Cafe Society: State’s hi-tech pathway to paradise

BESPOKE branding is beaut, says Polly McGee, but we need to be edgier to retain our talent.

Polly McGee wants to see Tasmania export clever technology to the world. Picture: PATRICK GEE

WE do high-end products and experiences beautifully in Tasmania, says business strategist and author Polly McGee.

As we sit in the elegant simplicity of the Agrarian Kitchen Eatery near McGee’s home at New Norfolk, it’s hard to disagree.

The artisanal end of the market, though, is not what we are here to talk about.

“We have really cornered that, it’s really serving us and it’s an essential part of the ecosystem, but you can’t have [major] state growth built on small bespoke businesses,” says McGee.

What we need, she says, is to create global enterprises that can be run from Tasmania.

By doing so, we will be able to hold onto our innovators and future investors – who may well be the same people.

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To do that, we need to attract the investment capital and cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit that can bring Tasmania more of the benefits of the extraordinary digital age in which we live.

For McGee, that includes the freedom to work remotely from her Derwent Valley home much of the time.

“I live in a small regional community, but I feel so connected to the world,” she says, delighted by the backstory of the tart our waitress has just delivered.

“I love it where I hear someone talking about a Sweet Grey pumpkin that was grown down the road by some dudes in a men’s shed.”

When you do get good start-ups here with those potentials, they tend to go to one of the main Australian cities or somewhere like San Francisco, where there is a culture of investing

McGee is straight off the plane from Sydney this morning and happy to be back in local pastures.

“When I was in Sydney this week, I said hi to everyone I walked past in the street and people just can’t even look at you,” she says.

Tasmania’s connectedness is “a superpower” that goes well beyond a feel-good factor. She says we need to use it more often to get our ideas flying.

“One of the great joys of this place is that if you want to do things, you can make the call and connect with the person you need the knowledge from. The short chain is beautiful here.”

A co-founder of entrepreneur support group Start-Up Tasmania and an experienced digital strategist for government and private enterprise, McGee wants to see Tasmania export clever technology to the world.

McGee says many good start-ups quickly move to places where there is a culture of investing, like Silicon Valley. Picture: iStock

It’s at the core of her entrepreneurial vision: exporting our “smarts” while staying put.

We are already hi-tech innovators in agriculture, aquaculture, forestry and manufacturing, and McGee sees huge potential for more innovation in those sectors, with the technology itself as well as the yields reaching a global market.

We are not short of ideas, she says, but we need a bold start-up culture to develop them.

“When you do get good start-ups here with those potentials, they tend to go to one of the main Australian cities or somewhere like San Francisco, where there is a culture of investing,” she says.

In Tasmania, there is a tiny big end of town, and micro-businesses are the norm. McGee wants to see more enterprises that are scalable, investable and exitable.

“If you can’t do those things, you remain in what is a lifestyle business,” she says. “You can never get bigger than employing a couple of people, maybe a handful.”

Another growth challenge relates to our high institutional employment. Bureaucracies are not traditionally incubators of innovation. So whose role is it to foster the conditions for it?

“It’s everyone’s responsibility,” says McGee, “but there needs to be a structured and formal process for it to begin. We need, as a state, to say this is important to us.”

One of the great joys of this place is that if you want to do things, you can make the call and connect with the person you need the knowledge from. The short chain is beautiful here.

It is not the State Government’s job to drive all the change or underwrite all the risk, though it can play a key role, for example through its development hub network Enterprise Centres Tasmania.

Private investors able to provide seed funding need to come forth.

“You don’t want government to be wildly speculative with taxpayers’ money,” says McGee.

“You want it to be looking after schools and hospitals. The best source of funds [for start-ups] is investors who have made big exits themselves.”

In Tasmania, where much wealth comes from retail and real estate rather than technology, the businesses in the best position to drive tech-sector growth may need to make an uncustomary leap of faith to back higher-risk propositions.

McGee’s recent book The Good Hustle (Murdoch Books, $24.99) outlines her entrepreneurial vision with its strong social capital underpinnings.

“The more wealth we can bring into the state and the more taxes people can pay and the more we can share that around, the more we can all grow together,” she says.

“The reason to go out and bust your guts and make a massive, scalable, global business is so you can exit it and bring that money back and reinvest it in the state and give others that opportunity.

“The bigger the revenue, the bigger the impact. Why wouldn’t you want to do that?”