PODCAST · technology
Platform Diaries with Shane Williams
by Shane Williams
Shane Williams chews the fat with entrepreneurs, start-up founders and thought leaders on what it takes to successfully adopt SaaS platforms into your growing business and how traverse the wall between start-up and scale-up.More: https://www.shanewilliams.com.au/
Episodes
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The Platform Owner's Guidebook - The un-Audio book.
Bonnie and Clyde delve into my first book 'The Platform Owner's Guidebook' uncovering key themes and practical tips on mastering platform ownership. This episode covers navigating enterprise software like CRMs and ERPs, and highlights the critical role of a platform owner akin to a ship's…
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Mastering Organic Growth with Nathanael Small
In this special "lost episode" of Platform Diaries, host Shane Williams sits down with Nathanael Small, Leadership Adviser and Founder of Work2Live, to explore the art of sustainable business growth. Recorded in August 2022 this episode is packed with timeless insights on how founders can scale...
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The price is right – finding buyers for your business and securing the best deal
You’ve scaled your business and its time to sell; how do you find the right buyers and get the best price? Lowell Ricklefs has decades of experience in selling B2B SaaS businesses; both as an entrepreneur and as an M&A advisor. Lowell shares some of the common mistakes to avoid as well as his...
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Avoiding a down round in a bear market
Few founders or investors like the prospect of devaluing a business; but with market sentiment cooling how do you raise enough to continue to run and grow the business while avoiding a down round? Melissa Widner, CEO at Lighter Capital, is an experienced entrepreneur and investor who has lived…
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Scaling your sales capability – how to shift sales culture to unlock growth
You’re a founder who’s hired a bunch of sellers to help you drive revenue, but the business is still overly reliant on your ability to sell. How do you successfully scale your sales capability? Mark McInnes, sales capability consultant and founder of Sales Development As A Service, shares the...
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Sustainable high-growth businesses must have an eye on margins
If you’re going to scale, no matter what kind of business you are in, you need to know how much money it is costing you to deliver each $1 of revenue. Michelle Kvello, Founder and MD of Lantern Partners, discusses why keeping an eye on margin is critical to scalability, what numbers investors…
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A good time not a long time – why it’s critical to get your ESOP right
Motivating employees to join and stay with your business is a challenge. Employee Share Options Plans are increasingly being adopted in Australia but do founders and employees really understand them? Steve Grace, founder and CEO of The Nudge Group, joins us again to try and demystify ESOPs and...
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Making the leap – transforming your team from startup to scaleup
It’s not uncommon for founders to assume their founding team will be with them for the entire journey; but the reality is that some people move on, and others hang around that shouldn’t. Steve Grace, founder and CEO of The Nudge Group, shares the lessons from his three businesses about how to...
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Scaling your engineering team – how to successfully leverage offshore talent
Australia is experiencing record employment rates. The competition to secure the best software engineering folks is pushing salaries out of reach for many scaling businesses. Aidan Scott, co-founder of Resync Digital, shares his perspective on how to successfully and cost effectively leverage...
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Demystifying startup investment and securing your next raise
In Australia there’s a lot of investment terminology that’s perhaps misused or open to interpretation. Cam Walshe Co-founder and MD of Pitch VC sheds some light on what the investment round terminology really means, how he helped Mr Yum with their US$65m Series A, what investors look for in a...
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Dealing with brilliant jerks – how to have a difficult conversation
They say the behaviour you walk past is the behaviour you accept. But performance and behaviour conversations are difficult, especially in growing teams. Damien Gooden, CEO of HR Central, shares his perspectives on how to approach difficult conversations (and what might happen if you don’t)....
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Investor updates – turning obligation into opportunity – tips from a Silicon Valley capital raising pro
You have a fiduciary obligation to keep your investors updated; but it doesn’t need to be a chore. Nathan Beckord has spent his 20-year career raising capital for startups. He shares his tips on how to use your investor updates as marketing that makes subsequent rounds seamless, and the secrets…
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Growing your startup business despite a market downturn
Description: Not since the dotcom boom and the GFC have we seen such significant headwinds for startup growth; but in every disruption, there exists opportunity. Alastair Blenkin, Founder and CEO of ProcurePro, discusses how macroeconomic factors are impacting both tech startups and the...
