Angela Young On Building The Capacity For Startups To Practice Innovation

Angela Young is a professional with over 20+ years of experience in entrepreneurship, innovation, and business development. She serves as a Non-Executive Director at Trade and Investment Queensland (TIQ) where she advocates for high-growth businesses, enabling global expansion for Queensland exporters and promoting the state as an ideal investment destination.

As an innovation consult, Angela advises startups, scaleups, social enterprises, and government organisations on strategies to tackle social and environmental challenges. As the Director of Startups at BDO Australia, she successfully supported the launch and growth of a broad range of innovative ventures, with a focus on economic sustainability and community engagement.

Angela's co-founding experience in Genesis BDI Limited, a successful boutique private equity firm enriched her comprehensive understanding of business growth, strategic partnerships and that even successful companies are not immune to collapse. Angela is passionate about nurturing the startup ecosystem and her consulting approach revolves around sharing her lived experiences to empower those she meets with both practical solutions for their enterprises but to also unlock their personal potential.

As a known ‘Super Connector', Angela continues to make a lasting impact in the startup and SME community, by connecting and guiding entrepreneurs towards success through strategic and sustainable economic growth.

Angela discusses her key learnings from working with businesses practicing social innovation and how she guides entrepreneurs to achieving strategic and sustainable growth.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Sarah Ripper] - To start off, could you please share a bit about your background and what led you to where you are now?

[Angela Young] - I would probably classify my background as a portfolio career. I started out with a direction and then it's just evolved from there. I'm an optimistic and curious person. Throughout my career, what I've learned is how I can piece things together, how I connect and remember people to be able to give good value and create a greater impact. I'll remember people from 20-30 years ago that are still relevant who I can connect somebody with or just re-engage in a conversation.

Where did it all start? I grew up in a regional town, so I am from Rockhampton, Queensland. Lived there for about 25 years before I moved out and came to Brisbane. I was educated there, did university, and headed to Brisbane during the last big recession we had looking for employment opportunities. I started out in universities and was still in universities until my husband and I came up with this idea to find our own business. My husband and I at the time were always interested in working for ourselves and creating something we had control of, and we really loved the TV show The New Inventors. People who are engineers or inventors would hop on and pitch a product on the ABC, and there were people judging or critiquing them. We always wondered what happens to some of these great inventions, we very rarely saw any of them coming out to market. We thought maybe that's what we could do, grab some of these inventions, give them some funding, build them up, sell them off or keep some of them; we could take them on that growth journey. This was in the early 2000’s, so we looked around and thought the only vehicle to do this was to set up a private equity firm. We did not have the funds to be able to leverage this, and we didn't want to go to banks and get a big loan to help people. We established a private equity firm with no background or understanding. The idea was finding people that had high net worth’s who would trust us with their money. There were three of us, myself, who's got a background in communications and psychology, my partner who became my husband and was a mechanical engineer, and the third person was someone working in business advisory and was CFA or CFO. We went to market, found somebody who gave us a million dollars and off we went. We couldn't find inventions because this was 20 years ago. There were no co-working spaces, no start-ups, or people in the business of inventing or doing something innovative in a collected space. They're normally in a garage and hiding away. We came from a university background, so we were doing a little bit of university research and couldn't find anything. We didn’t yet have the experience, capability, or the technical expertise with which to make those businesses grow. Because there were projects doing things like koala research and chlamydia, we didn't know much about them.

We went off and spun in a different direction and thought maybe we can acquire some growing mum and dad companies. We set off on this acquisition strategy, and our point of reference was The Courier Mail and the businesses for sale section. We ended up through that process buying one company that had grown internationally; it was exporting great products, plugs and leads for audio files. It was successful internationally. The inventor was Brisbane-based, but internationally well regarded. It was run by a mum and dad couple that wanted to retire and the children didn't want to take the business over, so we bought it. From there on we thought, "okay, this works. We still got money.” We had one investor that gave us a million dollars, so we decided to find some others. We did find other companies again through The Courier Mail, the next one was at Ballina. That was an ecological company in consumer electronics; people making componentry or electronic parts for products. We grew into a stable of five companies, with 90 staff all based around Brisbane. Titli was Northern New South Wales, and it grew well for seven years, and then it stopped. It exploded, something went wrong, and that's the reason why I'm not working there anymore. Now I'm doing other things and not sitting on that wonderful island.

