Founder Momentum Circles (FMC)

Who are "Diverse founders"? 🦸🏽

Diverse founders (or those from marginalised communities) share different challenges with others. We may seem to believe that the playing ground is fairly shared between founders of all races, gender, social economical income, birthplace and colour, but it cannot be further from the truth.

Founders from diverse backgrounds have it harder because

1. We face discrimination in the “anti-diverse” startup ecosystem

2. We lack in knowledge to seek the right support and help

3. We face internal turmoil with societal standards and cultural expectations

At the same time, 44.8% of Fortune 500 companies in 2023 were founders with migrant or diverse backgrounds. In a way, we are born with special powers (if we can wield them).

Founders from diverse backgrounds have a special advantage because:

1. We know and have experienced more than anyone else

2. We are more understanding of the real problems that need to be solved in the world, not just to bring profit but to drive and fulfil a greater purpose.

3. We remain strongly tied to our cultural and religious communities

So why is it that in Australia, diverse founders have a much higher failure rate than others? Is the fundamental ecosystem to blame, or are we doing something wrong here?

Unsplash (Gisele Diaz)

Mental Resilience in Founders 🧠

Through my 3-4 years working in the startup ecosystem, I have observed that the “Momentum” of a startup can be equated to the mental resilience of the founders. But how do we build mental resilience, without breaking the bank and relying on expensive therapists?

Mental resilience is built in 2 ways -

1. Self-driven: Having a deeper sense of “Why” you are solving the problem you see in the world. This can be related to the ambition you have for your company and for yourself. As founders, we grow personally and professionally with every challenge we face. So what is that driving factor fueling us to get back up every time?

2. Community-driven: If companies are to serve people, the people who founders serve are their community. Regardless of whether our idea saves lives or simply makes lives more enjoyable, we are motivated by the people we help, and those people, in turn, help us make a living. At the same time, founders can join a community to accelerate self-growth.

Unplash (Stephanie Liverani)

What you can expect 📝

We have received helpful feedback from running these sessions with Catalysr X at the Melbourne Migrapreneurs program. Read this article to learn more about our takeaways.

In a nutshell, here are 4 things that we will do differently:

1. Giving founders the freedom to find their own people and group. We discovered that it is impossible to judge a book by its cover and that it is best to leave our human instincts to do our job of finding the people we want to speak to and connect with. We don’t want to group people up based on our intuition - it’s each person for themselves.

2. Sessions that last for more than 30 minutes (with roughly 10 mins to speak per person). We want to give ample time to founders to establish psychological safety within their peer groups of 5-6 other founders. By giving them more time to speak (over different topics), we aim to make things a bit more intimate than your normal coffee banter.

3. Peer-to-peer group sessions, plus All-for-one debriefs. We experimented with small group sessions where founders could stick to their people for the entire session but this time we want to do things differently. At each session, there will be time for 2-3 founders to share a problem or challenge they have been working on for all of us to help find an answer for. We hope this will give opportunities for founders to both have the safe space they need to reflect on their progress within a small group setting, and also be able to extend to seek help from the rest of the people in our network if needed.

4. Surprise guest speakers once in a while. We would love to highlight people from our community to host sessions with us, especially if they have a powerful story to share as a diverse founder. Nothing is more inspiring than seeing someone who looks exactly like the rest of us on a stage sharing their journey. We would love to extend an invitation to influential founders in the ecosystem, for a chance to share their stories with all of us.

Uncommon Collective, Founder's Walk Event

Testimonials 💛

To share the love we will continue to bring, here are a few testimonials from the diverse founders who participated in Founder Accountability sessions last month.

"The Founder Accountability sessions have been a game-changer for me. They gave me a great platform to share ideas and get constructive feedback from fellow founders. The collaborative vibe meant we could help each other by filling gaps in talent or ideas, leveraging the collective know-how of the group. This not only sharpened our business strategies but also fostered a real sense of community and mateship. I highly recommend these sessions to any startup keen on refining its ideas and growing its team effectively." - Yulia Nurliana, co-founder of ZipThought

"It facilitated a space where, in a smaller group, I felt we could speak to the more personal side of working on a start-up. It allowed us to dig a bit deeper, and share personal stories, and it brought empathy into the equation. It created a deeper layer for us to explore in the program." - Steven Germain, co-founder & CEO of Communiti Labs

"It has been really helpful, and the experience was incredibly great 😊" - Hassan Ya’u Hamisu, founder & CEO of SIKILHUB LTD

Uncommon Collective at StartSpace Founder's Fair

How to get involved

Join the FMC's 🚀

For now, the only way to get involved to participate is to fill in this form.

👉 We will accept 10 founders for free spots to join us fortnightly for 3 months (6 sessions). If everything goes smoothly, we will open up applications to join our next round of sessions.

Sponsor us! 🌟

For anyone wondering how they could get even more involved, reach out to sponsor us to promote your business during one of our meet-up events. We’ll also be happy to offer spots for you and your team.

Open roles 🙋🏻

We’re looking for an assistant event organiser who would be interested in learning the ropes of hosting in-person events with us on a fortnightly basis. Community and/or marketing experience preferred. Please email us at admin@naru.com.au or DM me through LinkedIn!