04 : What on earth is Silicon Beach?

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In part 1 of this series of podcasts around silicon beach for startups, we join Athula Bogota in this remarkably candid interview on his role as the lead organiser for a silicon beach meetup.

What on earth is Silicon Beach?

Sharing his views on startup life not only in his location but also exploring how his world view has been changed over time from the influence not only by the startup of app culture, but also by innovation form mindfulness and meditation that lead to life-changing events lead to .

His openness on how he took on the role as lead organizer and the people who have influenced his thinking in the process offer a valuable, frank and unique insight into his pathway, personal challenges and what attracted him to meetup culture.

He shares with us why silicon beach members not only from all walks of life but now also many parts of the globe are not only highly

valued but also where the value lies for those members that may or not may not be able to attend regular events.

The generous description of his defining moment within the group of “when no is not an option ” opens up his story of how the local start up community gave him the confidence boost to pursue his hopes and then eventually build the direction moving forward of what the silicon beach group can be.

Athula then explains the extended value of what silicon beach has to offer startups but also hints at the disruptive pathways

that lead to innovation “by not studying your competition” and how this thinking has been influenced not only by great entrepreneurial writers of our time but also where his passion comes from and what is the essential message the group has now not only for investors but also for startups and founders.

Find out more at

Interested in sponsoring Silicon Beach? Here’s Why you should. And How.

We are Melbourne Silicon Beach, with a membership of over 11,500+ members firmly on track to become the largest tech/startup community on Meetup.com in Australia!

Silicon Beachers (as we are known) are a diverse bunch. We are a motley collection of startup founders, wannabe founders and techies who could be working on web or mobile apps, cloud computing, graphic/web design, video, photography, IoT, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality, virtual reality, voice recognition, robotic, space tech, agtech, fintech to any other field that’s emerging.

Of late we have been attracting a lot of “corporate refugees” (lawyers, accountants, marketing professionals to mining engineers) and creative “arty” types curious about tech startups. And of course a smattering of investors too (some stay ‘under cover’). We have a healthy mix of small businesses, professionals, freelancers who are service providers to the startup community.

We are proud of our inclusiveness — with people of all ages, ethnic backgrounds, education and happy to say the gender balance is improving with around 25% female members. We need to do more work in this area — your sponsorship will help.

While people join most meetups and community groups to meet “like minded people”, on Silicon Beach you are more likely to meet people who don’t think like you. It’s place where you will be challenged and encouraged to think about innovative solutions in collaboration with people with different mindsets. Our events on Meetup are designed to cater to this diverse community.

Membership of our meetup group is free. We believe that lack of money should not hold anyone back from having a go at launching a startup. We know that best founders come from disadvantaged backgrounds. They have experienced “the pain points” first hand and have a good grasp on how to solve problems of the world.

While membership of our meetup group will always remain free, soon we will launch a subscription based model for premium educational content and rewards for financial members. Your sponsorship will help keep this subscription model accessible to all members – even those with low income.

We are part of the Australia wide Silicon Beach network. The plan is to strengthen and expand this network and take our passion for #EmpoweringFounders and fostering innovation to regional & rural Australia too.

Our dream is that Silicon Beach will become Australia’s version of Silicon Valley. One very different to The Valley. A network of startup communities working together as one. Your sponsorship will help make that dream a reality.

Recently our friends and Sponsors, Flexisource IT opened a Silicon Beach in Manila, Philippines. Flexisource IT is a Melbourne based company with teams of developers in Manila, working on Aussie startups and SMEs on their tech projects.

We are now exploring the possibility of opening of several Silicon Beach communities across Asia. By sponsoring us, you could tap into the Asia-Pacific market.

How will sponsoring Silicon Beach benefit YOU?

Associating your brand with Silicon Beach will help acquire mind share among the startup community. Not just in Melbourne but across Australia and very soon across Asia.

Sponsoring & co-hosting an event is an efficient way to deliver more awareness about your company to a prime, target audience — the tech & startup community — the future leaders of our increasingly tech enabled world.

We are constantly adding new coworking partners to our community. Most events are held at their premises at minimum cost or free of charge. As a sponsor you could be hosting an event to our community and the general public very soon.

The ROI on your sponsorship can not be measured in $$s alone.. there is a huge intangible component that is hard to measure. The benefit depends on the type and the length of your sponsorship.

Will you qualify?

We offer Sponsorship opportunities only to companies, organisations, startups and small businesses that benefit our community.

If we think your service or product does not benefit our community or it is not the right fit, we will tell you upfront. You will be better off spending your sponsorship dollars elsewhere.

