Startup Muster 2023: A contribution to the Australian startup ecosystem

Capturing rapid, relevant, and accurate attitudes and activity for entrepreneurs and technology-driven startups at a national scale remains a challenge. The latest 2023 Startup Muster survey closing on 6 August aims to address that challenge, but only if there is broad participation.

Australian background in innovation, entrepreneurship, and startup assessment

In 2020 I outlined a taxonomy of approaches with a focus on Australia. There has been nominal progress since then due to a range of pressures including the COVID-19 pandemic, economic pressures, and political transitions. The Dealroom data aggregation and visualisation platform has expanded across prominent states and territories. The metro-city-focused Startup Genome survey and data aggregation system has grown from its base in Melbourne to reporting data for most Australian capital cities in the latest Global Startup Ecosystem Report. The national population randomised phone and online Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey was last run in 2019 and has not been supported since due to questions relating to local support and funding.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Business Characteristics Survey (BCS) Innovation in Australian Business section provided data for the 2020-21 financial year after a three-year gap. The 2018 to 2019 metrics review released its final report in 2022. The last update to the Australian Innovation Monitor was released in October 2021. A number of individual projects to access government data through the Business Longitudinal Analysis Data Environment (BLADE) platform are being run out of universities and states and territories.

Specific to startup funding, Techboard has released regular Funded reports since 2016 and Cut Through Ventures releases annual State of Australian Startup Funding reports. I also manage a map of organisations supporting the Australian innovation ecosystem through the not-for-profit Startup Status with applications delivered through the Global Entrepreneurship Network Australia and the Rural Economies Centre of Excellence at the University of Southern Queensland.

The diverse approaches to assessment speak to the complexity of the challenge as well as challenges with national ownership and clarity of scope.

First, assessing innovative activity is complex in identifying the appropriate metrics for meaningful outcomes, the method of survey types and original data, and possible bias introduced by the requesting entities. Second, the approach to data requires leadership. Government is the most likely custodian but this also introduces challenges of political will and trust with government access when they are also a prominent participant. Finally, identifying the appropriate scope is important to ask if the assessment is looking at innovation in general including research and translation, entrepreneurship as anyone starting a business with personal capital and potential risk and reward, or startups as a specific type of entrepreneurship using technology and with rapid growth potential.

The Startup Muster survey of Australian startups

Startup Muster began in 2013 during the early development of what we know today as the current Australian innovation ecosystem. Over the decade prior there was a steady growth of emerging startup-focused funds, hubs, meetups, networks, and spaces. The years between 2010 to 2015 introduced us to prominent actors including Fishburners, Black Sheep Capital, StartMate Accelerator, River City Labs, SpaceCubed, Tank Stream Labs, Tonsley Innovation District, Canberra Innovation Network, StartupAus, and many more. The 2015 National Innovation Agenda government policy framework accelerated the growth of startup activity and focused collective attention.

Through annual reports from 2014 to 2018, Startup Muster provided insights into the growing phenomenon of startup activity. The surveys ran in parallel to annual Crossroads reports by the startup peak body at the time StartupAus. The Crossroads reports and Startup Muster provided a private-sector managed insight into Australian startup activity.

From 2018, the Australian innovation ecosystem changed rapidly. Startups became pervasive with regular startup-related sections appearing in major media. New peak bodies emerged for specific aspects of the innovation ecosystem. Regions increasingly specialised by industry sector and technology. New reports emerged with a specific focus on funding, technology, and areas of impact such as female entrepreneur support and climate impacts.

It could be said that the starting mandate for awareness and understanding by early private reporting bodies such as Startup Muster and StartupAus was achieved. But this view takes for granted that the innovation, technology, entrepreneur, and startup sector will be self-sustaining, equally available, and intuitively align to address the challenges of society.

There remains a need for national insights on startup activity. StartupAus expanded into the Tech Council of Australia. In addition to regular research reports, the peak body is also continuing the Crossroads report. You can hear insights on 20 September when they present at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Melbourne.

There is value in supplementing established reports with annual surveys of the Startup Ecosystem. After a five-year hiatus, there is value in supporting Startup Muster to establish national innovation ecosystem measurement infrastructure.

The survey is detailed and will take between 20 to 45 minutes, depending on whether you are a supporting organisation, a startup, or both. Like any research, there are aspects of the survey that could be improved. But the pursuit of perfection is antithetical to the startup ecosystem it aims to support.

The survey is open until 6 August at startupmuster.com.

If you are an organisation supporting startups or a startup or scaleup, consider completing the survey to add your voice to the state of the Australian startup ecosystem.

If you are a provider of innovation research, your input and examples are welcome to improve the state of measurement of the Australian innovation ecosystem.