Markets, Real Estate and SME

Things that make you laugh, things that make you cry....

Markets

Bouncing around. The Australian market and its yo-yo effect - Read more...

This is good for a laugh! The Australian economy getting blamed for a global corporations reduction in earnings! - Read more...

Real Estate

Following our post on mortgage black spots, the news just isn't getting better in the Gold Coast - Read more...

Real life slum dog millionaire? The dangers of squatters in an empty home... - Read more...

Aussie Entrepreneurship

Thanks to Lawrence Humblet from pollenizer for this read:

Flearn Early. Flearn Often. Supporting Australia’s Young Entrepreneurs

by LAWRENCE HUMBLET 

This summer, something very interesting has been developing quietly in the Manning building of the University of Sydney. When exams finished at the end of November 2012, the campus fell silent and the usual hordes of students parading down the main boulevard, Eastern Avenue, all but disappeared. The only people left on campus? Some academic staff, the few summer school students and the 8 Incubate teams.

Incubate co-founder James Alexander (bottom right) and the 8 teams

Incubate is a student-entrepreneur program founded by Sydney University students James Alexander and Mina Nada. Incubate runs on a model similar to Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator in that a cash grant is offered to seed-level startups and intensive work is done over what is almost a 3 month period. The program was created out of the desire to provide support for university students who were looking to start their own business.

Winning applicants of the Incubate program received a $5,000 grant which is not attached to equity, working space on campus for 11 weeks from December to February, and mentoring from Australian entrepreneurs such as Matt Barie of freelancer.com, Matt Byrne of curicon.com and Nikki Durkin of 99dresses.com.

Incubate joins the likes of Sydney University’s own Genesis program (started in 2008) and Melbourne’s Accelerator Program (started in 2012) to provide needed student entrepreneur support. Similar to the StartX program at Stanford, these programs are aimed at fostering growth in aspiring entrepreneurs early. And early is definitely a good thing. Entrepreneurs need to start flearning as early as possible.

Everyone in the startup community has experienced some degree of failure at some point, but with an average entrepreneur age of 33.43 in the Sydney ecosystem, these failures (and learnings, the important part!) could come earlier. Youth is definitely a more flexible demographic in that they have less obligations and so can commit more to a business and they also have a higher tolerance towards the calculated risks required to build a startup. Also young people are less likely to have subscribed to dominant industry frameworks i.e. they have a fresh mind which is ready to absorb new knowledge. However it can also be said that young people aren’t prone to focus as much as adults that have had more experience in a given field.

MAP Alumni, VenueMob, raised $450,000 through Optus Innov8

Either way, the startup community is taking notice of young entrepreneurs and are keen to support them. VenueMob and 121cast are two businesses which have come out of the Melbourne Accelerator Program and successfully raised $450,000 and $250,000 respectively through Optus Innov8. The latter was co-invested by Adventure Capital from Melbourne.

The efforts of programs such as Incubate will assist in fostering the culture of entrepreneurship in Australia. Sydney is Australia’s largest startup hub, being 55% larger than Melbourne and so Incubate and it’s startups are definitely well placed to grow and gain support from the industry and peers. Hopefully this support leads to as many flearnings as possible as early as possible.

All the Incubate teams will present their startups to investors, mentors, students and media on Demo Day at the end of February. You can follow updates from Incubate on Twitter or on Facebook.

—

List of Incubate Teams

Muro
Muro is a context-based photography platform that allows people at the same event to connect with each other through image sharing.

WeSit
Connecting parents to a trusted network of babysitters online.

TheBestDay
A social planning tool for the web and phone that makes it easy for a group to agree on a time and place for an activity.

VIC Bot
Preparing children for tomorrow with a robotic kit that is controlled through easy to use visual interfaces.

SnapDisco
A new visual search engine for shoes and fashion accessories. Find the perfect look, find the perfect fit.

FeedBack
A smartphone application that allows users to raise money for charity by completing market research surveys on the go.

Edisse
A watch that can saves lives. An automatic panic button built into a watch to detect medical emergencies such as falls and heart attacks.

CloudHerd
An eBay for livestock with extra services, such as inventorying, based on leading Aussie standards.

Until next time dear readers....