Startup Ecosystem

 Startup Ecosystem 

 

 
Startup Ecosystem is essential to the Sustainable Growth. Small businesses are key driving force of the economy. Most of Employment is created by Small Business. Vibrant Small Business drive the growth. Every Big Enterprise essentially runs on inputs and supports given provided by Small Businesses.
Startups and Small Business essentially needs environment which encourages and supports them. This Environment / Support Mechanism which make sure to build Success Story is called Ecosystem.
This Ecosystem has many components, which make sure things can move in right direction. 

Learning System 

Early Education is first step. Education system should be creativity and curiosity driven. Enough importance should be given to building skills and knowledge driven by Creativity and Curiosity. Students should understand importance of learning to improve the lives. Building confidence to do something new, something different.
Yes, I Can, Attitude Can only Bring Change.
Which will develop creativity and curiosity

Training

Which will build Entrepreneurial  Capabilities. Training is essential component of success. Entrepreneurship Training Programs which will cater essential skills to the Entrepreneurs. These training programs should be available to everyone and widely promoted. Programs should build Entrepreneurial skills. These training programs must also tell, Failure is not End, it is only a step to success.
Right training will mentally strong Entrepreneurs who are ready to take risk.
No Risk no Reward
Entrepreneurship is all about taking risk. Putting your money and time to build bright future for self and society. Entrepreneurship is all about improving life for everyone, at the same time getting Rewarded.
Training programs must preach importance of Risk Taking, and Rewards on success. 

 

Idea Development

Developing Ideas is very important. Feasibility Study, Market Strategy, Evaluation of Idea is essential. Evaluation is required to see if idea is commercially viable. What is market potential, what are the challenges. Once basic questions are addressed, now it is ready for launch.

Support for building Ideas

Even though Idea may be very good. What is important is its Commercialization.
Hand-holding is essential to building a Commercially viable Idea. Understanding the potential and then Monetization are very important. 

Mentors 

Mentors are essential for Hand-holding. Mentors provides essential inputs and knowledge to successfully implementing the Idea. The role of Mentor is multi-functional and needed at each step. Mentors are essential to the Success of Idea.

 

Seed Capital..

The First investment must come from the owner of the Idea. This is essential to the commitment of the project.
 After first money, next money should come from Near and Dear who trust the Owner of Idea and Idea.
Once Idea starts moving, it is time for others to cheap in. 

 

 

Commercialization Support 

Every good Idea can not be monetize and make money. It is most important to understand the monetization potential of the Idea. Unless the Startup does not potential for mass acceptance and success, no investor will put his money. The Entrepreneur must prove the Startup can be monetize and has potential to grow.

Venture Finance.. Investment 

Once Startup Idea is commercialize, and it started growing. This is stage when Venture Capital sees potential and invest. Investors see long term growth potential. They see market opportunity and invest. At this stage the the Idea gets big boost and growth speeds up. 

 

 

Growth Capital.. Private Equity 

Once the startup comes to the breakeven and see huge growth potential, Private Equity takes interest to invest more money. Speed up the growth, so that it can be listed or sold to another investor.
Exit..
Exit is essential, it is life. IPO, sell out or Mergers, what ever may be the name, Exit is life.

The UAE entrepreneur who draws inspiration from other female leaders

ABU DHABI // Souad Al Hosani is an exemplar of an Emirati women who is at the top of her chosen profession.

Born and raised in Abu Dhabi, her entrepreneurial outlook has taken her to the presidency of Nexus Business Services, which provides start-up and operational support for companies; the managing directorship of its Nexus Agencies element, and a member of the board of directors at Safetic International Safety and Security consultancy.

She is 28.

"Sometimes, when I work hard and feel exhausted, I feel like taking a break to refuel myself and be ready for the upcoming days, but I am a workaholic," she says. "I love people and I love business. I can never have a break."

A graduate in human resources management from the Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi, Ms Al Hosani has worked as a diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mubadala Development Company, the British embassy in Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank and Amwal Holdings.

Be Someone, That People Start Admiring To Be Like You

Having completed a training programme for women entrepreneurs, she also received a United Nationals Industrial Development Organisation certificate, while being honoured with a Young Achievers Award by the American Chamber of Commerce in Abu Dhabi. Last year, she was named best female service provider in the UAE.

