Review your answers

I want to be an AirTree Explorer, because your program is perfect to scale up my work and impact. I am a purpose-driven entrepreneur and I am passionate about helping other founders because entrepreneurs build companies, jobs and project our society into the future. They are key to building a better country and world.

I am a 2-times founder and I know what it takes to start and build a company. In addition, I am a leader in the South Australian startup scene, where I help founders through my weekly blog and community What's Up, Adelaide? (https://whatsupadelaide.substack.com/).

More than capital, founders need inspiration, an external perspective, strategic thinking, access to resources and networks. I decided to start and build What's Up, Adelaide? when I realised that SA (Australia as well) has plenty of private and public sector support programs, but not as many ambitious entrepreneurs. Therefore, I decided to collate programs, events, jobs, etc. and created a single channel to talk entrepreneurship in SA.

Since I started this blog, I've been approached by many entrepreneurs asking for feedback, support and connections. Many SA entrepreneurs already took advantage of opportunities I presented and my following has been increasing organically. In addition to the newsletter subscriptions, my LinkedIn is booming and everyday I receive a couple of contact requests and emails.

Furthermore, I believe I'm a great fit for the program because I'm an angel investor, founder, former private-equity investor, engineer, and Wharton MBA. Also, I'm a Latin migrapreneur.

I am a community leader, therefore building and entertaining and engaged network is one of my sharpest skills.

As a migrant entrepreneur, building my own network is crucial for accessing critical resources and for building a following for my own company The Leaf Protein Co. Therefore, I've long been an active member in many entrepreneurial communities across the country: Startup Vic, Sydney Startups, Startup Adelaide, Chooks, Brisbane Startups, Antler Knowledge Academy, AusAgriTech, etc.

My approach to community building is 100% focused on helping others and giving first. As a result, I'm frequently approached by founders who need help and by ecosystem leaders who come across my work. Therefore, I receive many more LinkedIn requests than I send out. For example, this (https://whatsupadelaide.substack.com/p/values-fighting-the-gender-gap) is a post I recently published to promote female leadership.

I help founders with pitch feedback, business judgement & strategy, fundraising or simply displaying their companies through newsletter posts. Most recently, as my network has grown, I started to become a hub for introductions as well.

My network in numbers: -Global contacts: 2.984 -Australian contacts: 232 (Nov:3, Jun:90, today: 232).In the last 90 days, 140 people actively connected with me.

What's Up Adelaide? Newsletter following: -June: 90 -July: 107 -Aug: 128 -Sep: 163

My community may not be the largest, but it is engaged and grows exponentially and organically. In addition, do bear in mind that before Nov 2020 I only had 3 LinkedIn contacts in Australia.

One of my favorite SA pre-seed startups is Tekuma.tech, a hardware startup that developed an intuitive six-degrees of freedom control for robots & other devices. For more information, please read my blog post from Aug 30th: https://whatsupadelaide.substack.com/p/festured-startup-tekuma-tech

Investment memo: Tekuma is a unique solution that addresses a niche market need with positive long-term prospects (growth of robotics and IoT).

Problem and solution: What the Tekuma orb allows you to do is to replace up to 3 joysticks with the orb, allowing you to control six-degrees of freedom, entirely with just 2-3 fingers. Tekuma’s technology reduces the time, cost, personnel, and most of all, training required, to get jobs done.

Team: Annette and Michael are outstanding operators and domain experts and have bootstrapped the company since 2015, with now recurring revenue.

Moat: Tekuma is a patented technology.

Value: Tekuma can be accelerated by a professional sales and marketing team, international expansion and a more structured supply chain.