There’s no shortage of initiative or capital in Western Australia, with much of the state’s economic successes having been built on the back of bold bets and significant investments.
However, as our local startup sector matures, we risk falling into a trap that has plagued other ecosystems: the fetishisation of the ‘pitch’.
Walk into any co-working space or startup event on a Thursday night and you’ll likely encounter a pitch night in action. Nervous founders stand in the spotlight, rattling off a deck of slides in five minutes, while a panel of high-net-worth individuals sit in judgement.
Sure, the founder needs to learn how to communicate their ideas in short, pithy sentences. They have to become a storyteller.
However, too many of these events tip into vanity sessions for the investors; a chance to flex their intellectual muscles, grill the brave entrepreneur, and show off in front of their peers.
It treats the founder like a gladiator and the investment like a trophy. It is high octane, high stress and, often, high nonsense.
If we want to generate more sustainable, world-class tech startups in WA, we need to stop looking for gladiators and start looking for partners.
Coffee, anyone?
The most valuable thing an experienced business leader can do to help a budding entrepreneur is give an hour of their undivided attention at a local cafe.
True angel investing is about supporting the person. Listening. Advising.
Many of our state’s most successful businesspeople have decades of scar tissue from the mining, property, agriculture or retail sectors. They have navigated downturns, managed complex situations and survived boardroom coups.
For a novice startup founder, that wisdom is more useful than any investment or pitch practice.
We need more angels who are willing to offer their shoulder to lean on. Startup life is notoriously lonely and hard. Having a seasoned mentor onside can be the difference between a founder burning out or breaking through.
When these coffee-shop conversations happen, the instinct is often to open the laptop and dive straight into the product.
This is a mistake. Seasoned mentors will encourage the founders to shift their gaze away from the ‘what’ towards the ‘who’.
A startup is not a product; it is a solution to customers’ pain. The product will change, depending on what the customer wants and will pay for (to remove their pain).
Without a clear understanding of this customer problem, even the most elegant code or prototype is just an expensive blind alley.
The best mentors challenge founders to articulate the misery they are solving for their clients.
They ask: Who is losing sleep over this problem? How much would they pay to make it go away? How many of them are there, and how will you reach them? How many of them have you spoken to?
When a founder focuses on the customers’ problem, they find direction. They find a path to revenue and maybe a sustainable, scalable business.
Lend them your ears!
So, to people interested in startup investing, I say to thee: local startup founders need you. Not your bravado. Your ears.
The next time you are asked to look at a pitch, consider a different approach. Invite the founder to a quiet corner of a St Georges Terrace lobby. Don’t let them open their laptop. Just ask them how they are doing, what they’ve noticed about their market that everyone else has missed, and what they have done so far. Ask them to articulate the customer problem they have found, and how they are going to solve it. Spend the hour going deep on that.
If you can’t add value to their business yourself, find some people in your network who can.
By shifting from ‘pitch theatre’ to genuine mentorship, you will be building a more resilient ecosystem. You never know, you may also help diversify the local economy and build the industries and jobs of the future. You may even enjoy it, too, and make some money along the way.
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Article first appeared in Business News, on 11 Feb 2026.
