Brodie McCulloch, founder of Spacecubed, went on a round-the-world trip a couple of months ago to see how other people did co-working. We managed to get some of his time to ask him about it.
//SN: You vanished from the scene for a while recently, and the rumour is that you were travelling the world seeing how they did co-working. What was the point and purpose of the trip?
BM: I hadn’t visited many coworking spaces internationally and considering the idea was quite new to Australia I wanted to go and learn what was working overseas and what wasn’t. I was looking a little bit bigger picture than just coworking, collaboration and innovation spaces for models to scale social impact and look at how to have a broader positive social, environmental and economic change.
//SN: This was funded by some sort of fund to do with Churchill – who are they and why do they do this, and can anyone apply?
BM: Yes I was lucky enough to be awarded a Churchill Fellowship (http://www.churchilltrust.
Applications open in November and I definitely recommend anyone who is passionate and driven about their area of interest and ideas to apply.
//SN: So where did you go and what did you see?
BM: I visited Vancouver, San Francisco, New York, London, Singapore and Hong Kong in 6 weeks. It was a rapid tour of social enterprises, technology startups, coworking spaces, innovation labs, university design schools, government collaboration centres, maker spaces and all sorts of amazing things happening around the world.
//SN: And what did you learn from the trip?
BM: Lots of things, but the key thing for me was that there isn’t just going to be one accelerator or one coworking space or one government grant. It is going to take hundreds of different levels of support as entrepreneurs go through their startup journey.
I modeled this in the report with a Innovation Spiral which maps the different stages of innovation, support orgs / programs and then entrepreneurs. I want to wrap the Perth Startup Ecosystem report around it but haven’t got to it yet. This would give entrepreneurs a clear path from challenge, to idea, to prototype, to enterprise, to scale to systems change.
As part of my fellowship I have written a report that has more details in it on both the models and what I did, you can read it here.
//SN: What changes are you going to make to Spacecubed as a result?
BM: The spaces and communities that worked really well and could really invest in the growth of entrepreneurs were spaces that were 1000+ square metres. This brings a density of ideas, sectors and support that otherwise would be quite separate. We had been looking at if we should build one big Spacecubed or a network of spaces and after this trip have opted with the former. We are still a few years away from having a network of spaces but luckily there are lots of other great spaces popping up so people have options to work where and when they want.
I have been lucky to have the opportunity to kick this into action with the growth into Level 9 of 45 St Georges Terrace which is going to offer an awesome space, more meeting rooms and some great team environments. If you haven’t checked out what we are doing you should here as it will be awesome..
//SN: Finally, are there any niches in the Perth Startup Community that we’re missing? Any opportunities for someone to supply a service that we don’t currently have?
BM: I think the market has already jumped forward really quickly compared to when I moved back to Perth 4.5 years ago. There are all sorts of supports and I think another mapping exercise using the Spiral as a model would be great and clearly show what is missing. My gut says all the balls are rolling for there to be a rush of early stage seed funding over the next 18 months that should derisk deals for further investment.
I would like to start looking at how we connect in better with what WA is naturally good at and well positioned for. The work Zane and Justin are doing around mining technology innovation is great but we need this to be happening for medical technology with organisations like the Harry Perkins Institute, Big Data with the The Pawsey Centre and SKA. Also, there are big opportunities around our location in Asia and agricultural technology opportunities. Unless we start connecting these opportunities with entrepreneurs we are going to miss having the innovation around these global industries happening in WA.
//SN: Thanks for your time, and we look forward to seeing the results.
BM: Thank you!
