Jodie Imam’s Post

I latched onto the term ➡ it takes a village ⬅ when I joined the Tractor Ventures team 2.5 years ago, specifically to build our community (while simultaneously raising a baby as a solo mum by choice). Seemed a fitting term. ❓Why do some businesses have raving fans and loyal customers, while others struggle to build a following? The secret often lies in one powerful strategy: building a community. Today, businesses aren't just selling products or services - they're creating experiences and fostering relationships. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is by building a community around your brand. Here are 3️⃣ compelling reasons why businesses invest in building communities: 🌟 Customer Loyalty and Customer Retention: A strong community fosters a sense of belonging and loyalty among customers. When people feel like they are part of something bigger, they are more likely to stay loyal to the brand. 🌟 Engagement and Feedback: Communities provide a direct line of communication between businesses and their customers. This engagement is invaluable for gathering feedback, understanding customer needs, and making improvements. 🌟 Advocacy and Word-of-Mouth Marketing: A vibrant community can turn customers into brand advocates who spread the word and attract new customers. When people are passionate about a brand, they naturally want to share it with others. At Tractor Ventures, we have one guiding vision: Unlocking Possibilities for Founders. We do this with 💸 financial capital but also with 🤓 human capital via Tractor Village —> our exclusive and vibrant community of like-minded founders, investors, trusted growth advisory partners and fabulous perks partners. A company in our portfolio who have nailed community is HEX. They call it the HEXiverse. I asked 👋 Nathan Lee about HEXiverse... "At HEX we know how important community is and it is something we've been working on since day one. We see our community as building a flywheel, where alumni will graduate, and they'll go on to build exciting tech and innovation careers or startups, creating a buzz that attracts future HEX founders. This also pulls in great mentors and organisations to be involved with our programs because they see the real impact our alumni are making. Our culture of giving back is strong, with HEX alumni delivering workshops, mentoring, and hiring fellow HEXies, creating a supportive ecosystem that keeps growing." Have you built community in your business? Tell us about your community in the comments! ⬇ I’m dedicating my Thursday mornings to ☕ at my local RUSH Roasting Co, Bowral and writing about my experiences building communities, partnerships, the athlete ←→ startup founder parallels with proud mentions of my modern family and home renovations 🏡 . Love you to follow on and share your thoughts. Why the concrete slab? Because a good home reno starts with a new shed! 🤷♀️ ✅

Capital is boring, founder stories are not. This one is about mental health of the original founders (farmers) and real, measurable efficiency gains. 👨🌾 💧 📈 A lot of people assume farmers and country folk run at a bit of a slower pace than city folk, I did when I moved to the Southern Tablelands of NSW in 2005 but Andrew (Coppo) from Farmbot Monitoring Solutions always knew that even though they may come across that way, farmers in Australia, and around the world, are some of the smartest business people on earth. We often think that starting up a modern tech company is hard, but I'm calling bullshit. What's hard is having investing actual blood, sweat and tears into preparing your crop or flock for the next season, only to be screwed by the elements. Coppo talks about the mental health of farmers a lot, and Farmbot helps eliminate the wasted time and energy of checking your water sources, which 95% of the time are fine but that other 5% of the time can be catastrophic. Agtech is hard, your customers are busy and by default not concentrated in any one location. Your solution has to *categorically* show them that their time will be saved, or the yield on their investment increase or it's just another thing to worry about. The thing that Coppo and his team to well when it comes to scaling their company is what I call "time shifting capital". When they need it to deliver on their promises and when the customer pays for their products are disconnected, but there's profit in the transaction. Using capital that is designed to bridge that timing gap and allows the company to grow quicker than the balance sheet can absorb is smart. The risk v reward is in the right place to be able to pull forward the revenue coming, invest it into delivering and rinse and repeat. If you can do that and retain your ownership and control, you're onto a good thing. Hat tip to the Farmbot/Ranchbot team for helping farms focus on the stuff that is important for their families, and themselves. Coppo tells the long story here: https://lnkd.in/gk9cMePZ