It was a big successful company, and it went wrong for silly founder issues, red flags that were never addressed early on, particularly in the financial area.

The co-founder that was the CFO, we gave him the keys to the kingdom when it came to the finances. We said, "oh, we're not finance people, that's your thing. You just handle that and tell us where to sign and we'll believe everything." We were very trusting, but long story short, we fell out over growing apart and wanting to do different things. We decided to leave the company and we were going to be bought out by our single investor who had 51%.

That's another learning you I have along the way, don't give it all to someone that has ultimate control and a board that can control it all.

They did their due diligence and in that due diligence, there was a whole lot of money missing, and we were tarred with that. It was seen we had between the three founders embezzled money and taken money offshore into overseas bank accounts, and we were out of company. They got aggressive and came after us. My husband and I were completely shocked, we had no idea what had gone on, and it was hard to fight that. We were proven guilty and had to try and prove ourselves innocent, it was a brutal exercise, and, in the end, my husband and I agreed to walk away and hand over our shares for nothing. We weren't pursued through the courts. We hadn't done anything wrong, but we thought, "okay we're young enough. We're 40." It's not young to walk away and start again, but it would be without having to go through this court process and trying to prove our innocence. Our co-founder decided to fight, and over a process of seven years, it took the investor and that co-founder to fight things out and it ended up that the companies were split off. Some of them still exist today, which is a godsend for those staff who were there. But it turns out that our CFO was the one that was doing embezzling. He had embezzled 18 million dollars over the course of the company's life and had set up the overseas bank accounts. That was my harsh lesson.

Now we were out in the real world, and we had a big black mark on us because all this stuff had gone wrong. Some other founders will resonate. Once you start working for yourself, there is no set pathway and you're only answerable to yourself. You don't know if what you’re doing is right. When you finish, you think you're quite unemployable by somebody else, you might think you don't know if that's the right way. I haven't got an MBA and whatnot to sit behind, so I entered a world a little fragile realising I left a nine-year gap on my resume because I didn't want to talk about that. I thought it was a massive failing and would hinder me, so I turned that nine-year gap into home duties, or I was a mum just so I didn't have that conversation and thought, "I'm going to go and do something completely different."

I ended up going back to university, where I felt safe and was doing what I understood. I connected with someone I'd worked with about 15 years before, who was at the Queensland University of Technology and said, "hey, I'm in this position, I need a CV, can you help me write my CV?" He was wonderful, helped me write my CV, encouraged me to go into the University at the right level of my experience. Even though I had run my own company, I said, "I just can't do it. I want no responsibility, I want no budgets, no staff. I don't want to grow anything. I'm dealing with a house of cards on the outside." We were left with computer leases, luxury cars, and other things we had to pay off, and we were trying to do that without going bankrupt so we wouldn't lose the opportunity to be able to be company directors again. My husband at the time, it broke him. He could not work for a year, so I was out doing what I could just to keep this machine of kids in schools and this kind of life to keep rolling. I took a low-end job at QUT in admin, but it was in an interesting area. It was in the chancellery, which is I guess the CEO's office at the top of that office; quite a dynamic area. I was in a low admin job, and I got bored quickly with filing, so I then started answering the Vice Chancellor's phone because it rang off the hook. I wanted to help their staff in managing the volume of calls. That then turned into me being his Executive Assistant in a position I stayed in for five years. I had no experience as being someone's Executive Assistant. The diary side of things didn't thrill me that much, but it was the advisory side and who he was dealing with which was interesting.

During that time, this startup scene started bubbling up. These students were being referred to me saying, "we've got business ideas, how does the University support them?"

