Getting To Know The Entrepreneur Supporting Melbourne's Local Start-Up Talent - Chris Hall

Welcome back to the "Perfect Pitch Show" where Brandon Burns, Head of Community - Runway Virtual, interviews small business founders/entrepreneurs about the secret sauce to their successful start-up journey.

Setting up a company is a daunting process and it takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and money. That's why Chris Hall, one of the founding members of The INNovation Crowd, developed a program to support local start-up businesses in Melbourne's South East. The program offers a range of support services including masterclasses, mentor support programs, monthly themed training sessions, boot camps with intensive mentoring and regular meetups.

Chris shares with us his experiences, challenges, and advice with the hope to inspire other regional entrepreneurs to start up their own business. We hope our regional readers can take inspiration and motivation from Chris's story and empathize with his vision to support local start-up businesses.

Typical Day for a Start-Up Mentor

Chris gave us some insight into what a day in his life is like. He likes to begin each day with a cup of coffee, before diving into the day's work. Chris's day consists of meetings with various start-ups in either the capacity of being a standing board for them to understand where they are at, partnering them up with mentors or helping them join the dots. The second part of his day is filled with intense spitball sessions, as Chris likes to call it. This is a fancy term used to describe a room with a huge whiteboard where start-ups break down their ideas and flesh it out to highlight key areas that need to be addressed.

Chris says, an important part of his job is understanding the community needs and working to fulfill those needs to encourage the idea of collaboration. He explains that he doesn't want any ownership or bonuses for his efforts, but he does want to give people the best opportunity to start up their own business.

World Record Dream

Chris shared with us one of his biggest achievements from his start-up career - setting a New World Record. Chris explains that he and his team were curious in terms of the opportunities surrounding crowdfunding and crowdsourcing. So, after 2 years of planning, they ran a 29-day campaign and raised $2.4 million around pre-sale sales of a product, that at the time, effectively had the core technologies built, a 3D model and a very firm business.

Chris states that the record was held in the space of the IOT (Internet Of Things) and at the time the major player Smart Things, who held the record, ended up being acquired by Samsung. Chris and his team effectively doubled the figure Smart Things achieved on their campaign and set a New World Record. Chris says, that it was a great learning experience and opportunity to grow both personally and professionally.

Global Vision

Chris strongly believes in the principle "Think Big, Start Small, Move Fast". Move Fast - yes, Think Big - yes but starting small and understanding how you can move at a pace where you are in control is paramount, he says. Chris explains that now that we live in a global economy, it's easier than ever for anyone to operate within an extended marketplace if they have the right product offering. With that being said, he strongly believes that it's crucial to have a product with the potential to fit into unfamiliar, foreign markets to remain competitive in a saturated market.

Chris states that it's not just about understanding the ability of your product to reach local markets, but understanding how you can own the pieces of your product that are of most value. Chris believes Facebook is a great example of this. Chris explains that the value of the compan...