There is a new generation; a
group of young professionals in there twenties and early thirties who have seen
Google and Facebook grow from garage to gargantuan. From the birth of Arpanet
1976, the PC, the laptop, and smart phones and social media have paved a path
to a world where a concept, an idea can make you billions. Intellectual
property has never had as much liquidity as it does today, and this generation
wants to capitalize on it. Some of these entrepreneurs work ‘normal’ jobs. You
can see them leaving office buildings at 5:30pm like everyone else, it is only
after hours when they burn the candle. They invest their time, developing
applications, trying to grow an online business, trying to bring the next
Google or Amazon to life. One finger on the pulse of advancements in technology
and the other reading the zeitgeist, trying to predict shift in the new
generation, like a prospector trying to follow a vein of gold to IT start-up
riches. Holding a stethoscope, listening intently for the heartbeat of the
digital society. Try desperately to ‘Prophet to Profit,’ to prophesize the
future to generate revenue from that vision. A conversation between two of
these young, tech nouveau can often sound like a foreign language, throwing
around terms like; traction, critical mass, bootstrapping, burn rate, hacking a
startup, angel investment and seed funds. You may be thinking ‘wank words’ but
these people are often in uncharted waters and band together for strength and
support, and in the process a new tongue has formed.
Fazzam [http://Fazzam.com.au] is one of these
enterprises. I recently interviewed Co-founder Robert Petrovic who, with his two
business partners has developed a location based application that allow people
to 'virtually' knock on your neighbors doors and ask them for just about
anything based on post-code. Fazzam allows people to advertise services
such as language classes, essentially a digital notice board for the community.
Robert started the business with friends who have the diversity of skill them
amongst to bring a company and concepts kicking and screaming into the world.
I recently
attended a MeetUp group, [http://Meetup.com.au]
called Melbourne Silicon Beach the
group comprises around 1,200 members and includes; entrepreneurs, developers,
investors and people with an idea. Melbourne Silicon Beach introduces the
different groups and gives people a place to get feedback, and some times to
receive invaluable tough love that can potentially change the course of their development.
Concepts are born and turned to rubble a hundred times over as the tribe of
techies pitch and listen.
Like all the
stereotypical Hollywood writers working in a bar or café, their screenplay
tucked firmly under one arm, hoping that Spielberg comes in for lunch, reads
their script and whisks them away to fame and fortune. All entrepreneurs have
their ‘elevator pitch’ ready to deliver at a moments notice. The elevator pitch
is a concise, well-planned and thoroughly practiced description of your
business that your mother could understand; delivered in the time it takes to
ride an elevator. You never know when you will jump into an elevator and be
face-to-face with James Packer and Rupert Murdock, both looking for the next
fiscally sound investment opportunity or game changer to throw some money at to
see if its got legs.
The York
Butter Factory is a temple for this religion of innovation. The Factory is the co-working space for Melbourne's high-potential digital and
web entrepreneurs. A
Mecca for Start-ups, and for the brave who believe they can shake the shackles
of corporate cubicles, those with the faith in a concept and their ability to
bring that idea to a place where it pays the mortgage, keeps the lights on, and
lets you take your partner out for dinner and champagne at that place with the
French name in the city that overlooks the water (A universal success measure).
The theme of the place is very much inception, iterative design with constant
feedback and course corrections. The hash tag is #GST, or ‘Get Stuff Done’, and
people aren’t afraid to tell you if there is a problem with your design.
I love the
idea of playing table tennis while working out an approach to tackling a tough
problem, being my own boss, never wearing polished black shoes in summer, occasionally
starting work at 10:30am, and never again being constrained by governance or the
corporate policy machine.
So for those
with an idea that is accompanied by a level of frustration with working for
‘the man,’ it is worth investigating the other avenues out there. The energy,
creativity and changes occurring in this sector are phenomenal, you can strike
sparks off anything, and nothing is impossible.
Jonathan
Nolan
9-5: Office
worker
5-9 :
Dreamer / Entrepreneur / Innovator / Developer / CEO, CTO, CIO, CFO /
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