Australian startups are leaning on cloud-based tools to overcome obstacles they face in a competitive environment. But what does their cloud technology stack look like? Let’s find out.
A recent survey of 208 Australian startups by payments company Stripe, along with a group of venture capital and accelerator, attempted to explore the idea of the “Startup Stack”. This is defined by a suite of cloud tools that are designed to assist entrepreneurs automate fundamental tools for running a business.
The survey found that the average Australian startup uses 6-10 cloud-based technology tools. These included a combination of the following types of cloud tools along with top three products cited by the surveyed startups:
- Accounting: MYOB, Xero, Intuit Quickbooks
- Analytics: Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Power BI
- Customer support: Jira, Zendesk, Intercom
- Code repositories: Bitbucket, GitHub, AWS
- Customer relationship management (CRM): Zoho, Hubspot, Salesforce
- Cybersecurity: Cloudflare (survey was done before Cloudbleed), Bugcrowd, AWS
- Hosting and data storage: Heroku, Rackspace, AWS
- Human resources: EmploymentHero, BambooHR, Workflow MAX
- Mobile and web payments: Stripe, Square, Braintree
- Team collaboration and communication: Trello, Slack, Skype
In all, a total of over 150 tools are used across 10 business functions. The survey noted that hosting and data storage, team and collaboration and online payments were the three types of technology tools that have had the greatest impact on a startup’s growth.
There is a demand from startups for better tools for cybersecurity, CRM and analytics.
Interestingly, some of the companies that offer the cloud tools on the list are startups themselves.
“Startups today are no longer reinventing the wheel. Given that they’re often nimble innovators themselves, startups are trusting other startups with handling some of the most fundamental parts of their business,” Stripe head of AU growth Mac Wang said.
Around 65 per cent of startups surveyed said that entering new markets is one of the greatest challenges for Australian startups. To break it down further, top barriers to entering new markets include access to capital (31%), access to talent (23%) along with regulation and compliance (15%).
Money is always going to be an issue when you’re trying to launch or run a startup. Available cloud tools can help to alleviate some of the financial burden, according to the survey. Around 67 per cent of respondents agreed that cloud tools have made it cheaper to launch a technology startup in Australia; 75 per cent agreed that the tools have made it easier to kickoff a startp locally and 97 per cent said the technology made it easier for them to play in the global market.
Three-quarters of the startups surveyed believe they couldn’t exist in their current form without the cloud tools.
“By automating some of the most resource-intensive parts of building a business, the startup stack is emerging as the secret sauce of Australia’s entrepreneurs,” Wang said.
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