The Startup Playbook Podcast

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep220 – Adam Ewart (Co-founder & CEO – Send My Bag) on bootstrapping Send My Bag from a uni side project to global service September 25, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep220 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Adam Ewart, the Co-founder & CEO of Send My Bag. Send My Bag is the international luggage shipping and relocation platform used by travellers and businesses around the world. Adam’s story is a fascinating one. From building a global company out of a small town in Northern Ireland, to turning PR into a powerful growth engine, to deliberately bootstrapping even when VCs came knocking, his journey is full of practical lessons and hard-earned insights. In this episode we dive into: How he turned PR into one of his biggest growth drivers Why he chose to bootstrap despite inbound investor interest The challenges and opportunities of building a large global business out of Belfast Timestamps: 00:02:15 Adam’s early entrepreneurial roots and family business influences 00:07:00 Why Adam never wanted a traditional job 00:08:10 Using part-time wages and student loan to fund ventures 00:10:45 First experiments: Middleman Mobiles and FillAJob.com 00:13:30 The idea for Send My Bag 00:18:20 First customers: student shipping during summer holidays 00:27:00 From domestic student shipping to international expansion 00:29:00 Spotting the airline baggage fee opportunity and PR growth 00:34:00 Leveraging free publicity: Dragons’ Den appearance 00:40:15 Expanding into the U.S. market and securing media coverage 00:45:30 Building Send My Bag into a relocation and global logistics service 00:52:00 Lessons learned on scaling, growth and resilience Our partners: A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator Adam’s links: Send My Bag Adam on Twitter/X People mentioned: Grant Carmichael Companies mentioned: FillAJob.com (no longer active) Dragons’ Den (BBC) American Airlines Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep220_-_Adam_Ewart.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep220 – Adam Ewart (Co-founder & CEO – Send My Bag) on bootstrapping Send My Bag from a uni side project to global service appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep219 – Stirling Mortlock (Co-founder – XV Capital) on the journey from Wallabies Captain to Sports-Tech Investor August 28, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep219 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Stirling Mortlock. Stirling is one of Australia’s greatest ever Rugby players. He’s a former Wallabies Captain, World Cup player, and one of the few players to score over 1,000 points in Super Rugby. But his story goes well beyond the field. After retiring, he’s built a career as a founder and investor.  Today, he’s the Co-founder of XV Capital, where he’s backing the next generation of sports-tech and performance-led startups. In this episode we dive into: Lessons from professional rugby and how he’s applied them to his career post sport The rhythms & role clarity behind high-performance teams A resilience playbook: “feed the good wolf” through injuries & setbacks Where sports-tech is heading And much more! I’m also excited to announce that Stirling will be joining The Komo Club as a speaker for Cohort 2. The program is the world’s first human accelerator, designed to help high performing founders and executives implement the right system and frameworks to help them succeed in business and all areas of their life. You can find out more at thekomoclub.com Timestamps: 00:02:15 Career arc: Brumbies mainstay, two World Cups, captaincy at Brumbies/Wallabies/Rebels, transition to life after rugby. 00:07:08 Obsession with sport, MJ as childhood idol, and setting audacious goals back in Year 11. 00:09:31 Overlooked early, late physical growth, and training like a pro at uni: why hard work fast-tracked selection. 00:12:07 “Outliers” & relative age: flipping a potential disadvantage into a slingshot advantage. 00:15:00 Seizing rep opportunities: NSW Country vs City, shadow call-up 00:18:44 Keeping belief amid uncertainty: mentors and the power of goal-setting. 00:27:26 Inside high-performance teams: weekly rhythm, role clarity, and leveraging strengths under pressure. 00:30:24 Captaincy lessons: delegate to strengths and always do your job lead by example. 00:32:28 Turning ADHD into a superpower; creating environments where people operate at their “optimal frequency.” 