Hey Brendan, that is a key part of the program for sure. Ryan is the only SF-based mentor but a key part of StartMate will be the 2 weeks in the valley at the end and a bunch of Aussie startup people are keen to help out already (Elias!) with a mix of "CouchCamp" (Aussies in the valley offering accommodation to the startups) to introductions and helping the Valley demo day come together.
Regarding the lack of a female mentor, that's primarily to do with my weak network of female entrepreneur contacts (despite me having a girl's name) and then once a number of original people had committed to the program, I met with a limited number of friend of friends and that was that. All names have been noted and they'll be reached out to after we complete this initial wave of the program (so many people out there have talked about this but it's just time to do something). And then more broadly, SiliconBeach is an important community that in some ways pushed the snowball down the hill, so if anyone has any questions about what we hope to achieve with Startmate then ask away! On Aug 20, 11:28 pm, Brendan Quinn <bren...@clueful.com.au> wrote: > Mick, Alan and co... > > Have you considered bringing in Australian mentors who live in the > Valley as well? I imagine that would be a great benefit that founders > could draw from the programme, that they would get an immediate intro > to people in the US. It would also give those expats a reason to keep > up their connections with the Oz tech scene, which can't be a bad > thing. > > Here in London, I've mentored at SeedCamp before, and I could see that > the mentors loved the whole experience -- exposure to enthusiastic > founders but also being able to catch up with other mentors, people > who you never meet as often as you should... if StartMate could do the > same in Australia it would really help the scene I'm sure. > > Great idea btw, I'm really glad that you're doing it... stuff like > this makes me a little bit more included to come back to Australia > some time :-) > > Brendan. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Guidelines on discussion: http://tr.im/ujKF No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself: http://tr.im/ujMm To post to this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en
