Living in Australia, it’s common to feel isolated from the exciting world of innovation whose epicenter is Silicon Valley, USA.

Solitude is bliss, but entrepreneurship is lonely and hard, so I’m working on an ongoing list (bookmark it) of resources and support for Melbourne entrepreneurs.

Your own knowledge is crucial, but without the supportive tools and experienced connections needed to fill in the areas of skill that you lack, it is very hard to flourish.

If your space/program/support mechanism/grant is awesome and missing from this, contact me @AshtrayBroom and I’ll consider adding it.

Informative Resources

Here are a few resources that are worth the read. Most get in the way of doing and living.

1. The Fetch — A weekly email newsletter featuring events for: business folk, tech folk, creative folk, workshops/courses and great reads. Started in Melbourne (now run out of New York) by Kate Kendall, and has grown to include 10 cities. Very high quality curating of events (business, creative, tech), jobs and great articles for our fine city, thanks to Kat Loughrey. Literally the only detailed mailing list aside from a few choice bloggers that I’ll read every week.
2. Fred Wilson’s blog & Marc Andreesen’s blog & Paul Graham’s essays. I’ve pored over a few dozen, and these are the most consistently brain enhancing works I’ve found that are written by world-class Venture Capitalists. Always insightful and on the pulse.
3. Start Up Blog — The blog of Steve Sammartino, a Melbourne entrepreneur who gets some serious shit done. He’s a co-founder of TomCar and various other interesting projects. The writing is usually punctuated with deep, compelling insights. Local flavour for Aussies.
4. Angel.co: Melbourne — The most comprehensive resource for: founders and funding details of Melbourne startups, Melbourne Angel Investors, Melbourne startup jobs and the level of buzz around each startup.

Co-Working Spaces

Places in which a variety of start-ups, freelancers and established businesses work out of a shared space. The major benefits?

• Operating in a positive work space is great for team morale.
• Diverse talent means broad skill-sets available to help work through problems faster.
• More referrals likely than when you’re locked into your own office.

However, it’s not all rose-tinted living. You may get distracted from the process of actually doing work, but there’s an unspoken rule in all co-working spaces I’ve checked out that mitigates the damage of this issue:

“Headphones on, do not disturb. Headphones off, come say hi.”

I know the people who run these spaces, so if you want the best deal possible, email me at ashtraybroom@gmail.com

For your convenience I’ve arranged the spaces by their distance from the Melbourne CBD.

1. Hub Melbourne — Where? 673 Bourke St, Melbourne (less than 2 mins walk from Southern Cross Train Station). To me this is the most beautiful co-working space in Melbourne — with the best views and most natural light. Here’s an infographic describing their membership base breakdown. Great community management by my mate George Siosi Samuels, with free Open House tours twice a week and many guest-friendly events on. If you’re into social enterprise, the whole Donkey Wheel House building is one of Melbourne’s strongest hubs for it. Note: I currently have a desk there.
2. York Butter Factory — Where? 62-66 King St, Melbourne (less than 2 mins walk from Southern Cross Train Station). Underground tech den vibe with a very sexy fit-out. Attracts the highest density of Business-to-Business (B2B) tech companies in Melbourne, with a tendency towards Venture funding. The space is currently run by Jason Lim, who is also involved with Adventure Capital, an early-stage tech VC fund.
3. Collins Collective — Where? Suite 6, Level 6 / 20 Collins St, Melbourne (less than 2 mins walk from Parliament Train Station’s Collins St exit). One of the newer spaces, here since October 2013. Helmed by Sean Qian, Collins Collective is to be found in a building almost entirely populated by medical specialists — the space’s design being a post-modern interpretation of the medical clinic aesthetic. Residents include image consultants A Good Man, stylists, web developers, a couple of start-ups and some independent HR folks. Check it out!
4. Queens Collective — Where? Level 1, 20 Queen St, Melbourne (less than 3-4 mins walk from Flinders St Train Station). Brought to us by the team behind Collins Collective, Queens Collective is a coworking space for startups & creatives. Working out of their office are global companies like General Assembly and Uber, with locals like Coinjar also calling it home. The feeling there is very professional and well organised.
5. Inspire9 — Where? Level 1 / 41 Stewart St, Richmond (less than 1 min walk from the Northern exit of Richmond Train Station). Attracts the highest density of consumer tech companies of the co-working spaces in Melbourne. Very pop-in friendly — with a ton of room, and essential amenities like a table tennis and snooker table. Oh and a full kitchen. Damn good people abound!
6. Hive Studio — Where? 17 Kerr St, Fitzroy (2-3 min walk from the No. 96 tram stop just past Johnston St, running along Nicholson St). *CHECK IT OUT WITH ME*
7. Electron Workshop — Where? 31 Arden St, North Melbourne (XXXX). *CHECK IT OUT WITH ME*
8. Nest Coworking — Where? 829a High St, Thornbury (2 mins walk from Thornbury Train Station). *CHECK IT OUT WITH ME*
9. Revolver Creative — Where? Rear 229 Chapel St, Prahran (7 mins walk from Prahran Train Station). Next door to one of Melbourne’s most iconic music venues, Revolver Upstairs (“Revs”), and behind Revolver Drums is the most impressively designed co-working space I’ve yet seen. They’re pretty new but have a strong grounding in music, design, fashion and tech. Pandora, Campaign Monitor and a variety of creative professionals are already in there. They’re about to roll out a fibre-optic connection, have a great sound and entertainment system, full kitchen and 8 bathrooms. Conrad Tracey, also in charge of Revolver Drums, is putting together a great space.
10. Depo8 — Where? Level 1 / 39-41 Mount St, Prahran (10 mins walk from Prahran Train Station). Spartan design, quiet and chilled when I visited. Daily drop-ins and permanent tenancy available. More PR and creative heavy than tech-oriented. About to expand downstairs due to almost full occupancy. From a quick drop-in there they seem very focused on getting stuff done and less on community but I could be wrong.
11. The Workery — Where? Level 1 / 387 Glenhuntly Rd, Elsternwick (5 mins walk from Elsternwick Train Station). *CHECK IT OUT WITH ME*
12. St Kilda Hub — Where? Level 2 / 82 Acland St, St Kilda (1 min walk from 96 Tram stop at St Kilda Junction). *CHECK IT OUT WITH ME*
13. Creative Spaces — The most comprehensive resource available online for spaces to work out of in Melbourne (and Australia).

