Enter Sydney’s Fishburners co-working space from peak-hour Harris Street any night of the week, and it seems there’s another networking event or startup talk. Head to ATP, Pollenizer, BlueChilli, or a handful of Sydney’s pubs and you’ll find others too.

As a founder, it can hard to figure out which events are worth attending. At FLT we know all too well, trying to allocate our time to events worth reporting, the ones which help founders be better. And this week our calendar has filled, but this is just the shortlist: Monday night, World Startup Report curator Bowei Gai at Fishburners; Tuesday night, the founder of the internet Sir Tim Berners-Lee at the Sydney Town Hall; Wednesday night, Google Sudo is hosting a fireside chat; and Thursday night, Odesk CEO Gary Swart is joining a panel on access to on-demand services.

While these events are almost always interesting —admittedly they can be an indulgence we’re afforded as writers — we need to ask which of them are helpful for founders, and thus, worth us covering.

I often find myself in this pickle. Having attended Gai’s Sydney talk last night, this question has resurfaced, as I subsequently try and get something of value down on paper. I started with a standard line about his quest to uncover the startup stories of cities around the world, but by line two realised the story needed to be a different one.

Yes, it’s a big mission. The Chinese-born American plans to spend eights months touring the world one city at a time; in total he’ll meet the founders shaping the startup hubs of 36 different cities, spread across 29 countries.

And his motivation to help provide ‘good information’ for startup founders, investors, and perhaps even governments is a noble one. I’d even go as far as to say the Australian report (which anyone can access/edit) will provide a useful repository of what is happening in the ecosystem. But ultimately, it’s another around the world trip intertwined with a startup quest, leaving questions about the validity of information collected, and the actual application for the reports.

It all started after Gai sold his previous startup, CardMunch, to LinkedIn for $US2.4 million in 2011. He was curious to see what existed beyond the Silicon Valley ‘reality distortion field’, something he refers to often. “I really wanted to see what was happening in China, and ended up getting introductions to everyone from billionare entrepreneurs, through to startup founders and the media,” he told the packed audience at Fishburners.

The China Startup Report fast rose to the front page of Slideshare, and has been viewed close to 100,000 times. It’s been covered by major publications in China, the U.S. and elsewhere — see here, here and here. But, you need to ask — what value does a project like this actually provide? Now, I don’t seek to take arms against the McClures and Felds of the world (both support the project). Yet, it seems a question worth asking. It was great to see a packed room of people in Sydney to hear Gai speak and some broader media discussion about what makes for a good startup environment, but I think it’s important to draw the line regarding the value of the information these projects collect along the way. Presenting several graphs during his talk, even Gai admits that the key areas of comparison are based on his own subjective ‘Bowei scale’.

Plenty of people came out to hear Bowei Gai speak at Fishburners (Image: Zach Kitschke)

Going by initial signs, the reports will at the very least be read and shared: “I actually wrote the China report as a way to say thanks to the friends who had helped me out on my trip. I went to sleep at 2am, and by 8am it was the most popular presentation on Slideshare. And then, at 5pm the next day, the Chinese people woke up, and it was published on every major news site in the country.”

But, what would help better understand how healthy startup cities work? This week, I caught up for a chat over coffee with Professor Donald McNeill, a fellow from the University of Western Sydney, who’s working on a research project, ‘Governing Digital Cities’. Over the next few years, he’ll spend time observing Australian cities including Sydney and Melbourne and compare them with ecosystems like London and Rio de Janeiro.

As a cultural geographer, his passion is the intersection of economics and cultural activity; how economies and industries are created and constructed. He’s turned his focus to startups, with the help of a government grant and the University’s support. Honestly, we could do with a lot more funded research into innovation and entrepreneurship; looking at the science and trends of startups.

Some people have advocated this as something government should support. Head of Commercial Development at the University of Sydney, Randal Leeb du-Toit, thinks the Government should establish an entrepreneurship policy and research unit as part of a Centre of Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital, to publish data and information with the aim of “broadening Australia’s understanding of the drivers of innovation and that advances entrepreneurship and its symbiotic relationship with venture capital.”

Taking an Australian viewpoint is critical here. We don’t face the same issues as the U.S. with its Series A crunch. Most local investors will tell you we’ve always had one — a lack of appetite for institutional money to the risk of VC results in it going elsewhere. All things considered, our home market is very different to that of the U.S., and many Aussie companies need to markets elsewhere to have a chance.

While the focus for McNeill is perhaps more conceptual, it is potentially just as helpful. He plans to explore how an ecosystem is created, how particular communities comes together, define themselves, and create a shared identity. It brings us to this ‘Silicon Beach’ tag, which Los Angeles has tried to wrestle from Sydney’s sweaty palms (despite what the SMH argues about Rio de Janeiro being in with a chance). Silicon Harbour, Silicon Gully, and even the bizarre Silicon Colony have been suggested as possible Aussie alternatives. But let’s save that discussion for another day, hey?

The original metonym took hold in the early days of the tech scene in the Bay Area, attaching itself to the community of people, companies and activities taking place in the fields of technology and science. According to most accounts, the now deceased Ralph Vaerst was the first to coin the name. And now Silicon Valley symbolises for tech what Hollywood does for movies. It’s ubiquitous. Elsewhere, the epithet has become a recurring attempt to define startup activity; reaching an earworm-likeness to the ‘gate’ suffix, following the 1970s Watergate scandal. Considering this, we need to ask just how important is a brand?

It’s a topic we’ll explore when Tyler Crowley visits Australia for FLT’s first event this month (more to come). He has been involved in building the Los Angeles ecosystem, which has arguably mushroomed since gathering behind the brand, tapping the otherwise organic startup talent and energy which has appeared in the city over the past few years.

I mean, having someone like Gai come and provide their perspective on the Australian ecosystem is all good and well, but as comments from a few of Australia’s startup stalwarts show, sometimes first impressions aren’t entirely correct. This is the danger with any research expedition that’s not grounded in a clear methodology.

For example, responding to the idea that Australian startups might focus on building products for local people and industry, BlueChilli’s Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin told the AFR: “the thing with online start-ups that make them work is volume, and in Australia we don’t have that volume.” It’s as if to say that the somewhat well-worn path of startups to San Francisco can be important, if not necessary.

With projects such as the World Startup Report we must ask what purpose they serve. They promote discussion, sure. But will it help Australian founders be better? Will it help Australian policymakers do better? Will it help startups make better products and service? The answer is, probably not.

While kudos should be given to people like Bowei Gai and Simon Walker of the LEEAP project for their efforts in connecting different global startup ecosystems, it’s important to recognise these projects for what they are. They’re not scientific, and they’re not necessarily representative. While the actual report may prove useful for founders to get a feel for other markets, perhaps even help make connections with the who’s who locally, ultimately what the Australian ecosystem needs is more comprehensive research and analysis — that requires proper investment.