A #givefirst journey
How giving first - simply trying to help anyone without expecting anything back - lead to startup success.
Ending the year, especially on a high (more on this later) is always a great time for reflection. As we hit a new decade, looking back also gives a fresh perspective of the road ahead. 2010 started just as I had began a PhD, made my first startup investment as well as helping one scale. Also my wife and I decided to up our roots and move from the city of Sydney to the town of Byron Bay on the Northern NSW coast, giving up our muggle jobs to refocus on our own entrepreneurial projects - this was jumping off the waterfall in many directions to say the least. My background is tech, my wife’s hospitality, but we managed to combined our talents unwittingly with a cafe and coworking space - 100 Mile Table and StartInno respectively - the first if its kind in the area. Both were catalysts and evolved in to bigger ventures, so Bay Grocer and RealAR grew out of that first big step.
After seeing startup heuristics seed and grow in Sydney in the late 00’s and early 10’s we wanted to bring the same to regional areas and StartInno ran and operated as Byron Bay’s Coworking and Innovation Hub for five years (read here for more about StartInno’s Wins, Fails and What’s Next). Coming from the open and inclusive Sydney ecosystem (nods to @liubinskas @philmorle) I was thrilled straight away by how warm and welcoming the nearby Queensland ecosystem was. Steve Baxter, on the cusp of growing his profile with Shark Tank, came in to the Hub to say G’day and introduced me to the Brisbane ecosystem. We have staying in touch ever since (later invited to pitch on his recent RiverPitch TV series). Separately Gold Coast groups reached out - through the legendary Aaron Birkby - and asked if I would be a mentor on 2015 Gold Coast Startup Weekend. This was my first introduction to Techstars and it was an amazing experience and privilege to meet entrepreneurs, not only from the Gold Coast and Northern NSW, but teams who flew in from Asia specifically to take part in the event.
We had already been running our own flavour of local events, called Startup Academy #StartupByron which also began connecting local investment which had grown way beyond our expectation. The final event pitching competition had UKTI sponsor prize money for the pitching event, with Craig O’Kane now Director at the office of the Queensland Chief Entrepreneur (notably NSW doesn’t have an equivalent). I was so amazing in what could be done in 54hrs of a Startup Weekend that the following year we decided to run the very first Startup Weekend Byron Bay & Northern Rivers.
Those that with a less progressive mindset may think that “wow, so this guys was invited into our ecosystem, now he’s running another event like our close by…” but no. As soon as we announced, Peta Ellis, then at River City Labs asked how they could support, likewise the Gold Coast groups did the same. No perception of competition at all, even through we were even across the boarder and in a seperate state. This mindset also began to reciprocate and likewise I was, and continue to be, accepted, as a community leader regardless of seperate state.
I started to unpack these heuristics and applying what I learnt to Regional Innovation Systems (here’s the blog post) as I was baffled as to why Queensland regionally was far more ahead of the curve than NSW in terms of regional support. I had been called into a few meetings in Sydney to consult on some task force initiatives which made sense since not only my experience both as an entrepreneur and a community leader of the (then) only Hub, but my PhD research had also included research into startups, research and evaluation reports of government interventions, including conference proceedings presentations in both Dublin and Porto. None of this was paid, and no travel expenses covered (in fact I remember a meeting in a Sydney coffee shop when a government person, who’s meeting it was, stormed in late stating “I’m not paying for anyone’s coffees” - nice). Needless to say dealing with government was in my view a #givefirst fail due to a lack of appreciation of entrepreneurs’s time - meetings cancelled last minute after jumping on flights - it was simply just “take”. Steve Baxter summed it up recently that Queensland is regionally focused since the (voting) majority lives outside Brisbane the state capital, unlike Sydney and New South Wales for example. Despite the “burn” to this day I remain a supported of government initiatives but only when they favour “founders first” and generally get out of the road of the startup entrepreneur.
One ecosystem (play) book brings us back to lens of Techstars. Back to the beginning of the decade Brad Feld started writing “Startup Communities” which became the playbook on how to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem where you live. Key is the idea of the Boulder Thesis which explains how a relatively small town in Colorado became one the hottest ecosystems outside of Silicon Valley. Brad of course is also one of the co-founders of Techstars, and Boulder is where they are still centrally located. In 2017, again through the Queensland community, we were invited to take part in the Startup Catalyst Community Leaders Mission to the USA. We met co-founder and (then Co) CEO Dave Cohen who had also just come back from opening the first Techstars Accelerator in Australia. As community leaders he pressed us as to what were some of the biggest issues we faced developing our ecosystems. I didn’t necessarily agree at the time but the general feedback from the overall group was a large sense of “Tall Poppy Syndrome”. His advice was simply, write a blog saying it was a thing of the past, so (another legend) Baden U’Ren from Bond University did! Dave Cohen immediately reciprocated by writing a blog post on our visit and generally thrilled at trying to shift mindsets. During this visit he also did a deeper dive into the idea and importance to #givefirst and something that has stuck with me to this day. Dave gave a tangible example when answering an email that had an “ask”… saw that the person had in fact given first, and immediately responded to their request. He then made sure that each and every one of us had his direct email and just get in touch. So I did.
