What do you get when you gather a host of disparate founders for two days of workshops, guest speakers, energiser activities, a mini Great Australian Race, drinks, shared meals and a pose or two of yoga in a national park on Sydney Harbour?
An abundance of connections, ideas, problem solving, advice, and a discernible competitive edge where the games were concerned, if the inaugural Alberts Impact Ventures retreat is anything to go by.
Despite being mid-raise, pre-go to market and even one day post-new product launch (congratulations Circle In!), a total 24 founders and co-founders from Alberts 20 current portfolio companies found the time to come together for two days in late October at Q Station in Manly.
While the majority of Alberts portfolio companies are based in Melbourne – Tixel, Conserving Beauty, Pivot, Mindset Health, Bygen to name a few – many were in Sydney for the SXSW festival including AirRobe from New York, while Uluu flew in from Perth and Throughline from New Zealand. Local founders Harvest B, Abby, Verve Super and Baymatob didn’t have too far to travel while it was a bit more of a stretch for RapidAIM (Brisbane) and MGA Thermal (Newcastle).
It may be commonplace for some of Australia’s largest VC funds to run retreats – think Square Peg’s 2019 trip to Cavallo Point Lodge in San Francisco, Airtree’s offsite to Hayman Island in May, and Ten13’s two-day retreat to Queensland’s Lake Cooby in January – but it’s more unusual for early stage funds and family offices like Alberts to take the initiative.
An early-stage impact fund investing in pre-seed and seed, Alberts Impact Ventures focusses on four areas: equality, vibrant culture, healthy minds and sustainable environment.
“One of our aspirations is to be a leading early-stage VC fund and most leading VCs do a founder’s retreat. And while they’re much bigger funds than us it’s really about the founders in a portfolio connecting, and in a way that’s better in a small context,” says Alberts investment manager Lisa Fedorenko.
During the two days the group had a chance to listen to and ask questions around areas of interest they’d flagged in a pre-retreat survey: the importance of culture (TDM Growth Partners’ Ed Cowan), governance (GovernRight founder Australian Institute of Company Directors senior facilitator Simon Neaverson) and the founder journey of Brighte founder and CEO Katherine McConnell.
It was also a time when founders could put away their phones and laptops and unwind in the natural beauty of North Head National Park.
“It’s a very lonely journey being a founder and one of the most valuable things is to meet other founders to normalise that journey and share their experiences, which is why we wanted to create an environment where they were able to do that freely,” Lisa says. “It’s really important to us to support the mental health of our founders.”
One of the first exercises the group was asked to do was briefly share some of their challenges, opportunities, needs and offers of help. Common themes included marketing on a limited budget, go-to-market strategies, how to reduce (or increase) your team and finding a lead investor. With all companies at different stages to each other there was plenty of goodwill in the room in terms of sharing ideas and experience and offering solutions. A WhatsApp group connecting the founders is still pinging with shared documents, links, ideas and comments.
“Such a thoughtful curation of discussion, fun activities and people. Really great – and unique – to meet the portfolio company founders and founding partners that align to the Albert impact focus areas. It felt like a greater representation of society and social needs than what traditional venture and tech investing usually looks like. Simply a group of thoughtful humans”; and “An incredible group of founders and Alberts – learning and sharing and connecting. A really special time, and so nice to check out of everyday life and biz to recalibrate and think big” were just two of the Whatsapp posts.
Lisa says she was particularly proud to glance around the room during dinner (with entertainment provided by Abigail arranged by Surreal) and notice the distinct – yet unintentional – gender equality among the founders. Among them were 13 females (14 if you count the Like Family co-founders’ bub who was very much part of the fun) and 11 males (a further three had unfortunately cancelled due to illness).
“I’ve been in finance 11 years and VC for six and I’ve never seen a portfolio that’s that balanced. We don’t have quotas at Alberts but we put good practices in, and we’re walking the walk. In this portfolio we haven’t had a single founder break-up, we haven’t had a single company fall over. We’ve been going for four years so that’s pretty good and of course there’s risk, it’s the nature of it, but so far having diverse teams seems to be doing better than the average.”
Alberts CEO David Albert had opened the retreat by reinforcing the support Alberts is focussed on giving pioneering founders, pointing out the continuation of a legacy that was begun in 1884 when Alberts own founder Jacques Albert made the risky entrepreneurial decision to import sheet music from some of the world’s most popular songwriters of the day, all the way through to fourth generation family member Ted Albert who pioneered Albert Studios and with it the signing of artists including the Ted Mulry Gang, the Easybeats and AC/DC.
As a member of the fifth generation, David said Alberts was proud to be continuing to back today’s pioneers who are creating a better tomorrow.
“All our companies have an impact goal and focus. We have the highest regard for the work you do, the resilience you show and the problems you’re looking to solve,” he said.
The retreat is just the latest in a series of panels and founder get togethers Alberts has run as part of the family business’s ongoing commitment to issues such as diversity, equity, inclusion and mental health among its founders, from a Positive Pregnancy for Founders panel in late 2022 to a recent founder dinner in Melbourne.
And with the word ‘inaugural’ officially attached to this year’s retreat, it’s hoped a second and subsequent retreats will follow, making it a regular highlight on the busy start-up calendar. Watch this space.
