Business Development Melbourne
Network with business pros in Melbourne
Coffee, Chat & Challenges
Sun, Nov 8, 4:00 AMWeather permitting: Let's meet at Coulson Gardens at the Maribyrnong River. In the event of bad weather, I will announce a new location on the day, but will remain local to the Maribyrnong area. Enjoy a coffee and light refreshment on me and take a load off at the allocated area (to be confirmed on the day). Just bring your experiences and let's just have an informal chat where I will be taking notes and gathering insights into your business and where you feel you need support the most. It does not need to be bookkeeping related! I aim to gain an understanding on how to help small businesses struggling at the moment in our community, and create a group focused primarily on supporting each other by sharing experiences and making connections. This is a free peer-led social support initiative proudly hosted by Antoinette, Founder of Buddy Bookkeeping Solutions, a bookkeeping business passionate about understanding and supporting the needs of small business owners. This is a casual discussion space and does not constitute formal psychological, financial, or legal advice.
MELBOURNE ❤️🤛 Business Networking Meetup @ Pullman East Melbourne
Fri, Nov 13, 2:00 AM**🔥Lassie & Edward Zia's Business Community is hosting a Business Networking Event @ Pullman East Melbourne🔥** **[Book into our coming events + donate to support our work!](https://linktr.ee/edwardzia)** Join like-minded people in Business for a fun and relaxing Networking Lunch and afternoon of Networking that you shall love. Our Business Community includes a diverse range of friendly and supportive Professionals, Entrepreneurs, Business Owners, CEOs, Managing Directors, Boss Ladies, Thought Leaders and Influencers, open and ready to meet like-minded individuals, to connect and grow their Networks! (Not suitable for Students) Our events are all about fostering and empowering meaningful connections, getting everyone out of their homes and offices to build a stronger Network within our Communities. **The Event:** Our gatherings are free to you and pretty casual, with minimum structure to allow natural flow of conversations. Come along, grab lunch, introduce yourselves, make new friends, and connect with each other on your phones via Linkedin. Our leaders will give a brief introduction after lunch, feel free to move around and speak to everyone before and after, and enjoy a coffee and or beverages of your choice throughout the event too. **Before the event** Make sure that you have registered for this event, updated your professional profile and install the Linkedin app on your phone, our preferred social media platform for high quality professionals and Business Partners. **After the event:** Touch base with those you have met and connect with any you may have missed on the day. Schedule a coffee meet and come along to our next event to meet and re-connect with others. **Parking:** Pullman East Melbourne is a 10 minute walk East from Parliament Train Station. It's close to the MCG, and is also a popular venue for many concerts and sporting events. Wellington Parade also has many trams, with a tram spot just outside the Hotel. Parking includes a mixture of street parking and paid carparks including: \- Underneath the Pullman on the Park \- The Epworth Freemasons Carpark \- Secure Parking\, 12 \- 20 Flinders Lane This part of town tends to be either empty or completely packed, based on what events are happening at the MCG and more (always great to leave earlier and allow more time when things are busy). **First time with Us?** You're in good hands! We've been running networking events in since 2015 and beyond **About Us** Our Meetup Business Community has over 16k members and has become one of Australia's largest Business Networking Meetup groups. We host regular Networking events in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and zooms throughout the year, supporting a network of ever-growing businesses. With over 16,000 members in our Business Community, you have the best chance of meeting like-minded people to grow and scale your Network faster. **What is the dress code?** Smart Business casual and be photo ready. **Questions and more?** Reach out to Lassie Zia & Edward Zia via LinkedIn. **[Learn more about our events + donate to support our work here!](https://linktr.ee/edwardzia)**
Build Your Business Idea with Claude
Sat, Nov 21, 11:00 PM**Turn your business idea into a working product prototype in a day. Use Claude to define your requirements, build your first version, and improve it through testing and feedback.** Have you ever wanted to create a self-service quoting tool for your customers, turn repeated back-and-forth conversations into an online questionnaire, or give clients an easier way to access your services? You have the idea, but taking the next step can feel difficult. Which features should you build first? How do you explain what you need? Can you create something people can use and explore without a programming background? AI coding tools are opening up new possibilities for more people to build their own products. Creating something useful for your business also means understanding your users, mapping out the experience, and checking and refining the results. **Making your idea clear, then testing it through a working prototype, is a practical way to move your project forward.** Join **Vanessa Cai** for the **Build Your Business Idea with Claude workshop**. Through case walkthroughs and guided exercises, you will learn how to turn a business idea into a product prototype. Using **Claude Code**, you will start with a description of what you need, build an interface and core interactions, then refine the experience through testing and feedback. **No coding experience is required. Start with a specific problem and explore how to build a product in collaboration with AI.** ## 🛠️ What will you learn and build in one day? The workshop covers four core areas: * **Define your requirements \| Turn your business idea into a clear brief** Identify who your product is for, what problem it solves, and what users should get from completing a task. Map the core user journey and create a product brief with functional requirements, examples and clear completion criteria. * **Build your prototype \| Create your first version with Claude Code** Learn how to describe tasks to Claude Code and progressively build an interface, core interactions and results display. Create a complete journey that takes a user from entering information to receiving a useful result. * **Refine through feedback \| Bring your product closer to real needs** Review what Claude Code creates and give specific, actionable feedback. Refine the logic and sample data, handle common situations such as missing information or invalid inputs, and practise evaluating and improving AI-generated work. * **Test and demonstrate \| Find problems and plan your next steps** Check the experience on desktop and mobile. Use peer testing and discussion to identify issues, prioritise fixes that affect the core journey, and demonstrate your prototype with a clear explanation of what to improve next. We will begin by exploring a complete example before guiding you through building your own version. Choose a small, focused business need, such as a service quoting tool, an event-matching tool or a customer needs assessment. ## 🎯 What will you take away? This workshop combines business analysis with practical product building. You