Welcome to From Little Things (FLT), an industry news source and an ongoing series of events, initially covering Australia and Singapore and in time, the rest of the Asia Pacific region. There are already tech startup publications and events out there, so do we really need more of the same?
Fair question, and if that’s all FLT is, the answer is probably “no”. But we intend to make FLT more than something that reports the current agenda — we want to change the agenda. FLT is our attempt to change the perception of the tech startup industry amongst investors, the business community and government.
What’s wrong with tech startup news?
We see a different young millionaire startup CEO featured on the cover of our business magazines every issue, it’s not so long ago that we couldn’t get any awareness of our success at all. What’s wrong with how our industry is currently perceived? Another great question — you’re good at this! But there’s a lot wrong with how our industry is perceived.
Because celebrating our young millionaire success stories is exciting, and better than no awareness at all, but it portrays us as less of an industry and more of a temporary anomaly at best, a series of high-risk, gold rush, mad scrambles at worst — no more influenced by sound business strategy than investing in scratch lottery tickets.
- Most professional investors consider putting $100,000 in an early-stage tech startup like to putting the money on a single 100-to-one odds racehorse with no track record and no bloodline.
- Government wants to be seen to be supporting innovation but can’t move fast enough, can’t get the data it needs, and worries about all the ways industry support could backfire, leaving it with egg on its face at the next election.
- Business owners have all read about companies burned by offshore web developers, ripped-off by credit card hackers, and threatened by online-only competitors springing up overnight.
Surfacing the real startup stories
Floq’s Startup Nation map of Australia’s startups
The millionaire startup CEOs under 40 make a great headline but they’re bad for our reputation. We all know they’re just the tip of the iceberg; for every rocket-ride-to-the-moon there are a hundred tech startup businesses building stable, growing enterprises over the longer term. There are also a thousand businesses in ‘traditional’ industries discovering that the internet enables them to find new markets, develop new products and improve the profitability of existing businesses.
Revealing the best practice
They’re achieving all this because, to paraphrase startup incubator Pollenizer’s tagline, there is now a science to building tech startups. There are established methodologies, backed by real-world data and case studies, which entrepreneurs, co-founders, business leaders and governments can use to minimise risk, maximise return and increase the performance of their startups.
Though valid, our ‘startup science’ is still new enough to be unevenly distributed, poorly taught and irregularly practiced. FLT is a publication and event series meant to change this, and to show industry, investors and government that tech startups aren’t a trend, or an anomaly, a side-effect or a gamble.
Tech startup science isn’t driving the new economy, it is the economy. In the next decade there will be no new hundred billion dollar companies listed on NASDAQ, ASX or SGX that aren’t primarily driven by the unifying science of startups.
Startups aren’t a trend, they are an industry, and in all industries.
From Little Things is a startup venture founded on lean startup principles. We’ll learn what you need by expressing new ideas rapidly and testing them with you, our lean startup’s customers. We’re starting with a minimum investment in a skeleton crew, working way too hard but working smart. FLT is a joint venture of Pollenizer, Event Directors and The New Agency. We will make mistakes, change our plans, and ask you how we can do better.
Welcome to From Little Things, a place to learn about startups, in a way that helps you apply those learnings, to your own startup plans, investment portfolio, and public policy.
Please tell us how we can do better,
- alan jones
editor in chief
