Mission Statement for Role

Startmate is the epicentre of startup ambition in ANZ, and our accelerator is at the heart of everything we do. We run Fellowships to supercharge our startups with talent, we run First Believers and raise our own funds to supercharge startups with financial investment, but the core of it all lies at our ability to attract, identify, accelerate and fiercely believe in the best founders in Australia and New Zealand.

This role will be one of the most pivotal roles in the startup ecosystem over the next few years. Startmate is home to Australia & New Zealand’s largest and longest-running accelerator. We connect with thousands of founders a year, and the accelerator has invested in the top ~30 for the past 12 years, backing over 200 companies. Cumulatively, our 150+ active portfolio companies are worth $2b+, with a number of breakout companies (e.g. UpGuard, Propeller, Edrolo, Bugcrowd, HappyCo & 5B) worth $100M+. We’re helping founders redefine industries of the future - hear from Julia Kay (Great Wrap) and Andy Miller (Heaps Normal). 

As Chief of Staff, the accelerator is your product, the founders are your customers, and the mentors are your most important stakeholders. Your job is to help us not just continue the momentum of running the best accelerator in ANZ, but to help us build the best accelerator in the world. 

Role Scope: Your Responsibilities

• Responsibility 1: People

  • Description: Build high-trust, open relationships with our founders and mentors. 

  • Example: Manage founder/mentor comms, facilitating sessions and meetings, regular 1:1 catch-ups, onboarding/offboarding. 

  • KPI/Metric: Founder NPS of 75+, Mentor NPS of 60+. 

• Responsibility 2: Process 

  • Description: Build and manage the processes that enable us to run a trajectory-changing accelerator program

  • Example: Program design, week 0, speaker management, feedback collection & implementation

  • KPI/Metric: 70% of founders raise within 6 months

• Responsibility 3: Projects

  • Description: Design and execute on high-leverage strategic initiatives to level up our founders function

  • Example: Mentor CRM, mentor experience design, mentor selection

Position Requirements

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

• 💜 Relationship Superhero - We’re looking for someone who spikes on their EQ and people skills. You can build trust, listen, understand what our founders and mentors want and need, and action that feedback accordingly.

• 📣 Communication - You are a clear verbal and written communicator at scale. You can manage communication from 100+ founders and 100+ mentors at any given time.

• 🧱 Organisation - You love creating beautiful long-lived systems and can manage multiple competing priorities with the best in the business. You bring structure to chaos.

• 🧠 Problem Solving - You thrive in situations of high ambiguity where decisive, creative thinking is required. At the same time, you’re happy to dive into a problem with a strong first-principles approach to find more than a band aid fix. You’re resourceful and do what you need to to drive a problem from identification through to resolution.

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 use Applied to ensure every applicant gets an equal chance of success.

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: You will have very high autonomy to realise your dreams within your area

• Flexibility: We are a remote-first team with coverage across Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Noosa and New Zealand. We currently have an office in Melbourne with satellite offices in Sydney and Auckland.

• Access: You get to work with every well known and less well-known Australian and Kiwi startup, VC and angel — Canva, Safety Culture, Propeller, Vend, Xero, Blackbird, Square Peg, AirTree, rampersand, Folklore — you name it!

• 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.

• A share of Startmate’s success: We think it is important to share successes with the whole team. All Startmate employees receive carry in our funds and are owners in the management company.

About Startmate

We’re making Australia and New Zealand the best place in the world to build a startup.

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 180+ startups, with a combined value of $2 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, and check out our mission, values, and team, and one of our most ambitious goals...