It seemed very similar to what I had done 10 years beforehand, they just used this crazy language of startup boot camps, bootstrapping and venture capital, which didn't exist beforehand. This is what I started out trying to do, but I had to go through this private equity mechanism, and in 10-12 years, this other thing was emerging.

Entrepreneurship and innovation were burbling up in higher education internationally and the vice chancellor said, "we need to be doing something. What is it? I don't understand how we might practically apply it." It was an interest of mine, I leant in and then ended up advising him and taking him on that journey, which unlocked funds for some centres, support groups and his support for what was happening. There were student groups; it's where I met Timothy Hui years ago when he was with QUT Starters, so I've known Tim for a very long time. The research and commercialisation areas were led by BlueBox and Creative Enterprise Australia. The guys who started Innovation Architects, which I work with now, were spun out of QUT Starters. I spent five years working and supporting everybody doing something that was entrepreneurial/startup related. This included both staff and students and managing The Foundry, which was a co-working space that ran programs, community events, and supported everybody doing something. It was a space that supported everybody else, rather than us competing with what the students were doing. We were this co-working space and incubator for people to then go on to these other entrepreneurship programs. I spent five years there, and during that time, it became QUT Entrepreneurship. QUT signed a five-year agreement with MIT, which is the leading entrepreneurial university in the world to share programs of support for entrepreneurship and innovation, and I was lucky enough to be able to go to MIT for about three weeks with a group of students doing MIT Fuse; introductory and next level programs. Then I spent six days there participating in their entrepreneurial development program, learning about how you might teach entrepreneurship, and that was using Bill Aulet's 24 steps of Disciplined Entrepreneurship; they just put that together when there was an absence of a framework. How might you start and what might be the reasonable steps? He's got a 24-step program about flexing that innovation muscle and memory by stepping through 24 steps (or as many as you can) multiple times. Idea one you may get through, and maybe it's step five that you fall short on. It’s not a great idea, so you go back. It's a repeatable method that builds muscle memory, so by idea 15, you might have found the right one which grows.

Entrepreneurship is a discipline. It needs to be worked out, you need to be resilient and aware of when there is the point of no return. If it’s not a great idea, you need to kill it and go back to another idea.

After five years there, I left to go and test myself in the corporate world, to see if what I was doing within this closed community (QUT) worked. Students could learn and fail, and they had no pressure of having to pay staff or to pay rent, so it enabled them to maybe progress a little bit longer than maybe they should with an idea. I thought, "oh, maybe I need to go do this in the corporate world where there are real companies that have employees and rent and all those other overheads." They need to be a successful company, which led me to look at what BDO was doing. I'd done one of their programs, they're doing something interesting. It's not an accelerator, it's a support program, but it's based on financial understanding. I was working with startups and scared about entering that financial space, because that's a bit I had failed on. It was the bit I wasn't comfortable with. I realised I needed to lean into this and learn it. It's not okay for me to tell them to do that if I'm not doing it. I went in, learned, and went, "okay, it's not about becoming an accountant. It's just understanding basic fundamentals of the language of finance." What do these terms mean? Normally, and I find with startups I talk to, you'll bluff and nonsense when somebody asks about profit and loss, your balance sheet or EBITDA. They know the answer to that, but they don't know what it means down to that granular level and where is it coming in? BDO was offering programs to startups that were focused on financials as the elementary, the first three steps you did. Other accelerators will look at the idea and customers, certainly with discipline entrepreneurship, you start with the customer and then look at that problem with the customer and go from there with financials coming a little bit later. These guys are going, "no, do your financials up front, and see what's actually happening." That's the litmus test that you're on the right idea, you've got a good go-to-market strategy because of the numbers you can see in your profit, loss and balance sheets.

