Market Gap ‘Learning’s’ for Start Up Entrepreneurs

I believe a gap exists in the start up environment in Australia for entrepreneurs.

A lot of the start phase is about incubation and acceleration services and the capital raising aspect.

But in Australia there is little experience in what is required for the whole life cycle of commercializing business from Australia – that is from start up to exit.

Largely this is simply because the size of our market is too small to provide a local a critical mass to support scaling. The exception would be areas where our industries are world leaders and offer inherent scalability – such as the energy and resources, financial services and the education sectors( and parts of the agriculture sector around food security and safety and water management and sustainability).

There is a requirement to support and advise entrepreneurs through out their life cycle on all of the key issues they will face both as individuals as well as companies – which is especially important when in the early stages when what seem to be simple, practical – even exciting - decisions at the time may become potentially restrictive.

In my case it was deciding whether in I would design the HarvestRoad enterprise software solution for Microsoft Operating Systems and browsers (which were dominant at the time) or choose the open source Unix- Linux and Netscape path (which had ‘evangelical appeal’ but were not as widely deployed in enterprise at the time of coding).

I chose the latter which was a good decision in the long run but clearly lost me early sales and market momentum as the value of that decision was not clear to corporate IT mangers at the time – ie HarvestRoad  built a powerful cloud based solution before the cloud was universally accessible as we know it today. I dont recommend that approach!

But there are many other topics that an entrepreneur must understand and decide on including:

Product Based Issues

• Clarity on what problem is being solved and what market are they in and who is their competition
• What strategy to take - prime mover or fast follower?
• Product management, quality assurance, customer support as part of a solution

Governance Issues

• When do I look for office space – how do I do this affordably?
• How do they scale their start up – fund raising, equity partners, choosing a Board
• What to look for in a Board – what role will they play in the business and what will be the Governance you apply to the company and your investors
• The importance of getting a great Chairperson
• Debt versus equity. Why would I IPO?
• Protecting your Intellectual Property – patents, trademarks, sharing my IP and to what extent

Scaling Issues

• Avoiding ‘profitless prosperity’ – growth for growth's sake may or may not make sense
• Understand how global trends and drivers can work for you
• How to be ‘born global’ and create international sales from the outset
• The role of standards to your products direction
• Licensing technology
• Appointing distributors or partners (who may become your competition)
• Business models and agreements with distributors – making sure you get paid!
• Which market to enter first
• Establishing and managing an international sales force –direct and indirect
• The importance of a key local reference account

Branding Requirements

• How to create awareness of your product and a product brand – themes and messaging are key. Having a product no one wants, cant understand, value or price is pointless
• Have clarity in 1) what is the business model for the product – what it is and what it is not and 2) how it scales
• The entrepreneur as a brand and their role in a company’s culture

Personal/Managerial Aspects

• Making decisions along the way. More importantly ‘how’ do I make decisions along the way? Is there a process I can follow?
• How can entrepreneurs make the best decision with conflicting advice or limited to knowledge of a changing environment?
• How to operate in different markets and cultures – US, China, India, SE Asia, Japan, Latin America, UK and Europe
• Americans separate being friendly from doing the business.

Exiting Considerations

• Do I have to exit ?
• There are ‘jumping off points’ in a business’s life cycle – how to using a business head instead of emotion and attachment to make the right decision
• Planning for or manage a personal or business exit exit

Closing

A knowledge gap exists in the technology start up and innovation entrepreneur space.

That gap revolves around many of the decisions an entrepreneur or start up must make across the life cycle of the product and company and not just in the start up phase.

And its those very early decisions that seem innocuous at the time - or made in a rush or forced - that may come back to haunt an entrepreneur!

So if you are a start take some time to think about what you want from the long term and not just what is in front of you!