Global start-up hunts Sri Lankan candidates for Melbourne programme
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Richard Celm
Aglobal start-up mentor was recently in Sri Lanka looking for candidates for a Melbourne-based programme which would scale up new tech companies and provide equity among other benefits.
“We specifically target B2B start-ups and we work with corporates. We are currently running 19 programmes around the world. We started off in Europe and now spread globally. We look for start-ups that can solve problems,” noted Richard Celm, Programme Director at Startupbootcamp IoT and DataTech-Melbourne during a recent interview in Colombo.
Mr. Celms represents a company, founded in 2010 in Copenhagen, which is a global family of industry-focused accelerators, supporting early—stage tech founders to rapidly scale their companies by providing direct access to an international network of the most relevant mentors, partners and investors in their industry. The company says it has more industry-focused accelerator programs than any other organisation.
He was scouting around for companies for a Melbourne programme starting in mid-2017 where successful candidates are hosted to work with pay for three months along with corporate partners.
“The way we work is to go into cities where there is some kind of industry expertise required. In Melbourne, we are looking at a smart city concept. Corporate partners come on board to fund the programme for a minimum of three years. They tell us what issues they have and we then go and find start-ups (to resolve those issues). We find the start-ups (from Asia Pacific), bring them to Melbourne to work for a 3-month period with the corporate partners and start-up mentors to solve those issues,” he said.
In Sri Lanka, Mr. Celms met with eight start-ups selected after company scouts had initially prepared a list of 20 start-ups through skype calls. He met with each company for about 45 minutes and discussed their work and ways of helping them.
While the company is unlikely to select a Sri Lankan start-up for the next Melbourne programme, Mr. Celms says he is pleasantly surprised at the quality of start-ups here, noting that there are three companies that they are ‘keeping our eye on (for the future)’.
Start-ups is not any easy business. According to researched data, only two per cent of start-ups globally succeed while just 0.2 per cent turn out to be 100 million-dollar companies.
“The vast majority of people build things that don’t work, and even the people who build things that do work add features that the market doesn’t need. Either they don’t talk to their market or only cater to a small majority. So they spent thousands of dollars adding features that don’t grow their customer base. So it doesn’t add value to the product. Often a product is developed which doesn’t fit the market,” he said.
While it is commonsense to look at the market and then develop a product based on needs, most first-timers in this sector don’t think that way. They spend 10-15 years of their life learning out to code or do something else and then take a shot at business without proper research to back the product. “They do it and like everyone else think their product will be great; and then it fails,” he noted.
Explaining the programme further, Mr. Celms said Startupbootcamp takes a six per cent equity stake in the candidate’s company, working with corporate partners to find a market for their product. Help with further funding is also provided.
“On average, 80 per cent of the start-ups that go through our programme will within three months of finishing it raise about 800,000 Euros,” he said.
Initially starting off in Australia working at an e-commerce start-up selling fruits and vegetables, Mr. Celms moved to ‘Techcity’ London where he worked for 10 years. In London he got involved in the current company as a mentor and then moved back to Australia to head its programme there.