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Hi SM Family,

We’ve had 8 new Startmates join the team in the past 8 weeks.
And something I’m especially proud of - half of the Startmate Team was hired through our community (fellow, coach, founder). I can’t wait to see the outsized impact everyone will have as they spread their wings next quarter.

The Continuity Fund deck is ready.
“Why invest in a company before it is successful and never again?”

We’re ready to go out raising to keep backing our Alumni post-cohort.
If you’re interested, hit reply and I’ll send you the deck

Ask

1. Demo Day - This April 13th, we’re hosting three in-person Summer22 Demo Day watch parties — in Auckland, Sydney and Melbourne (kicking off at 6.30pm local time) — as well as our much-anticipated virtual Demo Day (kicking off at 6.30pm AEDT). RSVP ASAP to secure your spot.

2. Monthly Melbourne Drinks - On the last Thursday of every month we open up our Melbourne office for drinks. All members of the Startmate family and their friends are welcome. Come one, come all. Register here.

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.

• First Believers Cohort 3 kicked off with a hot cohort of 45 incredible founders & operators looking to believe in founders right at the beginning! They’ve already made 65 investments.
• Media Fellowship inaugural cohort has been selected. We’ve sent offers to 49 amazing fellows and have onboarded 20 epic expert advisors. The program will kick off w/c 18 April!
• Women Fellowship offers are just about to go out to welcome our next cohort which is kicking off in late April.
• The Student hackathon is ramping up for kickoff on May 4. Applications for the Fellowship are also opening soon. In the meantime, you can express your interest for the upcoming cohort here.
• Our S22 Accelerator cohort will come to a close soon, with mid-program NPS of 93 and 35 for founders and mentors respectively.

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

• Our first product, the Talent Engine, launched 3 weeks ago.
• It is off to a great start with the first 9 paying customers, 1 self-serve inbound paying customer, 100+ signed up companies on the free version and 171x ambitious Fellows looking for jobs.

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

• We made some strategic progress on our platform goal at offsite. Lots of interesting ideas floating around. Big moves will be made on this goal in Q2 to bring the whole community together into one place.
• If you have a favourite community platform (ie Bevy, Mighty Networks, etc) - hit me up, keen to hear it!
  

Good

• Startmate offsite was one of my favourite weeks at Startmate to date. The entire team went to Ballan and stayed at a campsite, played card games, hiked, did big cook-ups, toasted marshmallows, participated in a mini-hackathon and did heaps of strategy sessions. It was the first time the whole team has been in the same place since 2020 when we were a team of four. We are now a team of 18!
• The ambition in the latest First Believers and the MVP Media Fellowship cohorts are next level.
• We had our first inbound, unprompted Talent Engine paid customer. #saas
• Talent Engine off to a buzzing start and our new Customer Relationship Lead has accepted our offer and starts in 10 days. We’re pumped to watch her take the Talent Engine to new heights.
• The Accelerator Founder mid-program NPS of 93 is a great sign that we’re finding the right balance of IRL/remote.

Bad

• On the flip side, the Accelerator Mentors NPS has dropped to 35. Fortunately, our new EIR Megan Elizabeth joined us last month and is leaning into the feedback already.
• There was a strain on Women Fellowship operations after losing Crista and Sophia, but similarly our latest new joiners Kel and Paul are all over it with a high-quality cohort kicking off in late April.
  

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Thanks Team!

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Michael Batko

CEO, Startmate