"After seven years of being in business, I have learnt and enriched my knowledge a lot, with the support of my family, friends, and the community," says Ms Al Hosani.

"My different experiences in the public and private sector have helped me develop, nurture and maintain significant and valuable business and government contacts.

"These opportunities have allowed me to network with professionals around the world, giving me a clear picture of what foreign investors are aiming to achieve by relocating abroad."

Her world is a non-stop one, a whirlwind of meetings and events. But it has allowed her to become a truly global citizen as she promotes the UAE, and gauges the overtures of companies looking to invest in the country.

"I try to switch off at weekends, but I am still available when needed," she says.

The rewards, she explains, are the smiles on her clients’ faces – and the knowledge that her efforts may empower other Emirati women.

"Being a strong female entrepreneur and sharing my experience with people inspires me," she says. "Our leadership has always supported women and encouraged women development on a personal and business level.

"I am so proud about the number of Emirati female leaders we have nowadays – especially our Minister of Youth, who is 22 – and I am proud to be Emirati."

Disclaimer: Following article come from THENATIONAL

Entrepreneur from Aurangabad - A startup story

Sachin Kate is the founder of Clear Car Rental and I had no clue about the magnitude of impact this 28 year old had created when he walked into our office at YourStory.in. Yes, Clear Car is just another car rental company in India but there are a few points that justify as to why he needs an ovation.

The man has a story to tell

Sachin Kate hails from the small city of Aurangabad in Maharashtra where the concept of starting up is pretty much alien (yes, setting up a shop is also starting up but we’re talking in conventional terms of starting up). The region where Sachin resided doesn’t have schooling available after grade 4 but Sachin’s parents were firm on providing him with all the needed education and hence sent him to a friends place in a nearby region from where a school was more accessible. Sachin started selling newspapers since money was always a challenge and luckily for him, he got a job of an office boy in 11th grade at a computer institute.

Always fascinated by computers, Sachin took advantage of the situation and progressed to become a computer instructor in one year. After 12th, Sachin shifted to Aurangabad for higher studies along with a part time job in a travel agency. “This job gave me my initial exposure in travel business. On a part time salary I started working full time because slowly I started getting access to computer and could show my computer skills,” says Sachin. He was pursuing his BSc. in computers and he had an inclination towards how SEO worked. This came in handy for the travel agency he was working for.

Gaining in confidence, Sachin tried moving out of his zone in terms of location but his family wasn’t very comfortable. He decided to come back and take up web development assignments. He focused on the travel and hotel segment and has developed more than 600 websites till now along with his team. This is how InfoGird and NetMantle had come into existence.

And then came in the big break.

Sachin was always associated with the travel and hospitality industry and was aware of the needs of the industry. “The technology was being developed for airlines, hotels booking etc., but last mile connectivity which is mostly road travel in tourism sector was in a way neglected,” says Sachin. And thus was launched Clear Car Rental in July 2010. This was the time when the Meru Radio cab service and a couple of others had settled in.

Clear Car Rental provides both local (packages for full day, half day and transfer) and outstation travel (packages for round trip, one way drop and multi city travels) solutions. CCR provide car rental services to 150+ cities within India and has a home grown team of about 100 that manages the operations.

And all this without a penny of funding

We’ve seen the car rental companies getting funded at will and the justification for the need of huge funds for a business like this. Surprisingly enough, Sachin has been able to scale the company to 150+ cities without raising a single penny of institutional funding. CCR holds inventory of 14000+ cars with a 1000+ vendors on board. Apart from the domestic, foreign tourists and corporates, OTAs like Makemytrip, Cox & Kings and Thomas Cook have also partnered with CCR. “We’ve focused a lot on Tier 2/3 cities. The average purchasing power has gone up and even people from smaller cities are hiring cabs now,” says Sachin. They have a strong share in the metros as well but they’re banking on the smaller cities for growth.

