Glaciei is a new startup consultancy and investment service, put together by Jane Garrett and Greg Riebe, two of the most well-respected, experienced and knowledgeable people in the Perth Startup Scene. We took some time from their busy schedule to ask them a few questions about the new service.
StartupNews(SN): What is Glaciei? “Educate, Consult, Invest”: how does that work?
‘Educate, Consult, Invest’ is what we do: we have devised a methodology that prepares early stage growth businesses for investment.
To break this down into services, Glaciei provides and recommends entrepreneurial education, it provides advisory and mentoring services to prepare a client to be ‘investment ready’. We then follow through with introductions to potential investors. In addition we are developing an expert network world wide that can provide international expertise to Glaciei clients. The process starts with an assessment of the client business, and from that we develop actions and recommendations for the business to become ‘investment ready’. Glaciei’s objective is to provide value and we will work only with businesses that are potentially high growth and suitable candidates for investment.
SN: You’re both well-known in the Startup community, but for separate things; Greg is a renowned early-stage investor and prominent leader of the Perth investment angel community, and Jane is a well-known and respected consultant, educator, and organiser of the phenomenally successful Ignition program. What are you hoping will result from teaming up? To risk some management-speak, what synergy are you hoping for?
Perhaps unbeknownst to the community Greg is an excellent mentor & trainer (he gets the best accolades from members of his mentor group at Ignition) and Jane has long-standing associations with business angel networks (she set up an Angel network in Southern Spain 8 years ago). So we each have our specialist skill set but have some cross-over in terms of expertise and both have an understanding of equity funding. We both have in-depth experience of growing businesses, we know the issues faced by top teams and founders so can often ‘see the wood for the trees’ and offer relevant empathy as needed but can also advise when tough decisions are required.
SN: How will this new thing affect your existing involvement in the community?
Hopefully it will grow our involvement in the community and extend the Glaciei network, we have already extended our internal capability by teaming up and will in the future look to bring into Glaciei people who are capable of implementing the Glaciei methodology and providing growth advice who further extend Glaciei’s capability.
SN: Presumably you’re seeking to engage with new startups? What characteristics are you looking for? Which boxes does a startup need to have ticked to get your interest? What can you offer them in return?
We seek to engage with established early stage ventures, with early sales and a revenue stream and proven value proposition that are seeking the next stage of growth and in the future will be looking for international connections. Sectors we are interested in technology, mining technology and engineering. We offer a diagnostic assessment which provides a very good indication of where the business is and what it must do to become investment ready. At the end of the diagnostic the business may opt to continue to work with us or to take the report and do the work themselves. With our existing clients we are working in an ongoing advisory capacity to bring the businesses to ‘investment ready’ status, helping them to restructure if necessary and build up business plans and investment presentations. We also assist in setting up charters that establish responsibilities and ways of advisors interacting with corporate boards.
SN: What are the biggest problems you both see in the Perth Startup community, and what (if any) are our unique strengths? Is Glaciei hoping to solve some of the problems using some of the strengths?
Every community has its problems, and Perth’s are not unique. But the problems we commonly see here include a lack of understanding of what ‘investment ready’ actually means, in some cases a lack of trust where people have been burnt before, and the infamous ‘tall poppy syndrome’ where our stars are not allowed to shine as brightly as they might and those that can really help are often silenced.
Those that will succeed will have the tenacity to keep going in the face of adversity, will truly understand the meaning of hard work, and will be ready to accept help from those that they trust. We hope we (Glaciei) are seen as one of the ‘trusted’ sources of help.
SN: We hope so too. Finding ways to get more investment into Perth startups is an admirable goal, and we wish you every success with it.
Entrepreneurs wishing to benefit from Glaciei’s services can do so by emailing them at [email protected] or [email protected]
