I had come to the conclusion that a community driven y-combinator model was the best in the context of this country and investor ecosystem, so to see the conversation evolve to this is pretty exciting for me. So for fun I will call this ScuBinator (a very poor pun on silicon beach and incubation).
I don't know but, I suspect a few barriers exist to investor-eco-system health (thinking of angels mostly here): a) its a high probability that high networths made their money in property, retail or stocks - so early tech is daunting b) they've not heard of VCs hitting it out of the park c) there are only a handful of high networths who have made excess cash OZ. In the bay there is loads. As said previously its a cycle d) maybe angel community can't clearly reference enough successes. Its pretty sad if radiata, looksmart and resmed are the only reference points that broader investors take away. There are other startup that are great stories such as *aconex, hitwise, atlassian and smaller but still great decide interactive, omnisio* and probably 20 others that *ScuBinator* should be marketing as Australian successes. e) investment can be adversarial and so entrpreneur naivity has been perpetuated f) there has been not been an "easy to find" filter or mentoring vehicle and I feel SB could ultimately deliver that. There has been y-combinator me-toos spring up and that is because its a good model: http://seedfunding.weebly.com/ I was having beers with YC company *omnisio* about 9months before youtube/goog acquired them, they loved being YC even though others told they could get much better terms - why? 1. they had to compete to be a YC company - they had to kick butt to be selected 2. the YC events have profile and a marketing machine precedes them. This gold rubs off on YC winners - its up to them to what they make of it 3. being a YC company puts you on a networking fast track - you meet and get mentored those who have been before. 4. being a YC company increases a chance of exit because the "network behind the network" is very high value So, can *ScuBinator* deliver such things to local startups? 1. yep, thats easy 2. yes, taking startupcamp as a recent "outcome-focussed" example: I think a YC-style competition will deliver a much more focussed, quality and outcome related set of contenders than a Pitchfest style. If run twice per year, then startups can decide if it is too early to expose their secret sauce of business model. 3. Collectively we SB folk may have 1 or 2 degree network that could credibly deliver this 4. thats tough I respectfully disagree with silky - I think it should be "for-profit". I think the mission is to make money and grow as a pragmatic, focussed incubator - to introduce non-profit dilutes focus of why it invest in a company. The Oz startup scene is on the bottom of the Maslow hierarchy, so it can come back and be all-Omidyar after it has a track record of wins. My guess is that winners would be obliged to accept a term-sheet up-front (a condition of entry) for *ScuBinator* to have an *COMMON STOCK* equity stake or convertible note. To me *ScuBinator* looks like: - a fund raising engine. It takes the Obama approach to fund raising, a little from a lot of people....often. - a unit trust (I am no accountant but I think ASIC has shareholder limits of 50, so the vehicle needs to be sorted) - it may segment the trust into streams or market specialties - a mentor hive - a selection team (who set the criteria for competition/selection) - an incubator that helps with corp structure, finance, grant management, raising, governence - an filter/advisor for startups that can't win, can't compete, are preparing - a buzz machine (to market the value of itself) - a communication arm to unit trust holders. One of the hardest things in terms of taking investment is the reporting regime. With friends/family rounds this can more emotional and high maintenance than originally intended. this is not to say the cash-is-king comments are invalid, quite the opposite, I just think this is missing in OZ and we need to fix it. anyway, just some thoughts. d. On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 7:56 PM, silky <michaelsli...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 7:31 PM, Elias Bizannes <elias.bizan...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Yes policy is crucial. However, I can see something like that getting > > extremely complicated. Community-driven decision making models are not > easy > > to design: I spent 50+ hours creating the DataPortability Project's model > > with five super-intelligent & wise men - and I was ready to kill someone > by > > the end of it. > > > > And whilst democracy is a concept I'm willing to die for to preserve, > it's a > > bitch as well. As you allude to, there needs to be an oligarchy running > it. > > Certainly there would be a board running it; and the membership would > only buy the "public" a certain % of the total vote allowance (say, > 40%). > > The board would decide the rest; typically decide the investment/award > prize path, and other such things. > > A pricing model I have in mind is: > > free: anyone can join, attend "free" events. > 500+: buys a certain amount of shares and possibly some other > non-limited asset that gets them access to dinners/breakfasts and more > formalised meetings > > So basically it's like starting an investment firm, but not for > profit, with strict policy guidelines. > > > > Another idea which naturally solves this, is having multiple funds. So > > whoever wants to take the risk of doing this taps into their networks to > > raise money (they become the lead venturer), and therefore have the > > authority to appoint their governance team as the coordinators are the > > common link. > > I think a centralised fund (i.e. organisation) is better. If it's all > seperate, no individual (person or group) will care enough. It's hard > enough getting people to interoperate; groups of people is much much > harder. Specially in investing and decision-making. > > > > Raising money is the hard bit, but very doable - and creates a natural > order > > of how things will run. This is better than having a centralised system > > because instead you have multiple "funds" talking together and pooling > their > > efforts, having a net greater impact. So long as these funds have a > common > > watering hole to mutually help each other, the net impact is the > creation > > of an agile investment group that even if its fails, will shake things > up. > > > > I'd be interested to talk about further once the idea has had some sharks > > attack it on this list. Might take a few months of planning, but it's a > Big > > Idea that's worth it. > > > > Elias Bizannes > > http://liako.biz > > -- > noon silky > http://www.boxofgoodfeelings.com/ > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. No lurkers! 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