And building a company from Aurangabad

We’ve seen companies being built from small towns and this is yet another success story from a place you’d not expect a startup to scale from- Aurangabad. As always there are pros and cons,

Sachin believed in what he was doing and his grit to be successful opened up doors for him. Local newspapers have written about it and a blog post he wrote- “Aurangabad Calling” encouraged many youngsters who were studying outside to come back home and find employment.

A local hero in Aurangabad, Sachin Kate has been hidden from the bigger picture and we hope this post gives the man his due.

Website: Clear Car Rental

Food Startup Flips Business Model To Cut Down Costs, Maintain Growth.

This is a case sort of belt-tightening across different startups sectors that cut across e-commerce to food-tech companies. Faasos - one of the most highly-funded food startups, which so far retailed only self-branded food from its own kitchens - around 175 odd ones across top 15 cities - is the latest one to flip strategies to keep costs down while maintaining the pace of growth. 

The company flipped its business model last year to enlarge food variety on its menu by tying up home chefs - around 100 on its rolls now.

 

The model had limitations, though. Food from home-chefs can get high-on-demand but home chefs do not have the ability to address the consistent point in order volumes. "We will be using the strength of home-chefs for bulk party orders that we started on with about a month ago," said Revant

Bhate, Head of Marketing at Faasos.

Start Your Business In Kuwait

Faasos which handles around 12,000 orders a day is now hooking on to restaurants and independent caterers to sell their best selling products to customers, in a bid to further expand its menu without bearing the cost of setting up kitchens.

"At the end of the day, it does not matter to the customer where the food is coming from," said Bhate. At present, the Faasos menu has broadly 7 to 8 segments -north Indian, biryani, signature rice, curries, wraps, pizzas, desserts, chai and snacks and all-day breakfast.

Restaurant tie-ups are aimed at getting into other cuisines such as Chinese, salads, pastas, continental and south Indian dishes. The move will help Faasos which recently completed tie-ups with 500 restaurants across metros and tier 1 cities to double up order volumes without investing big on new customer acquisition. "The idea is to move up from 3 orders a month per customer to 6 orders from the same set of customers," said Bhate who hopes to close fiscal year March 2016 with revenues somewhere close to Rs.100 crores which was the set target for the company.

The company founded in 2011 by two friends Jaydeep Barman and Kallol Banerjee counts leading venture capital firm Sequoia Capital as its early investor and had last year raised two rounds of funding -$20 million led by Lightbox Ventures and $30 million led by Russian firm ruNet which valued the firm at around $130 million.
Disclaimer: - Following article come from ET

FAHION INDUSTRY AND E-COMMERCE

The rise of mobile and e-commerce made a huge significance in the fashion industry. With the introduction of online companies like LIBBSY, the fashion industry is so very different as compared to what it was few years back. Most of the major fashion brands are so progressively marking their mark and tend to grow or build their market with the help of the e-commerce platform. Consumers are so engaged to spend their time on online purchasing than direct shopping as it is more convenient by saving time and effort to reach the destination. One need to create an effortless shopping experience to be positively leverage the e-commerce.

                                         

     

           

            Social network plays a vital role here.  I said so, as me as the user depend on the online or the user- generated content before making a purchase. Various social networks are now available [LIBBSY – ONE STOP DESTINATION FOR WOMEN SHOPPING]. Instagram, repost, Facebook, blogs and many more fashion buying and selling application or platforms are at ease for the customers choice. For me the urge to do online shopping have increased from the past as I have more options and seamless services to choose from a single portal rather than running around in a mall with a fuss…

                       

            LIBBSY - WE BUILD MARKET-PLACES FOR YOU TO LEARN AND GROW YOUR BUSINESS

           

E-platforms have made it easier for us. [LIBBSY PROVIDES GOOD QUALITY BRANDED PRODUCTS.] Most of the E-platform effortlessly try to provide highest level of customer satisfaction. As I have experienced that these application have made the users wanting come back for more. In fact, the retailers are keen to work with start-ups to please the hunger for modernism's. Online market-place for women clothing allow them to connect with a selection of products, indirectly helping the growing brands gain limelight through a larger platform.

            For those who want to create their own line of clothing but don’t have access to the resources or funding to do it on their own, these E-app aids to provide ability for the entrepreneurs to use E-platforms like Facebook, blogs or any related apps targeting to promote to specific individuals. 