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How successful B2B scaleup founders prepare for crisis
Cyber-attacks, ransomware, phishing – any of these could be targeted at your business or at your customers via your business. How do you respond? Grant Chisnall is a crisis advisor who guides leaders through events like cyber-attacks, major outages, product recalls, pandemics and natural…
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A solid foundation for rapid growth and scale
You’ve taken your business to a position where it’s ready for major investment from outside. But, are you ready? Shane Williams has seen common mistakes of start-ups looking to scale-up, the least of which is not having the right technology systems and foundations in place to get there. Shane’s...
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Busting the myths about startup investment
Is there more than one path to getting investment for your startup? How do you, as an investor in your own business, ensure a solid return? Jordan Green, serial entrepreneur, and a founder of Melbourne Angels discusses the options and consequences for startup funding and tips for founders to...
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When and who should founders turn to for help?
In the early stages of a start-up, the founder and early team wear many hats, but as the business scales we often need to call in the experts. Seb Poole, co-founder and CEO of Frankie Health, shares his perspective on how to identify when you need help and how to make sure you find the right...
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Striking a balance between vision and commerciality
When the vision that drives a founder to create their start-up isn’t serving the market, how should they respond? Craig Crowther CEO at Cahoot Learning shares his insights into how to strike a balance between achieving your vision and adapting to the market when scaling up. Craig’s LinkedIn:...
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The secrets to a foolproof funding pitch
Getting your pitch right can be the difference between changing the world and getting lost in the cracks. Ferdi Reynolds is an entrepreneur, founder and investor with SuperSeed ventures who shares the inside word on what investors look for in a pitch, the common mistakes founders make, and the...
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Legendary founders and the importance of people strategy in scaleups
What differentiates a legendary founder? Mary Butler is a people strategy expert who specialises in enabling founders and scaleups to build legendary leadership capability. We discuss the importance of people strategy, how to identify if you’re a legend or a liability, and the 4 Rs that enable...
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Leveraging platforms to enable your start-up to scale
Building a scalable product and proving the market is difficult, but scaling a business is harder. Whilst start-ups are often proudly scrappy, it takes a whole new level of maturity to achieve scale. Nigel Dalton, once described as the godfather of Agile in Australia, is a social scientist in the...
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Navigating privacy – how to win in a changing ecomm landscape
More than ever before, the focus of scale-ups on their data privacy posture is critical. With the increasing demands of regulators to secure personal data, the increased awareness of consumers about the privacy and the death of 3rd party cookies many businesses conducting ecommerce are struggling...
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How improved ways of working unlock scale in software engineering teams
There’s any number of theories on how to scale engineering, but only those who’ve been on the journey can truly tell what works and where to tread lightly. Chris Venter CTO at REA Group shares his experiences on scaling engineering teams beyond Dunbar’s number and how to enable both flow and...
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Human-centred Agile Organisational design
Jamie Pride is founder of ‘humanly agile’ and author of ‘Unicorn Tears: Why Startups Fail & How To Avoid It’. Former CEO of realestate.com.au, Jamie shares his perspectives on how scale-ups should approach organisational design learned from his 20 years across consulting, founding of six…
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Implementing Complex Systems
Recorded in November 2020 as research for the book that would become ‘The Platform Owner’s Guidebook’ Nigel Dalton social scientist, AI thought leader and the ‘Godfather of Agile’ shares his experiences of implementing complex systems. Platform Owner’s Guidebook:...
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Demand & Delivery
Recorded in October 2020 as research for the book that would become ‘The Platform Owner’s Guidebook’, Mike Kasparian is CIO at Forrester Research shares his insights into the importance of governance and demand management to successfully deliver and support a customer-obsessed technology vision &...
