Swaab sup­ports Star­tup­Bus Aus­tralia 2015

Swaab Attor­neys joined RB, AMMA, Brain­tree, Can­va, Coles, Calyp­so Coach­es, Fish­burn­ers, Stone & Chalk and The Chief Dis­rupter to sup­port Star­tup­Bus Aus­tralia 2015. What a ride! Some of Aus­trali­a’s entre­pre­neurs were deter­mined to build a busi­ness in 72 hrs while trav­el­ling at 100km/​hr and attract cus­tomers. The gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it of every­one involved in the plan­ning, exe­cu­tion and cel­e­bra­tion was remark­able. A demon­stra­tion of the pow­er of col­lab­o­ra­tion, per­sis­tence and tal­ent. Six star­tups emerged. They included:

• Give­G­ar­den, an on-line giv­ing tool that is encour­ag­ing us to give with our hearts and our heads.

• Com­mitt — get meet­ings to end with ​“no ambi­gu­i­ty and every­one on the same page” with peo­ple mak­ing com­mit­ments to get things done!

• Yak­Trak — make it eas­i­er for Tibetan women to find yaks for soap using satel­lite technology

• Pol­ish to Pub­lish — a hub where writ­ers access editors

• UNSTUK – who want to make it eas­i­er for entre­pre­neurs in the tech start­up space to con­nect with indus­try lead­ing experts, and

• eVAL — 3 sec­ond sur­vey at end of each inter­ac­tion by cus­tomers to pro­vide feed­back on the experience. 

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the bus­pre­neurs and this year’s win­ner UNSTUK who was award­ed tge Swaab Attor­neys legal con­sult­ing prize val­ued at up to $5000 to get their busi­ness up and run­ning. This prize will include a Swaab part­ner meet­ing with the founders, giv­ing advice on the options avail­able for estab­lish­ing a busi­ness struc­ture, fundrais­ing, stock options, prepar­ing legal doc­u­ments, includ­ing a share­hold­ers’ agree­ment. The founders will meet a part­ner, who is well versed in the start-up sec­tor and the issues con­fronting such busi­ness­es, includ­ing Aus­tralian start-up com­pa­nies that under­take a U.S. ​“flip-up”. UNSTUK also won a mon­th’s incu­ba­tion at Star­tup­House, Sil­i­con Val­ley — includ­ing office space, accom­mo­da­tion and mentorship.

Click here to see the bus­pres­neurs pre­pare for the semi-finals and here to read the sto­ry pub­lished in the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

While this was Swaab Attor­neys first bus, it was Founder Elias Bizannes 65^th bus in 5 years over 4 con­ti­nents with 1400 peo­ple! Asked what was his moti­va­tion for cre­at­ing Star­tup­Bus, Elias said:

​“I want Star­tup­Bus to be an instinct, your start­up instinct!”