BE SMART AND CHOOSE WISELY - LIBBSY COMING SOON

The high cost of entrepreneurship

So you are ready to start your own business! It’s a time that is both exciting and possibly nerve-racking. But there are so many reasons to do it, right? To be your own boss. To set your own hours. To realise your dream. And most of all, to provide the kind of financial reward and security that working for someone else can rarely offer. And you are re right, of course, in principle. Successfully starting, running and ultimately exiting a business can deliver on all of these promises.

However, before jumping into the waters of entrepreneurship, there are other sides of the coin you should be prepared for as well. Upon setting out on your new venture, gone will be the safety net you may well have become accustomed to: the regular salary. If you are funding the business yourself, you will hardly be able to pay yourself a salary. And if you are seeking outside funding, the last thing investors want to see in the “use of proceeds” table is a comfortable salary for you.

Without outside employment, you now also have to consider things like health insurance. The cost of being self-insured is becoming increasingly higher. Once your company may qualify for a small business group rate, it helps. But remember, you are the company. If you have the company pay your insurance, it is still you paying for your insurance. Every dirham or dime spent, is less money you have to work with in growing your business.

And as you no longer have someone to pass problems up to, be prepared to be the receptacle for all of the company’s problems. With the addition of employees, even good ones, you will also take on the role of parent, guidance counsellor, marriage counsellor and confessor. Which takes an inordinate amount of time.

But lest you get the idea that I am dissuading budding entrepreneurs from pursuing your dreams, I would assure you I am not. For many (myself included), the benefits mentioned in my first paragraph far outweigh the obstacles and challenges listed in the next three. But it is a decision that should be carefully considered before committing. Especially as one of the biggest changes you are likely to experience in starting your own business is one that is often the least anticipated: the change in lifestyle! In making the shift from employee to entrepreneur, you will be moving from enjoying a regular salary and the ability to budget your time and expenses in the pursuit of happiness to wondering what each new day will bring.

Let’s start with the budgeting of time. At the helm of your new enterprise, evenings and weekends become extended work hours where they used to be time for relationships and recreation. Whether it be business opportunities or operational issues, right now will always be the right time to handle them. So an unhappy client at 9pm can be a once-again-happy client at 9:30pm with a little handholding. 

But push them off to the morning when you may prefer to call them and they could well be on the way to becoming an ex-client. This weekend’s operations issue, if left to fester until the work week, could cost you far more than a few hours it may take to address it immediately. This is not to say you’ll never have free time to relax in the evening or on weekends. But your business will demand that you are always on call. Even travelling takes on a new complexion as you will undoubtedly spend an inordinate amount of your time on your email or phone handling business affairs.

Now on to the financial impact on your psyche and daily life. As an employee, you generally know how much you’ll make each month (apart from commission-based sales jobs of course). And you know your core expenses of housing, etc. So you have a reasonably good idea of how much you can place against your culinary, social and recreational interests. Well, now it is “disposable income, goodbye”!

If you are committed to building your new venture and you are placing all available resources against this goal, then discretionary funds for fun take a hard back seat. When I started my business in Manhattan, in 1999, I chose self-funding at the onset to preserve my ownership stake and to test the market before seeking outside funding. As the business started developing, I committed more and more funds. Within a few months, I had cashed in every account and mutual fund I had set aside over the years to fund operations. And all during this time without any income.

So my daily life changed significantly, in ways I struggled to cope with. Such as coming home at the end of each month and telling my wife: “No, I couldn’t take salary again this time.” After having provided very well in my past life as an employee, this was a rather bitter pill to swallow.

I also recall a conversation with my executive vice president (EVP) of sales and marketing a few years ago. When I hired him initially, he was fresh out of college, without experience and hungry to sell. We had a small team in those days, and they tended to go for lunch at one of the nearby delis in New York. 

They would often ask me to join, and I always politely declined. Now that this young salesman was an executive and had known me for several years, he spoke about the early days of lunches and said at the time that the staff thought I was being elitist in not joining them for lunch. I told him it was not at all the case.

