Baraja co-founder and CEO, Federico Collarte, provides advice for founders in the scaling process.
Federico Collarte is the co-founder and CEO of Baraja, a startup that enables the autonomous vehicle revolution through the use of LiDAR. Baraja recently closed a round of capital, totaling $40M AUD. Baraja is currently scaling globally with a team of nearly 200 and a focus on building its executive team in the United States. Since December, Baraja has hired approximately 60 new employees with more hires on the horizon. Federico joined Innovation Bay on our podcast Open the Pod Bay Doors and shared some pearls of wisdom for founders on the path of scaling up.
1. Only import talent as a last resort.
Collarte cites his experience…
Sharing the latest book recommendations from our recent podcast guests on Open the Pod Bay Doors.
Innovation Bay’s podcast, Open the Pod Bay Doors, delves into the stories, challenges, and successes of founders and investors from around the startup ecosystem in Australia and New Zealand. At the end of each episode, guests are invited to share their favourite books with podcast listeners. We rounded up some book recommendations from a few of our recent guests. These books will resonate with founders, investors and operators during any stage of their startup journey.
1. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
Recommended by Federico Collarte (Baraja) — Epsiode 117
Stuart Snyder shares how being raised in Silicon Valley set him on the path to entrepreneurship and angel investing, his passion for backing South Australian startups, and advice for prospective angels.
About Stuart
Stuart Snyder, was a co-founder, director, and CFO of YourAmigo Ltd which was the SA exporter of the year in 2008. YourAmigo was a technology leader in the search marketing space with installations on websites in over 30 different countries including many of the world’s top 100 eCommerce companies.
Stuart retired in 2012 and is now an active angel investor in South Australian startups. His portfolio includes Happy Co, Portalink Solutions, Frontier Microscopy, Ping, Myvenue, Bygen, and Etchr. Stuart has mentored over 300 startup founders through various entrepreneur programs.
Stuart grew up in Silicon Valley and went to high school…
Jaime Bott, Talent Partner at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, discusses common mistakes founders make during the hiring process and how to avoid these pitfalls.
About Jaime
Jaime Bott is a talent partner at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, where she has been for 10 years. An industry veteran and consummate talent professional, Jaime runs the talent function at Sequoia Capital. Jaime has worked with hundreds of founders over the years, seeing several companies through from infancy to global status and cultivating a deep understanding of how to build and grow entrepreneurial teams.
In Episode 82 of Open the Pod Bay Doors, Jaime discusses a myriad of hot topics in talent acquisition: the creation of functional boards, the importance of diversity in recruitment, the establishment of in-house…
Adam is an active impact investor who has built a diverse portfolio of investments that align profit with purpose. Learn more about his background and approach to investing.
About Adam
Adam Milgrom is a partner at Giant Leap Fund, Australia’s first venture capital fund that is 100% dedicated to investing in impact startups. Alongside his role at the Giant Leap Fund, Adam is also an angel investor, advisor and director for a number of Australian and international startups.
Before shifting to investing, Adam’s professional journey started in marketing and strategy, helping big companies understand the transition to digital communication and the internet. …
Leaders of six fast-growing tech companies share the unexpected questions they like to ask when interviewing candidates.
Founders have to dig deeper beyond a candidate’s hard skills and previous work experience in job interviews to determine whether someone is suited to thrive in the unique, rapidly shifting environment of a fast-growing startup. Crucial qualities like passion, flexibility, and ambition are a bit tricky to gauge in an interview setting so oftentimes, this means founders ask some pretty out-there questions…
To get a sense of how founders determine whether candidates are the right fit for their company, we asked six founders their favorite questions to ask in an interview. Some of their answers definitely surprised us! …
Nicky Carp, health tech business leader, disability advocate and experienced angel investor, shares her investing journey and advice for prospective angels.
About Nicky
Nicky Carp is an accomplished, passionate business leader with 20 years’ experience as Co-founder and Executive Director of Unified Healthcare Group (UHG), a health tech company that was acquired in 2019. With over 200 staff, UHG transacted over 150,000 cases per year and had over 50,000 healthcare providers on its platform. Nicky provided legal, financial and strategic input, chaired the Governance Committee (2015–19), led M&A transactions at UHG and headed up the successful certification of UHG as a B Corporation.
Nicky is now leveraging her experience, focusing on investing, advisory services and community. …
Mindfulness expert Dr. Elise Bialylew explains how the practice of mindfulness can help startup founders manage stress, maintain wellbeing and become better leaders.
About Elise
Dr. Elise Bialylew is a coach, meditation teacher, and social entrepreneur who trained as a doctor and psychiatrist. She is the founder of the world’s largest online mindfulness campaign Mindful in May, and author of #1 best-selling book The Happiness Plan, a one-month guidebook to mindfulness.
In 2012, Elise left the hospital wards to create Mindful in May, a global online meditation campaign that teaches people how to meditate and raises money to build clean water wells in developing countries. The idea came to her one day whilst sitting in meditation. She imagined there were many people in the world…
A concise guide to the renewables-focused accelerators, incubators, grants, and investors in the Australian startup ecosystem.
Australia has a chance to be a global leader in the production of renewable energy. Over 5 million Australians have already joined the renewable energy movement and installed solar on their homes (the highest density per household anywhere in the world). This transition not only benefits the planet, but it also presents one of the greatest economic opportunities in terms of job creation and economic growth over the next 10 to 20 years.
Startups definitely have a role to play in transforming our energy future for the better. This cleantech roadmap is an aggregated guide to the 1. Investors, 2…
Amanda Coombs, experienced financial markets and banking leader and active angel investor, shares how and why she started angel investing and her advice for prospective angels.
About Amanda
Amanda has 20 years of experience managing businesses in Financial Markets and Private Banking. She has held senior roles at Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, and ANZ. Now, Amanda leverages her extensive experience as Executive Director to One Alpha Technologies, Advisor to the CEO of Patterson Cheney Group, and Chair of two Not For Profit boards.
Amanda is also a disability champion; she is a Founding Board Member of Giant Steps, a school for children with profound Autism, and Chair of Flying Fox, a youth-led organisation creating social opportunities for people with additional needs.
In 2012, Amanda started angel investing…
