From meal delivery to sustainability: Meet INCUBATE’s recent ProtoX Graduates

We’ve just wrapped up two of our ProtoX Pre-Accelerator Program cohorts and we’re excited to share our community of aspiring founders with you.

INCUBATE is the University of Sydney’s Flagship Accelerator Program. In preparation for entry into INCUBATE, we support early-stage startups with our Pre-Accelerator Program, ProtoX. This Program sees founders undertake a 12-week part-time program to develop their idea into a working prototype. With 1:1 support from mentors, exclusive industry engagement, and weekly community support, ProtoX challenges mentors to validate their idea into viable businesses.

Our cohorts are split into ProtoX: Ideation to Creation (supporting early-stage startups from any sector) & ProtoX: Research to Impact (helping University of Sydney researchers translate & commercialize their ideas into businesses.

Failure is just the beginning

This year’s startups were wide-eyed when they started Week 1 of ProtoX at the beginning of August. We welcomed a diverse range of founders into our community with bright ideas, ready to be validated into profitable businesses.

Let’s be realistic though. In the realm of early-stage startups (and as per INCUBATE’s guiding principle), ‘failing fast’ was inevitable for some. It was genuinely encouraged as we witnessed founders who had a solution that was desperately trying to align themselves to a problem and target market. It seems backward to celebrate failure, but if you ask any founder with a failed business — they’ll probably tell you they wish they’d accepted its fate earlier so they could pivot accordingly (ahhh, the age-old sunk cost fallacy).

We applauded those founders in the early weeks that set their egos to the side to admit they were ready to let go of their original idea and commit to pivoting. It takes guts to do that.

Alas, we recognize those that began the program and saw it through, despite not coming out the other end with a business. After all, time spent learning is not time wasted.

One thing was clear to us though, the desire to create meaningful change was felt throughout our cohorts.

Meet our ProtoX Graduates

Every cohort we finish gives us the warm & fuzzies. Anybody in the startup community will tell you about the feeling when you can literally see the potential in somebody as their eyes sparkle when they talk about their startup.

We’re grateful to share with you some of those founders who graduated from ProtoX. From sustainability to meal delivery, diversity & to wearable technology, and everything in between — our founders all target unique challenges within a range of markets.

FootprintLab empowers businesses to deploy climate solutions by providing credible, affordable, easy-to-use data in the form of ​Scope 3 Carbon Footprinting and advice. The co-founders Janet Salem & Timothy Baynes have a combined 30+ years of experience at the UN & CSIRO, they are experts in all things sustainability.

Inclusif educates organizations on hiring people with neurological disabilities. Dr Martin Raffaele (PhD) is a researcher at the University of Sydney who lives with epilepsy and has a goal of driving inclusion in the workplace. Through providing educational content, personalized consulting, and resources, Martin aims to break down the stigmatic barrier to hiring those with neurological disabilities and empower those with a condition by providing community, resources, and support to thrive.

Arnav Shetty is a current student studying for his Doctor of Medicine at the University of Sydney. With a passion to improve the quality of life of those living with medical conditions, his current work has been in using wearable technology to augment the safety and independence of those living with severe to profound hearing loss. Specifically, he envisions a device that can be worn during sleep that listens for alarms for those with cochlear implants or hearing aids that need to be removed at night.

Fortune CookIt plans to cuts through the noise in the food delivery industry. Founded by Patrick Zhuge and Carson Liao, they offer a diverse menu of Asian ready-made meal kits to your door — which only require 5 minutes of cooking until they’re on the table. With no messy prep or boring, mundane weeknight dinners, they already have a dedicated customer base. Check them out here:

Owner Super is giving every Aussie a fair go with their super. Co-founders Fred Yu & Joyce Yu felt betrayed when their superfund was named and shamed by the superfund regulator APRA for underperformance. They identified that the root cause of underperformance was not asset allocation but investment selection by someone — also known as active investment. Their fix was simple — keep the asset allocation but fire the investment manager. With a fully-automated investment platform with no in-house active investment, Owner Super empowers customers to invest confidently just like a professional investor, at low cost.

Confidante empowers victim-survivors of domestic violence to break social isolation, and take their next steps toward liberation. We provide an online community built upon the connections of victim-survivors and experienced moderators to provide relevant support backed by lived experience. The team behind Confidante is a highly driven group of product designers who share a passion for helping the domestic violence community with our expertise in human-centric design. If you know somebody in the DV space that would like to share their thoughts, email the team at confidante.au@gmail.com.

Thorial empowers organizations to attract and retain employees by keeping them continually in alignment with the company’s mission. Founded by Daniel O’Dea & Elvis Gleeson — they’ve combined their knowledge and expertise in philosophy and software engineering to cultivate managers that lead with ‘Why’ and inspire an ongoing sense of purpose in employees.

What’s next?

If you’ve read this with that little voice in the back of your mind humming ‘I could do that’, then we’d love to hear from you. We’re always looking to build founders. Whether you’ve got the seed of a bright idea or a fully fleshed business — we’re ready to help you take it to the next level.

All you need is a broad understanding of startup concepts, a problem or idea you’re willing to investigate, and a genuine willingness to test, pivot, and take on feedback. Our ultimate goal at INCUBATE is to build founders. If you want to chat about your idea or have any questions, you can book your Drop-In Session here.

2023 ProtoX Applications aren’t open just yet, but for now — sign up for our Community Newsletter & find out more here. You’ll be the first to know when they open (and you’ll hear from us every fortnight with exclusive invites, recommendations, and all the other good stuff).