Why are some ideas better than others? What makes a great startup idea? Mike Nicholls, INCUBATE's Resident Entrepreneur runs through innovation waves and problems still to be solved.

1. Becoming an Entrepreneur
& Ideas Worth Chasing
Mike Nicholls
Resident Entrepreneur - Incubate
Follow me @Mikenicholls88

2. About Me
● Built an IT/ISP business & sold it
● Worked for VCs + HP + Corporate Sales on Comm Only
● Trade + BBus + numerous Cert 3+4 + Online Courses
● 35yrs in the workforce inc Defence Forces, Aviation, Finance,
Real Estate, Science, Online Video, Launched Numerous Apps
& Sites, Medtech + Hardware
● Launch Startups for world's biggest IP fund
● Read and research 1000s of inventions
● Reviewed >300 Startup Pitches/Applications
● 100+ pitches a month on Startup88.com
● Mentor at Incubate, CSIRO & occasionally Muru-D & UNSW

4. It all starts with the Problem
● Have you identified a burning problem?
● Does anyone really care?
● Do you have an insight or strong opinion
about the problem?

5. Can you build a Monopoly?
What are the truly great companies
that no one is building?
Peter Thiel - PayPal Founder

6. Small Monopoly, Dominate, Move to Next Market
Bowling Alley

7. Great Entrepreneurial Qualities
● Persistent & Resilient
● Willing to Experiment & Fail
● Great Execution
● Cuts through noise & distractions
● Has a vision & can work out the steps to get there
● Coachable yet Independent
● Committed to the problem yet Flexible about
solution

8. Dont Get Distracted - You Only Have 4 Problems
● Developing Product
● Developing Customers
● Cash
● Build your team
Anything else is a distraction

9. Traction & growth beats
everything else.
● Spend 50% of your time on user acquisition.
● Most teams can build a product,
● Some teams can get product market fit
● Almost no one gets enough customers to
breakeven

10. Innovation Waves *● Chips 50s-70s
● Computers 70-90s
● Routers + Internet - 70s-90s
● Open Source + Web Servers - 90s-now
● Search 2000s-2020
● Mobile + Apps 2008
● Messaging
● On Demand Business + Sharing 2010-?
● Platforms + APIs 2012-?
● Robots-UAV 90s-2020
● Software Bots 2015-?
● Biotech - Genes - Health
● Machine Learning + Big Data + CompVision 2000s-?
● Food Water *Originally Inspired by Bill Tai’s 5 Waves

11. World/Health Problems
● Clean air is a problem for large parts of the world
● Clean water is a problem for large parts of the world
● Disease prevention and detection - Malaria, Dengue,
Zika, Ebola
● Food providence and tracking
● Solar Energy plants for homes + Developing World
● Infant Mortality
● Methods of reducing death from heart disease,
diabetes, cancer

12. Trends & Popular Themes Bots & Apps
● Software bots are coming, low level workers replaced
● Messaging/Notification Bots as a Service
● Notifications and Messaging taking over the role of an
App via platforms/backends
● Non messengering Apps becoming less important. 5-
10% of your apps are used daily

13. Trends & Popular Themes - Security
● Security is an Issue - Online, Personal Data, Payment,
Company, health, IOT, Email, Comms
● Blockchain -
○ reduce fraud.
○ control personal data
○ Blockchain verify secure devices

14. General Business Problems
● Video meeting apps are broken
● Support on the web & mobile still sucks.
● Lead Generation & customer management across
Email, Social, Search is broken
● Meeting Scheduling especially across time zones,
organisations is broken
● Software/Devices not suited to new work pattern ie
BYOD and more than one workplaces

15. Hardware Trends
● Raspberry Pi Zero - Computers are nearly free
● GPUs and the software that goes with them VR,
Machine Learning & AI & Self Driving Cars/Robots/UAV
depends on GPUs
● VR is mainstream for gaming, apps coming for work
● IOT is getting tired - Pick your niche very carefully

16. Drones UAVs
● UAV/Autonomous vehicles still have a long way to go
systems that allow these to interact with each other i.e.
collision & avoidance, air traffic control for Drones.
● Landing and logistics for parcel delivery, security.
● UAV Long Range Powerplants, Battery Life etc
● UAV Navigation
● UAV Flight Operations & Reliability - Almost no one
capable of passing CASA or FAA Regs

17. Systems & Cloud Problems
● Managing Cloud Apps across private and public cloud
providers is difficult
● Deploying and testing across platforms is a pain
● Scaling/Managing Performance across multiple services
● Developer support is terrible Years wasted trying to
find correct syntax
● Solution for security testing Cloud Apps are lacking

18. Machine Learning + Big Data + Computer Vision
● ML & Big Data provide insight or action to users via
apps, APIs or platforms. Dozens of markets not one
○ Virtual Assistants & Bots
○ Market prediction & trading
○ Route Planning & Logistics optimization
○ Replace inefficient or dangerous work
○ Health - reading ECG, BP real time. Recognition of
disease, Malaria, Cancer, blood conditions
○ Security

19. Get Started
● Apply for Incubate
● Be an Intern
● Start some side projects