We're a group of people interested in running businesses and other endeavours in a comprehensive and sustainable manner.

The Upstarta Principles

1. Neither a borrower nor a lender be (ref:Polonius): no credit or external funding.
2. Work on the basis of a 0 budget.
3. Have a flexible business plan designed to explore, learn and adapt.
4. Pragmatic on Intellectual Property (IP): speed-to-market over protection. Share information. No software patents.
5. Put profitability before growth.
6. Set sensible and reasonable prices, not try to extract maximum $ per customer.
7. Be different, disruptive, extraordinary: it makes no sense to sell the same as everyone else.
8. Eliminate/minimise impact to environment.
9. Focus on people (internal and external), prevent stress.
10. No spam. Not if you call it "email blast" either. Newsletter for clients is fine.

Now, a word specifically intended to scare you off: if you're a) just in to SEO, online marketing or get rich quick schemes, b) merely look at Upstarta meetings as a means to score a few new clients, or c) don't intend to come for multiple months, please just leave the group now or not join.

Yes we mean it. Those things are not what we're about and we've found that such attendance is disruptive. Regular attendees gain mutual benefit over time by actively participating, learning from each other and seeing the progress and lessons from different projects, thus the group as a whole becomes more valuable. Obviously, that doesn't work with one-time drop-ins.

If the above has not scared you away, great then we've set clear expectations for everyone attending. We're looking forward to meeting you!