Doing Words

Joining Pollenizer Ventures: Australia’s newest tech seed fund

// December 18th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Funding, Industry, My work, Startup

Mick Liubinskas at Pollenizer is “Mr Focus” — much of the value he brings to clients is his ability to create and maintain laser-like focus; on the problem a startup needs to solve, on finding customers, on raising capital, on recruiting the right team.

Me? I’m more “Mr Shutterspeed”, “Mr Aperture”… basically, anything but “Mr Focus”. I wield my firehose-like lack-of-focus on many projects, many products, many problems and many ideas. Not all of them at once, either, it’s more of a wild spray across from the first to the last and back again.  Sometimes this frustrates me, I know it can frustrate Mick when we work on something together. But it’s who I’ve always been and I’m making progress, really I am.

But enough about me, let’s talk about what I’ve been doing lately…

Earlier this year I snuck in as one of the mentor/investors participating in the early-stage tech startup seed fund Startmate.com.au but, since I’m Mr Shutterspeed, how could I possibly stop at just one early-stage tech startup seed fund? So now I’m delighted to say I’m also a mentor/investor in Pollenizer’s new Pollenizer Ventures fund (no separate website for it but here’s Pollenizer’s announcement).

The $500k seed fund is made up of some of Australia’s most experienced technology veterans including:

Scott Farquhar, Atlassian
Mike Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian
Matt Macfarlane
Stuart Richardson, Adventure Capital
Adrian Vanzyl, Adventure Capital
Matt Dickinson, Growth Angel
David Cooper, Deloitte
Mark Greig via Elevation Capital
Adam Broadway
Rob Antulov & Nick Gonios via 3eep Ventures
Chris Hitchen, Getprice.com.au
Domenic Carosa, Dominet Digital
Phaedon Stough, Mitchell Lake
Tony Faure

…and yours truly, Mr Shutterspeed.

Whereas Startmate is a seed fund for technical founders looking for business advice, Pollenizer Ventures is a seed fund for business founders looking for technical advice, so the two ventures are quite different and compliment each other nicely. After all, how else could Mr Focus also be involved in both funds?

Startmate seeks startups: apply now!

// October 16th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Industry, Me, My work, Startup

Are you a technically-focused startup founder looking for a little funding and a lot of advice to help you get to that crucial point of a Minimum Viable Product and then on to an introduction to investors in Australia and Silicon Valley? Startmate.com.au wants you (or someone just like you).

Startmate is a new early-stage startup seed fund initiated by Niki Scevak. I’m an investor and mentor in the program, and there’s many more impressive names than mine on the roster.

Our first program will fund five startups and begin in January, 2011 in Sydney. We’ll spend three months helping you launch your company and win your first customers.

Applications are open now and interest has been very strong so far, so please do your best work and give us all you’ve got.

Drop me a tweet if you have any questions. They better be good ones…

Startmate: Australia gets a new kind of startup capital

// August 19th, 2010 // 0 Comments // Industry, My work, Startup

I’m part of a new technology venture launching today at Sydney’s Tech23 conference. I’m one of many startup founders who’ve bemoaned the lack of Y-Combinator-style investment in Australia, so when Niki Scevak asked if I’d like to get involved in something similar (with tweaks for the local market) and told me how he’d already done the bulk of the difficult strategic thinking, I was keen to get on-board.

Startmate wants to help technically-focused founders get started, with a small amount of capital, advice and a mission to Silicon Valley.

Startmate is a pool of funds and a roster of mentors who’ve all built hands-on successful web startups that began in Australia. We’ve been where you’re going and most of us are still on the journey, so we think we bring some useful perspective and experience to the challenges of getting an Australian tech startup up-and-running.

Our first program will fund five startups and begin in January, 2011 in Sydney. We’ll spend three months helping you launch your company and win your first customers.

Startmate is a bit different because: