I'm writing this out of concern for my…
I'm writing this out of concern for my fellow founders in Australia. Do not go through the process of applying for startmate. Maybe if you have traction or have somebody on the inside gunning for you you could get in. maybe it can be useful for you if you're a complete beginner (since they assume you need teaching so many things) but for all other founders you're going to be wasting your time the vast majority of the time. These are things they dont tell you anywhere, they have very little respect for founders time. You're far far better of spending your time just building your product than going through the literal hours startmate brings you through. They coerce you into tonnes of meetings that dont bring you anywhere, they make you fill out a massive convoluted form instead of just accepting a pitch deck and a meeting. They ask bigoted questions like "What is your gender" and "do you have any disabilities", "What is your sexual orientation"... As though any of these things has some kind of weight on your ability to solve a problem.
Maybe if you enjoy an extreme lack of curiosity & judgmental assumptions about you and your startup then startmate is the right place for you. I tried giving constructive feedback about this to the Startmate CEO and he blocked me on Linkedin, wouldn't even discuss it.








