Valley of Doubt

This newsletter is my attempt to catalogue what the early years of startup life are like.

Through intimate conversations with founders, I hope to uncover the vulnerable moments, painful pivots, and midnight doubts. This is startup life with the filter removed.

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Hi, I’m Scott Handsaker

I’m a founder, startup coach, board member, venture partner and amateur drummer.

I’ve been in startups since 2008. I’ve built them, mentored them, invested in them, and even had a few of my own. I’ve had the pleasure of mentoring over 100+ founders.

My experience includes:

• Created an event registration startup, raised VC. Struggled and pivoted into a new one that worked, until we ran out of emotional runway.

• Took over a meetup group called Lean Startup Melbourne. Grew it from 1,500 members to 12,000 in 12 months. Hosted Brad Feld, Steve Blank, Dave McClure and others. Pivoting that meetup into StartUp Victoria (now The Startup Network under new leadership).

• Lead mentor for Melbourne’s first accelerator, Angelcube. Mentoring at Startmate.

• Lead CyRise, the Asia Pacific's leading cybersecurity startup accelerator for six years.

• Made 39 investments with CyRise across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, India and the US. I left with a portfolio investment multiple of 3.2x and a gross IRR in excess of 50%.

• Venture Partner at Black Nova Venture Capital.

You can get in touch with me at scott@murmar.io