Entrepreneurial trailblazer focuses on vital start-up support systems

Associate Professor Martin Bliemel is passionate about the support systems surrounding entrepreneurs and startups. But where did this interest stem from?

You could say the former mechanical engineer is a product of his time. The inaugural Director of Research at the TD School saw his friends moving to Silicon Valley during the dotcom boom. He became interested but cautious.

“The dotcom was going off, and I was reading a lot of MIT Tech Review, Fast Company, Wired – a lot of the tech magazines. I wanted to learn a little bit more about it rather than diving in headfirst,” he said.

After completing his MBA in science and technology, he worked on an incubation project and helped write a business plan for his university to see if they could run their own entrepreneurial incubator.

“The dotcom bust happened, and it became overnight a really bad idea to get into startups, a really bad idea to invest in any sort of office space to co-host startups. Just absolutely rotten timing.”

The boom and bust of the dotcom bubble saw many people give up and abandon the industry. Martin did not. He was interested in seeing what worked and what didn’t.

“Both of them [boom and bust] taught me a lot about timing, being the right person in the right place at the right time. You can learn from what makes a successful start-up, but you really have to question it.”

After starting his own consultancy company, a virtual incubator, he worked with a variety of entrepreneurs over six years by helping one founder at a time plan their business and connect them to other start-up support organisations. However, he recognised he could help more people through innovation policy, which was a driving force in making the switch to academia.

“I thought, I can probably scale this up by doing a PhD. That way I can help dozens, if not hundreds, of prospective entrepreneurs, all the students. I can have more impact on innovation policy as an academic than as a self-employed tech startup consultant.” he said.

And it’s safe to say he's been a trailblazer in the teaching of entrepreneurship ever since.  He wrote many articles about entrepreneurship, how to teach it and how to support it. A lot of literature he came across was dated. “What was being published and researched felt like it was about ten years behind what was being done in practice. So, I felt like there was a huge opportunity for research to still be theory informed …but to draw a bit faster on practices.”

After writing a few articles, they got picked up by newsletters and circulated thousands of times. One became the most downloaded article of a journal for many years.

Fast forward to today, Associate Professor Bliemel says entrepreneurship is still a sector where “massive growth” is occurring, although it has plateaued slightly. “We should be celebrating entrepreneurship left, right, and centre. Entrepreneurship isn’t just an ‘alternative’ career path; it’s a viable one that needs better recognition and should be generally celebrated.”

However, after all his teaching and work in the entrepreneurial sphere, he wanted to try something new by looking at the systems that support entrepreneurship.

In collaboration with colleagues across UTS, his latest research is about the impact that co-working spaces, incubators, and start-up hubs have on the NSW economy (link). It has been crucial to get information about what is and what is not working in the entrepreneurial space.

In the beginning, there was kind of a formula for incubators and a formula for accelerators. Now, we're seeing people have to become more nuanced about what they do. The regional hubs tend to be better at it. Their identity is much more about being in the region than it is about a particular technology or industry. So, there's that specialisation that's happening but also the co-ordination where, particularly in some of the regional ones, are really good about working together.

– Associate Professor Martin Bliemel, TD School’s inaugural director of research

Both he and the government believe by focusing on incubators and accelerators, invaluable lessons can be learnt and passed on to entrepreneurs.

“Let's actually help the incubator, accelerator for their viability …if the first batch doesn't go so well, at least they can survive, learn from it, and then improve the business model and improve their support for the second year or third year. It gives them the chance to learn from their mistakes rather than simply crumble, fail, and evaporate.”

While others in the field focus on the economics of an opportunity and just supporting the entrepreneur, he looks through a different lens by focusing on the complex system surrounding startups. All the different people entrepreneurs connect with – not just investors – are vital. He considers their landlords, legal advisors, tech workers – to name a few.

“They create these webs of people around them, and you've got to get the right configuration of those people.”

He says the past was about clusters, but it is now about precincts and districts. In order to make it viable, all the components and how they interact must be understood.

Martin also has a strong focus on the impact on a local community. He says the biggest challenge tech hubs face is to make sure the local community is involved and benefits.

“We’ve seen some of the other tech hubs where it puts innovation and tech so much on a pedestal that it starts displacing the local people. It doesn't really bring them along for the ride, and it creates more income disparity, more polarisation of society. For instance, in San Francisco, there’s definitely the haves and the have-nots.”

Associate Professor Bliemel says it will take stakeholder management and consultation to stop this happening in NSW. When discussing Tech Central in Sydney, where Atlassian is spearheading the precinct by building eco-friendly headquarters, Martin believes we can’t just focus on the buildings and spaces that allow activity to occur.

“You want a way that doesn't leave others behind. And that's where you have to look more at governance than governments.”

When talking about his former students and the TD school, his main message is being “comfortable in uncertainty.” Good entrepreneurship is about shifting your thinking to believing you can do it.

“You have to be not just comfortable but actually embrace the uncertainty of a situation. Push yourself outside your comfort zone and conduct small experiments to get feedback from the environment to understand what the heck is going on. “

And for anyone wanting to embark in the world of entrepreneurship and startups?

This isn't rocket science. It's not. You don't need to be a genius to do this. It just takes hard work and perseverance and a little bit of method to the madness.

Learn more about Martin and his work