What is the relationship or difference between Startmate and Blackbird Ventures?
Startmate is a fully owned subsidiary of Blackbird Ventures. That being said, we have our own board, P&L, team and CEO. We’re completely independent in decision-making, and “the Switzerland of startups”, with most VCs in Australia and New Zealand directly investing into the Startmate funds.
Is Startmate profitable yet?
Yes, since 2020. As we’re growing rapidly, we’re investing our profits back into the organisation to grow as quickly as possible.
Which of the different programs you offer (Accelerator, Fellowship, First Believers, events) brings in most money for Startmate?
It is roughly an equal split between fund management fees, Fellowship sponsorship and participation fees.
Who are Startmate's competitors? And why do people choose Startmate programs over other programs?
Firstly, VCs. Everyone loves investing early, but VCs often complement us well and send startups our way as we match valuations.
Second, accelerators. There are hundreds in the countries now. Startmate has an 11-year history now, with 170+ alumni, which speaks for itself. If you want to get help and advice from a founder a couple of steps ahead of you, you know where to go.
Finally, Fellowships. There are currently no other Fellowships in ANZ. The closest competitor is US firm OnDeck, which doesn’t have strong coverage in ANZ, as a lot of sessions happen during ANZ night time.
Any updates on Startmate City?
We’ve started conversations with most Australian states at the regional and state level. The next step will be to get a regional and state party together to bring it up at the federal level.
We’re super excited about this and the response has been awesome. The challenge for us at the moment is progressing conversations from ‘we want to give you grant money’ to ‘we are keen to help you establish a Special Economic Zone’.
You say "we want to create a prosperous country as the world progresses". Does even distribution of said prosperity matter? If so, how do you work towards this?
We’re actively working on creating opportunities for underrepresented segments of the community. Some current examples include the Women Fellowship and the First Believers programs are specifically designed to bring more diversity into the tech world for operators and angel investors.
What are the factors for deciding which city to put Startmate City in?
This is mostly dependent on how open and fast moving state governments are. Practically speaking, we want to leverage existing infrastructure such as airports, roads and internet, which means you want to ideally be ~1-3h away from an existing airport.
What is it like to work at Startmate? What is the team culture like?
High trust. Autonomous. Flexible. Remote. Fast-paced. If you take all of them to the extreme , that’s what it is like to work at Startmate. Check out this article for some more insight.
How are you measuring culture at Startmate?
We have a number of different ways of assessing this, but our best metrics are our quarterly CultureAmp scores. Our last wellbeing score was 88 (industry average = 67) and our last engagement score was 94 (industry average = 74).
I am curious about your statement "people will probably find our levels of feedback and transparency unsettling at first". Would you be able to give an example?
We have a high level of transparency and a feedback culture that is unusual in other companies.
The best example is to describe the way we work.
Feedback
- We have 1:1 feedback channels on Slack for daily feedback.
- We have feedback part of our weekly 1:1 agenda.
- We do quarterly 360s and development conversations.
- We collect feedback for every program midway through and at the end.
Transparency
- We post our Good, Bad and Uglies publicly every month.
- We share the midway and the post program feedback with all program participants and publicly in our monthly updates.
How do you foster culture across remote and in-person employees?
Everything we do is remote-first.
Even when people are in the same office, they either split into multiple meeting rooms, or at the very least, all log in to the Zoom call to join in.
It's all about making sure people are forming genuine connections, and then letting the values and operating principles help define culture as we scale, regardless of where the team is located. We have baked in a bunch of ‘check-in points’ throughout the day and week to ensure people feel connected. For example, daily stand-ups and wrap-ups, ‘hours of power’ where we just all jump on a Zoom and work quietly together (often with a shared playlist), and dedicated problem-solving time.
And then, as much as possible, we try to keep time in the calendar for non-work-related bonding, so weekly trivia, in person offsites, team activities.
How many people work in the Sydney satellite office?
Our current office spread looks like this:
- Melbourne: 10 people (plus 5-10 Blackbirds)
- Sydney: 2 people (plus 30ish Blackbirds)
- Auckland: 1 person (plus 3 Blackbirds)
- Noosa: 1 person
- Perth: 1 person
Do you offer paid parental leave?
Primary carers get 16 weeks leave at full pay, with a 6-month transition period of working 4 days a week at full pay.
Secondary carers get 6 weeks leave at full pay.
How do you support employee wellbeing?
Have a pretty comprehensive approach to wellbeing. Our main pillars are:
- Having an open dialogue about it, from a dedicated Slack channel and daily energy check-ins, to quarterly wellbeing check-ins and anonymous wellbeing culture-amp surveys; and
- Creating policies and initiatives that target wellbeing in a systematic way.
These initiatives vary widely, from regular team-wide Kit-Kat days where no one works, to weekly meeting-free days and monthly meeting-free weeks that allow people to get through deep work, to ‘library hours’ on Slack that mean no one’s reaching out to you after hours.
We also have incredibly flexible arrangements. People work when and where it suits them.
How does Startmate work towards work-life balance in it’s teams?
We’re really conscious that work-life balance looks really different to each individual, so we try not to be overly-prescriptive here.
We have some general rules to protect people from work getting in the way of their personal life (e.g. no Slack on weekends or between 7pm-7am), and we encourage people to take regular Kit-Kat days or sharpen the axe when they’ve had a busy work period.
But beyond that, it’s more about understanding each individuals bumper rails. What are the conditions they need to have in place in order for them to be able to bring their best selves to work? For some people, that’s having a few hours in the morning to exercise, meditate and get coffee. For others, it’s having the flexibility to take time off in the afternoon before facilitating sessions in the evening, or regular sessions with a psychologist.
Whatever it is, we try to create a culture that cares about this and policies and initiatives that enable it.
What's the level of cross-functional team work at Startmate? For example, is the entire team involved in all Fellowship/Accelerator programs and events?
We’ve adopted a highly fluid team-of-teams model. Every project or program has a project lead who pulls together the right team for the activity. This means that most projects are delivered by 1-4 people.
That being said, anyone is welcome to get involved across any of our programs, and some members of the team mentor or coach in different programs too.
.webp)
