{"id":44888,"date":"2023-10-20T15:39:21","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/australian-startups-dont-need-incubators-they-need-customers-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:39:21","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:39:21","slug":"australian-startups-dont-need-incubators-they-need-customers-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/australian-startups-dont-need-incubators-they-need-customers-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian startups don’t need incubators, they need customers – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

By Lucy Lloyd<\/em><\/p>\n

We speak to Australian companies all the time who are facing the question of how to tap into the startup market.<\/p>\n

They ask us about investing, incubating and accelerator. To them we say: Why not try becoming a customer?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, incubators and accelerators have their place and are a proven component of great startup communities, but given the choice we\u2019d take a customer every time.<\/p>\n

The Australian market is becoming saturated with initiatives to foster early-stage startups, with corporates, universities and governments setting up their own versions almost weekly.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that investment appetite isn\u2019t keeping pace with the startup scene but neither is the appetite of companies and executives to try something new.<\/p>\n

For Mentorloop our experience is that one week we\u2019ll chat to a large corporate or bank about participating an innovation program they\u2019re funding to promote women in startups then the following week we can\u2019t get a call with their HR team to demo our mentoring software.<\/p>\n

Ideas are great but true innovation is in the execution.<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re serious about fostering an innovation economy we need to support local businesses doing something new, approaching an existing problem differently, or creating a new market.<\/p>\n

We need a cultural change beyond just the recognition of the local tech scene through press-friendly startup programs – we need CIOs and CTOs willing to take on a little more risk for more innovative results.<\/p>\n

Next time you\u2019re researching software to solve a business problem, why not take a look at what\u2019s happening in your local startup scene rather than making a beeline for the big, US-owned players?<\/p>\n

Even if it\u2019s just a change in procurement where local businesses are trialled alongside the big players, it\u2019s a huge step forward for our growing local industry.<\/p>\n

Buck the trend, and innovate by disrupting the software procurement process.<\/p>\n

Using a developing, locally-coded software solution that approaches existing business challenges in a new way – that’s what makes you a change-maker.<\/p>\n

Lucy Lloyd is the co-founder of MentorLoop.<\/em><\/p>\n

This piece was originally published on the MentorLoop blog.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

By Lucy Lloyd We speak to Australian companies all the time who are facing the question of how to tap<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59033,"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\/44888"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}