00:48:37 Future of Sports-Tech 00:59:38 15 operations & the “feed the good wolf” framework for setbacks; silver linings during rehab. Our partners: A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator Stirling’s links: Stirling on LinkedIn XV Capital People mentioned: James Godfrey Gordon Ogilvy Mark Davis Phil Waugh Jeremy Mortlock Chris Malone Andrew Walker Tim Horan Jason Little George Gregan Stephen Larkham Joe Roff Chuck Carter Mel Brown Companies & Organisations mentioned: Prevent Biometrics ACT Brumbies    Melbourne Rebels Wallabies (Rugby Australia) Gordon Rugby Club Rugby Australia Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) British & Irish Lions Resources mentioned: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep219_-_Stirling_Mortlock.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep219 – Stirling Mortlock (Co-founder – XV Capital) on the journey from Wallabies Captain to Sports-Tech Investor appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep218 – Nipun Mehra (Co-founder & CEO – Ula) On Ula’s hypergrowth, Bezos backing & the hard call to shut down August 7, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep218 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Nipun Mehra. Nipun has had an incredible track record in his career. At Amazon he launched their first ever real time inventory management system, was an early team member at Flipkart helping build and scale one of India’s most successful and iconic startups before joining Sequoia India as an investor. In 2020, he Co-founded Ula, a B2B e-commerce platform that set out to modernise retail supply chains for millions of small businesses starting in Indonesia. Ula quickly become one of South East Asia’s fastest growing startups. They went from $0 to $300M in revenue within 2 years. Ola also raised over $140M from leading investors including Sequoia, Lightspeed, Tencent and even raised capital from Jeff Bezos himself, his first investment into this part of the world. But in a candid and deeply honest conversation, Nipun shares – for the first time publicly – the full story of what happened behind the scenes from Ula when he decided to shut down the company and return the remaining capital to investors. From hypergrowth to hard calls, this episode dives into the reality of building a company at scale and the weight of leadership at challenging times. In this episode we cover: Nipun’s lessons from his time with Amazon, Flipkart and Sequoia The hypergrowth journey behind Ula Why he decided to shut down Ula and return the capital vs find another path Coming to terms with the ups and downs of the journey & much more I’m also excited to announce that Nipun will be joining The Komo Club as a speaker for Cohort 2. The program is the world’s first human accelerator, designed to help high performing founders and executives implement the right system and frameworks to help them succeed in business and all areas of their life. You can find out more at thekomoclub.com Timestamps: 00:03:08 Nipun’s background: Early entrepreneurial drive 00:07:00 College startup attempts and discovering India’s nascent internet scene 00:14:47 What Amazon & Flipkart taught him about audacious targets and culture 00:20:38 How to set “aggressive but achievable” goals without crossing into folly 00:29:23 Why Indonesia? The leap of faith that launched Ula in Southeast Asia 00:38:37 Securing Jeff Bezos’ first SEA investment and the six-page memo that closed the deal 00:41:31 Scaling to ~US $300 M GMV in two years during COVID 00:43:20 The decision to shut down Ula and return the remaining capital to investors 00:55:13 Lessons on investor alignment 01:04:45 Nipun’s new venture, lessons from Ula he’s applying Our partners: Thank you to Karl Noronha, Ganesh Rengaswamy and Prithvi Rajaram for their help with research for this interview! A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator Nipun’s links: Nipun on LinkedIn People mentioned: Jeff Bezos Larry Page Marissa Mayer Elon Musk Karl Noronha Ganesh Rengaswamy Prithvi Rajaram Companies mentioned: Ula Amazon Flipkart PhonePe Sequoia Capital India / Peak XV Partners Lightspeed Venture Partners Boston Consulting Group Tiger Global Tencent Prosus Bezos Expeditions Udaan Shopee Mercado Libre Coupang Google Meta Reliance Jio Reliance Industries Gojek Tokopedia Playbook Ventures Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep218_-_Nipun_Mehra.