No gaps, when offline and online collide

By Fiona Boyd |

I had a wonderful experience last Friday night at an old world restaurant run by Gary Price, called Mr Price’s Foodstore in North Melbourne. I was not new to this venue, and have had a number of wonderful, stimulating lunches there with my inspiring and eminent mentor, Dr Terry Cutler. The food is wholesome, I’m sure Mr Price must get his ingredients at the nearby Queen Vic Markets, everything is always super fresh, but unfancy, I guess you could say wholesome, delicious peasant cooking (and I mean that as a compliment, no wank, just goodness on the plate!).

But the quaintness of the venue was only part of the reason why this night was so remarkable. The main bit was that the 20 + people that were there, were not friends, did not have long pre-existing work or other relationships with each other – instead, these were people who read Steve Sammartino’s startupblog – or who had seen his call for startup folk to join him for a dinner, on Twitter.

Some people knew each other, from Twitter, from various Melbourne networking events, Steve’s wife Shen was there, but mainly, we were all folk who read the startupblog, and I think everyone in the room had a Twitter profile. I cast my eye around the room and recognized 4 people, so mostly these people were not known to me.

But as the night wore on, and at this point I’ll highlight the fact that it was a dinner not a networking event, it struck me how much fun it was to meet new people under such circumstances.

Mr Price's Food Store - The startup dinner

I need to put up my hand and say that I find networking events a drag. Indeed there is a local small business women’s network that has been trying to get me to join for years, but I hold back because its marketing is all about, and seems to be only about, networking.

The evening started with some drinks, many people believed that Mr Price’s Food Store was BYO only which confused me somewhat as I was sure I had consumed copious bottles of wine with Dr Terry there, and it was definitely licensed. However, this confusion brought out some real generosity. Yvonne Adele from Ideas Culture took me under her wing and shared her delicious bottle of white wine with me, and we chatted merrily about running businesses and dealing with the turbulence of growing a teenage daughter (something we are both in the middle of).

As usual I spoke for some time with maybe 5 or 6 people during the evening. Such is my nature that I’d far prefer to have an in-depth chat with someone I find intrinsically interesting, stimulating and inspiring, than I would cruising a room and telling 50 people who I am, and them telling me who they are.

On this night I met a fashion photographer who has embraced Twitter as way of distributing her wonderful images – a true artist with a soul that goes far beyond the world of fashion – Gina Milicia.

I caught up with Scott Kilmartin who in his guise as Ringmaster at Haul, has been selling recycled rubbish since 1998 and whose Haul business, I believe, is on the cusp of huge success. There really is nothing quite like it, and his products are remarkable, and lucky for me Scott is a regular guest on this blog and is happy to share the ins and outs, ups and downs, learnings and success of his journey with Haul.

How delightful was it to learn from Scott and Gina that the two had cooked up a collaboration, whereby Gus the Boxer (the icon, mascot, symbol of Haul and Scott’s dog) puts out his very own calendar, with images shot by Gina Milicia. Apparently the calendar will be ready for sale for Christmas and I know Scott and Gina are deep in development on this project, so there’s no web address I can refer you to yet, but keep an eye on the Haul website, as I’m sure Scott will divulge all there.

When we first sat for dinner and I got ready to order, to my left was seated a young man (well 20 years younger than me, anyway) who as we spoke I discerned was both a startup person and a technologist working for the big consulting firm, Deloitte, in the Deloitte Digital area. Running a startup while you’re working 50+ hours a week for a company is no mean feat, believe me, David and I did something similar to this when we were both running the arts consultancy The Dramatic Group, and doing all the groundwork to launch Arts Hub – the hours can be a killer. However, Jason assisted me in getting over my usual aversion to anything Gen Y, and I was totally inspired by his approach to work, and his big picture thinking. Quite rare and oh so stimulating while sipping a gorgeous red chosen by the maitre d’, the other Mr Price (not related to Gary). I’m looking forward to talking more with Jason as I’m sure we can patch together a project sometime in the future.

And then Steve moved us all around, it appears we were getting way too comfy talking to the new folk we’d been seated with, and after entrée those on the right had to move table. The next table was also fascinating – I wigged in on a conversation about the Fake Stephen Conroy which piqued my interest as David and many of our friends are involved in politics and specifically the ALP. I then inveigled myself into a discussion with one of the parties who had recently finished four years in Canberra as a Press Secretary, to originally an opposition spokesman, who became a minister when Labor was elected. Long hours, much dedication, low pay and frustrating and enervating and a total buzz was what I took from the experience this man had had. In fact even though he was now earning 4 times the salary in a new corporate, and what sounded like quite exciting role involving the National Broadband Network, he really missed the pace and headiness of Canberra.

Just after dessert, which for me was cheese and pumpernickel bread, a number of folk had departed and I finally got to chat with Steve Sammartino, who had put out the call to his blog readers and Twitter followers to come to a startup dinner. I was much gratified to hear that a couple of people I’d referred to his new initiative, Start Up School, had indeed signed up – and that the Melbourne school was very close to being fully booked. Not a bad result given Steve’s marketing channels are just his blog, twitter followers and those folk he meets randomly day-to-day.

About 11.30pm, the last of us moved to leave and I bumped into technology journalist Valerie Khoo, and we both vowed we must sit down and talk when Steve does another dinner (which I hope he does – just like this one Steve, it was perfect!)

So, what have I learned here about business and startups and networking? For me, networking works best when it feels natural and you’re able to connect because you actually both want to. Lots of different types of people are in business and the issues facing startups are often common across many founders – and some of the key issues people spoke to me about are isolation and loneliness. And finally, that a startup dinner at Mr Price’s Foodstore in North Melbourne is a fine way to overcome founder isolation and stress. I highly recommend it!

Photo: Steve Sammartino

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