As part of our post-investment support, we provide founders' Galileo mini-conferences in different cities throughout the year. 

This is a great community opportunity for Galileo companies to get together and share wins, and lessons learned, get to know different VCs in the Australian ecosystem, and hear from leading startup operators. 

We recently gathered our founders, leading Australian VCs, and startup operators for our quarterly mini-conference. This time in Melbourne. 

We had the privilege of having Dominic Pym (co-founder of Up Banking) and visits to friends at Square Peg, Rampersand, and Artesian Capital. 

Here’s what went down…

“Build great shit with great people in a great environment” - Dom Pym, Up Banking

In this inspiring and thought-provoking session with Dom, we realised the magic behind Up banking is not only in the technology and beautiful product - it’s the people and culture. 

Key takeaways from Dom:

• Going from 2 to 15-30 is hard because you are going from managing 1 team to many. Instead of maintaining 1-to-many, switch to 1-to-many smaller teams. 
• A company of problem solvers - Create a culture where you’re enabling everyone in the company to be a problem solver.
• Remember culture is like a footy club - It will spit out the people who don’t fit the culture. Whether it’s toxic or not.
• Transparency and honesty are two different spectrums. As a founder, you need to decide where you are on that, and how much you want to communicate to your company.
• You won’t always get the culture right from the beginning - Creating a high-performing team and culture came from learning from mistakes in previous companies and bringing over best practices. 

🔥 Hot tip: Try an Open-door executive meeting. Dom and his co-founder would have weekly executive meetings where anyone in the business was free to join in on their meeting. A unique approach that creates trust and enables transparency.

Dom’s book recommendations 📚

• Forbes Greatest Technology Stories: Inspiring Tales of the Entrepreneurs and Inventors Who Revolutionized Modern Business by Jeffery Young
• Good to Great, Why Some Companies Make the Leap And Others Don't by Jim Collins 
• Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins

Key takeaways from our VC visits:

There is no cookie-cutter VC or investor - We visited VCs from different walks of life and investment mandates. Here were our high-level takeaways:

• Square Peg with Lucy Tan & Paul Bassat - On managing Investors' relationships events after being rejected. Yes, rejection hurts, however, how a founder recovers from that and maintains a great relationship speaks volumes of their character. 
• Rampersand with Hunter Watkin, Paul Naphtali, and Sarah Gibbins  - Be a tall poppy, not a small poppy. Back yourself wholeheartedly as a founder. Achieve this by getting better at how you communicate your story and business confidently. 
• Artesian with Matthew Clunies-Ross - Founder's epiphany that VCs are also mortals and have to go fundraising just like founders do.

🙌🏾 Special shoutout to everyone involved in making this day an inspiring one. To Square Peg, Rampersand for inviting us to their office, and 💜 Artesian - Galileo's biggest champion for hosting us. To Dom, for taking the time to share all your 🪄 magical moments of building incredible companies.

If you’re a first-time founder looking to raise the first round - we want to hear from you! Apply today. If you'd like to see more about how we support our founders, email Luddy @ ludweenah@galileo.ventures