Australia needs to provide a greater level of support for the next generation of entrepreneurs, particularly with the decline of the mining industry, as new startups will be key for driving our economy, according to Winning Group CEO John Winning, who participated in UberPITCH last week to give feedback to budding entrepreneurs.
“UberPITCH was brought to Australia to give an opportunity for entrepreneurial riders to pitch their idea to some of Australia’s top business leaders,” Winning said.
UberPITCH has successfully run overseas and was rolled out in Sydney in partnership with Mark Bouris, Matt Barrie, Roxy Jacenko, Daniel Petre, Sarah Jane Clarke, and Creel Price.
Winning listened and gave feedback to eight pitches throughout the day, with ideas ranging from a retro coffee machine to a 15 minute order to your door home delivery service.
“There were so many fantastic ideas on the day. It was refreshing to see so many interesting people doing things and not only thinking on a local but a global scale. The world really is becoming more and more flat by the year it appears.
“We have so much talent here in Australia but unfortunately many startups feel that they would be better off relocating overseas and it’s frustrating to see great ideas being taken offshore as there just isn’t the right level of support locally for smart businesses.
“In the tech sector, which I am passionate about, it’s hard to find great help. Most of the good talent locally is in such high demand that if you aren’t Google, Accenture or one of the big players you can’t get access to enough of the right level of talent to create world class products,” Winning added.
“We are lucky enough that at Appliances Online we are now considered to be just playing in the league of what would be considered a big enough company in tech for someone in demand to put their name to, but I wouldn’t want to be starting a tech business today and competing here for the talent,” he concluded.