To Optimal Government in One Week
“I believe it was a sudden of change attitude throughout the whole government including some managers in the public service who had thought it was sensible to hold back a startup that wants to disrupt the very core of capitalism”.
At the beginning of the week we had Fin15 had been waiting for our company to be registered by the government. Waiting is not really correct as we have been working on a lot but suffice to say it would be better if we didn’t have to wait 5 months.
FIVE MONTHS!
That is how long it can take to have a company (foreign subsidiary) registered in Australia.
But by the end of the week we had a new PM and our company was ‘miraculously’ registered (with the help of a big city law firm and, probably, many of the politicians like Bruce Billson and the new PM himself that I had tweeted to).
Many will say it’s a coincidence.
I believe it was a sudden of change attitude throughout the whole government including to some managers in the public service who had thought it was sensible to hold back a startup that wants to disrupt the very core of capitalism.
We make no apologies for this. We believe financial institutions are doing an awful job. We believe an Australian startup can change that and thereby deliver huge positive change to the world.
Our goal isn’t just to shakeup financial advice in Australia. that’s just phase 1. Phase 2 is about making capital work more efficiently on both ends - for both the investors (whose money it is) and the recipients (who should be those who can do alot with the funding).
These five months have forced us to work hard on optimizing our strategy and set out a driection to become not just a unicorn - but one of the top financial institutions worldwide and to set a new benchmark for how such a company should behave.
But here is the thing about government…
They can’t really help you (a democratic government at any rate) but they can massively hinder you. They can delay you.
On Thursday we were told the company would be registered overnight.
On Friday it was open.
On Sunday, yesterday, when Prime Minister Turnbull announced his cabinet we felt elation. It seemed clear that the PM had put people into those key positions to ensure startups like ours are not being held back.
What is the difference you may ask?
The difference is between policies that make it as easy as possible for businesses to achieve something in an area and policies that are negotiated with conservatives so that the result is slightly better than it was before.
The problem is of course that this resulted in policies that were well below those of our typical competitors. For example even France has better policies for startups than Australia.
Yes… FRANCE!
Anyone would think we had a socialist government.
We don’t want average… we especially don’t want well below average.
We should have policies that put us at least on the same level as New Zealand. We should aspire to have policies that allow for a startup environment like Israel.
Don’t hyperventilate… we don’t have to copy then - we don’t have to go all radical - we don’t even need to reform the taxation system for that to happen.
But before I tell you how let’s go through why I think we now have a better team, leading aside the Malcolm factor of pushing innovation from the position of PM.
The new Industry, Innovation and Science Minister Christopher Pyne
Mr Pyne probably has the biggest personality in parliament. He was also facing election defeat for his seat.
This is surely the most important Ministry in the new government. If we want the economy to transform so that we have future economic growth then it needs to be driven out of Mr Pyne’s office.
South Australia has always been a hotbed of innovation, producing several Nobel Prize winners and leading the way in industry innovation. Recently all that innovation, something we should build on, has been sucked out of the place.
South Australia should be Australia’s home of industrial innovation - it has the most fertile soil. If Pyne can simply sow the seeds he will save his seat as well as the seats of many of his colleagues.
Simply put Pyne was the most motivated senior Liberal politician in the Parliament. He has the political skills to get this done. Education and stupid restrictions place apon him once hang around his neck. Now he has a balloon filled with hydrogen.
He is the most motivated and has serious political skills. Therefore he is definitely the best person for the job. He just needs to be backed up by a team with talent.
The new Small Business and Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer
Having the Small Business Minister also be the Assistant Treasurer is a huge move as small business is the driver of the economy and startups (Australia’s future) start out small. Growing up under Costello is also hugely important. To me even more important is that we have a woman in this position.
Women have a harder path in business and so I’m hoping O’Dwyer brings perspective that government has to make it easier. The most crucial recommendations I have to help startups are simply about making it easier for everyone in small business.
A passing note on Bruce Billson - because a lot of people point out that he was a great Minister for Small Business and that he was connected with our startup community. This is true but his leader was not just holding us all back… he was trying to sling us into the past. By not backing a change he didn’t back what we were all screaming out for - he didn’t back small business. The change had to be made. But I hope he comes back into the ministry - his work ethic and energy is needed.
The new Communications Minister… Mitch Fifield
I don’t know anything about Mr Fifield. I hope he has the balls to take the NBN forward with FTTH. That may seem like a backtrack but the PM needs to get this monkey off his back and the best way to do this is to say we need the best possible internet infrastructure for the money. Everyone will then blame the last disatrous policy on the last cabinet.
But it’s bigger than political points… this is the most critical infrastructure to Australia’s future. If the Liberal government can’t prioritise this they are simply not prioritising the future.
I wish Mr Fifield the best of luck with this. (And before terrorists get their hands on that retained metadata that it seems just about anyone has access to he should urgently review and make changes).
The new Assistant Minister for Innovation Wyatt Roy
Congratulations Mr Roy. This is the most exciting thing for me. That an MP goes off to Israel trying to find out what they are doing so well for startups and comes back and writes a paper on it.
This to me screams of excitement! It demostrates that someone says “I don’t care what the rest of you think… let’s do something… let’s try something… here are some great things I learned”.
My advice to Mr Roy is don’t worry about the mistakes - just try stuff - iterate. If it works keep it… if it fails move on. My other piece of advice is that it will be very easy if Australia doesn’t have to lead in every area of innovation.