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep218 – Nipun Mehra (Co-founder & CEO – Ula) On Ula’s hypergrowth, Bezos backing & the hard call to shut down appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep217 – Dr Steven Lu (Co-founder & CMO – Everlab) on building the future of preventative health July 24, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep217 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Dr. Steven Lu. Dr. Steven Lu is the Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Everlab, Australia’s leading preventative health and longevity startups. With over 15 years of clinical experience, Steven specialised in the prevention and management of complex medical conditions including heart attacks and strokes. After years of treating late-stage illness, he shifted focus to building a proactive model of healthcare, one that empowers people to catch risks early and take control of their long-term health. That idea became Everlab. Since launching, Everlab has scaled rapidly across Australia, combining full-body diagnostics, personalised blood testing, and AI-driven insights to make preventative healthcare more accessible and actionable. The company recently closed a $15M AUD Seed round led by New York based Left Lane Capital. I was proud to continue backing Steven and the Everlab team through Playbook Ventures in this latest round. In addition to our investment, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Steven through The Komo Club, where he’s a featured speaker in both Cohort 1 and 2. The Komo Club has also partnered with Everlab who support our members directly with DEXA scans, blood testing, and 1:1 medical consultations as part of their cohort experience. In this episode, we discuss: Steven’s transition from private practice to founding Everlab The shortcomings of traditional healthcare and Everlab’s approach to solving them The key health pillars every founder should build into their routine How Steven manages his own health and family life while scaling a startup Lessons from building a high-performance team in a highly regulated industry & much more Timestamps: 00:02:13 Steven explains his transition from ICU and private practice to preventative medicine 00:04:31 Migrant childhood between China and Australia builds empathy and listening skills 00:14:00 Night‑shift epiphany in ICU: “we could save more lives by intervening earlier” 00:29:45 Meeting Sam Kothari and transitioning from a boutique practice into a scalable startup  00:51:22 The three pillars: nutrition, movement, rest. Which is the highest‑ROI starting point 00:58:54 Chronic sleep debt in startup life, how to measure sleep quality with objective, subjective and behavioural data 01:09:48 Dangers of visceral fat and how to reduce it 01:30:00 Seed round validation: 40,000+ biomarker data points show significant member gains 01:34:25 Balancing a high‑growth mission with fatherhood: savoring scarce moments with kids  Our partners: Thank you to Sam Kothari, Chai Ng and Kelly Huang for their help with research for this interview! A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator Steven’s links: Steven on LinkedIn Everlab People mentioned: Sam Kothari Chai Ng Bryan Johnson Alexandra Zatarain Companies mentioned: Playbook Ventures Eight Sleep Whoop Oura Fitbit Ramsay Health Care Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep217_-_Dr_Steven_Lu.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep217 – Dr Steven Lu (Co-founder & CMO – Everlab) on building the future of preventative health appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep216 – Chris Withers (Founder & CEO – Klikit) on lessons from Uber & Gojek, beating cancer & solving hard problems July 18, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast, Uncategorized My guest for Ep216 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Chris Withers. This week marks 9 years of The Startup Playbook Podcast. What started as a side project in 2015 has now become a platform that’s shared the stories of 200+ founders, investors, and operators — and I’m so grateful to all of you who’ve tuned in, shared episodes, and supported the show along the way. To mark the milestone, I couldn’t have asked for a better guest than Chris Withers, the Founder & CEO of Klikit, a platform helping merchants grow revenue, cut costs, and streamline operations through a powerful all-in-one operating system. Before founding Klikit, Chris was part of the early Uber team in Australia & NZ, helped scale Uber Eats across Asia, and later became VP of Global Mobility at GoJek, giving him a front-row seat to some of the world’s most intense high-growth environments. Chris is also someone I’ve personally backed through Playbook Ventures. Beyond the complexity of building in Southeast Asia, what’s inspired me most is his resilience, including his fight through a cancer diagnosis just months after raising capital as a solo founder. In this episode, we dive into: The high performance cultures at Uber and Gojek and what Chris took away from each Why hard problems are worth solving His battle with cancer and what it taught him about leadership, health, and grit The realities and misconceptions about the Southeast Asian market And much more! Timestamps: 00:02:15 Chris’ background, accidental entry into Uber via a “mechanics yard” interview in Brisbane 00:04:26 Jumping to Uber Eats APAC: contrarian career move that paid off 00:07:10 Chris explains “second-order thinking” and