A Growth Mindset — your idea is only as big as your willingness to grow
CEA recently sat down for a Q&A with Majella Edwards, the Founding CEO of Sortal - a digital asset manager for creative teams and businesses. Sortal administrates videos, graphics, photography, creative content and intellectual property. Majella has participated in both a Startup Weekend run by CEA and the CEA Collider Accelerator Program. There’s not a better time to tell you her story before both kick off for the year!
Q: To someone who doesn’t know — what is Sortal?
A: Sortal is a digital asset manager that is an online software that can help you control all your content. If you take a lot of photos or produce a lot of graphics or videos it will help you manage and track the intellectual property, copyright and how it is being used. It takes away the manual burden of having to organise and administer a collection through autocategorisation.
Q: How did you come up with the idea of Sortal?
A: I have a bit of an interesting background — I am an Olympian, and I have travelled the world, so I have seen a lot of different cultures. I am also an artist and a photographer so obviously have taken a lot of photos on my travels. I have also worked at the Australian War Memorial, National Gallery and National Library so I have worked in huge cultural institutions that have collection management systems and also have entire teams of registrars. The principal of managing a collection is very well known to me but I realised in everyday life most people don’t have these tools to manage their life and their digital identity or footprint. So, I pitched the idea here at CEA at a Startup Weekend, and we ended up winning! Straight off the back of that we went into the Collider Accelerator Program and Sortal was born.
Q: What did you think of the Startup Weekend experience?
A: I’d never been to a Startup Weekend before, so for me it was a real learning curve as I come from a creative background. I am used to mingling with artists and curators but not people in tech. However I know there is a huge societal problem with managing content so this was the perfect opportunity to come along and meet the people I didn’t know I needed to meet. It was 54 hours of intense business development. On Friday night you build a team and you pitch the idea and then all day Saturday and Sunday you validate it — you design the product; you design the business and then you go out and talk to people. The Sunday night, you get up there and pitch it. It was an all-rounded experience where you really figure out how you’d start and run a business.
Q: Did you meet anyone that you’re still in contact with from Startup Weekend?
A: Well I met the entire CEA team there, who I am still very much in contact with. But I met my co-founder, Sarah Smith. We built the company from the beginning and she is the technical side of things.
Q: When you started Sortal, what was your original business goal, has it changed?
A: Yes, we have pivoted! That lovely word that all startups are aware of. When we started, we were a digital asset management system for individuals, families, mums and so on; for people to manage their personal life and collections. Over the two years that we have been developing the product and software, we have changed to a B2B model where we sell to large organisations and SME’s. Individual consumers expect a lot, but don’t have the price point to pay whereas businesses need it and are willing to pay. So, when we looked at how to make this a sustainable business we had to switch from consumers to business in the short term, but we do plan on making this available for individual consumers in the future.
Q: What’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a business owner and founder?
A: Growth Mindset. I think it is the most important thing that any founder or entrepreneur needs, as on your journey you have to learn so many skills that are outside of your natural genius. For example, I am a designer and naturally a visual person but I have had to learn financials, strategy, product design and how to work with tech teams and develop Sortal’s artificial intelligence. Every day is like being at school, except you’re being schooled by the big wide world! So being in charge of your own learning, networking and knowing what you need next is really important, otherwise you won’t make a lot of progress.
Q: What have you struggled with the most?
A: Sortal is a really big idea. There is a lot in it which may completely change the way one might navigate their online self. Along the road of creating the product, we have had to prioritise what’s in and what’s out. What we can do now and what we will have to do later. So, for me the biggest struggle has been managing the feedback of customers and what they want and being pulled in multiple directions. What is going to deliver the biggest bang for buck now — that we can deliver in a reasonable time frame and is not going to cost the earth. There is this saying; how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So, we’ve had to figure out how to break that apart and into smaller manageable chunks. So, with this big audacious goal — how do we deliver an MVP with a small team and the resources that we have.
Q: Is there anything that you wish you knew in the beginning of your business?
A: Not really, as I feel lucky knowing that I’ve had a really good run. I started at a Startup Weekend and then went straight into CEA’s Collider Accelerator Program which really set us up. Very early on I was given the tools, the mentors and the people that I needed to help get my business up and running and avoid a majority of the trials and tribulations of the startup journey. For me, this has been an absolute blessing and if I didn’t have those things, I am not sure if Sortal would be here now.
I was given the resources at the right time when I was an early stage startup.
Q: What did you think of the Collider Accelerator experience?
A: We came out of the Startup Weekend in March and were in the Collider Program by May 2017. We were very early stage and incredibly lucky to have Mark B. Johnson as our Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR), a man who deeply cared about the cohort — I still keep in contact with him today! I was given all the different aspects of business that I had to be aware of very early on such as managing my accounts, customer acquisition and product development. I also had a host of mentors that I could draw on as I needed to. The Collider experience to me has been very special as it helped us get to where we are now and shaped us very early on when we were most vulnerable.
Q: What was the most valuable part for you?
A: The mentors and the structure. Each week we had a different focus and learned new skills, and it was a 12-week Program — it was like a reduced MBA! It taught me how to think and operate like a startup and make the most out of finite resources and funding. The flow of the Program and how CEA tailored it for us was also extremely beneficial and made a huge impact.
Q: What do you think new Collider participants could learn from the Asia Immersion experience?
A: An overseas trip as part of an accelerator experience is really important as it shifts your thinking. It opens up the world to people who may not have travelled much or been exposed to many cultures and the way different societies work. I think it’s really important to understand that in Australia there is a bigger market out there and there is business to do over in Asia, Europe and America. I think being so secluded on our island, we can become a little bit sheltered to that, so an Asia Immersion trip would be hugely beneficial to open those doors and have a global mindset rather than just a national one.
Q: Has anything exciting happened to you since the Program?
A: We graduated from the Program in 2017, and since then we have been Merit Recipient for the Queensland Startup of the Year Award. We have also been awarded a Good Design Award for software design, we’ve launched our product and we’ve gone through pilot trials and partnerships. We’ve really grown our product and team, as well as our knowledge and influence. I am well connected in the startup ecosystem and I am now mentoring too!
Q: Did you build valuable connections from the Program?
A: Yes! I am still very much in contact with my cohort, my mentors and my EIR Mark B Johnson. Collider has been an extremely valuable experience for us and I love the network and the helpful nature of the people I met through the Program that will help you at any time.
Q: Where do you want to be in 12 months?
A: In 12 months I would like to have grown 30% month by month with our business, to contribute to national job creation and also have started working on our MySortal project. MySortal is our dementia product which focuses on enhancing memory for individuals. We’ve done a lot of the background work for this, but we’d like to get into the development and the co-designing of this product. So, we have a lot of ambitious plans! However, it does all come down to being a sustainable business and having growth and revenue.
Q: What would you say to someone considering Collider?
A: I would say absolutely apply! But make sure you figure out where you are on your timeline of development — is this something you need now? Do you need the mentorship? Do you need the knowledge of how to build a business and the business acumen? So, before you apply, reach out and ask questions. But from my experience of my stage, I would absolutely recommend it!
Find out more about the Collider Accelerator Program.