In fact, I would have been happy to, but I could not let myself spend $10 (AED 36) a day on a sandwich when I had no income and was living on credit cards. So from my perspective, it would just be more debt. Clearly, I put a good face on it, since they thought I chose not to eat with them. But internally, I was distraught at not being able to do something my young staff took for granted.

I only point this out as an example of how one’s lifestyle can change in making the move to entrepreneur. Unless you are independently wealthy, things you once took for granted, like joining the beach club or having that expensive dinner, should suddenly be viewed through a new lens. And seldom have I seen a place as lifestyle-oriented as Dubai. Golf, beach clubs, and flashy cars are the expected norm. So preparing yourself mentally for not having the time or money to pursue these Dubai standards will be key.

So where am I going with all of this? I’m certainly not suggesting you forgo your dreams of starting your own business. The rewards are well worth the pain, as I myself discovered. But no great accomplishment comes without great sacrifice. And in the early days, the most profound area you are likely to experience in terms of sacrifice is in lifestyle. Expect to compromise in having the time and the funds to enjoy many things you take for granted currently.

And a parting bit of advice, if I may. Before committing to your new venture, make sure you discuss this at length with your spouse or partner. It’s important to have them on board with the commitments of time and funds that will be required, and the change in lifestyle that comes with it. Because it will be changing their lifestyle as well.

CITATION FROM : ARABIAN BUSINESS - http://goo.gl/9zRm6h

$100 Million Startup Reveals Innovation Weaknesses At IBM And Oracle

A $2 billion market is small potatoes for a big publicly-traded company like IBM. But it can be a gold mine for a startup.

After all, if the startup can get a mere 5% of that market, its revenues will hit $100 million and that could make it a candidate for an initial public offering.

Moreover, by focusing all its efforts on winning new business from a market that big companies neglect, that startup can grow much faster than its rivals.

This comes to mind in considering the $2 billion to $3 billion (annual revenues) identity management software market – from which Austin, Texas-base SailPoint owes half its revenue to deals it says it has snagged from the likes of IBM, Oracle and CA Technologies.

How so? SailPoint is winning business because its product and customer service are better than rivals’ at enabling companies to grant and revoke employee, partner and supplier access to a company’s computer systems as they join, move, and leave.

In declining to comment Oracle cited its quiet period.

IBM believes that its security business is going well. According to IBM spokesperson, Ian Colley, “IBM’s innovation in the security market has propelled it to $2B in annual revenue and its position as the fastest growing enterprise security business in the world.”

With hackers costing CEOs their jobs — think Sony and Target, the seemingly mundane job of identity management can go a long way to making sure that only the right people can get access to a company’s systems and more importantly — the wrong people are blocked from such access.

The True Entrepreneur Is A Doer, Not A Dreamer

While the loss of identity management software market share is of little concern to investors in those tech giants, what it reveals about their inability to innovate is bad news for Warren Buffett and other owners of IBM stock. The same applies to investors in Oracle and CA Technologies.

SailPoint was founded in 2005 and it hibernated through the financial crisis. In a February 19 interview with Tivoli alumni, CEO Mark McClain and president Kevin Cunningham, explained that the company has taken ”nearly $50 million in business away from IBM, Oracle and CA Technologies through ‘rip and replace.’”

They told me that SailPoint is “highly profitable with over $100 million in revenues, 530 customers and 550 employees with plans to file an IPO in 2017. In August 2014 private equity firm, Thoma Bravo, bought out our original investors. They offer us excellent advice that helps us grow at 30% to 40% a year with 10% to 15% [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization]

What should be of concern to Oracle and IBM investors — where McClain and Cunningham worked after their companies were acquired (IBM bought Tivoli for $743 million in 1996 and their next startup, Waveset, was bought in 2003 by Sun Microsystems which Oracle acquired in 2009 for $7.4 billion) – is how difficult it is for these big companies to come up with new products that customers love.

Innovation for a successful startup means listening to customers and responding quickly with product improvements that help customers alleviate the real pain they are feeling.

When it comes to identity, companies needed a much less technically complex way to present the information so that high-level executives could make clear choices about which access to provide, change, or eliminate for which users, according to McClain and Cunningham.