calculated risk-taking 00:11:56 Lessons from Uber 1.0’s boundary-pushing culture of ownership 00:15:00 Inside Gojek: mission, patriotism and Nadiem Makarim’s “Pasti Ada Jalan” mantra 00:20:21 Genesis of klikit: running six virtual brands in one kitchen to test a thesis 00:24:58 Building the “pipes and rails” before the creator-commerce vision 00:29:51 Shipping fast and moving with speed 00:33:24 Going multi-region early; why Southeast Asia forces breadth and depth 00:38:26 Facing cancer diagnosis while running a venture backed startup 00:56:04 eFishery fraud fallout and Chris’s plea not to write off Asian tech Our partners: A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator Chris’ links: Chris on LinkedIn Klikit People mentioned: Travis Kalanick Paul Santos Nadiem Makarim Daniel Kahneman – Thinking Fast & Slow Jeff Bezos Ray Kroc Ben Dunphy Companies mentioned: Uber UberEats Gojek Grab Playbook Ventures TikTok Shop Shopee Lazada Amazon Google MrBeast Burger eFishery Wavemaker Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep216_-_Chris_Withers.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep216 – Chris Withers (Founder & CEO – Klikit) on lessons from Uber & Gojek, beating cancer & solving hard problems appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep215 – Ben Dunphy (Co-founder & Partner – January Capital) on data-driven VC & leveraging both equity & credit for growth July 10, 2025 rohitbhargava Uncategorized My guest for Ep215 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Ben Dunphy. Ben is the Co-Founder and Partner of January Capital, a VC fund that invests in early stage high growth startups in the Asia Pacific region. They also run an $85M growth credit fund, offering scale-stage companies access to non-dilutive capital. I first had Ben on the show back in October 2016 and nearly a decade later, we revisit the journey and dive into:  What’s changed and what hasn’t in early stage investing How January Capital is bridging the gap between equity and debt-based financing in an innovative model The opportunities in Southeast Asia And much more! Timestamps: 00:01:17 Ben’s background: Australia-born, now leading January Capital in Singapore 00:03:16 What’s remained constant vs. what’s changed in nine years of APAC venture 00:05:26 Proving billion-dollar outcomes outside Silicon Valley and the AI paradigm shift 00:09:03 Founding January Capital: spotting gaps and launching with three partners 00:12:41 Why (and when) startups should diversify into credit alongside equity 00:19:21 Misconceptions about “one big Southeast Asia market” and the B2B focus 00:24:07 January’s data-driven deal-sourcing engine and composite talent scoring 00:27:53 Signals of exceptional founders 00:31:00 Advice on timing investor outreach and the benefits of month-long rapport-building 00:39:04 Case study: William Li’s whiteboard pitch for Akulaku and the power of clarity Our partners: Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator Ben’s links: Ben on LinkedIn January Capital People mentioned: Jonathan Hodson Jason Edwards William Li Companies mentioned: Akulaku ShopBack TikTok Blue Sky Venture Capital Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep215_-_Ben_Dunphy.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep215 – Ben Dunphy (Co-founder & Partner – January Capital) on data-driven VC & leveraging both equity & credit for growth appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep214 – Pan Koutlakis (Co-founder & CEO – EatClub) on rebuilding EatClub from $0 revenue to global expansion after COVID July 3, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep214 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Pan Koutlakis. Pan is the Co-Founder and CEO of EatClub, a platform that uses dynamic pricing to help restaurants fill empty tables during off-peak hours, while passing on great deals to diners. EatClub saw remarkable growth early on, but like many in the industry, the business came to a standstill when COVID hit, with revenue dropping to zero overnight. Pan responded by drastically downsizing overheads, restructuring the company, and rebuilding momentum recently leading the business to secure an impressive $18.2 million Series A round. In this episode we covered a variety of topics including:  How he convinced industry heavyweight Marco Pierre White to come on board Navigating the uncertainty of COVID The power of setting ambitious targets Frameworks for making strategic long-term bets And much more! Timestamps: 00:01:10  Pan’s Adelaide upbringing, law-and-economics studies & first jobs in hospitality 00:08:41  Joining Rocket Internet’s ‘Suppertime’ and witnessing growth-at-all-costs firsthand 00:10:17  Founding EatClub 00:13:08  Cold-emailing Marco Pierre White, why the celebrity chef came on board 