Silicon Valley may be halfway across the globe, but it hasn’t stopped Aussies from jumping on the start-up trend. The beginning of the 2010’s saw a boom in startups, which in turn grew the need for co-working spaces to house these companies.
Co-working spaces have expanded beyond the typical imagery of working shoulder-to-shoulder in crammed, dingy offices. They have become more about innovation, community and collaboration, and are coveted workplaces for startups to network and pitch their ideas. These places hold some of Australia’s most successful startups.
Fishburners is Australia’s largest start-up hub. Based in Ultimo, Sydney, it houses over 170 companies run by some of the brightest minds in the tech scene.
One startup created a hassle-free way university students can organise the most important day of their university experience - graduation. Ed Kearney and Matt Shiller are the founders of GownTown, a site which sells graduation gowns and other related items and accessories.
“Typically, a university graduate will pay upwards of $100 to hire their gowns for 2 to 3 hours. It got us thinking ‘there’s gotta be a better way’.”
At the other end of Sydney’s CBD sits Stone and Chalk, another co-working space for start-ups in the fintech sector (software that offers financial services).
In this space, Ranin Medis and Rodrigo Franken Dutra created LoanDolphin, an online property platform where brokers and bank lenders can place offers on a potential client’s loan. Both Ranin and Rodrigo were working in the banking industry before chasing their start-up dream. However, not everyone was on board with the idea.
“Leaving the traditional comfortable job [and] secure environment to do something in fintech, which most people haven’t heard of…it was a bit challenging at first,” said Rodrigo.
Bosco Tan and Alvin Singh show that success isn’t just about how great your idea is, but also the quality of the team behind it. The duo dropped their six-figure salaries to start Pocketbook, a money management app.
“We’ve known each other for 20 years since the first week of Year 7, so we went to high school and university together, had different careers but came back to do Pocketbook,” says Bosco.
“One of the things you get having a long standing friendship behind a project like this, is absolute honesty.”
