventures (and others) are changing that.
So I am an Aussie living in Silicon Valley for the past 5 years. Done 2 tech startups in AU and now in USA. Here is my take on the article based on my experience in both markets.
You don't need an exit strategy. Stop focusing on exits overseas. Just build something people want!
It isn't difficult to scale products worldwide from Australia. Infrastructure wise you now have AWS in Sydney, the best worldwide infrastructure platform (see Gartner’s Service Magic Quadrant). On the business front you only ever want to do an international strategy once you proved your product has a scalable business model. Same applies for US companies before they go global after Seed. While in the "Seed" phase use the local market to learn & iterate before scaling out.
5 years ago iTunes App store / Google Play did not exist. That sort of distribution is a door to the world! Not to mention the internet itself. Learn ASO, SEO and if you don't have a mobile product.. then build one asap. The future is mobile. Humans are mobile creatures and we engage now more via that computer (mobile phone) in our pocket.
Look at WhatsApp. Based in Silicon Valley built an empire out of sight. They focused on an international market. By the time local competition noticed what a monster of a business it became, Facebook snapped them up for $19B.
I often hear business people that run tech companies complain more than software engineers about how hard it is to build companies without funding. As Chris Dixon pointed out at Startup School 2013, "Business people vote with their dollars. Engineers vote with their time". Maybe it's time to learn to code? If you can code you can build product now, iterate now etc.. without sitting around day dreaming ideas while waiting for "funding" so you can pay someone else to code it for you.. and potentially mess up the foundations.
Tax Breaks or Grants don't matter. I have not heard any startup even consider those in the USA.
Australia is Expensive - have you seen the rentals in SF/bay area? Food and clothing - yeah dirt cheap in the USA compared to AU.
Timezones - West & East coast in the USA are 3 hours apart. If you need 24 hour support outsource it via oDesk.
Have you considered Health care? in the USA it is insanely expensive. If you don't have a job you will pay around $1.7K for good coverage per month for your family (you, spouse & kid). If you don't, you have no coverage. In Australia.. oh yeah it's free. And not tied to your job. Now say you have employees. You should consider this a massive expense because if you don't cover them, there are plenty of other companies that will with better benefits. You won't have these issues/expenses or competition for talent in Australia.
When I left Australia few years ago there was no Fishburners (Sydney coworking space) or Startmate (YC like mentorship and seed financing) or a swarm of similar entities now all over Australia supporting local startups & talent. Yet people still built business. When I did my 1st tech startup straight out of University there wasn't even enough free online content to tell me how to do stuff, no support networks and infrastructure cost an arm and a leg. If you ask me, I think it is far easier today to build a tech business in Australia then it was few years ago.