5 Grand Ain’t Much

Brisbane Marketing:

An exciting new program to encourage budding entrepreneurs and identify the next big Brisbane technology start-up has opened for applications.

If you’re working on an exciting digital start-up idea apply now for Brisbane’s Budding Entrepreneurs Program, for the chance to be awarded up to $5000 to support your big-idea.

Brisbane City Council keeps plugging these ‘start-up funds’ with the idea that they’re going to fund a small Brisbane-based tech startup that goes big (see We Are Hunted, Halfbrick etc). I consider Reckoner a tiny little media startup, and in theory I should be the perfect candidate, right?

I really have no motivation at all to apply for this.

  • ‘Up to $5k’ is not a lot of money, even for a startup
  • They heavily restrict how you can spend this small amount of money: see their terms & conditions [PDF]
  • I only have a ‘chance’ to win it (there are 10 spots)
  • They have what I consider to be an onerous clause around acknowledging their funding

Everyone knows receiving government funding comes with a significant overhead: time. $5k will probably not cover the time it takes to do all the paperwork associated with receiving this money.

If they’re hoping for serious or exciting start-ups in Brisbane to apply, they need to re-think their approach.