I’ve been attending Startup Victoria’s meetups for more than 5 years, and have been a paid-up member for most of that time. The event formats and the key personalities have changed over the years, but the mission has always been to help create more founders and better founders, and to support the broader startup ecosystem. At last month’s AGM and panel discussion, the Board announced that the focus has now shifted to “helping founders to succeed”. A subtle change, but an indication that the local startup scene is finally maturing.

As part of this renewed focus, Startup Vic wants more corporates to engage with local startups – as suppliers, strategic partners and potential target acquisitions. Given the challenges startups face in meeting enterprise procurement processes (especially in the public sector…), this will not be easy. The path to engagement with startups has to be considerably de-risked before purchasing managers will get the sign-off to onboard new vendors.

That challenge aside, another observation from the panel discussion of founders and advisors was that Startup Vic needs to connect newer founders with more experienced founders, those who have already taken a startup to scale up to exit. Plus, as a leadership organisation, Startup Vic recognises that more needs to be done to highlight local success stories. That doesn’t just mean the startup community celebrating itself – it means spreading the word publicly and getting more media airtime for businesses that are building sustainable growth in the new economy.

One of the panelists asserted that “some of our politicians would rather have their photo taken with the winner of the Melbourne Cup, than be seen with the founders of Atlassian”. A bit harsh, perhaps – but I know that they mean. Aligning themselves with sporting heroes probably does more for their public profile, compared to hanging out with our key tech entrepreneurs in order to learn what government could do to foster more startup success.

To be fair to the Victorian Government, it has been trying to implement an innovation strategy that brings participants together – founders, investors, incubators, accelerators, etc. This has resulted in: the Victorian Innovation Hub (plus a number of sector-specific tech centres); LaunchVic (to provide grants to projects designed to foster the startup community); and engagement with overseas VC funds and offshore tech companies (to position Victoria as an investment destination, and as a national, regional or even global HQ).

Meanwhile, the panel also debated whether too many local founders are more interested in building a “lifestyle business” for themselves, rather than creating say, a $250m company. This apparent lack of ambition was seen as something of a local phenomena, partly linked to Melbourne’s status as one of the world’s most livable cities, partly linked to a generally benign Australian economy (but with a growing number of stress points), and the usual cultural factors such as the tall poppy syndrome. There are also some structural challenges in the economy (restrictive trade practices, a lack of competition in highly concentrated markets, continued economic uncertainty post-mining boom, delays in rolling out the NBN, a potential credit squeeze…), plus a growing distrust of public institutions and major corporations. This disenchantment and disengagement is not helped by a lack of strong leadership in government and in business – so why would anyone with any sense want to get involved, and hence the desire to take care of one’s own needs first.

Finally, emphasizing the need to re-think the founder mindset and to provide a better foundation for building the businesses of the future, Startup Vic is also committed to both the professional and personal development of founders.

Next week: Blipverts vs the Attention Economy