Startup Muster: Understanding the Australian startup ecosystem
Did you ever wonder how your startup compares to others in terms of funding, team and plans? The CEO of Startup Muster, Monica Wulff, invites you to take part in the largest annual survey of Australian startups and its supporters.
For two years we’ve been the largest survey of Australian startups, and this year we aim to also be the largest survey of startup supporters and potential founders across Australia.
We’re not a membership organisation, we’re not focusing on a particular vertical or a certain geographical location within Australia, and we don’t provide commentary or analysis to the data we gather. We just want to collect and publish the data that’s needed to help our whole ecosystem work better together.
This year we spent six months on survey design and stakeholder engagement, ensuring the survey is tailored for the Australian startup ecosystem and covers all facets of being a person or a business in the ecosystem. We’re getting to understand the sentiments, behaviours and drivers of people in the ecosystem, along with understanding the businesses and how they operate.
These factors also led to Startup Muster 2016 being open for completion by not only startup founders, but also potential founders and the multitude of businesses, organisations and individuals that directly impact startups and the startup ecosystem, also known as the supporters.
A single voice in a crowd is hard to hear, but when the crowd speaks as one it resonates.
SO HOW DOES IT WORK?
After considerable cleaning and validation, the annual survey responses will be transformed into de-identified national outputs that are made freely available to everyone via our website.
The aim for the outputs is to have as many people, startups, organisations, government entities, media and membership organisations, ecosystem supporters… the list goes on, all using the data when they are making decisions on how to support startups or develop policies, writing media articles, putting together position papers, assessing the viability of a large investment, putting together a pitch deck or simply wanting to understand Australia’s startup ecosystem.
One way Startup Muster is able to give back to the people who take part in the survey is to ensure that the final outputs are readily available and can be easily and freely consumed by as many supporters as possible.
Startup Muster 2016 will be collecting responses until the 1st August and can be completed by founders, potential founders and supporters.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?
Something I get asked a bit is, ‘What’s in it for the respondent?’.
Some survey designs can be a pain and they usually require some form of incentive to take part, potentially introducing questionable responses from their participants.
Imagine I gave you $50 and asked you to complete a survey. We’d be best friends very briefly, but I personally wouldn’t trust anything that was given in that response.
Other organisations force people to take part, introducing further disincentive for accurate responses.
We’ve invested significant time into a survey design that allows the participant to see how they fit into the ecosystem as the progress through the survey, encouraging complete and accurate responses, and we’ve peppered the survey with insights from leaders throughout the startup ecosystem provided just for this survey.
It allows the participant to see how they fit into the ecosystem.
Imagine seeing how your startup compares to other startups in terms of funding, team and plans. Or how your support organisation compares in terms of support provided.
We’ve also spent a lot of time ensuring the survey is easy to use across all devices, and can easily be resumed at a later time by opening a link in your email inbox.
We’d also like to think our participants see the genuine value of having the results of their participation easily and freely available over the longer term, either to help spread the word about their challenges, progress and opportunities, or just to benefit their own desire to support startups by better understanding these areas.
The survey is easy to use across all devices.
Of any industry, we believe the startup ecosystem is particularly able to understand the value in statistics by a genuinely independent, impartial and understanding organisation. In a world where information is king, these accurate and representative data about the ecosystem will benefit all involved.
GREAT! WHAT’S NEXT?
The 2016 report will be available later this year, but it will only be possible with a large enough sample size.
Startup Muster 2016 will be collecting responses until the 1st of August and can be completed by founders, potential founders and supporters.
We implore those in the ecosystem to take part and to share it amongst their networks.
Since coming on board as CEO in October 2015, the journey has been amazing. I’m particularly enjoying the current journey of touring around the country to promote Startup Muster and gather first-hand experience on all the wonderful things happening here.
After visiting Melbourne, Newcastle and Wollongong over the last week, I’ll now be visiting:
- Wagga Wagga: 14th of July
- Brisbane: 18th to 20th of July
- Canberra: 21st to 22nd of July
- Adelaide: 25th to 26th of July
- Perth: 27th to 29th of July
If you’d like me to visit your startup support organisation while I’m in town, or have any other questions about Startup Muster, just drop an email to info@startupmuster.com.
Follow the tour and everything Startup Muster via Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Monica Wulff is Co Founder and CEO at Startup Muster.
M Raj
July 16, 2016 at 12:42 pm
Start ups
I believe that a startup is a way to translate academic inventions into commercial goods and services that benefit the public, and also serve as an engine for local economic development and job creation.