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Hi SM Family,

After two years, Sophia Witherington is sadly leaving Startmate. Her last day is the 15th March. 😔

Excitingly, she’s taking some time off, and then joining the Product team at Canva. I can’t wait to watch Sophia’s next adventure unfold and where where life takes her!

She joined the team when it was literally three of us, and she has been truly transformational to Startmate in the past two years. She’s changed hundreds of lives by launching and scaling the Women, Student, Engineering Fellowships, and bringing in coaches and sponsors, which has truly transformed how startups think about hiring.

Startmate is unimaginable without it. Startmate wouldn’t be where it is without Sophia 💕

On a related note, we’re hiring a Customer Relationship Lead (every like and comment is appreciated in helping us find someone amazing) to fill one of the many shoes Sophia was wearing whilst at Startmate. 🩰

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Ask

1. We’re hiring a Customer Relationship Lead. Check it out (and hit like) on LinkedIn!

2. The Talent Engine is publicly launching on the 4th March. (You’re the first ones to hear about it.)

• ‍Anyone can post a job that pings Fellows with the right skillset.
• ‍A premium feature allows you to search and message Fellows to hire. The top 15% of operators who went through a Fellowship and are keen and ready to work in a startup.

3. Applications and EOIs for three Fellowships (Media Fellowship, Talent Acquisition FellowshipWomen Fellowship). Send this to your friends.

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Startmate goals

We call this the Triple P strategy: Programs, Products, Platform. 

1. Programs — get everyone working in their power lanes and launch 7 new programs.

• We’ve hired Finance, Ops, and Outreach support to get everyone working in their powerlanes.
• The next two Fellowships (Media and Talent Acquisition) are ready for lift-off and accepting applications.
• The Media Fellowship has all-star mentors like Bessie Hassan (Finder), Rohit Bhargava (Startup Playbook), Brad Esposito (Vice Australia), Kate Dinon, Mason Yates, Melia Rayner, Annie Carroll already lined up, just to name a few.

2. Products — build our first tech product and raise a financial product (the Continuity Fund).

• Our first product (the Talent Engine) is launching next week!
• Your company becomes the people you hire.
• Anyone can hire on LinkedIn and Seek. But if your team is important to you, you come to Startmate.

3. Platform — integrate programs and products to work together on one platform.

• We’re still scoping out the best place for the whole community to come together on one platform. If you know of one that you love (for example, Bevy and Mighty) let me know!
  

Good

• We had five new starters: Paul Redfern (Head of Programs), Matt Kolomyjec (FundOps Associate), Ben Simai (Ops Associate), Kelly Spoerk (Program Launcher) and Julia West (Program Launcher).
• We have distributed 9x of the 2012 fund, that’s 100x on the investment, to investors off the back HappyCo’s secondary round.
• Student Fellowship finished with an NPS of 85 and overwhelmingly heart-warming feedback.

Bad

• Sadly, Sophia and Mr Ghosh are leaving Startmate . Fortunately, they are not going far and joining Product @ Canva and Revenue @ Dovetail!
  

Ugly

• Hiring takes longer than hoped, so we had to delay some of the Fellowship timelines. The programs are still happening in Q2, but will be staged to reduce the operational effort of running them all at the same time. For context, the Women, Student, Engineering, Founders, Talent Acquisition and Media Fellowships are kicking off in Q2.
  

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Thanks Team!

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Michael Batko

CEO, Startmate