Aussies in the Valley: Entrepreneur Ned Dwyer on why it’s hard to break into the “closed” Silicon Valley community

When Aussie startup founder Ned Dwyer first moved to Silicon Valley in 2013, he quickly started to feel like a small fish in a very big pond.

“I found it difficult as an outsider to break into the non-Australian community in San Francisco, as people didn’t know where you were coming from or what your point of reference was,” the founder told StartupSmart.

“If you didn’t go to Stanford or work at Google or Facebook, you needed to work a lot harder to be recognised.”

Sitting with me in San Francisco’s famously lavish Apple store, Dwyer has no problem being recognised today. His online marketplace for web developers Elto was acquired by web-hosting giant GoDaddy in 2015, and the founder is also a partner in Blackbird’s Startmate program.

He’s also in the process of launching a brand new venture called Spritz, but is tight-lipped as to what it is, and when it will launch.

Before coming to the US, Dwyer used to run a software development agency called Native Digital, which created apps and websites for clients such as KFC and Falls Festival. Read more

Dominic Powell - Startup Smart - 5 Nov 2018