will leave with: * **A product prototype that runs locally on your laptop** Build one complete core user journey that you can use to demonstrate your idea, discuss requirements and guide further development. * **A clear product brief** Document your target users, core requirements and completion criteria so you can move forward with greater clarity and communicate more effectively with developers or collaborators. * **Practical materials you can keep using** Take away example inputs and outputs, a testing checklist and a prioritised list of improvements to support your next round of development. In one day, move from “I have an idea for a tool” to something you can operate, demonstrate and discuss. Your workshop project will be a product prototype that you can continue developing and refining as your needs become clearer. ## 👥 Who is this workshop for? * Entrepreneurs with a product or service idea who want to build their first prototype. * Small business owners looking to improve the customer experience or explore new services. * Consultants and freelancers who want to turn their expertise into practical tools. * Product managers and Business Analysts who want to practise defining requirements and building with AI. * Professionals without a coding background who are ready to try AI coding tools. **No coding experience is required. You should be comfortable with basic laptop tasks and willing to try new software, review results and make adjustments throughout the day.** Please bring a laptop on which you can install software, and follow the pre-workshop instructions to set up Claude Code and the required development environment. You can bring a business idea that can be explored without sensitive information, or use one of the project briefs provided in class. Account requirements and any additional software or usage costs will be confirmed before you register. ## Meet Your Instructor: Vanessa Cai **Senior Business Analyst \| Over 20 years of experience in banking and fintech** Vanessa brings extensive experience in requirements analysis, solution design and validation. At NAB, she has led complex projects involving electronic payment systems, terminal management and AI applications. Her experience spans risk management, change management and business requirements analysis, with a focus on turning business problems into clear, actionable solutions. She brings this business analysis perspective to the workshop, helping you consider who your product serves, how its core journey should work, and how to assess whether the results meet your requirements. Her professional certifications include: * IIBA® Agile Analysis Certification * IIBA® Certification in Product Ownership Analysis * IIBA® Entry Certificate in Business Analysis * AWS Certified AI Practitioner ## Event Details **Date:** Sunday, 22 November 2026 **Time:** 10:00 am–4:00 pm, Melbourne time (AEDT) — tentative **Location:** Melbourne — venue to be confirmed **Format:** In-person practical workshop **Language:** English **Early bird:** A$328 per person **Standard price:** A$389 per person ## Join the Workshop **Give your business idea its first working version in just one day.** From understanding your users and defining requirements to building core features, testing and making improvements, join Vanessa for a practical journey from idea to product prototype with Claude Code. **Come with an idea. Leave with a project you can keep building.**
Startup Pitch & Themed Networking Melbourne | Unlock Your Idea
Fri, Nov 13, 7:00 AMJoin founders, investors and tech talent at this curated **startup networking event in Melbourne.** Meet ambitious builders, exchange ideas and discover new opportunities in a dynamic community environment. **RSVP: [Use this link](https://luma.com/n5wg2yi1)** **Please note that RSVP is managed via luma to control attendee lists — don’t ignore it to avoid issues with on-site payment.** You've been running the idea past AI. AI has never once told you it wouldn't work. Tonight you get a room that will. Five founders, five minutes each, The Duke of Wellington in Melbourne. Friday. **Three reasons people come back:** * You get a table, not a lap of the room. You pick a topic the room voted on and stay there for the hour, instead of wandering with a drink looking for a gap in somebody else's conversation. * You get a stage short enough to be honest. Five minutes each, no slides read out loud, then the room asks questions. The questions are the good part. * You get the hour after. The stage ends, nobody's performing any more, and the floor stays open. That's the hour people actually remember. **Your ticket is also a login:** Most events end when you walk out. This one hands you a link: your profile, who else is coming before you get there, a group chat for this specific Friday, and a recap afterwards of who you actually met. Then you land in the Melbourne space and stay there. That's where the second conversation happens, the one you meant to have before the room got loud. Free with your ticket, on the web or in Telegram: [ascentvalley.com/community](https://ascentvalley.com/community) **Is this your room?** Yes, if you're building something, anywhere from the first line of code to Series A. Or you run a function at a company that's scaling, write the code, do the hiring, or you're still deciding whether to start. Probably not, if what you're picturing is a room full of investors. How that actually works is further down, and it's better than the picture. Want the stage? [Apply ](https://ascentvalley.com/pitch)at Five founders an evening, and we answer everybody, including the people we don't pick. Applying is free, but you do need a ticket, because we check the order number. Never pitched before? Five minutes is short enough that it's over before the nerves have finished arriving. **What we don't promise, and what we do instead** We don't promise an investor will be in the room on any given Friday. Angels and people who work at funds come, some Fridays several of them, and we won't tell you in advance who's coming, because we don't know. **We don't run a judging panel, hand out a prize, or keep a leaderboard.** Here's what doesn't depend on who walks in that night. Your application to the stage becomes your profile in our startup directory, and a person reads it, not a scoring script. Once you're verified, that profile sits in front of the funds and angels in our network, and they ask for the introduction themselves when your company matches what they're actually looking for. You choose whether you're in the weekly digest and you can leave it any time. We never sell your details, we don't take equity, we don't take a cut of your round, and we don't give investment advice. Which means the room on Friday isn't the whole opportunity. It's the part you can see: [ascentvalley.com/pitch](https://ascentvalley.com/pitch) Why it's worth a Friday * Watching somebody explain their company in five minutes teaches you more about explaining yours than another evening alone with the deck. * You'll hear the question you've been quietly avoiding get asked out loud to somebody else, and you get to watch how they handle it. * That skill travels. It works on a first date, in a performance review, and at the dinner where somebody asks what you do and you've got twenty seconds before their eyes move on. So bring the friend who keeps saying they have an idea. Five minutes on that stage is the shortest distance between having an idea and finding out what a room full of strangers thinks of it.
