Episode Summary:
James Tynan is Principal at Square Peg, which is currently Australia’s largest independent Venture Capital firm with $1.6 billion under management and offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore and Tel Aviv. Prior to taking this role, James was CEO at Startmate, an organisation of investors and mentors that runs two accelerator cohorts a year. In his conversation with Adam, James discusses his experiences being exposed to the startup ecosystem in Silicon Valley, and shares his opinion that, with some notable exceptions, startup accelerators are generally terrible business ventures.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Day One Podcast
00:31 Meet James Tynan
01:35 The Role of a VC
02:29 James' Journey to Becoming a VC
04:48 Understanding the Startup Ecosystem
06:33 The Impact of the Sunrise Conference
09:12 Transitioning Back to Australia
10:00 Taking Over Startmate
11:52 Snapshot of the Startup Community in 2018
13:36 Influential Figures in the Ecosystem
15:50 Lessons from Silicon Valley
18:00 Current Gaps in the Ecosystem
19:13 Unpopular Opinions on Accelerators
21:28 Building Density in Startup Networks
22:52 Advice for New Founders
25:45 Final Thoughts on the Australian Startup Ecosystem
