NSW Business Chamber questions Govt start-up site

The NSW Business Chamber has questioned the value of a newly-launched NSW Government website designed to support fast-growth businesses.

The High Growth Diagnostic, developed by Industry & Investment NSW and the Australian Technology Showcase team, features high profile entrepreneur and angel investor Dr Tom McKaskill.

The website features a series of video seminars delivered by McKaskill that focus on 14 principles of high growth in business, including distribution channels, sustainability, scalability, robust margins and managing risk.

The website has a series of questionnaires for users at the end of each video seminar to help them analyse their business from a high growth perspective.

According to McKaskill the videos and diagnostic provide a “breakthrough process” to enable entrepreneurs to understand this aspect of their business.

But a spokesperson for the NSW Business Chamber says the NSW Government should be focusing on policymaking rather than websites in the lead-up to the state election.

“We’ve had six small business ministers in this term of office so you have to wonder whether the government is serious (about helping the small business sector),” he says.

The spokesperson says the government cannot draw attention away from the fact that it has refused to participate in the national harmonisation of OHS laws and has introduced three additional public holidays.

“Decisions like these are fundamental to small businesses, rather than introducing websites,” he says.

Paul Wallbank, a business strategist specialising in the online economy, doesn’t believe the website is politically driven.

Describing it as one of the few useful tools currently available for businesses and entrepreneurs, Wallbank says he hopes the site is maintained regardless of who is elected to govern in the upcoming NSW election.

However he says the site is too specific in its approach, focusing heavily on tech start-ups.

“It’s also working on the assumption that new start-ups will have massive rates of growth in the first 12 months. But for a lot of small businesses the first year or two is a really tough slog,” Wallbank says.