Recap: How to grow your startup from the experts at Scale Up Melbourne

Every startup experiences growing pains, but it’s all part of the journey. At the Melbourne session of Scale Up: Growing your startup beyond a seed, founders came to learn how early stage startups (what AWS Startup Advisor Nikita Le Messurier called a ‘sticky-taped monolith’) can transform into world-beating businesses. Here are the headlines:

Find the right funding

SmartCompany’s editor in chief, Simon Crerar mediated a discussion panel between three big names in venture capital: Tractor Ventures co-founder Jodie Imam, Archangel Ventures managing partner Ben Armstrong and Rampersand’s head of experience, Sarah Gibbins. The key takeaway from the trio was that not all funding suits every business equally. 

Armstrong’s work at Archangel focuses on lower-level funding at the early stage ($100k – $1 million), and the reasoning is valuable for startups chasing the dollars. “An early-stage company can’t take $4 million, $10 million,” he said. “It sounds like a great problem to have, doesn’t it? But you force-feed a child early in its development too much food and it gets fat.”

It was a point that Imam made clear, too. Tractor Ventures specialises in non-dilutive debt funding – an alternative to traditional equity models – but the important point to note is that startups should seek a funding model that works for them and their goals. “Just be smart and be aware that there’s many different types of capital and you might use different types at different times along the journey,” she said.

Take it from those who have already been there

The final session of the day featured three successful startup founders — Barb Hyman of Sapia.ai, Ash Brown of Empiraa, and Dr. Dean Freestone of Seer Medical. As with seeking funding, the trio were clear that there is no one-size-fits-all model of startup success, but each shared some valuable advice:

• ‘Know your why’: Barb Hyman was direct — if you want to take the next step as a startup, be clear about your purpose. “You’ve got to figure that out as a founder —- what is your DNA, and how do you get that right?”
• Product/market fit: Every founder is wed to their own idea but, as Ash Brown has found, it’s important to be open to advice in finding your business’s place in the market. “If you can’t take advice from a VC or an investor, you’re sure as hell not going to take it from a customer.”
• Find your ‘hitting zone’: Understand how your values align with investors before any meetings. Dr. Freestone shared a story about meeting a potential investor and finding out only at the end of the meeting that there was a misalignment. “Try and establish what the hitting zone is for yourself as well as [the investor] early on.”

Invest in culture

AWS Startup Advisor Nikita Le Messurier used her keynote address to expand on a critical point: the right culture is vital to attracting talent and securing investment. She shared six key characteristics of great culture:

1. Promise: Startups are founded on an idea, and it’s up to business leaders to demonstrate to employees how and why that idea will come to life – and then stick to that promise.
2. Appetite for experimentation: Treat negative outcomes as learning experiences rather than failures. In a good culture, mistakes are owned and solved, rather than avoided.
3. Rapid decision making: It’s important to empower employees to make rapid decisions and learn from them. Collect data and understand why a decision succeeds or fails.
4. Flexibility: Being flexible is vital for success. Listen to your customers, understand what the market needs/wants, and stay agile in the pursuit of a great outcome.
5. Trust through transparency: Founders must practise what they preach. Build trust with employees and customers by owning mistakes and being honest in the direction and goals of the business.
6. Resourcefulness: Innovative thinking is essential for breaking through barriers quickly, while having a diverse staff will lead to more opportunities for problem-solving.