A few thoughts after reading From Little Things’ post regarding Australian founders and their love of using broad answers. I’m going to qualify this post by saying that I’m not perfect, nor am I mega successful. Quite the contrary, despite a really lovely amount of press for Wikifashion and opportunities to speak on panels I haven’t reached any level of success akin to the stories you read about on Mashable, Techcrunch et al. So I can understand completely why founders prefer to state that they haven’t made mistakes, that their companies are sunshine and marshmallows and that they’re headed for an IPO. Speaking to journalists about your company and facing potential humiliation is enough to make anyone hide.
But I’ve spent enough time around the tech community (in Brisbane, not Sydney) to realise that this only hurts founders and the community as a result. Being open about your successes and failures is what helps others to succeed with their companies. And you never know, you might be able to get advice on how to turn things around.
I really loved the premise that our openness is what helps the ecosystem thrive. I moved to San Francisco a little over five weeks ago and I can attest to this. Everyone here is so helpful, open about their companies (well the people I’ve met are) and willing to introduce you to just about anyone. I’ve made more contacts and progressed further with my company in the last five weeks than I have over the last four years back in Australia (partly) because people here are so open and unafraid (#1 reason why I love San Francisco).
