Gold Coast leads Australia in founders per capita

In a report that will likely be unsurprising for Gold Coast-based entrepreneurs but may come as a shock to readers elsewhere, the Glitter Strip is punching above its weight with the highest number of founders in the country per capita when it comes to LinkedIn users in Australia's 10 largest cities. 

A report compiled by OnDeck shows the Gold Coast has 143.5 founders for every 10,000 users on the professional social media platform, which is 72 per cent higher than the national average of 83.2.

OnDeck highlighted HiSmile founders and 2017 Gold Coast Young Entrepreneur Award Trailblazers Nik Mirkovic and Alex Tomic as examples of the city's entrepreneurial spirit.

For a city with an estimated population of under 750,000, the Gold Coast featured prominently in the 2023 Top 100 Young Entrepreneurs List with nine inclusions, such as the founders of K&G Group, Gilmour Space, Evolt, Macro Mike and more. 

Mannu Kala, co-founder of healthcare, staffing and technology solutions company K&G Group, won the 2023 Gold Coast Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the second year running in October, while the coveted Trailblazer title was won by Kristie Baird of Drip IV. 

The City of Gold Coast has long been a supporter of the Young Entrepreneur Awards initiative, and has been a major sponsor of the event as well since it went national in 2018. 

The study found that Melbourne was the second-most entrepreneurial city by LinkedIn users in Australia at 134.9, followed by Sydney (133.9), Brisbane (100.7), Newcastle (88.1), Perth (83.2) and Adelaide (82.6).

Australia's 83.2 founders per 10,000 LinkedIn users figure places the nation in 26th position worldwide, not far below the USA at 86.2, although the world's largest economy is home to eight of the globe's top 20 most entrepreneurial cities such as the home of Silicon Valley and the world's leading founder hotspot, San Francisco with 353.7.

Tel Aviv came in second with 299.4, followed by New York (287), Amsterdam (251.7), London (238), Yerevan in Armenia (237.3), the Texan city of Austin (233.1) and Berlin (228.9).

Whilst Australia didn't have any cities in the top 20, as a country we had a higher rate of foundership than many countries that did, such as the Netherlands (80), Germany (70) and Canada (67.1).

Despite its thriving founder community, the Gold Coast did not make the top four super clusters of digital technology activity as identified in an August report by the CSIRO and the Tech Council of Australia, which highlighted the importance of the 'Sydney Arc', the 'Melbourne Diamond', the 'Brisbane Corridor', and the 'Canberra Triangle'.

The Gold Coast suburb of Burleigh Heads did however have a high 'location quotient' of 3.16 in the CSIRO-Tech Council report, which measures how the percentage of digital workers in a place stacks up against the rest of the country; higher than Brisbane's Fortitude Valley and CBD, Byron Bay, and most key Sydney and Melbourne locations.