Startmate exists to make ANZ the best place in the world to build a startup, and we do that by providing capital, belief and mentorship to founders before anyone else will take a shot on them.

The Accelerator is our cornerstone program, investing in ANZ’s most ambitious founders (2% acceptance rate) at the very beginning of their journeys. Over 15 years, the accelerator has invested in over 300 companies with a combined portfolio valuation of over $4.5B.

This role is going to help us take the accelerator to the next level.

There’s never been a better time to build, and that is reflected in the 40% YoY growth in founder applications we’ve seen over the last 3 years. At the same time, most VCs are investing less and less at the earliest stages. This is where Startmate has a role to play.

Startmate is gearing up to significantly scale the number of founders we’re able to back - and this is where you come in. You’re going to help us solve the problem of: how do we double the amount of founders we’re investing in without compromising the quality of the support they’re given - in fact, continuing to lift it?

Your role is to help founders outperform by helping run the ops underpinning the Accelerator and build products/processes to give our founders an unfair advantage in scaling.

This role is designed for someone hungry, not proven, and excited by the opportunity to grow and learn from working closely with the Accelerator founders and Startmate team. This role will give you the opportunity to…

🧠 rapidly learn about early stage startups,
✨ manage a network of ANZ’s best founders, operators, mentors,
🌏 build world-unique founder-focused products,
🧑‍🚀 work at the centre of the startup ecosystem

💡 Key info

Salary: $80k + super + equity + carry in the funds
Location: Sydney or Melbourne
Reporting to: Head of Founders, Emma Grife

📍 Role Scope: Your Responsibilities

Responsibility 1: Accelerator program ops

Description: Manage the processes that enable us to run a trajectory-changing Accelerator program for founders.
Examples: Onboarding new mentors, managing founder/mentor directory, scheduling founder masterclasses, sharing resources with founders, etc.
KPI: Accelerator program can run smoothly with 50+ teams.

Responsibility 2: Communication/community management

Description: Effectively manage comms and build relationships with founders and mentors across cohorts.
Examples: Email and slack comms, stakeholder management across multiple projects, in-person & virtual events.
KPI: <48hr message response time, Founder NPS 80+, Mentor NPS 60+.

Responsibility 3: Help build a best-in-class Founder Platform

Description: Work with/learn from our product team to use AI, low-code tools to build products that solve real problems faced by founders and thus give our portfolio founders an unfair advantage. The existing portal runs using Airtable & Softr.
Examples: Network mapping tool, content library, perks database, fundraising resources, etc.
KPI: 60%+ WAUs during cohorts.

🙅 What you won’t do

(Yet! There is a growth path to all of these things)

Directly advise founders
Make investment decisions

🌱 Position Requirements

Your background is less important than your key skills, which might include:

🧠 Problem Solving: You thrive in situations of high ambiguity where structured, decisive, and creative thinking is required. You’re resourceful, have a learn-it-all attitude, and do what you need to drive a problem from identification through to resolution.
🗺️ Project Management: You can keep multiple projects on the go at once, keeping track of deliverables and planning and executing effectively.
🕺 Relationships & Communication: You get energy from building relationships with interesting people. You can build trust, listen, understand what our investors and founders want and need, and action that feedback accordingly. You are a clear verbal and written communicator at scale.
👷‍♀️ Builder: You’re naturally curious about the latest tools and love building beautiful and scalable products and processes. Note that you do not require any previous experience in product roles.

🌆 Working at Startmate

We believe that building a diverse and inclusive team is critical to Startmate’s success. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or marital, veteran, or disability status.

We offer:

Community: The Startmate community is a unique mix of founders, operators and investors; the one thing everyone has in common is ambition. Startmate is much more than just our team, it’s a community built on paying it forward.
Autonomy: Our team is small but mighty. You will have very high autonomy to realise your dreams within your area
Flexibility: We are a remote-first team with coverage across three states. We currently have an office in Melbourne with satellite offices in Sydney and Auckland.
Access: You get to work with pretty much every well known and less well-known Australian and Kiwi startup, VC and angel
Great vibes: Being able to bring your best self to work is really important to us. We index heavily on wellbeing and engagement to make sure that you’re able to turn up with energy and resilience each day.

About Startmate

We’re making Australia and New Zealand the best place in the world to build a startup. We’re achieving that by becoming the best seed-stage investor in ANZ.

At our core, we’re a community of the most ambitious founders, operators and investors propelled by a highly-trusted mentor-driven community, and backed by the best angels, venture funds and tech startups in the region.

Over the past decade we have invested in 300+ startups, with a combined portfolio valuation of $4.5 billion.

We’ve written a lot about what we love at Startmate, so check out our blog if you want some more information about us, such as our mission, values, and team, and one of our most ambitious goals... https://www.startmate.com/about-us

⭐️ Application Process

Applications for this role close at midnight Sunday 8 March. To apply, answer a few short questions and complete a longer form work sample 👉 link HERE

Work Sample: Founders Associate

Reach out to emma@startmate.com.au if you have any questions!

Venture Capital Careers

Founders Associate