Disrupting the Old School Capital Stack. Leading with Purpose & Passion — Startmate Fellowship in Review
By: Steph Leahy
Tags: VC, Leadership, Startup, Entrepreneurship, Women In Tech

Over the last few weeks, I have been furiously taking notes and nodding along in agreement as I listened in to AMAs (Ask Me Anything sessions) with a number of incredible individuals from the startup and VC space in Australia.

The talks have given me a unique opportunity to hear directly from trailblazing founders, incredible VCs and genuine leaders that are helping nurture and grow the startup ecosystem in Australia as well as making a positive impact globally.

I wanted to share my learnings and takeaways from 3 of the most authentic and passionate leaders I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. Simon Griffiths Co-founder and CEO at Who Gives a Crap, Melanie Perkins, Co-founder and CEO at Canva and Alister Coleman Founder and Managing Partner at Tempus.

I’ve followed the Who Gives a Crap journey for a long while now, so I was thrilled at chance to tune into Co-founder and CEO, Simon Griffiths’, AMA. For some context, Who Gives a Crap has one of the best BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) I have ever seen: to ensure every human has access to a safe, dignified loo. They make 100% recycled toilet paper and other sustainable cleaning/sanitation products, while investing 50% of profits into sanitation projects globally.

In 2013, they wrote their first cheque to water aid for $2.5k to start positively impacting the lives of 2 billion people don’t have access to basic sanitation facilities. 7 years later they have donated $8.38 million to help provide proper sanitation to those who need it.

Why is this so impactful, aside from being a basic human right? For every $1 invested in sanitation, we see a $4 economic improvement. People live longer, they are healthier so they can be more productive throughout their life and have less time away from school and work.

I have a lot of admiration for the team at Who Gives a Crap, hearing about the journey, challenges and success is incredibly motivating. I believe all companies, including startups, should focus on their social responsibility, environmental footprint and in general helping the world become a better place through tangible actions.

Simon Griffiths in 2012 sat on a toilet for 50-hours to raise $50,000 in crowd-funding for Who Gives a Crap.

It’s not often you get to hear from the Co-founder and CEO of one of your favourite platforms! I use Canva weekly if not daily. I was always the person who kind of new how to use the adobe creative suite but not enough to efficiently get small projects done. So when I stumbled across Canva a few years ago it was love at first asset. When I first starting using the platform I had no idea that an absolute #girlboss co-founder and phenomenal Aussie leader was spearheading the company’s growth. Fast forward a few years and a huge amount of growth later, I was pumped to hear from Melanie Perkins as a part of the Startmate Fellowship program.

Mel kicked off her AMA with a fantastic quote:

“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” - Steven Furtick

Melanie Perkins speaking virtually with the Spring20 Startmate Fellowship Cohort, Oct 2020

I really appreciate Mel’s highly driven yet composed and empathetic approach to scaling a business. My key learnings from the Canva story are that determination and adaptability are crucial, you have to stay true to your mission and your strengths but don’t be afraid to pivot and evolve. People will tell you no, and you probably will feel like an outsider sometimes, but stay true to yourself, find your people and don’t give up. I highly recommend reading Mel’s blog where she talks a bit more about all this, “a message for those who feel they’re on the outside”.

Mel & the Canva team have constantly challenged the status quo, they aren’t afraid to stand out, be different and they embrace an opportunity to be bold. One of the highlights for me was hearing about the bizarre recruitment pitch deck that convinced a senior Google engineer to leave Google and join Canva. Honestly, you have to check out the article!

Continuing on with leaders that lead with authenticity, it would be impossible not to mention Alister Coleman Founder and Managing Partner at Tempus. Alister exudes genuine passion when speaking about the fund’s vision and values. He has great philosophies around founder first mentality as well as agnostic investment approach (not sector focused). He is also an advocate for women in startups, investment and leadership in general and walks the walk when it comes to living those values.

Startups are disrupting the old school capital stack- I absolutely love this notion. Alister pointed out that something VCs do well is transferring wealth from the old to the young (or old to the new). Traditionally companies are built to make the rich richer. I understand VCs still benefit from investing in successful startups, but the point of difference is that their investee has the potential to benefit in a way that is near impossible working as an employee of a corporate company. Take Simon and Mel for example, I highly doubt they would have been able to create the level of global impact in a corporate job.

It was interesting to hear about a number of potential growth areas including synthetic chemistry, health, logistics, data, advanced research and autonomous vehicles. But something that truly resonated with me was Alister’s thoughts on a growing social dilemma, going up against the vices. I’m paraphrasing here; addiction may be the great plague of our generation, how can we give control back to the individual? Companies may have started off with good intentions but ultimately facilitate addiction and bad habits (tech, fast food, sugar). The inability to help people solve the addictions companies created will open up some big opportunities for change, transparency and accountability.

My overall takeaways: take smart risks, stay true to your own mission, celebrate going against the status quo, disruption is truly at the heart of changing global habits. Business is better with purpose, seek investment with a vision and always have founders at the centre.

Thanks for reading!

Voice compression. Changing the way companies send, store and protect voice data.