Over then next couple of years I emailed general updates sharing our insights. So when I finally wanted advice I felt comfortable enough to share how excited we were about our Real Estate startup to come through StartInno Ventures called RealAR. I always made a point of giving-first before the ask, so he always replied and as we started to look at fundraising he wrote to back how we should look at the Colliers Proptech Accelerator powered by Techstars in Toronto. This was in 2018 and the timing was a little off for RealAR as a business, however I spent the next year hearing from most of the Proptech industry of how amazing and successful the Program was. In 2019 we decided to apply as it was the Accelerator Proptech program that had serious ‘pull’. It wasn’t appropriate to contact Dave Cohen during the initial application process, but of course was able to say that he had referred us onto the Program (I did after the process was over who immediately replied back with a “Too cool” email). I’m unsure what weighting this carried, if any, but what I do (now) know is that all the top Accelerators spend a lot of time ‘scouting’ for startups to apply. This is important to know since the acceptance rate of the top Accelerators is 1% particularly for the top 2 (Techstars and YCombinator). Almost all prefer to have some form of warm introduction, just like any VC or investor, so it must of helped since we were shortlisted and invited to pitch to the 2019 Program’s Investment Committee in Toronto for 20mins (5 min pitch, 15 min panel Q&A).
Hanging out with Techstars MD (the awesome) Ben Liao at a Toronto rooftop bar social event with Colliers
It’s important to note here that we had the choice of pitching in person or by video call. I had spoken with a team that made the effort to fly out to pitch the previous year but ended out missing out on the class of 2018. So I didn’t imagine that Techstars would weight a remote call over an in-person one. I do however always believe that meeting in person where possible is better, I also wanted to meet the Colliers team (I knew Techstars of course) plus also see Toronto as I’d never been and wanted to see the city where (potentially) I’d be spending 3 months of my life away from my family. I looked a flights and accommodation, the 23hr travel time and jetlag factors, decided it was ridiculous for one 20min meeting but booked it anyway and told Techstars I’d be there to present in person.
My co-founder Keith said I was mad but knows when I’ve my mind set, just to let me run with it, success or fail. Plus what I was confident about - and this is the most important point - is that I had been pitching to some pretty heavy weight Australian investors earlier in the year, including as a semi-finalist on the RiverPitch TV series. I wrote a blog on the 5 key learnings and was an amazing experience to begin developing my pitch skills. But mainly, those experiences with such high exposure, gave me the confidence that I could fly across the world and pitch to a panel of some of the world’s top VCs and Accelerator Program. Again, “weighting” the in-person pitch in the application process I can’t say, however shortly after the pitch, all teams attending that day were invited to hangout at a rooftop social event where we could spend more time meeting both Colliers, Techstars and some of the other teams which wouldn’t have happened had we not been there in person. It also made me realise that being part of the Program would be amazing and really something special. Suffice to say a few months later out of 750 applications around the world we were accepted in the final 10 selected to participate in the 2019 Program. RealAR (and StartInno Ventures as subsidiary) is now a Techstars backed portfolio company.
We completed the Program in December and were honoured to be the first team on Demo Day to pitch. That doesn’t mean anything tangible other than you’re the team that the others look toward to set the tone of the event. Most of all, due to my previous pitch experiences, I knew what I had to work on, not just in terms of business model, but also performance. The venue - the largest in Toronto was sold out to 1200 people within the first week of the mail-out and was also live streamed around the world. It was an amazing day. They say Techstars “is for life” and we are only now just at the beginning of the next chapter of our journey but we met and bonded with people from all around the world that we will truely know for a long time. I can’t thank the people at Techstars, Colliers and other teams enough for all their support. In the end it really was a special group of #hugsnothandshakes.
The purpose of this blog is to also call out some amazing #givefirst individuals. First is Steve Baxter, as well as being on of the first people to visit StartInno when we opened, he always responded to any “ask” and of course the (annoying but true) critical feedback during all the RiverPitch events. Peta Ellis, always shared our events and supported us where possible, as well as the first to strike up a reciprocal coworking agreement, then later invited us to pitch at RiverPitch. Aaron Birkby, again invited me to my first Startup Weekend, supported everything we ever did and most importantly that luminous Startup Catalyst Leader Mission to the USA. Sharon Hunneybell, Baden U’Ren and Peter Laurie, all bonded together on the Mission and have been friends, mentors, coaches and community leaders both at the Gold Coast Innovation Hub (our current home) and Brisbane’s Precinct. There are many more I would like to thank, and you know who you are. We couldn’t have done it without you. If there’s and way that we can help, just hit us up. We will be giving back as much as we can.
One final word. Techstars is a worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed because of #givefirst not in-spite of it. In any worldwide Techstars Accelerator or office #givefirst branded as heavily as the Program itself. Mentors who take part do so freely giving up their own time, without any expectation of anything in return. Mentoring is considered a privilege. Those who may chose to take advantage, mislead or misrepresent their intentions, whether a startup, investment fund or group, in the words of @pjlaurie your actions will be noted, and reputational damage most likely ensue. Always #givefirst
This article was originally published on StartInno.com & Realar.com
