Yeah, get out of the way. No seriously, the most important thing the Australian government can do right now for startups is to fix their bullshit tax treatment for shares and options for your key hires in Australia. The way it stands no, without fancy footwork, your staff are subject to paying income tax on the paper value of shares and options when they transfer into their name, but when they only have paper value. And we know how liquid privately held stock in a high risk startup is. Sure, if the shares end up being worthless in 3 years you can include that on your tax return as an adjustment and get your money back, but that's numerous years the ATO has locked up real money and for startup folks that hurts a lot.
It makes our industry and ability to retain talent highly uncompetitive by international standards. And I'm not talking about tax rates - although payroll tax and the general tax rates compared to places like Singapore are noticeably different in Australia of course, but they're broadly comparable with the US - but the principle of taxing stock/options as an income received before any cash changes hands anywhere. This is an important part of how an early stage company pays smart and hard working people when they don't have a lot of cash, and frankly it sucks. Thanks Labor for your class warfare - you're screwing poor startups and young people, while negative gearing and stupidly concessional superannuation rates reward those who are already quite comfortable thankyou-very-much. In terms of what they're focusing their efforts on, from what I can tell the Commercialisation Australia project is akin to something you'd see in Yes Minister. Sure, there are funds here available for at risk investments. You have to be investment grade though, but to be eligible you have to prove you've gone through the process of trying to raise professional investment - VC - and been rejected. Then we'll look at funding you, because you've proven you're investment grade by failing to secure professional investment?!?! Oh, and by the way, we don't see software/tech as real innovation. Even though we can see a lot of the most valuable<http://www.google.com/finance?q=apple>and innovative <http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AGOOG> companies in the world are software/tech driven, and one of the world's best living entrepreneurs has emphasised the role that software plays in the future of every industry<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460.html>, we're more interested in a dude building something in a shed or a lab that we can see. The things that are working from my perspective as an entrepreneur are the R&D Tax Concession (so, in a sense, the govt isn't meddling but instead providing a broad economic incentive that is rules based to emphasize a certain behaviour, in this case, increased R&D spending), as well as some of the targeted export assistance which operates on a dollar for dollar matching basis. Any Australian startup worth its salt should be looking at international markets from day one because Australia is just too damn small, conservative and insignificant in the world; if you're in tech, tap some of the export support funding, often funded at a state level, and get over here to Silicon Valley, at least for a look around and to see how the big game is played and how worthy you really are to play it. Finally, the biggest risk I see with the thinking that is behind this question is that entrepreneurs will spend their time and energy trying to change government policy, instead of focusing their time and energy into building a startup that tries to change the world. Australian politicians and policies are particularly hard to change to our way of thinking; the vast majority started out as some sort of hack in an industrial relations setting (union folks or lawyers working for unions or employer groups) so they don't have a clue what it means to be entrepreneurial, and some actively despise the concept (because, entrepreneurs don't join unions or employer organisations who then have these IR fights that the rest of us just don't have time for). Aside from being almost completely unfamiliar with our world and severely under-appreciative of its role in driving innovation and economic growth, they're then also almost all in the school of rational economics which dictates that governments shouldn't pick winners, unless of course they have lots of union workers (eg, the Australian car industry) or are otherwise politically sensitive. So, they profess to want to stay out of the market, and if we tried to convince them of the merits of being more involved/supportive, they're deaf to us because we're not their *type* of people. So, my advice is concentrate on your startup, make it successful, and with the money you make from that, invest in StartMate and let's build this thing from the ground up. If the government gets too difficult, we'll just hire the same lawyers and accountants that other folks use and create special purpose vehicles offshore and do an end-run around their stupidity. Geoff On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 04:35, Adam Brimo <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi All, > > While I've been working on my startup over the past year, I've been > researching government support and initiatives for new businesses. I > didn't find a whole lot that was applicable and it appears that not > many VC/angel deals are done for early stage companies. I'd heard of > programs overseas such as Startup Chile and Singapores matching scheme > that sounded great. > > So I emailed the innovation minister Kim Carr to see if they were > planning anything similar and what else is being done for startups. > The responses are somewhat long and really just list the existing > initiatives, however I've posted them (with permission) here: > http://blog.mijura.com/post/11904346350 > > What does everyone else think? Between StartMate, AngelCube, > PushStart, SydStart, this list and many other private ventures - will > it make a difference if the government provides more support to > startups? > > Thanks > > Adam > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach > Australia mailing list. Vist http://siliconbeachaustralia.org for more > > Forum rules > 1) No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself. > 2) No jobs postings. You can use http://siliconbeachaustralia.org/jobs > > > To post to this group, send email to > [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en > -- Geoff McQueen Founder & CEO Hiive Systems Phone: 1.877.425.7315 (US) - 1800 2 44483 (AU) Cell/Mobile: 650.450.4384 (US) - 0414.678.466 (AU) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Vist http://siliconbeachaustralia.org for more Forum rules 1) No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself. 2) No jobs postings. You can use http://siliconbeachaustralia.org/jobs To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en