They claim that it is very difficult for IBM and its peers to innovate in that way. “These big technology companies acquire companies that make point products. Their product managers focus on making the acquired products compatible with their other products such as database software and middleware. Their product managers don’t spend enough time listening to customers and if a customer wants new features, they struggle to get the engineering resources to respond.”

To be sure, these technology giants do have a major competitive advantage — long-standing relationships with senior client executives.

As McClain and Cunningham said, “A Gartner analyst estimates that 75% of the identity management deals are bundled into with much bigger contracts for database and other kinds of software and are not put for true competitive bids. In those deals, we will sometimes get asked to participate but our contribution is ‘column fodder’ — that is not seriously considered by the customer.”

In the 25% of identity management deals where SailPoint is seriously considered, it claims to win a whopping 80% to 90% of the time. “We have 530 customers and a 96% customer approval rating. Potential customers want to see a proof of concept and we welcome the opportunity to shine,” said McClain and Cunningham.


Disclaimer: Following article come from Forbes

A startup accelerator for social good.

On a normal day I work with a variety of startups, especially in the fintech, enterprise technology and health tech spaces.

It is an amazing and exhilarating experience. But recently I had the pleasure to work as a mentor with Venturetec, mentoring a group of inspiring UNSW students from the Australian Graduate School of Management who are striving to win the Hult Prize.

The Hult Prize is a start-up accelerator with a major difference. It’s a startup accelerator for social good and it’s the world’s largest student competition.

From the 25,000 global applications received from 500 colleges and more than 150 countries this year, 300 will compete in five cities around the world for a chance to win one of six places to pitch in the finals to secure US$1 million in startup funding.

This is all about social entrepreneurship; bringing together college and university students from around the world to identify and launch disruptive and catalytic social ventures that aim to solve the world’s most pressing problems.

It’s a joint initiative by Hult University and the Clinton Global Institute. Bill Clinton set this year’s challenge to double the income of 10 million people living in crowded urban spaces and will be on stage to present the award.

The judging panel includes some heavy hitters, such as past Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammed Yunus.

Speak Up, Believe in Yourselves, Take Risks.

Introducing Bobbin

Bobbin (formerly solarweavers), comprising Ben Pask, Shalendra Ranasinghe, Lisa Shannon and Dimitry Tran, are the AGSM (UNSW) Hult Prize Finalists that are on their way to London for the Regional Finals in March.

The objective of Bobbin is to connect women in urban slums to a source of sustainable income. There is technology involved in their social enterprise, but this is not your usual high tech.It includes a solar panel (low power), sewing machines (low tech) and a cell phone for connectivity.

Their solution includes micro-financing but they are also exploring micro peer-to-peer lending.

Bobbin’s customers will be able to sew clothes from raw materials sourced locally, with sales into existing marketplaces and a new online solution.

I asked Trey Zagante, Venturetec CEO, to comment on why he was working with Bobbin, which is a departure from his normal enterprisetech focus:

 "We chose to sponsor the Hult Prize @ UNSW to support social entrepreneurs who are driven to make a positive social impact that could potentially change the lives of tens millions people,” he said.

“The Bobbin team have really embraced the lean startup approach of Venturetec’s incubation program, and they’ll be going into the regional finals having rigorously tested and validated their business model”

A new online marketplace

This is about setting up a new marketplace in a country where online is not that commonplace.The product to be sold will be items of clothes. The phone’s camera will be used to snap the item, which will then be placed onto a new online marketplace.

Bobbin has partnered with technology provider Arcadier to develop their marketplace. At first I was surprised that Arcadier, which operates in advanced next-generation marketplaces, would be able to service outside of their comfort zone, but they are clearly comfortable in the social enterprise space, which can require less sophisticated technology.

Clearly there is a major assumption around when a tipping point that will see a move from 2G phones and increasing availability of smartphones. In developing world countries we are starting to see rapid adoption of cheap Android-based handsets.

Bobbin’s other partner is Barefoot Power, which deploys solar panels and has a great existing penetration of markets in countries like Kenya.They are also in talks with the Kenyan Federation of Women Entrepreneurs.

A startup empowering women

There is an underlying belief that education is the answer to breaking the poverty cycle.