Is this useful? If you even half-nodded and you’re not going to read the entire thing right now, more people can benefit from checking this out if you quickly scroll down to the bottom and hit ‘Recommend’. Thanks!

Crowd-funding Communities

Crowd-funding is the sexy term for pre-selling your product to a pool of willing buyers before you take the financial risk of making it. Some projects in the space are fleshed-out working prototypes looking to scale, whilst others are as simple as promises + idea mock-ups.

Growth in this area has been ASTRONOMICAL in the last 2 years, and Crowd-funding has quickly become best practice for funding physical product businesses in particular.

The 3 companies I mention below all coach users through their campaign submission proposal, so even if your idea isn't successful at first, you will still learn and be taught a lot throughout the process of building a campaign.

For helping you develop and refine your idea, as well as providing the leverage of a globally-accessible funding platform, each company charges specific fees as a percentage of your total amount raised.

Keep in mind that PayPal and Credit Card fees may also apply — do your research before starting a campaign!

1. Kickstarter — The world’s largest platform for funding creative projects in the categories of: Art, Comics, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film & video, Food, Games, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology, Theater. To get your project in front of more people than anywhere else, currently the golden standard. Here’s what Kickstarter did in 2013. They charge 5% for funded projects.
2. indiegogo — The second largest platform in the world for funding your projects. Unlike Kickstarter and Pozible below, indiegogo offers flexible funding in case you don’t meet your full goal. Projects are fully-funded about 9% of the time. They charge 9% for incompletely funded projects (most!) but 4% for funded projects.
3. Pozible — The third largest platform in the world for crowd-funding your projects. Some info for my countryfolk:

• They’re headquartered in Collingwood, Melbourne.
• Highest project success rate of any major platform at ~60%.
• The platform (but depends on the project creator) accepts Bitcoin.
• You can get coached for free in their office (as at May 2014).
• Monthly product/service-based subscription backing is now available.
• You can put host a Pozible campaign on your own website.
• The co-founders Alan and Rick are both smart, hard-working, humble and principled people who do it all for the love of human creativity and innovation.

Melbourne Accelerators

If you’re looking for great mentors who have built a variety of businesses, a space to work from and access to broader networks with skills you need, check out these accelerators. Be aware that they’re application-only programs.

