AGSM offers fertile ground for women entrepreneurs

UNSW Founders New Wave Cohort 10 pitch showcase winners Door to Future

“I never thought I would start a business before New Wave and my MBA,” says Door to Future founder Moitri Pal

It seems the combination between an AGSM MBA and the UNSW Founders New Wave program is the secret to success for women-led startups.

More than 40% of New Wave Showcase winners over the past 9 cohorts are AGSM graduates including Givvable co-founder Frances Atkins.

Cohort 9 New Wave showcase winners Door to Future are the latest team to hail from the school of management with co-founder Moitri Pal graduating from an MBA (Executive) earlier this year. The head of IT project management founded Door to Future which connect students looking for work experience, with startups looking for resources, with co-founder Kanishka Hari. Moitri and Kanishka entered the New Wave program separately but with similar ideas and quickly realised they wanted to team up and work together.

“We clicked straight away” Moitri tells UNSW Founders.

“We had to enter all our ideas on a spreadsheet on the first day of the program and that’s when we realised, we had very similar ideas.”

The duo, along with another team-mate as part of the program, went on to win the pitch showcase at the end of New Wave. From there, Moitri and Kanishka made the decision to formalise their partnership and incorporate Door to Fututre and are already working with multiple clients. The women say New Wave provided the perfect opportunity for them to not only test their idea but their working relationship.

UNSW Founders New Wave Cohort 7

“New Wave allowed us to work together before we formalised our relationship,” Moitri says.

“We are open and flexible in how we work together and that makes it easy for us.

Kanishka, a senior business analyst at UNSW, adds: “Our mentors and coach helped us get to where we are today - they helped us tweak our idea and made it better…the networking, support and contacts have been incredible.”

New Wave offers UNSW students, staff and alumni who identify as women, at any stage of their journey, access to skills-building workshops, expert masterclasses, and industry-leading mentors to form, refine and test their startup ideas. The next two-week program kicks off on August 29 and applications close Sunday, August 21.

Moitri is the latest in a line of AGSM alumni to take out the New Wave pitch showcase top prize, following in the footsteps of toGET founder Cindi Shaw, Ample Folk (formerly Club Melon) founder Holly Richards and Givvable co-founder Frances.

According to Moitri, her studies, in addition to New Wave served as the perfect entree to beginning her entrepreneurial journey.

She explains: “The MBA helped me so much in that there were parts of the degree where if you had an idea, you could explore what you need to do to get that idea up and running.

“From the governance, to people, processes, and all aspects of building a business.

Givvable’s Frances Atkins (right) with co-found Naomi Vowels

“I knew my MBA was coming to an end and I was deciding if I look at career advancement or stay where I am and pursue something in parallel and that’s where New Wave came at the perfect time. I never thought I would start a business just three months before New Wave. I would never have started a business - it’s a combination of both the MBA and the New Wave program which led to this.”

Moitri discovered New Wave through AGSM student internal communications and was quick to sign up.

“It was a manageable commitment with work and everything else I had going on, and it was free, so I thought, ‘why not try it’,” she says.

Meanwhile, Kaniska came to New Wave after receiving an email circulated in the UNSW department, she works in.

“I wanted to start a business many years ago and this seemed like the perfect opportunity, I thought, maybe now I’m ready,” she recalls.

Both women are now juggling full-time work with bootstrapping Door to Future and are keen to apply for UNSW Founders’ flagship program the 10x Accelerator next year.

For more information on New Wave or to apply to be a part of Cohort 10, click here (applications close Sunday, August 21).

Register your interest with Door to Future as a Start-up or Student, here.