I decided to leap out there, work with that team and run their programs as the Director of Startups, and it was about building economically sustainable businesses in Queensland. It wasn't about building them to be great businesses to then go work with BDO, because the startups were not going to be great clients for the work BDO does. This is because they've got quite high entry levels with tax being one of the first things, and most startups don't have, are not paying any tax or don't have a tax incident so that they're needed. BDO had acknowledged these were the future of what was happening.

Any business that was doing something a little bit different, it would be the future norm. The best way for BDO to help was to bring their value, which was the financial bit, but dampen it down to a level that can be consumed by little companies. From then they become economically sustainable businesses.

They can grow from there, they're ripe for investment. Then they become a going concern. They're always going to be entirely grateful; anyone that you help in the startup ecosystem is going to be grateful for the help you provide and will always try and help back later on.

Then from there, I did some guest speaking and sat on a few panels. I sat on one with the Treasury about women in investment, and from there, an invitation came to join the Trade and Investment Queensland (TIQ) board, which I did in October last year. I sit on that board to represent all startups and scaleups; those that are female-led, and particularly this problem we have with female-led enterprises not gaining the support or investment they should. How can we change that or what can we do to help empower females of those businesses to be able to secure funding? That rounds me out now to being an independent consultant who goes and helps others with whatever they need.

As you have worked both as an entrepreneur and leading advisor, what would you suggest to our listeners about engaging with and building meaningful partnerships?

Number one, be open and okay with asking for help. That's the single biggest tip I can give.

Most people, even if they're in big corporates are willing to help. They just need to understand how and why. If you don't tell or ask them, they won't know. No one's a mind reader. Be clear and honest with what you want. Make a series of small steps in a planned direction, I always liken it to a game of golf. You’ve got 18 holes, but to get to each hole is a series of small steps. You might go off a little bit on your target, but you've got three steps to get there. Breaking it down into those milestones to help you reach your end destination rather than just intending to get there as quickly as possible sets you up for failure.

Talk to customers and stakeholders, try, and zip your lip about what your solution is and get close to those guys and get them to talk about the problem as they experience it.

They will give you good cues for what the ultimate solution is, or they will even suggest it. They know what the solution is, they just don't have the means or time to get there. If you zip it a little bit and ask lots of ‘why’ questions, someone will lead into that problem and unfold it for you.

A big one is surround yourself with like-minded people working in your space. This is a lonely pathway if you're doing your own thing. When you find others doing something in a similar area, so if it's in that impact, ask what kind of impact? I'm working on a program now that's dealing with reducing plastic waste, and we've brought together incredible teams, but they're all doing something in the plastic waste space. They're all focusing on different things. When you bring them together, it becomes this quite rich, diverse community, where you can tap into all these people doing the same thing, reducing waste, but at their different levels. There's not one answer, it's a collective answer, so lean into those communities, take advantage of any free subsidised programs that have an educational component. You’re going to get like-minded people, the support you need, and you'll get the education component as well. Even with your programs and others like that, the corporates invited into those programs will be there to add value without any cost. They've got real expertise and they're happy to come forward with that. They're not all about gobbling up revenue, being paid and making huge amounts of money.

Lastly, go and stalk potential partners who are already dealing with your customer. Go and have a look at what they're doing and what you can bring to the table to add value. It's an alignment of value propositions, what are you doing? How can you leverage someone that's maybe got a big customer pool? What are you unlocking and why might they partner with you is important to understand. Adoption and socialising your idea a little earlier on to hook up with someone that's maybe a bigger player and already working with your customers is crucial.

What does innovation mean to you, and how can we bring the quality of innovation into our personal and professional lives?

For me it's the big driving force that fuels progression, transformation, and moves the world.

We live in an ever-changing landscape, and that happens with innovation. As things change, there are new ways of doing them and we need to be open, pushing boundaries, challenging our thinking, discovering novel and complex solutions. Not complex solutions, but simple solutions to complex problems.