In other words talk to Founders… try to work out areas we have potential in and focus on them.
More specific advice in a bit.
The new Cities and the Built Environment Minister Jamie Briggs
Mr Briggs always struck me as someone frustrated by being held back. If this is true I understand. To many that I include this Ministry may be a surprise. For me I get the feeling that this is something of the area Mr Briggs is most passionate about. I hope he pushes Mr Fifield on dramatically improving the NBN.
But more than that we have such great cities and should use them more to attract great entrepreneurs. We should use efficient innovations to make our cities leaders in technology. You can tell that State Premiers like Palaszczuk and Baird are desperate to work with the Federal Government on this.
Briggs can work with politicians in all areas of government to get home grown technology in our cities and to make our cities a leading destination for the smartest entrepreneurs from overseas.
Also Fierravanti-Wells, Andrew Robb, Simon Birmingham, Arthur Sinodinos, Michaelia Cash and Barnaby Joyce
I think it’s super smart to have a conservative female Minister for Mulitcultural Affairs and there are many ways for someone in this position to get more of the best and brightest coming to our shores. On trade it’s more critical than ever we get the industries of the future going or those trade agreements will be one way traffic in the wrong direction. Mr Robb has been the most impressive Abbott backer in my view - he’s got us the deals… now we have to make sure we can take advantage of them (this requires a lot of work).
Arthur Sinodinos will be crucial in making cabinet effective in moving Australia forward. He will set the agenda and the focus on moving Australia into the future. Sure this may be Turnbull’s leadership but if you don’t have that number 2 following (as he is doing in his interviews) individuals will start setting their own agendas as they did under the last PM.
Michaelia Cash, in her capacity for Women has a massive job. I live in Europe (and have worked in both the Netherlands and Czech) and have followed closely the US debate on women in tech. Australia has a MUCH BETTER environement for women in business. Cash should work closely with Roy on taking advantage of this. It really is a key advantage that we have and we MUST exploit. Cash also has public service portfolio where she can help to get more innovators and supporters of innovation into government departments.
Barnaby Joyce could really help drive innovation in Agriculture. This is a huge area of focus for tech right now in the US but in the past Australian farming has been the leader. Barnaby could give his public persona a massive facelift by being a massive advocate for this. He can also push innovation in rural areas. Switzerland is trialing mail delivery by drones in remote areas for example.
I have 3 recommendations:
1 - Make Australia a stepping stone into Silicon Valley
The strategy for our startup is to start in Australia and then expand overseas through San Francisco. Australia has all the conditions necessary to test, trial and scale before launching into the US.
We have a great diplomatic relationship and can help US firms into Asia too. We should have a program where Founders from around the world can be assisted to setup in Australia with a program designed to then launch them into the US.
Imagine to talent we would attract? Imagine the amount of tech businesses that would have substantial operations based in Australia. These companies would use those operations, with our mulitcultural workforce, to launch into Asia.
This would also require easier access to capital and a simple system for setting up companies - such as incorporation in US with subsidiary set up in Australia or something. It is SO difficult right now. Our US incorporation took a week - the Australian subsidiary took 5 months. It would also require fastracked entrepreneur and tech worker visas (temporary). Plus an automated system to get the appropriate visa into the US. Australia should be the first to set this up. Get this happening Minister Roy.
2 - Focus Australia on being the best in just a couple of areas
Instead of trying to do everything pick a few things that we can be best in the world at. Being a launchpad into the US could be one. Being a centre for startup Asian operations could be another (I worked at Citibank where they had Asian foreign exchange and money market operations centralized in Sydney).
Whatever it is there is no point having policies like with the startup options policy - something that is average in comparison with other countries.
Mr Roy may want to copy Israel on their incubator strategy - if so it should be the best in the world & therefore better than Israel’s. If not take a different angle like helping startups make that leap from seed to series A & B (which is SUPER difficult in Australia and would make a MASSIVE difference because you would then be helping startups scale that have already proven themselves).
In other words if you can’t make a policy that is world leading don’t bother. Just start with the easiest ones.
3 - Startup and SME Government Contacts
This is one Kelly O’Dwyer should work on with you Roy. There are lot’s of government assistant programs but to use them you have to hire a consultant who specialises in them. Everything is difficult. Step 1 is for Government to have an office in each capital city where entrepreneurs can go to and have someone assist us with all the paperwork and maybe point us in the direction of using programs that we may benefit from.
Do you realise how much of a boost that would give to small business in Australia?
Also have some standardised legal documents authorized by the government for startups to use. Like shareholder agreements and tax stuff.
I’m sick of the excuses from the government on this - oh it’s too hard to make a standardised one… well if it’s too hard for the government to do it once then it’s obvious it’s difficult for every startup and SME to do it everythime.
Conclusion
I am so excited by this. For too long government has worked against us. We just want government to get out of the way and make it easier for us. The new PM has made it clear he wants to help Australia be more innovative. If you want to do that then pick those areas you think we have a key advantage in and just try it. We won’t care if you help our focus (FinTech) or if you decide others are better such as AgTech. Just as long as you get out of the way.
Honestly we don’t have time or energy to waste it on a government obstacle course. I know you will find there are a lot of people who have been waiting for an opportunity like this. If you just let us go and then focus on a few key areas you will make our policy environment the best in the world at then we will do a huge amount of the work of speeding up the economy for you.
Congratulations and from us at Fin15 we feel like we have gone from an environment in which we couldn’t breath to one saturated with oxygen in one week. Thank you!