The History of the Australian Startup Ecosystem: Interview Series

In this episode, we explore the seed phase of the Australian startup ecosystem, tracing its roots to some of the earliest catalysts to what we see today. Australian pioneers started innovating well before anything resembled an ecosystem and before the term "startup" was used. We tell the story of trailblazers like the Nucleus Group in 1964, Fairlight in 1975, Computershare in 1978 and much more.

We look at how the macroeconomic conditions in the late 70s and early 80s encouraged the "first great wave" of Australian startups, only for global capital markets to collapse suddenly in 1987. As the new millennium approached, we highlight how the mainstream adoption of the internet gave rise to some of our most recognisable dot com juggernauts, the likes of Seek, REA and Carsales, leading up to the dot com boom.

This series was made possible by our sponsors and partners.

Thanks to MYOB, AWS Startups, Investment NSW & CSIRO.

We would like to acknowledge our earliest sponsors who decided to get involved with this story when it was just an idea on a piece of paper.

Special thanks to UTS Startups & Murray Hurps for being our first sponsor, Western Sydney University’s LaunchPad and the Guild of Entrepreneurs.

ANSTO, Canberra Innovation Network, Curtin University, University of South Australia, LaunchVic, The South Australian Government's Department of Industry, Innovation & Science, The University of Adelaide’s ThincLab, The University of Newcastle’s Integrated Innovation Network, Flinders University’s New Venture Institute, UNSW Founders, UQ Ventures & James Cook University.

And to our promotional partners who have helped get this series in front of the startup community.

Startup Daily, Fishburners, Spark Festival, River City Labs, Stone & Chalk and Spacecubed.

Mentioned in this episode:

NTP Technology Recruitment Company

NTP is the technology recruitment company that values community and who are invested in seeing the growth of Australia's local tech community.

Rohan McDougall is the director of commercialisation at Curtin University, where his team work to identify business opportunities for new products and services that arise research conducted at the university. Rohan has over a decade of experience working as company director or chairman of a variety of technology startups, including Renergi, a renewable energy technologies company, and Icetana, a company producing AI video analytics tools to assist in security surveillance. In his conversation with Adam, Rohan discusses how the dot com boom and bust affected Australia’s startup ecosystem, and why the Western Australian economy is at risk at having all its eggs in one basket with its heavy investment into the mining industry.

See full show notes: https://w2d1.com/rohan-mcdougall

Mentioned in this episode:

This episode is sponsored by NTP

This episode is sponsored by NTP NTP is the technology recruitment company that values community and who are invested in seeing the growth of Australia's local tech community.

Evan Thornley is a serial entrepreneur with decades of experience founding and leading tech startups, including Australia’s first to be listed on the NASDAQ and reach a more than $1 billion valuation. In 1995 Evan Thornley and his wife Tracey Ellery Founded LookSmart, which in 1999 had 500 employees and was the twelfth most visited website worldwide with 10 million users. Since leaving LookSmart Evan has had a diverse career, and is currently Executive Chair of LongView, a company aiming to transform the Australian property landscape. In his conversation with Adam, Evan discusses the highs and lows of his time with LookSmart, and the ways in which the Australian startup ecosystem has changed in the decades since the dot com boom and bust.

See full show notes: https://w2d1.com/evan-thornley

Mentioned in this episode:

This episode is sponsored by NTP

This episode is sponsored by NTP NTP is the technology recruitment company that values community and who are invested in seeing the growth of Australia's local tech community.

Peter Tippett is a serial entrepreneur with decades of experience working in startups both in Australia and around the world. He is currently working on three ventures, all of which he co-founded in the last few years: BodyMindLife, a platform for passionate community creators, educators, teachers and students, Vault3, which provides storage services on blockchain, and KULA, which utilises Web3 technologies to create online communities. In his conversation with host Will Tjo, Peter discusses his first hand experience seeing the internet evolve from Web 1.0 to today, as well as how he sees company ownership and management evolving in the future.

See full show notes: https://w2d1.com/peter-tippett

Mentioned in this episode:

This episode is sponsored by NTP

This episode is sponsored by NTP NTP is the technology recruitment company that values community and who are invested in seeing the growth of Australia's local tech community.

John Allsopp is an author, web developer and conference organiser who’s been working in Australia’s startup ecosystem for nearly three decades. In 2006 he co-founded Web Directions, a conference series for people creating tools for the internet, at a time when the field was still relatively new. In his conversation with Adam, he discusses the very first Web Directions conference, which he sees as being “like the Woodstock of the Australian web industry”, as well as his perspective that over the last few decades the Australian startup ecosystem has evolved from a small “community” into a fully established “industry”.

See full show notes: https://w2d1.com/john-allsopp

Mentioned in this episode:

This episode is sponsored by NTP

This episode is sponsored by NTP NTP is the technology recruitment company that values community and who are invested in seeing the growth of Australia's local tech community.