Tim Brewer from Functionly
Tim Brewer, Co-Founder and CEO at Functionly shares his startup journey, and the unique challenges of building a startup in Perth.
Key Insights:
- Perth is a “tight-knit, highly-relational community. The big opportunity we have is to give back into that community”
- Tim’s Tip – You have to be willing to travel, people will make themselves available for you if they know you’re only in their city for a few days
- “We don’t compete with each other, we compete with the rest of the world”
After being a part of the major growth of Dropbox, watching the team grow from 300 to 1,600 in just under two years, Tim shares how he wanted to come back to Perth to help other businesses grow.
Tim states the advantages of starting up in Perth, including how “you can start in stealth”, referring to how Perth is the perfect place to build your company without the others looking over your every move. He also states how the biggest barrier to entry in Perth is “access to customers”. To combat this, founders must be creative in how they reach their customer base.
In a candid moment, Tim shares that he hasn’t currently seen his highest point “as any founder does believe that the future is going to be better than where we’re at today”, but working with his team and solving problems together creates those high points.
Founder Backstories is an all-new series of interviews with prolific Western Australian startup founders, designed to inspire fellow and future entrepreneurs to build a scaleable business in WA.
West Tech + Powered by Ammo Marketing is designed to inspire conversations about the exciting opportunities and challenges facing the WA startup scene, as well as showcase the incredible achievements of local founders.