A great 12+ months partnered with Tractor Ventures 🚜 🚀 When asked last year to join the first Growth Partners for Tractor Ventures, we were pumped by the opportunity to support the portfolio and share our lessons for growing businesses. In the last 14 months of working with Tractor, we have 👉 Ran a master class with Victoria Beal to 50+ Founders on Founder led to first sales hire 👉 Worked with three amazing Tractor portfolio clients Cynch Security, Standard Ledger and Code Like a Girl 👉 Presented our Founder led to first sales hire workshop to the Tractor and Black Nova portfolio (40+ founders) 🤝 Spent time with the team in almost every state NSW, VIC, SA and WA, featured here some Sydney pics during Sunrise Thank you again to Noga Edelstein, who brought us into the fold and 🎨 Garry Williams, Jodie Imam and 🚜 🏳️🌈 Olivia Doherty who have been endlessly supportive of Sell Anything as we've grown. We look forward to continuing to collaborate as a growth partner and working alongside some other amazing people supporting Aussie startups and growing global companies. P.S. how good does our logo look next to some household names on the Tractor website? Roy Head

Congratulations to ReciMe founders Christine Nguyen, Ivy Nguyen and Will Kent on raising $1.5 million to continue scaling their cooking app in the US! This Melbourne-born startup -- which has previously been backed by LaunchVic's Alice Anderson Fund, Even Capital and Jodie Imam -- now has 800,000 users, 75% of which are located in the US. And it has added some seriously impressive investors to its d̶i̶n̶n̶e̶r̶ capital table, including former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. Read more on SmartCompany: https://lnkd.in/gHmQ__vj #startups #funding #venturecapital #cooking

Coming up on the show is a special episode #167. Featuring two founders we are big fans of in Adam Jones and Ringo Thomas. Stay tuned to learn about: - How they met and why decarbonising construction became their life's work - The first iteration of the software solution they built - Customer love with engineers and architects - The "embodied carbon" problem and what this actually means - How their global team from day 1 has unlocked growth - Learnings from entering new markets (Australia, UK, US etc) - Key focus areas for the next 6 months! Did you know -- Buildings are currently responsible for 39% of global energy related carbon emissions? 🤯 Follow us right here on LinkedIn and on the podcast platforms to catch this episode as soon as it drops! Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/g2kB9BDM Spotify: https://lnkd.in/g6Cpz64V Vidit Will Adam Rachel Katarina Andrew Daniel Amanda Nicole Quentin Andrew Jodie Jo Rob Ecotone Ventures Giant Leap Archangel Ventures

A huge congratulations to Jeanette Cheah 💁🏻♀️, Co-Founder and CEO of HEX was recognised for her incredible contributions to building the startup ecosystem in Victoria by winning the Governor of Victoria’s Startup Ecosystem Hero Award. Congratulations Jeanette! In a fast-changing world, it's so important for young people to have the chance to learn about innovation and gain the capabilities they need to create a better future. Jeanette and the HEX team are championing exactly that by bridging the gap between industry and the classroom and helping inspire young people to solve our world’s most pressing problems. If you know a young person who is curious about innovation, the next cohort kicks off on Monday 22 July 2024. The six-week program can also count for university-level credit. Take advantage of the EOFY sales ending on 30 June 2024. Visit the HEX Degree Accelerator Program and use the code DOIT50. https://lnkd.in/ge7BVZ3x

"You don't want to have to rebuild everything when customers start to interact..." - Jodie Imam 👸🏼 Meet Jodie Imam, CEO at Tractor Ventures, serial entrepreneur, investor and board adviser. Jodie is an expert in business models and leadership, and a huge inspiration for women in finance and tech! Plus, she's super generous in sharing her first-hand experience. Join the July '24 HEX cohort to learn what Jodie has to share about minimum viable products, startup financial management, and founder-led sales. 👉🏼 HEX DIGITAL PROGRAMS ARE 50% OFF UNTIL EOFY. Links in comments.