| 1. Lack of real VCs Venture Capital, shock horror, is not the only way to raise capital. And we have extraordinarily low interest rates. 2. Lack of non-predatory Angels What are you basing this on! 3. Lack of a startup culture Absolute garbage. We have hundreds of startups. Hell, all of them are looking to get purchased and ruined by some huge U.S. tech giant (hi, EMC!). In Sydney alone you can go into North Sydney, Crows Nest, St Leonards or North Ryde to find them. As the author said, they are not founded by people working or partying themselves to death (well, some are), but that doesn't mean they aren't startups. 4. Risk aversion Startups here take risks all the time. But your view of being "risk averse" opus probably coloured by the fact that you think a business can only be a success if it's made it in 3-5 years. Australians tend to want their businesses to survive long-term, so they adjust their position on risk accordingly. 5. Geographical distance Big deal. Plenty of Aussie startups have overseas offices. Software development startups utilise the Internet extensively. 6. Cultural cringe Possible. 7. Time zone differences This is only a problem for people employed outside our Timezone. You realise that a good majority of emerging South East Asian markets are close to our TZ? And if you know what you are doing you can make time zone differences work for you? 8. Over valued currency Yeah, we're one of the few countries in the world to escape the GFC largely unscathed. Our high dollar can be an issue... Except when you realise that the U.S. Dollar and the UK dollar are far higher than our currency. 9. Real estate speculation I hear yourain. This is a real problem in Australua, but it has little bearing on startups. Let's look at our positives: 1. Highly educated workforce 2. Stable government 3. More relaxed culture as we have less disparity between the rich and poor than somewhere like the U.S. - often mistaken for laziness, when in fact we work just as hard and often harder than other cultures. And we have universal health care, a decent industrial relations system, reasonable welfare systems for those who are disadvantaged, a properly regulated banking sector, strong consumer laws, and lots of other things that make for living here actually pretty awesome. Heck, we're stable because we got so many things right over the past few decades. 4. Technology obsessed populace with cash to spare 5. Highly connected populace no longer concerned about technology (risk averse my arse) We do things differently here. That makes us different, not impossible to do business with. |