00:16:12  Structuring deals with celebrities 00:22:22  Signing the very first restaurant (on the first cold-call) and refining the MVP 00:27:58  EVP’s initial pass, eventual investment and the overnight COVID revenue crash 00:56:15  Tough cuts, shutdown of U.S. ops, and doubling-down on R&D during lockdown 00:39:32  Founder/Investor relationship 00:47:58  How he thinks about product roadmap and what features to build 00:55:07  Post-pandemic rebound, UK market entry & closing the $18.2 M Series A Our partners: A big thank you to Dan Szekely, Jonte Shaw and David Hodges for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator Pan’s links: Pan on LinkedIn EatClub People mentioned: Marco Pierre White David Berger Ben Tyler Matt Cantelo Daniel Szekely Jamie Oliver Gordon Ramsay Dan Szekely Jonte Shaw David Hodges Companies mentioned: EatClub EVP Suppertime Foodora Delivery Hero Rocket Internet Menulog Groupon Uber Eats Mastercard Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep214_-_Pan_Koutlakis.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep214 – Pan Koutlakis (Co-founder & CEO – EatClub) on rebuilding EatClub from $0 revenue to global expansion after COVID appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep213 – Rob Phillpot (Co-founder – Aconex) on scaling Aconex to a $1.6B exit and launching a $50M founders fund June 27, 2025 rohitbhargava Uncategorized My guest for Ep213 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Rob Phillpot. Rob and his co-founder Leigh Jasper have played a huge part in shaping Australia’s tech landscape, building Aconex into one of the country’s most iconic companies, taking it public in 2014 and ultimately selling it to Oracle in 2017 for $1.6 billion. Since then, Rob has dedicated his time to advising startups, supporting philanthropy, and investing through his family office, Gravel Road Ventures. Most recently, Rob, Leigh Jasper, and A Cloud Guru founder Sam Kroonenberg teamed up to launch Glitch Capital, a $50 million founders fund backing the next generation of global tech companies. In this episode, we cover a lot of ground, including: Aconex’s journey to a $1.6B exit and overcoming multiple near-death experiences What it was like to sell a company when he didn’t want to Why advising founders is 20% strategy and 80% psychology The secrets behind building a high-performance culture Balancing big ambitions with family life What Glitch Capital looks for when backing startups And so much more. Timestamps: 00:01:50 Rob’s background 00:06:27 Meeting Leigh Jasper: did school-friends always know they’d start a company together?   00:09:15 Switching tracks: advice for people stuck in a career they don’t love 00:11:07 Startup ecosystem in 2000 and the early days of Aconex 00:13:46 Staying positive: how did Rob and Leigh keep morale when things looked bleak?   00:18:22 Strength in vulnerability 00:21:58 Cultivating Aconex’s culture and common founder mistakes 00:37:58 The real story of the Aconex sale 00:43:13 Life after the exit: what did stepping away from Aconex feel like?   00:49:48 What Rob looks for as an investor 00:58:13 80% psychology: common founder struggles Rob sees as an advisor   01:00:48 Family, fitness and cooking dinner: balancing startup life with home life   01:07:05 Philanthropy focus: why Rob created the Gravel Road Foundation and how he thinks about giving Our partners: A big thank you to Ben Leach, Andrew Barron and Bill Phillpot for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club – Details here Rob’s Links: Rob on LinkedIn Glitch Capital Aconex Gravel Road Foundation Gravel Road Ventures People mentioned: Leigh Jasper Sam Kroonenburg  Ben Leach   Andrew Barron Simon Sinek   Geoff Tarrant  Companies mentioned: Oracle Multiplex McKinsey & Company Amazon Web Services Deloitte A Cloud Guru HammerTech Firmable Payapps Mr Yum Leonardo.AI Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep213_-_Rob_Phillpot.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep213 – Rob Phillpot (Co-founder – Aconex) on scaling Aconex to a $1.6B exit and launching a $50M founders fund appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep212 – Matt Loop (Head of Asia – Rippling) on Leadership, Hiring & Growing Iconic Tech Companies June 19, 2025 rohitbhargava Uncategorized My guest for Ep212 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Matt Loop. There are few people who’ve had as much influence in shaping the tech landscape in this region as Matt. He began his career at Salesforce, where he was one of their earliest hires in Australia, before going on to lead sales at LinkedIn, first in ANZ, then later as Head of Enterprise in North America. After that, he returned to Australia to take on the role of Head of Asia Pacific at Slack, helping the company scale its presence across