I recently spent a week in Australia. One of the things I often say when I travel to speak to startup communities around the world is: “We can’t hear you!”
My point is that I want them to be loud and proud about what’s going on there. Often I hear them lamenting about not enough capital, not enough startups, not enough success, or whatever. I challenge them to start acting like what they want to become–to start talking about their greatness.
I also ask them to start blogging. Start some dialogue.
My favorite example of this was the “tall poppy syndrome” that exists in Australia, a long-standing cultural attitude of fostering hostility toward successful people. I was speaking to a group of Australian entrepreneurs and I suggested that someone there blog that tall poppy syndrome is a thing of the past. So they did! And now, tall poppy syndrome is closer to disappearing. It’s no longer going to be cool to talk about tall poppy syndrome. It’s going to feel uncool and out of the norm
Sometimes what we believe will be true becomes true!
It’s great to see communities acting like what they want to become. And it’s great to see them making some noise:
- Startup Catalyst: 2017 Startup Community Mission
- Australia needs to be in the business of building pie factories
- We need more aussies to #givefirst
- Why I gave away 20 copies of Startup Communities by Brad Feld
- What it means to put founders first
Australia, I hear you!
Applications are now open for our first Techstars accelerator program in Australia as well!
