Michael Batko: It's more about just highlighting like, the ethos of StartMate or the reason it exists is actually people helping people out.

Adam Spencer: Hi, I'm Adam Spencer and welcome to day one, the podcast for regional startups and the organizations that support them. Today's episode was made in part by By the support of New Economy Media, publisher of the New Economy News, innovation news without the jargon. Read more at neweconomy. media. Today, you're going to hear the story of Startmate featuring.

Adam Spencer: So

Michael Batko: I'm Michael Batgood, the head of operations at Startmate. So Startmate is, um, the leading tech accelerator in Australia. Um, we take 10 to 15 companies, early stage founders and help them throughout the three to four months to get them to the next stage, whatever that stage is. For us, it's, we look for just the most ambitious founders and whatever those are, we can add lots of value to them.

Michael Batko: And we don't necessarily specialize in a certain area in the industry. We just want the most ambitious founders and we can work with that talent.

Adam Spencer: Let's go back to day one, to a pub. In Surrey Hills where this story begins.

Michael Batko: So lots of people don't know that part of history as well. Um, they always start me still. Um, people still see start Me as it came out of Blackburn, which is actually, it was interesting 'cause it happened the other way around. Um. In 2011, 2010, 2011, um, Nikki came back from Silicon Valley. There was not much of a venture capital industry here in Australia.

Michael Batko: So this was literally before all of the VC funds as they are now today. And the VC industry being very, very new here in Australia still, it's only what, five years. And, um, back then he met up with a couple of his buddies. Our original mentors in a pub here in Surrey Hills and they all said let's put in 10, 000 each to fund the next generation of founders Which happened to be Mike and Scott from my classian as part of that.

Michael Batko: So it was a great start as a start as great starting a mentor community and I And they funded the first team, five teams back then and actually the initial, uh, mission of Startmate is still exactly the same one which is founders, helping founders.

Adam Spencer: Starting back in 2010, when there wasn't a lot of VCs around in Australia, as Michael said, after Nicky got back from Silicon Valley, Nicky met up with a bunch of people at a pub in Surrey Hills and Startmate was born.

Adam Spencer: Some of those people include the investor and startup mentor Alan Jones, Mike Kenan Brooks, Bill Barty, Phil Moore, Scott Farquhar, Mick Leomidskis, Dean McEvoy, Alfred Lowe, Peter Huynh, David Jones, Jeff McQueen, Ian Gardiner, Phaedon Stull, Richard Horton, Mike Casey, Ryan Juney, Bhatia Housman, If I missed any names or got any names really wrong, please get in touch with me on the website and I'll update the list.

Adam Spencer: Thank you to Alan Jones and Michael Batko for helping me with this list. And ever since

Michael Batko: then, the community of StartMid got bigger and bigger. Um, we've expanded from taking five teams into 10 to 15 teams. We run across Sydney and Melbourne now.

Adam Spencer: Michael has been with Startmate for about two years at the time of this story being published.

Adam Spencer: But before Michael was the head of operations at Startmate, he worked for a startup called Expert360 as an analyst operations manager.

Michael Batko: When I left Expert360, I didn't really know what I was doing. Um, I actually moved out of Australia then, uh, when traveling, when I was in Columbia, Brazil, like traveling all over the place, trying to figure out what I wanted to do.

Michael Batko: And as part of that, I then started to narrow down what industries I wanted to work in and started to broadcast that on all my different channels. And then people started introducing me to other people. And one of those introductions back then happened, um, From Bridget, who was, uh, well, who is the expert for 60 CEO to Nikki Shevak, the managing partner at, uh, at Blackbird.

Michael Batko: But it was actually for the head of operations role at Blackbird, which I interviewed for. And then I called up Nikki the next day being like, Hey, This isn't quite the right role for me because it was just too compliant and legal heavy. And, um, and this just wasn't quite what I want to do. And I was like, I actually do want to join an accelerator.

Michael Batko: And then he told me about a new role coming up in a couple of months time, which wasn't, um, which wasn't online yet for start made set of operations. And that kind of like for a fast forward, a couple of months, they're all came online fast for a cup, a couple more months. I got to draw.

Adam Spencer: In a few minutes, we're going to hear from Michael on the types of people Startmate looks for to take through their programs.

Adam Spencer: We've heard how Startmate got started, but I really wanted to know why. Why did it start and why does it exist? For us, it's literally

Michael Batko: just about the most ambitious founders. Wherever, whatever stage they are, wherever they are, whatever field they are in, it's all about the people. It's basically the best founders and investors in Australia.

Michael Batko: Helping the next generation of founders, which is like our cohorts. But the beauty of it is that this community and then comes together as one start meant family. And they just pull together on all the

Adam Spencer: same strings. Startmate exists to build a strong community of founders, helping founders. Michael told me Australia now has quite a few angels and seed funding, and also quite a few VC funds doing million dollar rounds.

Michael Batko: And where Startmate fits into the picture is exactly between those two stages. Or even before the seed stage. So in that early one, so either bridging people from like a seed to ABC stage or actually even before the seed stage. So that's kind of the area which, um, which South Mid is covering. So it's anything from like, we value ourselves in a million dollar valuation.

Michael Batko: And then getting them to basically like a two to four million dollar valuation

Adam Spencer: About three quarters of the companies start made accepts into their program already have revenue and have customers With the remaining portion only having an mvp with no customers. However for us It's

Michael Batko: we look for Just the most ambitious founders and whatever those are, we can add lots of value to them and we don't necessarily specialize in a certain area in

Adam Spencer: the industry.

