It’s been another busy week in Australia’s start-up world.
Here are the stories that you’ve needed to know over the past week.
StartupSmart held its first ever pitching competition in Sydney, which was live streamed around the world on the internet. We heard from 10 great business-to-business finalists but there could only be one winner.
Looking at the issues that are affecting start-ups, the group representing Australia’s venture capital and private equity sector revealed its wish list for the upcoming federal budget in May, international business magazine The Economist published a report on the international tech start-up scene and Australian CEOs are predicting a weak year for business in 2014.
In start-up supporter news, Telstra-backed Sydney-based accelerator muru-D named its first intake of 10 start-ups, while the idyllic NSW south coast town of Merimbula has launched a bid to attract entrepreneurs to the region with a start-up and investment pitching event.
Meanwhile Startup Victoria is ready to launch a bid to make Melbourne a world-class city in which to start a business in and eight start-ups were named in the 2014 intake for the Springboard Accelerator that connects women entrepreneurs to growth experts and venture capital networks.
And in Adelaide, the city’s Hub co-working space has decided to renew its Young Entrepreneur Fellowship program hoping to stop the city’s brain drain of talent to the eastern states.
We also had the latest in our Start-ups are Scary series, hearing how one entrepreneur had to battle setbacks and doubts that his first successful start-up was a fluke, met the woman who’s brought a female touch to work wear, and learned that online recruitment business OneShift is opening in New Zealand after less than two years from being launched.
While on growth news, crowdfunding platform Pozible has launched a residency program for start-ups and is going strong despite rival Kickstarter taking aim at the Australian market, Tweaky has pivoted to become Elto and moved to the US after securing investment funds, and a photographer shared how he went from zero Facebook fans to 75,000.
During the week Facebook celebrated its 10th birthday and we looked at some interesting things about the social media giant you might not already know, and heard how Australia’s love affair with online retail shows no signs of abating. We also looked at how Australian entrepreneurs are setting up successful online marketplaces, shared five smart tips for launching a business with a new baby, and examined the best ways to acquire users and keep them.
Our mentors also had a busy week sharing plenty of useful advice. Marc Peskett offered eight steps to take to prepare yourself for investors, Franz Madlener explained why you need to understand technology when getting into retail, and Amanda Jesnoewski told us how to avoid burning out and hurting your customers. Linnet Hunter wrote about how we should be thinking about productivity differently, Walid El-Khoury talked about why you need systems, and Craig Yeung deciphered a recent High Court decision and what it means for your advertising.
