Startmate is the epicentre for startup ambition across Australia and New Zealand. Over the last decade, they've built a community of the most ambitious founders, operators and investors. "We've got four or five businesses worth over a hundred million dollars with more than a hundred staff each. Four years ago, they were one person trying to solve a problem" says Michael Batko, CEO at Startmate. In today's episode, we'll get an insider's look at Startmate, discuss what the best investors do to help founders, and learn about some of the biggest challenges and advice for start-ups going through Startmate. Episode interviewees: Michael Batko, CEO of Startmate, Saron Berhane, co-founder and COO of BioScout, and Lane Litz, co-founder and CEO of Chatterize. Key topics covered: •The three core elements to Startmate's community •Why the best founders are customer-obsessed •What the best operators and investors do to help startups The best of Michael Batko: "Your starting point is actually not the product. Your starting point is customers." "Instead of going into a meeting expecting a million dollar cheque from a 30 minute conversation, you want to be building those investor relationships, ideally over six to 12 months." "Rather than telling you what to do, the best mentors ask really good questions, to trigger thoughts and processes for you to then validate for your customers." "The most beautiful thing we see at Startmate is that our founder alumni come back as mentors. They invest back into the fund and then, because our founders are successful, they get more money back into the ecosystem." The best of Saron Berhane: "As a team of engineers, the goal setting process really pushed us from having huge product-centric goals to goals that actually focussed on our market and customers." "With the push from Startmate, we went from thinking we'd be on the farm in six months to being on the farm in a month." The best of Lane Litz: "You need to accelerate. Be brave, set a really high, very tough goal and kill it." "What you don't want to know will kill your company so, so fast."