Please note our sponsorships are non-exclusive. You may find other organisations that are your ‘competitors’ sponsoring us. That is part and parcel of building a healthy startup eco-system. We must all pull together to build and grow the eco-system. If this is a problem for your business or organisation, then we are sorry, you can not be our sponsor.

Sponsorship Rates (valid to 31st December 2018)

3 months $2,100
6 months $3,600
12 months $6,000

There is no GST because we are not registered for GST (our income is way below the GST registration threshold at the moment).

Commit for a longer period and save. There is absolutely no pressure to continue if you think it’s not of value to you.

Minimum sponsorship commitment is 3 months – it’s the optimum time needed to create proper engagement and obtain mind share. Talk to us about monthly payment plans — available for bootstrapping Australian startups and freshly launched small businesses (less than 12 months in operation).

So how do I sponsor?

Glad you asked. Send us an email to sponsor@siliconbeachgroup.org or join our Slack channel and tell us you would like to sponsor us. Someone from our leadership team will be get in touch with you, pronto.

Join the Silicon Beach Community on Slack!
http://slack.siliconbeach.community/

What you get for your sponsorship dollar?

1) Your sponsorship will be announced to members through an introductory EDM via Meetup.com’s email gateway (Meetup does not reveal the email addresses of our members to us). Sponsors get 2 EDMs per month for the duration of their sponsorship.

2) Your logo displayed on our website (currently under construction) linked to your website. We will also display your logo on your event pages on Meetup.com – unfortunately Meetup no longer allows us to feature sponsors on the home pages. Not unless we upgrade our meetup account to Meetup Pro, which is expensive. But with your sponsorship we maybe able to, in that case we could feature up to 6 sponsors on the meetup home page.

3) Co-branded and co-hosted events. These events will be listed on MSB Meetup, our website (currently in beta), Eventbrite and SiliconCalander. Events should be beneficial and/or educational to our community. Events maybe held at your premises or the premises of our Event Partners. We are constantly adding event partners. Please ask us for the current list of event spaces.

4) Acknowledgment at our MSB Drinks & Pitch Night which are videoed and uploaded to our SB TV YouTube channel and also live-streamed via SB Radio podcast. If you are in Melbourne, drop in at the Next Pitch Night and we will give all sponsors a chance to do a Sponsors’ Pitch (2 to 3 mins long) just before the 90second pitches start. Our members present will give you a special cheer!

5) Exposure and acknowledgment as a sponsor via SiliconNews through our high traffic projects —
SiliconCalendar
SiliconJobs
and more yet to launch (SiliconSchool, Silicon Care etc)

6) Exposure and acknowledgment as a sponsor via our social media channels – Twitter, Facebook & Instagram.

7) The warm and fuzzy feeling you get from knowing you are supporting Melbourne’s (And Australia’s) startup eco-system and contributing to our efforts of #EmpoweringFounders.

8) The even warmer and fuzzier feeling you get from knowing that you are one of the pioneers supporting the early startup phase of Australia’s answer to Silicon Valley — connected Silicon Beach communities around Australia. Some of these founders could be the millionaires and billionaires of the future – imagine them knowing that if was your startup, small business or professional service that supported them in their early days!

9) Want even more bang for your sponsorship dollar? Talk to us. We are listening. We are ever willing to accommodate all reasonable requests!

What will we do with the funds?

Glad you asked. Your funds will help us incorporate Silicon Beach into a Not For Profit company so that we can be financially sustainable into the future. It will keep Silicon Beach TV, Silicon Beach Radio and SiliconNews running.

We recently launched SiliconCare, a project to look after the mental health of everyone in our community and help build resilience. Another project in the pipeline is SiliconSchool, which will store all the educational content we are creating, online.

All this requires funds. Even though our community is 100% volunteer-run, there are bills to be paid and things to be bought. $iliconJar, a full transparency report will soon be implemented for the benefit of sponsors as well as the general public to see how your funds are used.

Your sponsorship will help us open Silicon Beach communities in regional & rural Australia – we already opened Geelong, Ballarat & Launceston Silicon Beaches and more recently, Adelaide & Brisbane.

And we are going Asia Pacific with the opening of Manila Silicon Beach!

Have questions?

Join us on Slack and chat to the team or if you prefer, email to –
sponsor@siliconbeachgroup.org

http://slack.siliconbeach.community/

Looking forward to your sponsorship and thanks in advance.

See you on the Beach!

Team Silicon Beach

#EmpoweringFounders

#Angel Investors #Siliconsponsor #Sponsorship #Founders #Silicon Beach

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