The stated goal of Bobbin is to double the income of people living in crowded urban spaces. Bobbin is focused on helping women who are on home care duties with few prospects of working outside of the home to generate an income.

“Empowering women may be the single most poverty reducing factor in developing economies which can lead to significant macroeconomic gains.It is shown that women are also more likely than men to invest more of their income into their children’s education,” says Lisa Shannon.

The model is deliberately simple to ensure that it will work. They create a small craft industry for eight women to work in a sewing circle, with a leader to use phone to manage logistics and sell in the marketplace.

The provision of solar power to use the sewing machines also brings light and power for houses that would otherwise not have them. So the impact of this is remarkable.

The secret sauce

It’s not technology; in actual fact, Bobbin’s secret sauce is ‘care’.

The secret sauce is Bobbin’s connection with community to enable the skills that already exist within these communities.It is also anticipated that when community pride is harnessed the default on microfinance loans will be minimal.

With care and connection, these small steps to create new work will start to change the world one solar panel and sewing machine at a time.

Disclaimer: Following article come from CW

Small investors could be excluded from start-up tax offsets.

Small investors risk being locked out of the digital revolution, thanks to a government proposal to limit access to a 20 per cent tax offset for early-stage, start-up investments, to so-called sophisticated investors.

Restricting the tax incentive to investors with net assets of at least $2.5 million and annual incomes of more than $250,000 would help prevent inexperienced investors from being lured into risky investments.

"Investment in innovation companies is inherently risky. Many investments will lose money, while others have the potential to make large gains,"
The proposal has split the startup community, with some entrepreneurs arguing smart retail investors should have the chance to invest in young companies.

"Not all mum and dad (small) investors meet the sophisticated investor requirement, yet many are very intelligent and capable of understanding the risks," said Clare Hallam, acting general manager of Pollenizer, a company that helps build business incubator programs.

​"For Australia to become a truly innovative nation, we need to commence this education and not exclude mum and dad investors," she said.
Cautious response

Others erred on the side of caution, believing the incentive should be restricted to sophisticated investors.

​Brosa co-founder Ivan Lim said limiting the offset to sophisticated investors would be a "double-edged sword".

"It's good because it ensures that capital is being invested in high-quality companies that have been assessed by sophisticated investors as having a strong chance of success," he said.

"Having said that, there is also an advantage for early-stage startups that need to raise money from friends and family to keep working on their business before they're ready to approach a venture capitalist – in circumstances like this the tax incentive could be helpful."

The 20 per cent tax offset was first flagged as part of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's lauded Innovation Statement in December last year.

But the offset will not be available to all start-ups, with the consultation paper proposing limiting it to "innovation companies" which were incorporated in Australia in the last three years, have assessable income of $200,000 or less in the prior income year, have expenditure of $1 million or less, and is not listed.

Keep Calm and Get Your Startup On

Treasury said in the consultation paper the option of using a "sophisticated investor" test would limit it to people that are "more likely to be able to evaluate offers of securities and other financial products without needing the protection of a disclosure document".
Ineffective tools

Trimantium Capital managing director Phillip Kingston said income and expenditure tests were not effective screening tools to uncover innovative companies.

"Similarly, building a business that will have a material impact on the future of the country will take a long time, so a three-year time limit is too restrictive. Five years would provide a better runway," he said.

"A set of principles that determine the definition of an innovation company make sense. Anything too prescriptive certainly won't incentivise innovation and may have the opposite effect."

Mr Kingston also took aim at the government's proposition of excluding companies in certain industries.

"Some of the exclusions floated in the government's consultation paper are alarming and should be removed.

"Innovation in fintech, B2B and agritech provide some of the greatest opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors to build the future of Australia."

These thoughts were echoed by Unlocked chief executive Matt Berriman who said the consultation paper's suggestions were too restrictive.

"It means investors would only get an incentive for investing in businesses that are really just at concept stage, continuing to over-index incubator and seed investment and widen the already existing problem of series A, B and growth round funding in Australia," he said.

"We're not going to grow another company like Atlassian if you cap the incentives at the levels being indicated."

Disclaimer: Following article come from FinancialReview