Adam Spencer: Startmate was founded on the foundation of the individual, the team, the people that make up the companies, people helping people, founders helping founders. So it makes a lot of sense that they have such a strong focus on the type of people that they look for. In terms of what people

Michael Batko: do we look for, um, um, That's a good one.

Michael Batko: Isn't it's their person who is 100 percent passionate about what they do. Well, we, we call it, it's the life's mission to solve that problem. It's somebody who's a learner at all. They want to learn every single detail about the customers, about the people who have the problem about that problem space they can possibly imagine.

Michael Batko: It's just somebody who just won't stop doing what they're doing. Even though a billion people are going to tell them it's a bad idea. We want our founders to be learned adults. And when I said where I want them to be learned at all is I want, we want them to be, to know everything about the space. And how do they know everything about this space?

Michael Batko: Because they talk to as many people as possible. So that's customer. This is people who have been in the space, et cetera, mentors. What does that mean is that they actually collect so much feedback from people So many data points. So that's the data driven part. And they are able to actually consolidate all of that and make sense out of it.

Michael Batko: And the best founders have the backbone then to say, half of those people are right, half of those people are wrong or whatever that split is. I'm just going to pursue that path. The worst thing that can happen is you have so much data and you are just paralyzed by it all. The worst thing is to not make a decision.

Michael Batko: Advice is talk to as many people in the space, your customers, potential customers, people who have been there before, collect all those pieces of information, but I guess the real piece of advice is. Just pick a direction, like whatever it is, like come up with a cup of hypothesis and run after one validated as quickly as possible and the ticket off the list and go after another one, or just actually double down on that one.

Michael Batko: Just actually making decisions rather than being paralyzed. Pursuing all different paths at the same time.

Adam Spencer: It's no accident why Startmate, its founder, and the people involved have a focus on people. They have a focus on people because of something that they call the magnetic force. It's something that we

Michael Batko: call, well, it's our name for it anyway, we call it magnetic force, is that if you put the best people into a room, they're going to attract other great people.

Adam Spencer: And that's why they've never had Any trouble looking for startups or for mentors because those people are attracted to them. We've got

Michael Batko: two sides, right? And we've got the founders and the mentors on the founder side, we get more applications to every single cohort. Interesting enough on the mental side, we're actually overrun by mentors in itself.

Michael Batko: Like, mentors just email us out of the blue being like, I want to be a mentor at StartMe because it has a reputation. Actually, that's what I meant with we don't have a trouble raising a fund because people actually just want to put in it.

Adam Spencer: And as Michael just said, because of the magnetic force, as they call it, they don't have any trouble with funding either.

Adam Spencer: And you'll hear more about that in just a minute. Speaking about funding welcome, day one has just relaunched our Patreon after a couple of people supported us on our old tier outta the blue. Thank you for your support. If you would like to support our mission of creating a platform for regional setups, you can do that by becoming a patron of the podcast.

Adam Spencer: There is a link in the show notes, or you can find out more at welcome today, http://one.com/patreon, and you can show your support from as little as a price of a coffee.

Michael Batko: We've never struggled with that. Mentors love the community. So I always want to come back. And the way it works is that each one of them puts in 10, 000 into the fund.

Michael Batko: Every single cohort. We've had mentors doing that since 2011, every single cohort. And it's not hard because People want to be part of the community. They see the value behind Startmate.

Adam Spencer: That's all for this episode of Welcome to Day One featuring Startmate. Before I wrap up though, here is Michael Badko's advice for founders.

Michael Batko: The best founders are the ones who I have this absolute passion for things and want to learn it all. So today advice is talk to as many people in the space your customers potential customers People who have been there before collect all those pieces of information but I guess the real piece of advice is Just pick a direction like whatever it is like Come up with a couple of hypotheses and run after one.

Michael Batko: Validate them as quickly as possible and tick it off the list and go after another one or just actually double down on that one. Just actually making decisions rather than being paralysed and pursuing all different paths at the same time.

Adam Spencer: Thank you for listening to this episode of Welcome To Day One.

Adam Spencer: I hope you enjoyed it. Everything that was mentioned in the episode today is on the show notes page on welcometodayone. com forward slash startmate.

Adam Spencer: If you enjoyed this story, please consider subscribing to the podcast and rating the show at ratedayone. com. If you really love the show, then I invite you to help us continue to tell these stories and supporting Australian startups by pledging your support at Patreon. You can do that by going to patreon.

Adam Spencer: com forward slash welcometodayone. com. And thank you for giving this episode of Welcome To Day One your attention. That means the world to me and is more important than anything else. Thank you very much. This story was created by me, Adam Spencer, interviews conducted by me, Adam Spencer, and a big thank you to Michael Batco for taking the time to be involved.

Adam Spencer: And credit goes to Alan Jones for helping with parts of the episode and providing his insight into the early days of StarMate. There was a bunch of other people I wanted to speak to for this episode that I wasn't able to do this time around, so I'm leaving it open that I may come back and do a revised edition of this episode when I have more time.

Adam Spencer: The script was written by me, Adam Spencer, music by Lee Rosevear, full credits on our website at welcometodayone. com. This episode was produced and edited by me, Adam Spencer. Thank you, and see you next time.

Adam Spencer: If you enjoyed this story, please consider res Uh N D B

U