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Sustaining high performance in platform teams (Re-release)
Just like professional athletes, platform teams are expected to continually and consistently produce exceptional results. Is the secret to a perpetual A-Game hidden in martial arts? Frank Cuiuli, CEO of 8Squad, talks about how he combines martial arts and neurophysics to sustain high performance...
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Storytelling – the superpower that unlocks investment and transformation
It’s not always the best idea that wins. Often, it all depends who has the best told story that captures the hearts and minds of stakeholders. Brooke Bainbridge, Business Development & Digital Transformation Manager at Castrol, shares her own story from growing up in the public bar in regional...
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From Start-up to Scale-up Part 2 - How Xero reimagined its ways of working to enable hyper-growth
Part 2 of 2 in a series on organisational design. When start-up’s mature they experience the growing pains of success. Those who successfully achieve hyper-growth realise what got them this far won’t scale, and so they adapt. Xero is one such organisation. Founded in Wellington NZ in 2006, it is...
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From Start-up to Scale-up Part 1 – Engineering for success, how platform teams play their part in a large technology business
Part 1 of 2 in a series on organisational design. Jason van Lint, Head of Delivery at Flybuys (Loyalty Pacific) knows the struggle and satisfaction of building high performing platform teams in large technology businesses. We discuss the recent changes being introduced at Flybuys and Jason’s...
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Mergers and Acquisitions – What does it mean for platforms and teams?
M&A activity creates both uncertainty and opportunity for businesses and platform teams. Nadia Herriott, Separation Stream Lead at Trustpower, shares some of the lessons from the trenches as she and her team navigate their way through a project to separate and then merge their retail business…
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Data driven decision and predictive analytics? Na, I’ll stick with my spreadsheet
Many organisations attempt to drive value through data visualisation and reporting and yet end up never getting away from their individual spreadsheets. Mark Tossell, CIO and Principal Consultant at Visioneer360 share’s his insights into what it takes to unlock data insights and truly drive...
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Standing on the shoulders of giants – building platforms supported by platforms
Rolf Krolke and his team build platform software that provides investigative analysis capabilities for organisations across the globe. Underpinning this platform is a raft of PaaS products that provide the foundation on which the business operates. But it wasn’t always this way. Rolf shares his...
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Getting the most from your partner relationship – Part 4
This is the fourth of a multipart series on selecting and working with System Integration Partners. Philip Moon, Senior Manager of ERP at REA Group shares his experience in selecting platforms and partners as well as his insights into blending your partner and internal teams, being clear on...
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Getting the most from your partner relationship – Part 3
This is third of a multipart series on selecting and working with System Integration Partners. Matt Owens, Director of Sales & Marketing at Annexa shares a boutique partners perspective on how to approach potential partners and how to minimise effort but maximise value from the RFP process.…
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Getting the most from your partner relationship – Part 2
This is the second of a multipart series on selecting and working with System Integration Partners. Brendan Connolly, Head of Technology Sales @ Accenture ANZ shares a fresh approach to an RFP process, some tips on empowering your procurement team, and the benefits of collaborating on…
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Getting the most from your partner relationship – Part 1
The first of a multipart series on selecting and working with System Integration Partners. Lee Tsiamis, associate partner at IBM, shares a rare insight into the SI’s perspective on partnership. We discuss the RFP process, how SI’s juggle client objectives with their sales targets, new approaches…
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Speed to value – using platforms to realise value sooner
Digital transformation projects seem to be increasing in time and complexity, but in the post pandemic world, business leaders can afford little time to realise value. Paul Jackson of Sayers Group is a man on a mission to buck the trend. We discuss how organisations can adopt a platform strategy...
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They’re going to find you out! – Tackling Imposter Syndrome
“That person is capable of so much more”, “I just got lucky”, or “I shouldn’t be here” - These are the manifestations of the Imposter Complex; that voice in your head that lets you believe you aren’t good enough. Jen Brown shares her expertise on how the imposter complex plays out in both...
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Sustaining high performance in platform teams – avoiding burnout
We often hear “people are our most important asset”, yet frequently leaders and organisations will rely on an EAP program to deal with the fallout of stress rather than catch it early. Mark Butler is a mental health expert and strategist who helps organisations build capability in their teams to...
