VENTURE DEVELOPMENT
Years ahead in
a matter of months.
Build a world-class company with those who have established, worked with and scaled successful ventures.
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Years ahead in
Build a world-class company with those who have established, worked with and scaled successful ventures.
The first few years of your company’s life are critical. It’s not just about surviving – it’s about learning a lot, fast, in a hyper-competitive environment to build the infrastructure of your future business.
Our Venture Development framework focuses on five key business areas: Strategy, Customer Growth, Product, Management and Operations. We have the experience to know that working on these early will pay dividends in the future.
Early on, we’ll identify your key metrics, strengths, and goals over the next 3, 6, 12 and 18 months. We’ll then talk you through each one and assess how to achieve them to grow your business, and also attract investment further down the track.
Every Skalata founder gets access to a dedicated venture partner – people who have helped build and exit high-growth businesses. Some earned their stripes in the scrappy world of Silicon Valley, and some, a little closer to home.
Their full-time focus is to intimately understand your business, as if it were their own. They’ll be your day-to-day sounding board, and using their tactical and strategic know-how, they’ll keep you on track.
Founders will have a scheduled weekly meeting with their lead venture partner, but can also reach out to other venture partners for a second opinion, or for help on a specific activity.
Our venture partners dig into your strategy, operational processes, and provide actionable advice – they're not just mentors preaching high-level strategic sermons. They won't make sales calls for you, but they'll help you develop the script!
You will also be supported by our team of associates who bring a diverse set of skills to the table (e.g. startup, operations, investment banking and legal etc.) We want to add the power of every mind at Skalata to your business, and we encourage you to take us up on that.
Your venture partner will push you hard to help you succeed in the real world, and keep you accountable to your vision. Good, honest feedback can sting, but confronting problems is what will help you succeed in the long run.
They will work with you as a person, not just as a company, and as humans, they won't always be right – you will often know better! All we ask from everyone – venture partners included – is that they listen respectfully, engage honestly, and contribute meaningfully.
You can expect to spend time working on your business (i.e. strategy, governance, goal-setting, hiring plans, fundraising) as well as in your business (i.e. customer acquisition, product development). Before joining Skalata, we've found that most founders usually don’t spend enough time working on their business.
We understand that at this early stage, your day-to-day involvement in your business is crucial. We're not going to force you to attend irrelevant workshops or meetings that are not directly relevant for you as a business. But we need to reinforce the importance of putting the correct structures in place to scale. Your future company will thank you for it. If we had to average it down, your time will be split on average 30% on vs 70% in your business.
Skalata will push you to achieve things in timelines you never thought possible. But we never let that pace take a toll on your mental health. Your passion for your business shouldn't come at the expense of your wellbeing.
Early on, we'll work with you to understand how we can help put processes in place to prevent burnout and ensure you're keeping a good work-life balance. We're not going to make you do yoga sessions or breathing exercises if that's not your cup of tea, but we do want to find the best way to help.
We'll do our best to understand your style of working and your commitments outside of your business. If you're a parent, we understand you'll face some unique challenges (we're sure you're already well-versed in juggling!), but we pride ourselves on making Skalata a family-friendly environment, both online and offline.
As former founders, our venture partners and wider team know what you're going through, and we've found that talking is often the best medicine. We're also happy to set up calls, coffees and catch-ups with our portfolio founders – those who truly understand what it's like to walk in your shoes.
Sometimes the unexpected happens. Like finding $5 in the pocket of a jacket or a global pandemic that completely stalls the world’s economy. Whatever happens, we’ve got the flexibility to deal with it.
We operate under a hybrid model – which means anyone in Australia can participate remotely, while Melbourne-based companies can work with us in person if they choose to.
Sometimes, we may schedule social events over the course of the year to give you the opportunity to connect with other founders in our portfolio.
Unfortunately (and surprisingly), only 1 in 4 Aussie startups have an independent director. That’s not a great stat for early-stage companies who need to navigate some critical challenges. We're determined to skew those numbers in your favour by helping to connect our portfolio companies with independent directors and/or advisors.
Hailing from incredible careers, we have a real-world database of hundreds of experts across functional areas who we can connect you with to provide focused advice.
Later stage investors consistently tell us that Skalata portfolio companies have stronger fundamentals than their peers – giving them an unfair competitive advantage, and naturally, making them more investable.
And once you're in, you're in. You'll never need to look beyond Skalata's network for growth funding – whether you're raising in a year, or ten. We will make introductions, work with you to refine your pitch – anything we can do to help make your next round a success.
You'll have access to our community of hundreds of founders and advisors via our Skalata community Slack channel. If you need anything from a digital agency recommendation, to advice on where the best local cafe is to meet an investor, fire away.
From startup fundamentals, to exploring the latest trends in the metaverse, our network of experts love to share their insights in person and online. Sessions with our resident live white-boarding expert, Peter Laurie, are always in hot demand.
We also run larger scale events (at least) twice a year which give founders the chance to meet with our wider network. If you've been working remotely, we encourage founders to make the trip to Melbourne – we promise to make it worth your while.
While you have your head down building your business, PR is probably not your highest priority. Luckily, our team will happily work with yours to develop content, devise an actionable media strategy, and get your story in print, to build credibility and social proof.
Have you invented something, improved something or built something with a clear competitive advantage? We're on the lookout for the very best founders from across Australia to support next.
We ask that you please familiarise yourself with our eligibility criteria prior to expressing interest. Whether your company is a good fit or not, we'll communicate thoughtfully and transparently.
Headlines from Skalata and our portfolio.
