The week that was: Accelerator activity, tips, tricks and apps galore

The corporate world may be winding down in time for Christmas, but start-up land continues to power along. Here’s what happened this week.

A new accelerator targeting enterprise technology for the Asia-Pacific region has been announced, and Sydney venture technology accelerator Blue Chilli has acquired digital agency and start-up incubator The New Agency. We got the inside scoop from all the founders involved.

We also spoke to a founder whose team spent over a year pushing a failing product, despite increasing stress which was “manifesting in strange ways”. Kym Huynh shares his start-up’s story, before they ripped the product apart, spoke to 500 target customers and rebuilt it from the beginning.

Advice on everything from hiring to how to handle a failure

Part of the start-up journey is advice, and we shared a lot this week. From how to turn getting soundly beaten into a blessing, to marketing and sales tips, to why you need to know your numbers and how to hire your first employee, there’s a lot of learn in our mentors section this week.

We also got advice from the start-up coalface: multi-award winning Liquid State shared how they got expert advice for free, an entrepreneur shared about why crowdfunding is valuable beyond just the cash, and 19-year-old Adam Stone returned from the United States and shared his insights.

Investment, apps and growth

In investment news, a bitcoin start-up raised $500,000 and a start-up shared why they took a different route to venture capital.

There was a lot of activity in software and app development this week, with a group gifting app winning Startup Weekend Adelaide, an app to bring technology to the elderly launched a new version, and a new marketplace for photography freelancers in the running for the Global Startup Battle. We shared the top six tech trends to watch.

In other growth news: this clean energy start-up is on a winning streak and ready to launch, Australians still love online shopping but it’s slowing, and a home delivery alcohol start-up manned by AFL players has emerged from their testing round and are beginning to grow.

State-backed summits and live-streaming from San Francisco

In state news, the Queensland government has announced a Startup Summit to set their collaborative agenda, and not-for-profit entrepreneur network Startup Victoria has been announced an official partner of the Lean Startup Confernce in San Francisco, and will be live-streaming the conference from 4am.

If launching a start-up is on your bucket list, Christmas and the New Year are a good time to decide to step up and make it happen. So we’ll leave you with these two stories from the founders of Pixc, and Letters from Letty, who’ve embarked on new careers.