Performance Enhancing
The Age
Tuesday August 8, 2000
WHILE Kevin Sheedy is preparing his Bombers to tackle the finals series, ``e-coach" Nick Batchelor is preparing his fledgling dot-coms to take on the world.
Batchelor is one of two head e-coaches recently appointed by business incubator ePark to guide dot-com start-ups through the rough and tumble of the online game.
An investment director with Horizon Private Equity, Batchelor will be based in Melbourne. His ePark coaching counterpart in Sydney is PepsiCo acquisitions expert David Landers.
The coaching analogy is quite apt in describing their role, Batchelor says.
``On the one hand we're a bit of a disciplinarian and anyone who has been involved in sport knows that coaches often are," he says. ``If you look at ... the way some start-ups have struggled, imposing a bit of discipline in the way they conduct their business is a vital role."
The coaches also bring valuable experience. ``The guys who are e-coaches at ePark have all done this before - the expression we use is that we've earned the right to sit at the table," Batchelor says.
ePark is a joint venture between professional services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and venture capitalists Allen & Buckeridge. Earlier this year ePark was awarded $5 million in Federal Government Building on IT Strengths funding, now part of a $50 million investment pool intended to support up to 20 fledgling businesses a year.
Batchelor says the focus is purely on Internet-based e-businesses with global footprints from day one, because start-ups will not survive in the long term as Australia-only players.
Considering the cut-throat nature of the industry, he prefers the term ``accelerator" to incubator.
``The traditional incubators came out of universities and the image that always comes to my mind with incubators is an egg wrapped in cotton wool under a light. In the e-commerce space, that sort of approach just does not work. We have to be much faster and make much more decisive moves."
Batchelor has been personally involved in two start-ups, an interactive marketing agency in New York and the launch of former BHP chief executive John Prescott's Horizon Private Equity in Australia. He also spent five years as a strategy consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, leading projects in its British, Malaysian and Australian offices.
``Entrepreneurs are a fairly unique breed and they don't necessarily respond well to people who are from purely corporate backgrounds. They like to know that the person they are dealing with has done it too," he says.
``A lot of what we're looking for when we select people to be members is just passion for their idea ... They're like the best athletes, they want to work 24 hours a day on their business and what you're doing is just channelling their energies in the right directions."
Having lived in Melbourne for seven years, Batchelor says he was ``shocked" to discover how Sydney-centric venture capital was in this country. Citing Australian Venture Capital Association statistics, he says roughly half of Australia's venture capital private equity deals are done in Melbourne - by Sydney-based venture capitalists. He says: ``if you want to play a genuine accelerator role, you've got to be there with them, side by side".
© 2000 The Age
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