Answers from the network

23 questions founders, operators and investors actually ask — answered only in the words of the 27 people who have said something worth quoting on them, across 9 shows. Every passage is verbatim, attributed, and linked to the moment in the episode it came from.

Nothing here is summarised or paraphrased. Where the archive cannot answer a question with real evidence, there is no page for it.

• How do venture capitalists decide which startups to back?

  2 passages — Cheryl Mack, Danielle Haj-Moussa

• What do investors look for in a pre-seed pitch?

  3 passages — Maxine Minter

• How much traction do you need to raise a seed round?

  3 passages — Maxine Minter

• What makes an AI startup defensible?

  2 passages — Thomas Kelly

• How do founders know when they have product-market fit?

  2 passages — Cheryl Mack, Alex Valente

• How do Australian startups expand into the United States?

  3 passages — Will Richards, Cheryl Mack, Silvia Pfeiffer

• What is the hardest part of scaling a startup team?

  2 passages — Joan Westenberg, Marvin Liao

• How much equity should a startup employee expect?

  3 passages — Alexey Mitko

• What do founders get wrong about fundraising?

  2 passages — Freddie McKenzie, Yotam Rosenbaum

• What does a good investor update look like?

  3 passages — Cheryl Mack

• How do investors think about founder-market fit?

  2 passages — Maxine Minter, Matthew Browne

• What happens when a startup runs out of runway?

  2 passages — Eden Shirley

• What does a venture capital firm actually do day to day?

  3 passages — Danielle Haj-Moussa, Cheryl Mack, Christina Fa

• How do angel investors decide where to put money?

  3 passages — Cheryl Mack, Maxine Minter

• What are the risks of building a company on top of AI models?

  3 passages — Steve Hind, Georgie Healy, Alex Valente

• How should startups think about AI and customer service?

  3 passages — Jason Maynard

• How do climate tech startups get funded in Australia?

  3 passages — Gemma Clancy, Zrinka Tokic

• What is different about building a fintech in Australia?

  3 passages — Gemma Clancy, Steve Grace

• How do startups sell into banks and large enterprises?

  3 passages — Matthew Browne, Alex Feldman, Maxine Minter

• How do you build a startup while working a full-time job?

  2 passages — Alan Jones, Peter Tippett

• What is it like to raise money as a female founder in Australia?

  2 passages — Pauline Fetaui, Maxine Minter

• How do you value an early stage startup?

  3 passages — Ash Fontana, Daniel James Slater, Cheryl Mack

• How do founders handle a down round?

  2 passages — Maxine Minter, Matthew Browne

Looking for the origins of the Australian startup ecosystem? Answers from the history archive →