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Charters Towers is starting to ramp up as an entrepreneurial town to watch

05 April 2016 Author :  
Who would have thought that more than a year later of coming up with idea of setting up The World Incubator in Charters Towers that we would not only have hired our Community Manager, Eliza Rogers, but also have some very interesting and diverse startups to work with.

While we haven't hit our numbers of 10 startups in the first round, we would prefer to get it right and make the one's that have the most "legs" as successful as possible.

And we have a few to brag about. You see, being an entrepreneur isn't rocket science. You just have to have an idea that makes sense, that people want to buy and that will make money, and ultimately create jobs for people in Charters Towers.

There are a few businesses that we can start bragging about, but we won't use names, because the idea is that you want to keep on reading this blog and watch out for these people in the newspapers or pop by to the Incubator.

Glamping

You know what camping is, but glamping is the new, more glamorous (or comfortable) form of camping. We have all the resources in Charters Towers to build these locally and sell to the world, but also to set up for things like the Charters Towers Country Music Festival, Mingela Rodeo and alike. Very exciting business opportunity.

Legendary Cowboy

Here we need your help. We are sourcing products to sell on a online "market place" for everything cowboy. Anyone who has a product, or connections to the big guys with products, please let us know. We want to make this the biggest marketplace in the world for everything cowboy. How we make money is a clip on the sale as people click through to the website of the company. We envisage that this website over the first two years will employ up to 10 people. 

Aboriginal Art

This was a no brainer. Everyone, including me would like a nice piece of Aboriginal artwork for my home and office. Let's sell this to the World for reasonable prices and to other art galleries around Australia and overseas. Also, using this artwork on multiple platforms.

Online learning

I can't disclose much here, but there is a business that is all about online learning.

Dog bags

Yes, I own a dog and her bag is really tatty. While in the Towers we don't cart our dogs around in bags, in the big cities they certainly do. This will start off small, but I am sure that the world will be receptive to that. My tatty bag cost me $247 in New York, so hopefully people are happy to pay less than $100 for it.


The World Incubator

Mellissah Smith is the Chairperson of The World Incubator, a not-for-profit business incubator in rural Queensland. Currently the incubator is situation in Wherry House in Charters Towers, North Queensland and houses 10 startups. The World Incubator is host to North Queensland’s largest entrepreneurs conference with all proceeds going to helping rural and regional startups and farmers. Book tickets on www.nqecon.com.au.

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