Those are the quite simple solutions which can tackle big, nasty problems. It needs innovation, creativity; for people to be adaptable, highly resilient, and empathetic by looking at society and the humans. We’ve got adoption sitting on the other side. How will the human or environment be impacted by what you're doing? It means embracing growth, improvement and continually seeking ways to provide a positive impact and leave the world a better place and a better future for those that come behind. You can do that in your little life and work by pushing ideas instead of just having ideas. Think about how you might practically execute on those. It's not just, "oh, here's a great idea," but nobody steps forward. That ability to be a real innovator is stepping into that space and trying something while not having a pathway. There is normally no pathway, you've got to figure it out, but you must be bold enough and passionate enough to lead that charge. Everyone can do it, it's just about resilience and having that confidence or passion to be led in the first place.

What are some inspiring projects or initiatives that you've come across recently which you feel are creating remarkable change?

I'm doing contract consulting work with the Innovation Architects team. They've won a piece of work with the Queensland Government, and it's looking at the government’s target to reduce plastic waste, and particularly single use plastic waste. We're working on a challenge that's called the Beyond Cups challenge. We're looking at the single use coffee cup and great alternatives other than keep cup. We know there are great solutions out there, but what else is happening in the reuse or recycle of those things? Who's doing something in game changing materials and then circularity to fully close that loop, so that we haven't got any single use items ending up in landfill. Through that process, we've looked Australia wide to source real innovators, and it's just been an incredible process.

I know you've had Kimberly from Carapac on Impact Boom, so we've targeted Kimberly who is making plastic from prawn shells. Kelpi is another one, making plastic alternatives with seaweed, through to Earthotic which is a Queensland based company. They have a good way to come up with a lining for paper that is water resistant. They say they just put sun cream on paper! By adding another layer, it can carry food and any liquids, but it can also be recycled. Long fibre paper recycling I have learned is a great thing. We are in this process of unearthing these organisations and then linking them with stakeholders like Stadiums Queensland, The Brisbane Convention Centre, Brisbane Airport Corp, the big national retail association that sits with a lot of members from the big guys at McDonald's down to the little corner coffee shops.

They're engaged and looking for solutions because there are national bands in the work. We've done the single use plastic bag, there is going to be the coffee cup and others will roll out soon. It's just that process of finding who is doing incredibly interesting stuff.

We've got them going through a bit of a program now, so keep your eyes posted on Beyond Cups because we're about to announce some of these great projects that just need to be seen and get out there. Most of them are B Corps or on their way to being B Corp certified. They’re doing massive and quite challenging things with plastic waste. It's a huge problem.

To finish off, what are some resources or books that you would recommend to our listeners?

My go to book is Disciplined Entrepreneurship which I talked about earlier. Go look at it. It’s an easy book to follow which breaks entrepreneurship down into 24 steps. It's put out by a leading institution that's run over 26,000 start-ups through that program and has had huge success. They've got good success coming out of that. Another one I've just read is Head & Heart by Dr. Kirsten Ferguson. I knew her at QUT and it's about becoming a good leader when you connect your emotions and the creative process to look at things a little bit differently. You can lead well in your home, local environment, and in your teams as well. It's just this practical advice for people; how can they connect with each other in a deeper level and get the best out of everyone. It's a nice little read.

I'm working my way again through Think Again by Adam Grant. I'm an Adam Grant fan, I think that's just the psychology side of me. We've all got an opportunity to change our thinking and relearn, and we should be always on this pathway of learning, checking our biases and challenging ourselves to think differently?

Try and understand a lot about yourself. Why are you predisposed in this way and think the way you do? Then you will be able to unlock, adapt and change your thinking. I'm quite an open-minded person, I'm willing to try anything. But how do you enable personal growth by just swinging and looking through a different lens, how do you practically do that?

They're probably my go to resources. I listen to a lot of Brene Brown, just in that I can resonate with living with imposter syndrome and not feeling good. The art of doing, being brave and putting things out there is huge. It’s empowering when you get to listen to a lot of people with a lot of different backgrounds who give you that. You can't be what you can't see, and seeing other people doing wonderful things just by being brave enough and seeing you don't die allows you to get stronger and leave the world a better place.