Becoming pitch perfect and being a woman in the startup world (and everything in between)

I shared my Startmate journey in my previous post, focusing on the 12-week accelerator process and how the support offered by Startmate helped me to stay on track, stay positive, and overcome a number of obstacles including a co-founder break-up and a last-second tech team drop-out!

The aforementioned obstacles couldn’t have been predicted — but being an introvert that doesn’t like public speaking has always been there so during the Startmate process my fear of having to pitch was always bubbling under the surface.

I was, quite simply, terrified of pitching.

It wasn’t just an internal, inner dialogue where I was an inward wreck but outwardly cool — I really struggled. At the start of the process every time I went to pitch practice all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and disappear.

This is obviously less than ideal for a startup founder who is part of an accelerator that had not 1 but 2 demo days to pitch at (Sydney & Melbourne).

I knew I needed to put the effort in to overcome this particular obstacle. Thankfully, I wasn’t on my own in this.

I had my own cheerleading squad — the Startmate team, mentors and my cohort — they were there for me, believing in me and offering their endless patience to see me practice over and over again.

Pitch perfect

Another cheerleader and my biggest fan and supporter is my nine-year-old son, Taj. He knew the true extent of just how terrified I was going up on stage and let me practice with him (I think he knew the pitch word for word by the end — that’s how much I pitched it to him).

His initial advice was:

‘Mum, right now it’s a 4/10. I’m sorry mum but if you want people to believe you then you need to sound more passionate and confident. Right now you sound scared!’

He was right, I was terrified, but I kept going (he did end up giving me a score of 9/10 just before Demo day — not sure what I did wrong to not score 10/10 — hard to impress, I guess…)

Eventually, it was crunch time.

I had to deliver my final pitch at Startmate Demo Day- Melbourne.

In front of 500 people.

Taj’s favourite pitch was Serinus Security, after mine of course :)

I walked up onto that stage with hundreds of eyes focused on me and spotted Taj sitting front and centre. I owed it to myself and to him to deliver this pitch and give it the credit it deserved. As I walked up on stage, I was asking myself why the f*** am I doing this (something so completely out of my comfort zone), and I clearly remember thinking

‘to set an example for my son’.

I wanted him to see that when you face your fears you will always come out so much stronger on the other side. And I did. Now I can remind him of a time where his Mum thought she couldn’t do something — but with the support and belief of people around her she accomplished what she thought was unachievable. And so can he, if the time ever arises.

It was a wonderful feeling.

I had overcome any hesitation about Startmate, successfully overcome the obstacles placed in my way and was not just enjoying but personally thriving in the program.

Although i was thriving, the fact remains that I came from an industry comprising 95% females to a cohort at Startmate which was 90% males (I was one of four females in a cohort of 29 founders) and by the end there were only 3 females left. Although I didn’t feel overly fazed by this fact as I was confident in my business acumen and my startup idea, I did feel like I had a responsibility to succeed.

I wasn’t just striving for myself but also for every female who comes after me.

So at the beginning, I did feel like I had to work extra hard to keep up and be noticed, especially because my startup was in the education and care space, a subject which, in the past, I had found hard to encourage males to engage with and not dismiss (despite it being a $12 billion market in Australia and $54 billion in the US!).

As time progressed in Smartmate , it was no longer about gender. When you find your tribe, a sense of belonging is created and your gender feels increasingly irrelevant.

However, the fact remains that women in startups are significantly under-funded by venture capitalists: women startups attracted just 2% of the $US85 billion invested by venture capitalists.

Accelerators and incubators like Startmate and many others are taking strides in the right direction, but the world of female-led startups and women in tech certainly has its issues that need addressing.

I had many Firsts at Startmate, with a few downs but so many ups!:

1. Co-founder break up (a negative) and witnessing the overwhelming support that came from everyone (a positive)
2. Glamping at Sunrise Conference (which sounds great but in reality I froze all night because I had no idea how to use a tent — or how to zip the tent closed anyway…. makes for a good story though I suppose!)
3. Living and learning in San Francisco — what an AMAZING experience! There was one moment where I was sitting listening to Andrew Chen from Andreessen Horowitz and thinking ‘How did I end up here’? Plus I survived living in the Tenderloin (if you have been, you will understand exactly what I mean — if you haven’t, try it for the experience [but take out life insurance just in case]!)
4. Eating expired almonds — thanks to Jane from Bring Me Home — she taught me that expired food is awesome (kind of)
5. Finally, being a part of Startmate supported my personal growth. It pushed my limits and at times it felt like I was sliding down a rope headfirst but because of this I would never have truly known what I am capable of.

Quite simply, the knowledge you gain, the support you’re given and the friendships you create along this journey are some that will stay with you forever, so if you are currently thinking about applying to Startmate.

I implore you — DO IT!

I did, and it was, without a doubt, the best decision I ever made.

📝 Read this story later in Journal.

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