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Platform Governance: A practical approach
Governance – it can bring on fear and loathing but it doesn’t need to. Rob Pickering, GM of Technology at the AFL, offers a unique perspective on how to right-size governance for your context. We explore Rob’s perspectives and recommendations derived from decades of multi geography experience in...
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Marketing Technology: What it takes to be a great platform leader in Martech
Marketing technology (martech) is a rapidly evolving technology space. Nerida Cook, Director of Marketing, Data and Technology at Deloitte Digital shares her perspectives on building high-performing martech teams and how rapid changes in technology mean even the experts need to challenge their…
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Business Transformation Part 2: the key to success is your executive relationships
A whole of business transformation can be a long, complex and expensive process – but there’s a few critical must-do’s to ensure success. Mark Geraghty, Executive General Manager of Membership at RACV shares the lessons from their 3-year transformation journey and his tips for navigating the…
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Business Transformation Part 1: it’s hard work but the rewards are worth it!
Business transformation is hard work, especially if we lead with technology and forget the people. Rebekah Vesali, Transformation Implementation Director at WorkSafe Victoria, shares her experiences starting and recovering transformation programs and how she leverages her passion for people,...
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Diversity of thought – how tech and non-tech experience is equally as valuable in a platform team
Gavin Diamond MD of Box.com shares his career story to emphasise the non-linear nature of careers in the platform space. Gavin also discusses with host Shane Williams the concept of micro-credentialing, and how education is going through a revolution that is unlocking the power of diversity to...
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From purpose to action – the power of culture?
Highly autonomous multi-disciplinary teams working towards a clear shared purpose – is this the utopia of high-performance platform capability? Rory Fitzpatrick, MD of Service-Now Elite partner CloudGo, is an entrepreneur who has built and led high-performing teams across Asia and the Pacific.…
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Employee value proposition - Why would anyone work for you?
With so many exciting roles and organisations to choose from, what set’s your team apart from the rest? How will you attract and retain the right talent and IP in a competitive market? Ben Duncombe founder of Salesforce Recruitment firm Talent Hub discusses employee value proposition. Talent Hub…
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Adoption – a vendor’s perspective
Is your gym membership ‘expensive’ or a good investment in your health? Getting value from your platform investment is often hinged on how well and often it’s used. Andrew Price, Director of Product Management for Tableau Cloud at Salesforce, discusses the complexities of platform adoption and...
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Life at the top – becoming a Salesforce celebrity
Platform vendors have millions of customers but only a handful become their keynote clients. Rudi Khoury and Fisher & Paykel appliances are one such success story. Rudi discusses their journey from a small platform investment to a multi-cloud platform play serving customers globally across…
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Architecture? But it’s out of the box!
You’ve heard terms like ‘no-code’ and ‘low-code’ used to describe SaaS platforms. So, surely, concepts like ‘architecture’ have joined VHS and rotary dial phones, right? Steve Baines, CEO of Forcivity and Salesforce Certified Architect, discusses the criticality of good architecture principles…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Shane Williams chews the fat with entrepreneurs, start-up founders and thought leaders on what it takes to successfully adopt SaaS platforms into your growing business and how traverse the wall between start-up and scale-up.More: https://www.shanewilliams.com.au/
HOSTED BY
Shane Williams
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Platform Diaries with Shane Williams have?
Platform Diaries with Shane Williams currently has 52 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Platform Diaries with Shane Williams about?
Shane Williams chews the fat with entrepreneurs, start-up founders and thought leaders on what it takes to successfully adopt SaaS platforms into your growing business and how traverse the wall between start-up and scale-up.More: https://www.shanewilliams.com.au/
How often does Platform Diaries with Shane Williams release new episodes?
Platform Diaries with Shane Williams has 52 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Platform Diaries with Shane Williams?
You can listen to Platform Diaries with Shane Williams on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Platform Diaries with Shane Williams?
Platform Diaries with Shane Williams is created and hosted by Shane Williams.
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