Startup Networking Melbourne: Founders, Investors & Talent Mixer
Fri, Nov 13, 7:00 AMJoin founders, investors and tech talent at this curated **startup networking event in Melbourne.** Meet ambitious builders, exchange ideas and discover new opportunities in a dynamic community environment. RSVP: [Use this link](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/startup-networking-melbourne-founders-investors-talent-mixer-tickets-1987629760118?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true) Please note that RSVP is managed via Eventbrite to control attendee lists — don’t ignore it to avoid issues with on-site payment. **💡 Why This Event Is Different** Most networking events end with exchanged LinkedIn profiles. This one focuses on real conversations and real opportunities. We bring together founders, investors, engineers, operators and talent in a curated environment designed to create meaningful connections. Through interactive networking rounds, open conversations and pitch opportunities, participants can share challenges, exchange insights and build relationships that last beyond the event. 🤝 What to Expect * **Interactive Networking** Structured networking rounds where participants briefly introduce themselves, share current challenges and explore collaboration opportunities. * **Talent Corner** Recruiters and hiring managers can briefly share open positions, while engineers and operators can introduce their skills and interests. * **Startup Conversations** Open discussions about fundraising, product development, growth and startup challenges. **👥 Who Should Attend** • Startup founders • Investors and angels • Engineers and builders • Operators and product managers • Recruiters and HR professionals • Sales and business development professionals • Job seekers interested in startups • Newcomers to the Melbourne tech ecosystem
AI & Tech Networking Event in Melbourne by Ascent Valley
Fri, Nov 13, 7:00 AMJoin founders, investors and tech talent at this curated **startup networking event in Melbourne.** Meet ambitious builders, exchange ideas and discover new opportunities in a dynamic community environment. **RSVP: [Use this link](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ai-tech-networking-event-in-melbourne-by-ascent-valley-tickets-1999727725458?aff=oddtdtcreator)** **Please note that RSVP is managed via Eventbrite to control attendee lists — don’t ignore it to avoid issues with on-site payment.** **🚀 Meet investors, founders, AI experts, operators, and immigrant entrepreneurs building the next generation of global companies.** * Share your project and get feedback. * Connect with capital. * Expand your network. * This is where conversations turn into partnerships. * Use our participant mini app to keep every contact and insight from the event — nothing gets lost. 👥 Who You’ll Meet • Startup Founders • Angel Investors & VC firms • AI Experts • Entrepreneurs from Europe, Asia & the UK • Marketers, Sales leaders & Business Advisors • Builders & Game Changers Startup Pitch Session Selected founders take the stage for a focused 5-minute presentation in front of active investors and tech leaders. Each startup receives: ⚡ Professional evaluation ⚡ Investor feedback ⚡ Visibility inside our global ecosystem **Why You Can’t Miss It** • Meet Tech & Business professionals, founders, and active investors • Gain real feedback from venture capitalists and angel investors • Discover new opportunities in AI, Tech & early-stage startups • Build meaningful connections in a global entrepreneurial community If you’re serious about startups — you should be in the room. 📈 Want to Pitch? Send your deck to: 📧 events@ascentvalley.club or fill [form](https://ascentvalley.com/pitch) Limited spots. Curated selection. 🏆 The startup recognized as “Most Investment-Worthy” will be featured across our social media and included in our investor newsletter. **🌟 About Ascent Valley** [Ascent Valley ](https://ascentvalley.com/infrastructure)is a global ecosystem connecting founders, innovators, and investors. We believe great ideas shouldn’t stay hidden — they deserve to be heard, challenged, and supported by the right people. Our mission is to create environments where ambitious builders connect, collaborate, and grow together.
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