How Haymarket HQ is incubating international success for tech start-ups

It’s housed in the same Chinatown building as a legendary Sydney karaoke bar and Haymarket HQ is undeniably on song as a nexus of Asian-focused start-up success.

Haymarket HQ, which was founded by 63 Dixon Street building owner Brad Chan in 2016, is so close to some of Chinatown’s most landmark restaurants that you can almost taste the dishes from its desks.

And inside the space, the contrast of old and new and East meets West has become a secret recipe for success, helping more than 700 companies through programs, providing advice, offering a small investment arm and a co-working space.

“Where creativity sparks is in the slightly less formal, slightly less polished areas,” says HHQ chief executive Duco van Breemen.

Van Breemen joined HHQ as it opened, on the back of an eight-year career in China working for the likes of the Hangzhou government, e-commerce hubs and Dutch companies.

When he bumped into Chan by chance in 2016, he was invited to help Australian start-ups partner with Asia.

“Initially when Brad set up HHQ in 2016 what he saw was that there weren’t many start-up tech hubs,” van Breemen says.

Proximity to Sydney’s Chinatown is important, say HHQ’s founder and its CEO.

“The ones that were here were all focused on going into the US. They’d all get big and just go.”

Chan thought that was a waste when, in half the distance, start-ups could harness the power of billions of people and multiple markets.

Van Breemen says: “Asia is at our doorstop. We also have a massive talent pool right in our backyard that can help people grow into those regions, yet no one was thinking about it.”

Since then, the start-up hub has worked on developing and scaling programs for the companies and organisations like Alibaba, Australia Post, DFAT, City of Sydney and the NSW Government.

The Chinatown location has been fruitful in many ways, with the contrast of old and new proving popular.

Van Breemen says that while many start-ups would seek to branch after experiencing growth, Haymarket HQ had reaped the rewards from its cultural precinct.

“We’re probably one of the most diverse co-working spaces. We tend to attract Australians who have lived abroad for a long time as well as Asian Australians,” he says.

“We’re also not as loud as the other places. We’re not a fraternity whereas a lot of the early stage start-up hubs can have that feel.”

With the territory comes a few traditions — some with deeper origins than others.

At the end of every working week a round of beers is shared among those working at HHQ.

x“Every Friday we hit the gong, beers are opened and we see where the night takes us. Usually that’s not Dynasty (karaoke) but sometimes we have ended up there … Sometimes it also includes baijiu but I think most people have learned their lesson after having a lot of it in one night,” he says.

“The good thing about being in Chinatown is that it is vibrant,” says Duco van Breemen, with Haymarket HQ founder Brad Chan. Picture: Chris Pavlich

“The good thing about being in Chinatown is that it is vibrant. There’s restaurants, there’s markets every Friday. We often go to the little speak-easies like Bancho or we get Korean BBQ.”

After hours, HHQ has become a popular event space.

Patricia Haueiss, 33, is a metaverse consultant who will host one of Australia’s biggest Web3 meetings — the Metaverse Sydney Conference, on October 1.

She’s also a regular at HHQ, conducting panels and inviting guest speakers to introduce investors, enthusiasts and businesses to the Web3 space. She says HHQ has become an advocate for the Web3 community.

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“We have a shared vision that Web3 and the metaverse will have a transformative impact on the way we live, work and socialise in the future. No other space in Sydney has positioned itself so well in the Web3 space,” she says.

“Our Metaverse Sydney events bring together over 150 Web3 and metaverse start-ups, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts every month to gain first-hand insights from experts in the field and make valuable connections with each other.”

HHQ isn’t the only business doing big things in Chinatown.

Over the past few months more than $100m worth of development applications has been launched in Haymarket, several of which are directly connected to Chinatown on Dixon St.

A City of Sydney spokesman said Haymarket had been selected along with six nearby neighbourhoods to form the upcoming Tech Central development.

Under the plan, Haymarket joins Camperdown, Ultimo, South Eveleigh, Darlington/North Eveleigh and lower Surry Hills.

Brad Chan and Duco van Breemen at the office. Picture: Chris Pavlich

Before long, more Web3 enthusiasts came.

“Then we became a bit of a meeting hub for a lot of folks in the blockchain space. We had a lot of tech enthusiasts that got in early who would come to the blockchain drinks and pitch nights,” he says.

Van Breemen admits that while Web3 is fascinating, even he is not totally convinced.

“It wasn’t until last year that I personally started focusing on it quite actively,” he says.

“NFTs were a way for me to get into it and for me to see that NFTs have value beyond being a cool profile picture. We have a great network in this space.”

In March, van Breemen worked with stencil artist Luke Cornish to deliver an NFT exhibition in Barangaroo.

Other success stories to come out of HHQ include:

INVERTIGRO, a vertical farming start-up which delivered the nation’s first indoor farm in partnership with Woolworths;

NICOLAS Zurstrassen, who helped Nike launch e-commerce in China, also ran a start-up in HHQ before he was recruited by Google;

JASON Yat-Sen Li and Dai Le, who both worked out of the space before becoming the members for Strathfield and Fowler, respectively.

“In a way, we have turned out to be a bit of a breeding ground for MPs it seems,” Duco says.

Get a glimpse into the future with The List: 100 Innovators 2022, a celebration of Australia’s boundary pushers and innovators. Find it in The Australian on Friday, July 15 in print and online.

Originally published as How Haymarket HQ is incubating international success for tech start-ups