Aussie founders have a chance to rub shoulders with startup royalty and hear from over 70 speakers at the first-ever Startup Grind Asia Pacific event, presented by MYOB.
The two-day conference will bring together entrepreneurs from around the world and will feature presentations and interviews with the world’s leading innovators, founders and CEOs. International headline speakers include Guy Kawasaki (Canva), Adam Nash (Dropbox), Casey Fenton (Couchsurfing) among many others, and topics range from the future of virtual reality to how best to prepare a pitch to investment funds.
Such an opportunity for learning should not be underestimated – in a sector characterised by rapid growth and steep learning curves, hearing other founders’ experiences, solutions and advice can help provide insight and inspiration for business owners here at home.
Startup Grind was founded in the Silicon Valley and has became an independent startup community linking more than 1.5 million entrepreneurs in 300 cities. Part of its mission is to make the startup journey “less lonely, more connected and more memorable” and it has partnered up with organisations such as Google for Entrepreneurs to nurture communities across the globe. This year, the Startup Grind APAC event has been brought to Melbourne by MYOB in partnership with Google for Entrepreneurs.
“Startup Grind represents a unique opportunity for Australia’s startup community to come together, collaborate and challenge their thinking,” MYOB marketing executive general manager Natalie Feehan said.
“There has not been anything like this event hosted in APAC before. The event’s been hugely successful internationally and we’re thrilled to help bring it to Australia for the very first time.”
MYOB is one of the leading cloud accounting software providers in Australia and New Zealand and has a track record of supporting startups and small business. The company has regularly hosted local chapter Startup Grind meetups but nothing on this scale.
“We are always looking to create new global platforms for Australian startups, and this is an initiative that will help us do just that,” Natalie Feehan explained.
“We believe that when our start-up community thrives, future Australia thrives.”
MYOB has not only brought community events to Australia, but has also helped set up various co-working opportunities and entrepreneurship programs. The company sponsors the She Starts initiative by BlueChilli and has partnered with the Startup Victoria and CreativeCubes.co to give several startups free access to deskpace, mentors and workshops.
Part of the extensive agenda at the Startup Grind APAC event presented by MYOB is a fireside chat with Justin Dry, cofounder of Vinomofo, which in 2016 raised $25 million in its first external round of funding in 2016 to expand into New Zealand, the US, the UK and parts of south-east Asia.
Justin says he decided to get involved in the conference because of the great lineup of founders, thinkers investors and “everything in between” and out of a desire to share the ups and downs of his journey as an entrepreneur and founder.
“I’ll focus on a few key learnings which will be around getting started, scaling, focus, courage and making good people decisions,” he said.
“Hopefully they can get inspiration and ideas about what worked to use in their own projects and also avoid some of the mistakes we’ve made along the way.”
The 2018 Startup Grind APAC event, brought by MYOB, will be held at the Melbourne Convention Centre on December 6-7. For more information and for tickets, visit the website. To launch a local chapter of Startup Grind in your city, head here to read more and lodge an application.
MYOB has partnered with Startup Daily to give away 10 double passes to attend Startup Grind APAC. To enter, tell us in 25 words or less how your startup could benefit from attending. Comment below or email [email protected] to get your entry in!
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