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Earlier this year we launched Mates & Mentors – a program designed to connect employees across our specialised B2B software portfolio through relevant monthly introductions.
As early-stage Series A software investors, we invest in companies at the point of being ready to *really* grow. They have a product in market, strong signs of early traction and early recurring revenue. They’ve generally achieved this with a team of 10-20 people – and look to their Series A round as the capital to invest in go-to-market (often global) growth.
Early-stage startup employees are more often than not doing a really hard thing, for the first time, in a ‘function team’ generally comprised of one to two people (often with the exception of engineering teams). And while the broader team can band together to offer each other some cushioning on the rollercoaster ride of building a high growth startup – the leanness of functions means that often people can feel ‘peerless’ when running the day to day of their roles.
“What does good really look like in this type of business model at this stage of the business?”
“Does [this thing I’ve heard about or done in the past] really work?”
“I need someone to bounce ideas off who gets what I’m trying to solve for”
“I love the broader team, but sometimes I just want to chat to someone working on a similar (non-competitive) thing…”
Given this scenario, it was entirely unsurprising that when we spoke to a number of founders last year to see how EVP can support beyond the board table – they all came back with a similar view; ‘we get a lot of support – what can you do for our teams?’
Building Mates & Mentors
Making manual introductions when founders ask on behalf of their teams is a great first step. However, as the portfolio grows, no matter how active an investor you are, it’s nearly impossible to know every person in a ~2,500 employee portfolio. This generally means that manual introductions become relationship dependent, and can then become inequitable in terms of meaningful broader support. It’s also challenging to scale in terms of time commitment.
We set out to build a program that would automate introductions across the portfolio, without compromising relevance. As specialised investors, we’re fortunate that one element of relevance is already predefined in terms of the business model – but we wanted to make sure that function and experience were key considerations. In truth, we were largely inspired by the Lunchclub model, which surged to popularity in c.2020 with its invite-only ‘introductions’ (see tweet below).
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Many communities look to solve this problem (or rather, capture this connection opportunity) through Slack channel integrations that match members on a regular basis. However, to make the automated introductions hyper-relevant, we wanted to be able to capture information about participants and use this information in matchmaking rules. Slack is great for random matches, but this level of customisability is challenging on its integrations. Slack is also a great tool for workplaces to use for internal communication/collaboration, and for communities with active members. However, when your goal is not necessarily to create regular content or engagement, maintaining relevance can also be challenging.
A few months after sending that Tweet, and completely unrelatedly, I connected with Eugenia Yuan on LinkedIn – we chatted about community building over a video call, and towards the end of the call I asked, “Do you by chance know of a white label version of Lunchclub?” She laughed and said, “Yes, I’m building it.”
Enter Inspiring Chats – the platform behind Mates & Mentors
Eugenia and Renaud are Melbourne based co-founders who set out to build a platform in 2020 to help make the process of meeting and establishing meaningful connections more efficient and effective. Initially launched through a direct to consumer model, they quickly realised that providing a ‘white-label’ solution to businesses where they could adjust both the participant information captured and the rules which are applied to the algorithm to make matches, was a valuable opportunity to explore.
As their first B2B customer, we worked with Eugenia and Renaud to build Mates & Mentors through a blend of white label features and customisation. Our beginning journey involved:
- Designing an onboarding journey that aligned with our program objectives
- Defining the rules in which the algorithm applies in making matches (and the back up rules 5x over to ensure relevance)
- Updating the UI to EVP brand, and turn off platform modules we didn’t want to launch (yet)
- Editing copy on journey emails to ensure it was relevant for the program
Mates & Mentors is entirely opt-in for both the companies and employees across the portfolio. We’ve taken a tranched approach to onboard companies at various stages to ensure that Inspiring Chats (who are also an early-stage startup) can respond to feedback and make changes as needed. Companies receive a short ‘briefing’, and are then encouraged to share the opportunity in their preferred way across their internal comms channels. Employees can then sign up to the program, providing basic information on their location, function, experience and interests.
Each month, users receive an email introducing them to someone else in the portfolio. Relevance works on a direct function basis, prioritising introductions where the experience range is similar, before moving to people in your function with more experience and then less experience. If the algorithm runs out of people in your function, it then moves through the same process of functions allocated as the most relevant. Users can pause introductions at any stage, and also choose whether or not to make their profile public to the broader community – which has become a nice ‘bonus’ to the platform as we’ve found a number of people have proactively gone onto the platform to proactively connect with others.
Beyond a video call
While a video call is the default ‘connection’ following the monthly introduction, it’s not a requirement of the program, nor is it a measure of success. In a world where video call fatigue is at an all time high, our goal for Mates & Mentors is to provide a simple way for EVP Portfolio employees to build strong, relevant networks of support that they can tap into as needed as they grow. That might be when the introduction is made – or it might be later in the year.
For now, we’ll be tracking feedback through the platform to gauge the ongoing value that can be created, and importantly, to continue enhancing the features and capabilities of both the program and the platform.
As investors, we’re constantly looking for ways to help accelerate learnings and promote knowledge sharing across our portfolio. By driving relevant, ongoing connectivity across our B2B software companies, the Mates and Mentors program is becoming an increasingly important enabler of growth.
