It's no different in Newcastle's growing scene, but a shiny new platform hopes to change all that.

#Newystartups aims to unite entrepreneurs, investors, industry, tertiary institutions and government to build the Hunters' tech capacity and help new scaleable tech products get to market rapidly.

"The vision is to make Newcastle an easy place to start a tech business, so easy that it's a no-brainer for business to relocate here," says James Giblin, a principal at Australian Energy Consultants.

"It's about being connected to cross-promote what is happening in the city in a common direction and with a common vision."

#Newystartups was formed after a June 13 workshop of an "enabler group" of companies including Australian Energy Consultants, Newy Startups, CLEANas, Hunter Young Professionals, Leadagility, Lunatiks, Advitech, Growthwise, PwC and Switchdin.

The group was co-convened by Mr Giblin, whose company has an energy management focus, and Dr Andrew Mears, chief executive officer of Switchdin.

From the workshop came an overwhelming consensus, says Mr Giblin, that there is a lot happening in the city's startup space and a great need to connect all the separate operators and "play on the synergies there" to expand the territory.

The main outcome of the workshop was a desire to support #Newystartups by connecting, enabling and inspiring the tech space.

Some of the more interesting points on the table are in the "enabling" category, including the creation of a register of mentors; a shared pool of data on startups, metrics and local economic impacts and a mobilising of resources to address gaps in investor networks.

The new group will meet again next month, with discussions expected to focus on what each company is doing internally to "connect, enable and inspire" and how it could work for Newcastle's greater good.

While the idea is to entice more startups to town, Mr Giblin said #Newystartups could lead to bigger discussions.

"Should we be setting ourselves goals of how many companies go to IPOs [Initial Public Offering, or sharemarket launch] within the next three years from a Newcastle startup?' he asks.

He says one of the biggest challenges for Hunter startups is to find businesses willing to talk about their problems.

"Here, some of the larger incumbent businesses are only just starting to discover the benefits of startups," he says.

"Startups are nimble and willing to take on more risk than the incumbent.

"So if they are willing to share information it's actually a low-risk way to problem-solve."

Perhaps the real barrier, though, is the "older mind set" of more conservative businesses.

"They need to realise change will happen whether they like it or not, so the best thing to do is ride the change and lead through taking small bits or different types of technologies.

"Waiting until change happens means you will get left behind and that's a real risk for businesses in the Hunter."

Mr Giblin and Dr Mears have also just set up co-working space Eighteen04.

Taking its name from the year of settlement in Newcastle, it will have a clean technologies and smart cities focus and set up quarters in CSIRO's energy centre at Mayfield.

"The fact we have the national research body for cleantech in Newcastle makes good sense and we'll be able to work with them, commercialising their research," says Mr Giblin. "We'll be exposing entrepreneurs to the research they are doing, building relationships and ideas."

Mr Giblin said tech operators are increasingly having discussions with HunterNet and the Australian Industry Group.

"The manufacturing industry has capabilities that will help the cleantech sector, we just need to find better ways to work together," he says.

He underlines that startups can walk hand in hand with the region's major employers in health and education.

"They will leverage off what Novocastrians are good at," he says. "There are big opportunities there, what the challenge will be for #Newystartups will be making sure the message gets out to the broader community, so everyone feels they can be a part of it.

"Our call to action would be to follow the #Newystartups hash on Twitter."