It's NEVER what is actually needed i.e easy to access cash or tax relief.
Instead it's the government pissing the money into an ecosystem of leech "advisors", "mentors", "incubators".
A parasitic ecosystem of hangers on to the idea of the startup.
Somehow in Australia the idea has become that the worst thing the government could do is directly support people to write code in their kitchens and ACTUALLY BUILD PRODUCTS.
Instead, the ecosystem of useless leeches/"advisors" has convinced the government that it should be the recipient of the cash.
It's vile trickery and charlatanism.
As a developer and entrepreneur, can I say to the government, please just chuck the money in the garbage bin / it's going to help startups just as much when it's in there.
Makes no ducking difference if Dave McClure managed to get 500 startups a cut of the pigs trough.
Seriously, go and have a look at the LaunchVic website, you might need to read it two or three times to realize there's actually literally NOTHING in there to actually directly support entrepreneurs. It's all indirect smoke and mirrors and complete bullshit.
Australian governments, please just stop saying "startup" and "entrepreneur" and instead go give the money to charity.
In other words, Australia has the problem that in order to develop the market for the product, it has to develop the market locally - and as a very small nation with huge hubris, this means that projects like this, by necessity, attract the cronies.
So this has been encoded into the way the government operates: it has to address its efforts to the locals, or else there's nothing to build. And those locals don't see beyond their own small worlds - as is the case with Australians in general - when it comes to building something of true value in the international market.
There are definitely exceptions - I can think of a couple of successful investments into Australian startups in the 3d-printing space which, seemingly, have moved beyond this event horizon. But still, cronyism is as Australian as Two-up. Its a professional hazard, and a norm, in that small country.