1. The Fitzroy Academy (of Getting Shit Done) — A 4-week pilot program for 25 carefully chosen students to work full-time in a shared space while being 1-on-1 mentored once a week and attending 2-3 hour workshops each day on Business, Creativity/Design, Technology, Social Enterprise, Health & Productivity. The brainchild of Squareweave co-founders Will Dayble and Luke Giuliani. Disclosure: I was a participant of their pilot program. It was awesome and life-changing!
2. Melbourne Accelerator Program (MAP) — A program run by a branch of Melbourne University in which all teams require at least one current or alumni student in their team if they want to participate. They don’t take equity in most cases. Introduced to me by Rohan Workman, their manager. Associated talks and workshops run year-round. Applications currently closed! (August 2014)
3. AngelCube — They describe the program as “Mentorship, seed capital, connections and opportunities for Australian web startups.” The investment amount for successful applicants is $20,000 for a 10% stake in your company. Applications currently closed! (August 2014)
4. The Founder Institute — A 4-month-long night-time program that has just reached Melbourne for the first time. So far they have put 1,116 companies through the program, created more than 10,000 jobs and almost 90% of businesses are still operating. Round 1 just finished (August 2014), with 8 of 24 initial participants successfully graduating.

If you’re finding this valuable, I would be very grateful if you scrolled down to the bottom and clicked ‘Recommend’ so more people can see it. Cheers!

Government Programs & Grants

1. Grants Victoria — The largest collection of grants available in Victoria across all Government departments, categories and industries.
2. City of Melbourne — The current premier of Victoria, Denis Napthine, seems to really dig innovation and entrepreneurship, so we’re fortunate enough to have some great new opportunities available to us. Here’s a list of grants provided by the City of Melbourne.
3. Commercialisation Australia — A merit-based assistance program offering funding and resources. The page I’ve linked to is very straight-forward to understand. The 2014 Federal Budget has determined that this program is being eliminated on 1 January 2015.
4. Business Victoria Science/Tech/Innovation Programs — A series of programs and grants made available to SMEs and individual entrepreneurs looking to take their innovations to market, work with the Victorian Government or publicly funded research organisations (PFRO’s). These can also be found by searching Grants Victoria.
5. R&D Tax Incentive — An AusIndustry grant that allows eligible businesses to receive a 45% tax offset (equivalent to a 150% tax deduction) on your R&D spend. Might be hugely beneficial for you.
6. The Awesome Foundation: Melbourne Chapter — $1000 micr0-grants given once a month for awesome projects. Funded by golden-hearted entrepreneurs paying it forward. Awesome indeed.

Entrepreneurship Support Bodies

1. Department of State Development, Business and Innovation (DSDBI) — The body that supports the Victorian Government’s business policies and programs and the development of innovative industries. Nestled within the site is access to a copious amount of resources. Very useful.
2. International Victorian Government Business Offices (VGBOs) — International offices of the Victorian Government. I’ve been told that they are very accommodating and well-connected with local companies when you need assistance with finding partner organisations abroad.
3. Startup Victoria — I went to the introductory event on 4 March 2014 (70-80 attendees). Great buzz. Super successful and clever people at the helm. On 29 March 2014 I went to the official launch at Inspire9, and over 350 people attended! Their $99/year membership deal will pay for itself in no time for even the most bootstrapped startup founder.
4. StartupAUS — Purportedly covering the whole of Australia, though located in Sydney at the present moment, they say: “A not for profit organisation with a mission to foster and build the community of technology entrepreneurship in Australia.”
5. Small Giants — A philanthropic social enterprise targeting B-Corporation that has been instrumental in creating Engineers Without Borders, STREAT, Hub Australia, The School of Life, TOM Organic and many other initiatives.
6. Social Ventures Australia — An investment and mentoring body for initiatives in the social enterprise space. ***Further study needed.***
7. One Million Acts of Innovation — An audacious project by angel investor, coach and mentor, Con Georgiou, to spur a huge shift in the way we live and innovate in Australia. I’m backing him in based on his character alone! After all, even if we aim for the heavens and fall short, we will be lying among the stars.

Melbourne Venture Capitalists & Angels

1. Starfish Ventures — “Tech and Life Science investor with $400M+ raised. Typical investment is $1-5M in the first round, up to $10M in subsequent funding rounds.” — Twitter DM from @StarfishVC.
2. SquarePeg Capital — “We aspire to be the leading Asia Pacific based investor in venture and growth stage online and technology companies.” They currently invest in and mentor these companies.
3. R&mpersand — They provide capital plus advice for post-seed stage tech startups. The partners have brought their experience in sales, marketing and PR with startups in Silicon Valley, Israel, Europe and Asia home to Australia and are looking to support the next generation of world leading tech companies. Happy to lead a round of funding or co-invest with others.
4. Adventure Capital; Southern Cross Venture Partners; Jolimont Capital; Scale Investors — Focused on investing in and supporting women; Melbourne Angels; Aurelius Digital — Private Angel investor group; Sketchbook Ventures.