{"id":42237,"date":"2023-10-20T15:19:44","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/five-areas-where-australia-is-still-lagging-behind-silicon-valley-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:19:44","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:19:44","slug":"five-areas-where-australia-is-still-lagging-behind-silicon-valley-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/five-areas-where-australia-is-still-lagging-behind-silicon-valley-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Five areas where Australia is still lagging behind Silicon Valley – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Despite recent government activities and growth in the ecosystem, there are still several areas where Australia is lagging behind Silicon Valley and other innovation hubs around the world, according to IT veteran and Domain director of product Asok Boopathy.<\/p>\n

Boopathy has held several senior positions at tech giants such as PayPal and Bigcommerce, as well as American Express.<\/p>\n

Across the last 20 years he\u2019s been immersed in the startup world, both in Sydney and Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n

Last month he returned to Australia to take on the new role at Domain and he says the differences between the two ecosystems are still profound.<\/p>\n

1. The critical mass<\/h3>\n

Although the communities in Sydney and Melbourne are rapidly growing and evolving, especially over the last couple of years, Boopathy says they still have a long way to go until they\u2019re anywhere near the scale of Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite a different environment. In Silicon Valley there are just so many tech companies around,\u201d Boopathy tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re slowly trying to mimic that. When you\u2019re in a tech company the people around you need to be amazing. You work around people that are very motivated, they work extremely hard and they believe in what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. A pay-it-forward culture<\/h3>\n

Despite the saturation of tech companies, he says Silicon Valley also has an unrivalled culture of sharing and educating the next generation of startup founders.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though they\u2019re competitive they still share things,\u201d Boopathy says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this idea of saying, \u2018hey I built something and it\u2019s okay to share it\u2019. That\u2019s quite different than anywhere else I\u2019ve been.\u201d<\/p>\n

But this trend is starting to emerge in Australia, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat culture is permeating around the world, even in Sydney,\u201d Boopathy says.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of small companies are trying to emulate that \u2013 everyone is trying to do that model.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Access to funding<\/h3>\n

The \u2018Valley of Death\u2019 is often discussed in the Australian startup community, and this lack of readily available funding is holding the ecosystem back, Boopathy says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that\u2019s very different is that it\u2019s quite easy to get venture funds in Silicon Valley,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have the right idea and the right business model you can get the money quite easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the likes of the Atlassian co-founders funding a number of local startups, Boopathy says there is still a lack of successful entrepreneurs providing capital for the next generation of tech companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of successful people are funding companies over there,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t exist in a place like Sydney.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. Corporate participation<\/h3>\n

While the recent push from all levels of government is a welcome development, Boopathy says a startup ecosystem also needs larger corporates getting involve and encouraging a culture of innovation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government is one thing but you need a community,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBigger companies need to start to create this environment \u2013 government alone will not be able to do this. Silicon Valley has a history of doing this for years and years so there\u2019s big momentum there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australian tech companies that have made it on the world stage are helping to foster this, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompanies like Atlassian and Bigcommerce have had success that others can follow,\u201d Boopathy says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd ones like Canva are also starting the movement. We need more people to come in and start the movement with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. Flexible workplaces<\/h3>\n

Australia\u2019s \u2018brain drain\u2019 of entrepreneurs and founders leaving the country to pursue opportunities abroad is still a big problem, he says.<\/p>\n

To prevent this, Boopathy says local companies need to improve their internal working culture and give budding entrepreneurs more flexibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be able to stop something like this there needs to be more local companies that not only have cool things to work on, but have an environment where there\u2019s continuous room to think and freedom to do other things,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of companies don\u2019t have that culture. As a young engineer with an idea, if you don\u2019t have time to build it you\u2019ll go elsewhere with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cLocal people will have less of a need to move elsewhere if they can go to big companies and also have room to create their own startups.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter,<\/em>LinkedIn <\/em>and <\/em>SoundCloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite recent government activities and growth in the ecosystem, there are still several areas where Australia is lagging behind Silicon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}