Lean Startup Melbourne Jan 2014

This was a great session with a myriad of conflicting opinions and points of few, that always sparks a good debate :) First up a great set of introductory resources for startup founders from Scott Handsaker, with a lot of new initiatives arriving in Melbourne. His slides will be available on the event’s meetup page. Secondly was a very constructive talk on outsourcing that actually gave some great constructive advice on best practise in this sometimes thorny field. Advice covered finding, briefing and using outsourced workers as well as more details on creating a brief, making sure they follow it and how to evaluate their work coping with time differences and other infrastructure and culture differences. Finally, in a nice positive twist, the speaker recommend being generous and encourage to your workers.  Final came a panel with a mixed bag of local and international entrepreneurs, Susan Wu, Leni Mayo and Brendan Lewis. They discussed the Melbourne startup ecosystem and how it compares with others around the world, especially in the UK and US. Here’s a few tidbits I garnered and remembered to write down. 

• People only look for success, not necessarily actions when weighing up the impact of startups and/or a city. Connections and support for these startups are equally as important.
• Those individuals and organisations who are successful should give back.
• London had been a recent case study of government encouraging growth through backing and legislation, but London scale is vastly larger than Melbourne.
• Melbourne’s lack of size and geography makes us look more outward, also our lack of plan B if you fail, there are no massive employers Like Google or Apple who will value you.
• Australia is too full of safe investors, non risky investing.
• Lean and tech startups aren’t the only startups in Melbourne, there are many others participating in different scenes such as medical.