Earlier this year we launched Mates & Mentors – a program designed to connect employees across our specialised B2B software portfolio through relevant monthly introductions.
As early-stage Series A software investors, we invest in companies at the point of being ready to *really* grow. They have a product in market, strong signs of early traction and early recurring revenue. They’ve generally achieved this with a team of 10-20 people – and look to their Series A round as the capital to invest in go-to-market (often global) growth.
Early-stage startup employees are more often than not doing a really hard thing, for the first time, in a ‘function team’ generally comprised of one to two people (often with the exception of engineering teams). And while the broader team can band together to offer each other some cushioning on the rollercoaster ride of building a high growth startup – the leanness of functions means that often people can feel ‘peerless’ when running the day to day of their roles.
“What does good really look like in this type of business model at this stage of the business?”
“Does [this thing I’ve heard about or done in the past] really work?”
“I need someone to bounce ideas off who gets what I’m trying to solve for”
“I love the broader team, but sometimes I just want to chat to someone working on a similar (non-competitive) thing…”
Given this scenario, it was entirely unsurprising that when we spoke to a number of founders last year to see how EVP can support beyond the board table – they all came back with a similar view; ‘we get a lot of support – what can you do for our teams?’
Building Mates & Mentors
Making manual introductions when founders ask on behalf of their teams is a great first step. However, as the portfolio grows, no matter how active an investor you are, it’s nearly impossible to know every person in a ~2,500 employee portfolio. This generally means that manual introductions become relationship dependent, and can then become inequitable in terms of meaningful broader support. It’s also challenging to scale in terms of time commitment.
We set out to build a program that would automate introductions across the portfolio, without compromising relevance. As specialised investors, we’re fortunate that one element of relevance is already predefined in terms of the business model – but we wanted to make sure that function and experience were key considerations. In truth, we were largely inspired by the Lunchclub model, which surged to popularity in c.2020 with its invite-only ‘introductions’ (see tweet below).
Many communities look to solve this problem (or rather, capture this connection opportunity) through Slack channel integrations that match members on a regular basis. However, to make the automated introductions hyper-relevant, we wanted to be able to capture information about participants and use this information in matchmaking rules. Slack is great for random matches, but this level of customisability is challenging on its integrations. Slack is also a great tool for workplaces to use for internal communication/collaboration, and for communities with active members. However, when your goal is not necessarily to create regular content or engagement, maintaining relevance can also be challenging.
A few months after sending that Tweet, and completely unrelatedly, I connected with Eugenia Yuan on LinkedIn – we chatted about community building over a video call, and towards the end of the call I asked, “Do you by chance know of a white label version of Lunchclub?” She laughed and said, “Yes, I’m building it.”
Enter Inspiring Chats – the platform behind Mates & Mentors
Eugenia and Renaud are Melbourne based co-founders who set out to build a platform in 2020 to help make the process of meeting and establishing meaningful connections more efficient and effective. Initially launched through a direct to consumer model, they quickly realised that providing a ‘white-label’ solution to businesses where they could adjust both the participant information captured and the rules which are applied to the algorithm to make matches, was a valuable opportunity to explore.
As their first B2B customer, we worked with Eugenia and Renaud to build Mates & Mentors through a blend of white label features and customisation. Our beginning journey involved:
- Designing an onboarding journey that aligned with our program objectives
- Defining the rules in which the algorithm applies in making matches (and the back up rules 5x over to ensure relevance)
- Updating the UI to EVP brand, and turn off platform modules we didn’t want to launch (yet)
- Editing copy on journey emails to ensure it was relevant for the program
Mates & Mentors is entirely opt-in for both the companies and employees across the portfolio. We’ve taken a tranched approach to onboard companies at various stages to ensure that Inspiring Chats (who are also an early-stage startup) can respond to feedback and make changes as needed. Companies receive a short ‘briefing’, and are then encouraged to share the opportunity in their preferred way across their internal comms channels. Employees can then sign up to the program, providing basic information on their location, function, experience and interests.
Each month, users receive an email introducing them to someone else in the portfolio. Relevance works on a direct function basis, prioritising introductions where the experience range is similar, before moving to people in your function with more experience and then less experience. If the algorithm runs out of people in your function, it then moves through the same process of functions allocated as the most relevant. Users can pause introductions at any stage, and also choose whether or not to make their profile public to the broader community – which has become a nice ‘bonus’ to the platform as we’ve found a number of people have proactively gone onto the platform to proactively connect with others.
Beyond a video call
While a video call is the default ‘connection’ following the monthly introduction, it’s not a requirement of the program, nor is it a measure of success. In a world where video call fatigue is at an all time high, our goal for Mates & Mentors is to provide a simple way for EVP Portfolio employees to build strong, relevant networks of support that they can tap into as needed as they grow. That might be when the introduction is made – or it might be later in the year.
For now, we’ll be tracking feedback through the platform to gauge the ongoing value that can be created, and importantly, to continue enhancing the features and capabilities of both the program and the platform.
As investors, we’re constantly looking for ways to help accelerate learnings and promote knowledge sharing across our portfolio. By driving relevant, ongoing connectivity across our B2B software companies, the Mates and Mentors program is becoming an increasingly important enabler of growth.