Startup Muster Australian New Business Ventures

Startup Muster is preparing a list of Australian new business ventures. I filled in their survey form for my Higher Education Whisperer venture. What was interesting was that after answering a question I was shown the results so far from all participants. It is useful to see how your startup compares with others in Australia.

The previous surveys showed Australian startups had 19% female founders in 2013, 30 to 35 was the most common age, with 84% having been to university, and this being their first startup ventrure for most. NSW leads Australia for stat-ups, with 48% of the total and the Sydney CBD being the most common location. About half of the startups use a co-working space. 28% of startups have one founder, 66% have one or two, 86% have three or less. 

Muru-D Telstra Start-up Accelerator

The Telstra Muru-D Start-up Accelerator hosted a Christmas party with the Sydney Educational Technology Meetup group (SydEduTech) on 19 December. This was held at Muru-d's offices in trendy Oxford St, Paddington.

Getting into the building provided difficult, as this is a working Telstra telephone exchange and was was on a heightened security state due to a recent incident in the centre of Sydney (the army base donw the road was at SAFEBASE alert CHARLIE). After having my photo id carefully checked, I was escorted to the muru-D floor, which has been converted from holding racks of telecommunication equipment to be a place for start-up companies.

Like many such co-working spaces, muru-D has a warehouse conversion aesthetic, with cable-ways still visible on the ceiling, long rows of desks in an open plan environment . There is space for presentations with bean bags and stackable cardboard stools. Unlike the average co-working space, there is a roof-top deck next to the well equipped gym and kitchen, with panoramic views of Sydney (and glimpses of Sydney harbor and the bridge).

There were a series of typical start-up[ talks from the latest batch of businesses (Telstra selects a small number to be in residence every six months). These were well presented, with the usual enthusiasm (and the usual worry about how viable they were).

As this was a joint event with SydEduTech there was an emphasis on education. Also I noticed a strong connection with Chinese business.

The vent gave me some useful ideas. From January 2015 I am taking over teaching of the Australian Computer Society's "New Technology Alignment" (NTA) on-line postgraduate course.

The Studio Co-working Space in Canberra

Walking past the shopping centre in the inner Canberra suburb of O'Connor, I noticed a new sign for "The StudioThe Studio" (Level 1, 3 Sargood Street, O'Connor ACT 2602). Bytron Little, Creative Director of graphic design company 26 Hundred, provided a tour and a very good cup of coffee.

For those not familiar with the concept, a co-working space (or creative collective space), provides a desk to run a micro-business from at low cost. The space is open plan and you are encouraged to make use of the skills of your fellow workers. You can pay for a full time desk of your own, or for a few hours a week. This is an excellent alternative to the home office, for those who need some company (and some help with their creative ideas). These spaces are typically occupied by graphic and web designers and other "creatives". Some, such as Entry 29, on the edge of Canberra's CBD, are intended for new start-up technology companes.

The Studio Canberra is much smaller that the other co-working spaces I have visited (Entry 29 Canberra, Fishburners Sydney, Spacecubed Perth and Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology  Colombo). Apart from two clusters of desks, there is just room for a well equipped kitchen and a meeting table for four. There is no separate meeting room for confidential meetings (but there is a good coffee shop downstairs). The design is upmarket compared to Entry 29 (which was fitted our with second hand furniture) and is similar to Space-cubed Perth (131 St George's Terrace).

My hope is to be able to run courses for students learning about innovation, making use of such facilities. The idea would be that the student would study online and occupy a co-working space, rather than a university campus. They would take part in informal, or formal programs, such as Innovation ACT and learn to work with others. At the end of their course they would hand in an e-portfolio of business plans and other materials to receive formal academic credit. Regardless of if their business idea was successful or not, they would still learn.

ps: The Studio is also opening "Marrickville Studio" in Sydney, at 10 Mitchell St, Marrickville NSW 2204.

Coworking Space for Creatives in Inner Sydney

"The Commune" is a shared office space in inner Sydney suburb of Erskineville, near Newtown. The idea is that those in the creative industry can rent a desk by the day or year and share facilities with like minded individuals.

Like many other co-working spaces (including Fishburners in Ultimo Sydney and Spacecubed Perth), The Commune is in an old industrial building and has a post-industrial design aesthetic. The Commune has an impressive website, which consists of one long page with hyper-links (but it could do with real text, rather than bit-mapped images of text).

Co-working in Perth

I booked a Tour of the Spacecubed Co-working space in Perth . But what I didn't realize is there are two Spacecubed offices in St George's Terrace, Perth. The older office is at 45 St George's Terrace, in an old bank building (they have a meeting room in the old vault).

The newer is at 131St George's Terrace, about two blocks further West, in another ornate building. Number 45 was buzzing with activity, with people coming for meetings and others hard at work at their workstations.

There is the usual co-working setup, with a lounge area, for informal socializing (and work), rows of desks for work and some meeting rooms. The ideal such setup has a reception desk near the front door, which also have sight of the entire facility, so one person can keep an eye on things, much like the librarian at the front desk of a library.

There can be transparent screens (Space cubed has some glass partitions and other made of perforated sheet), which provide some partial privacy. As well as small private meeting rooms, the common area can be used for large events, with some people still sitting at their desks working.

A couple of features at Space Cubed I have not seen at other such places in Australia (and Sri Lanka)  are a Yammer site for members to congregate on-line and Community Membership for those who don't need office space, but want to be part of the community.

Number 131 is smaller, newer and less busy (there is a meeting this-evening to co-design the space. While I was there an economist turned up looking for space. This surprised me as I thought it was only web entrepreneurs who inhabited these places. But apparently other professionals are looking for low cost flexible space with a pool of services to hand (including web designers).

 Perhaps these co-working spaces will evolve into something like the old lawyers chambers, where individual professionals form a cooperative for office space and then ancillary services group up around this.

Spacecubed Co-working in Perth

Spacecubed in Perth, is a new Co-working, Collaboration and Innovation Space in the Perth CBD. Like Fishburners in Sydney and Entry 29 in Canberra, Spacecubed offers low cost shared office space to those starting up a new business venture, with the chance to meet like minded people.

One useful feature is reciprocal membership, with Spacecubed in Perh, teaming with Cityhive Geraldton and Sync Labs Leederville (also in Western Australia), as well as Fishburners Sydney, York Butter Factory Melbourne, River City Labs Brisbane, , Typewriter Factory, Hobart, and  Fill in the Blank Hong Kong.

One problem which Spacecubed has, along with other co-working spaces (in my view), is the silly name. It would be a lot easier to understand if it was called "Perth Co-working Centre", "Perth Startup Office" or the like.