{"id":38585,"date":"2023-10-20T14:57:31","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/from-an-idea-on-a-napkin-to-a-thriving-startup-kylie-longs-tough-journey-through-one-of-australias-leading-accelerators-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:57:31","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:57:31","slug":"from-an-idea-on-a-napkin-to-a-thriving-startup-kylie-longs-tough-journey-through-one-of-australias-leading-accelerators-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/from-an-idea-on-a-napkin-to-a-thriving-startup-kylie-longs-tough-journey-through-one-of-australias-leading-accelerators-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"From an idea on a napkin to a thriving startup: Kylie Long’s tough journey through one of Australia’s leading accelerators – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Peer<\/div>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re shit and your ideas are shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are the first words Peer Academy founder Kylie Long and her cohort were hit by in Angel Cube\u2019s accelerator last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe culture for Angel Cube is very much one of ‘we\u2019re going to break you down so we can break you through as an entrepreneur’,\u201d Long tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

While she may not agree too much with the aggressive\u00a0approach, Long says it did help her and co-founder Onur Ekinci really grow as entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe benefit that came for us through the Angel Cube accelerator was recognising that we were thinking small as a startup and trying to make a revenue model work that wasn\u2019t going to,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Peer Academy now provides highly customised training to help large organisations break apart silos of knowledge within by enabling internal employees to share learnings, insights and skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a shift to our B2B model, which saw us go from selling tickets to public learning experiences for $20 to $100, to a peer-to-peer academy model straight to enterprise for $24,000 to $50,000,” Long says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just in the process of negotiating our first $100,000 pilot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt started off as an idea on a napkin.”<\/p>\n

With Peer Academy being her fourth business, Long decided to try an accelerator program to help\u00a0scale it much faster and to get connected with leading\u00a0entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

Long says choosing which accelerator to go with wasn’t easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did months of research,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really big decision for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

They finally decided on Angel Cube after building\u00a0good rapport with its program manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also knew some of the mentors from having been in the ecosystem for a period of time,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Over those five to six months including a five-week immersion in Silicon Valley, Long says her experience was quite unique.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realised from the beginning that being 41 with two teenage kids I was going to be pretty unusual,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She was the only woman in the entire program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was in my face everyday,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, there was an absence of emotional support through the journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was very much a sense of this is a sink or swim environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the hero\u2019s journey, you\u2019re the hero of this narrative and it\u2019s up to you conquer the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Getting skin in the game<\/h3>\n

\u201cIt took me a while to find my bearing,\u201d Long\u00a0says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in a group of 25 to 30-year old men who had been aspiring startup founders for a few years, they knew the language of the environment and I was learning that as I participated in the program.\u201d<\/p>\n

She knew she had the knowledge and the acumen to achieve startup success, but she also felt the gendered\u00a0subtleties.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery environment I\u2019m in, a man will always talk before a woman,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

But through\u00a0the accelerator, Long has gained confidence, she knows how to pitch well and can be compelling in every room.<\/p>\n

During her time in the Valley she was inspired by the diversity and met many trailblazing female founders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were entrepreneuring as women rather than women entrepreneuring as men,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

It has given Long hope, and lets her\u00a0readily\u00a0discount some recent advice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I reached out to woman entrepreneur in Australia, her advice to me was you just have to think and act like a man,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

But as macho and aggressive as the accelerator was, Long is walking away knowing one thing: she can tear apart the startup world by being none other than herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gave me a lot more confidence to just turn up as myself and truly believe that that was enough,\u201d Long\u00a0says.<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<\/em>SoundCloud<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou\u2019re shit and your ideas are shit.\u201d These are the first words Peer Academy founder Kylie Long and her cohort<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}