the region. Today, Matt is the VP and Head of Asia at Rippling, a workforce management platform that’s transforming how businesses manage their people, IT, and operations. Just last month, Rippling announced a $450 million Series G round, valuing the company at $16.8 billion. In this episode, we dive into a range of topics, including: How to build and lead high-performance teams Matt’s approach to hiring and what he looks for in candidates The frameworks he uses to choose which companies to join Balancing a high-impact career with family life And so much more. Timestamps: 00:02:07 Matt’s career arc: Salesforce, LinkedIn, Slack, Rippling 00:08:45 Building Salesforce APAC 00:12:29 GTM Advice to founders 00:16:48 Leaving Salesforce: spotting comfort creep & moving to LinkedIn 00:24:27 Leadership frameworks from all his previous experiences 00:30:15 Cultivating Rippling’s high performance culture 00:35:09 Frameworks for evaluating potential career opportunities 00:46:13 Hiring “good humans” with a growth mindset 00:50:02 Networking and personal branding 00:55:13 Stepping back from the day-to-day and seeing the bigger picture 01:00:10 Finding your own version of balance Our partners: A big thank you to Katrina Loop, James Demetrios and Andrew McCarthy for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club – Details here Matt’s Links: Matt on LinkedIn Rippling People mentioned: Marc Benioff Satya Nadella Mike Gamson Alyssa Merwin Cal Henderson Parker Conrad James Demetrios Andrew McCarthy Companies mentioned: Salesforce LinkedIn Slack Siebel Oracle SAP Microsoft Amazon eBay Notion Atlassian Playbook Ventures Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep212_-_Matt_Loop.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep212 – Matt Loop (Head of Asia – Rippling) on Leadership, Hiring & Growing Iconic Tech Companies appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep211 – Jodie Imam (Co-founder & CEO – Tractor Ventures) on startup exits, scaling with content and life-changing personal systems June 12, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep211 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jodie Imam. Jodie is the Co-founder & CEO of Tractor Ventures, which provides non dilutive capital (between $100,000 – $1.5M) to tech enabled companies. Since launching in 2020, Tractor has deployed nearly $100M, has 230 customers and is tracking at $5M in annual revenue. Prior to this, Jodie was the Co-founder of Occasional Butler which was acquired in 2020. She was also a member of Cohort #1 of the Komo Club, and in this episode we dive into a range of areas including: Lessons from launching, growing and exiting Occasional Butler How she uses content to attract talent and customers to Tractor Ventures Systems and frameworks she utilises to manage a busy schedule between running a high growth business, multiple board seats, and a busy personal life How personal goals created through The Komo Club have had a significant impact on her number one priority in life And much more! Timestamps: 00:01:54  Jodie’s background 00:03:29  How Jodie’s childhood shaped her perspective on life and business 00:05:49 Early career: building Occasional Butler and co-working space Depo8 00:07:39  The decision to go all in on Occasional Butler 00:08:50  What Jodie would do differently second time around with Occasional Butler 00:11:36  How to build credibility as an early stage startup 00:13:47  Selling Occasional Butler to Airtasker while raising two young children 00:18:04  Founding Tractor Ventures with Matt & Aprill 00:21:11  Early days of Tractor Ventures 00:24:10  Challenges with the business, restructuring 00:28:09  Culture design: 4-day workweek, 90-day scorecard & Level-10 meetings 00:30:14  LinkedIn content engine that drives both deal flow and hiring 00:44:09  Personal goals, The Komo Club & intentional parenting 00:54:49  How Jodie structures her day and week Our partners: A big thank you to Olivia Doherty, Andrew Fitzpatrick and Matt Allen for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club – Details here Jodie’s Links: Tractor Ventures Jodie on LinkedIn People mentioned: Tim Fung Matt Allen Aprill Enright Andrew Fitzpatrick Olivia Doherty Dan Siepen Bryan Williams Dean Swan Cameron Falloon Janine Allis Leona Edmiston Companies mentioned: Airtasker TaskRabbit Gumtree SBE Australia Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship University of Melbourne FinTech Australia Private Media SmartCompany Crikey The Mandarin Jim’s Mowing Innovation Bay Amazon Leona Edmiston Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep211_-_Jodie_Imam.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep211 – Jodie Imam (Co-founder & CEO – Tractor Ventures) on startup exits, scaling with content and life-changing personal systems appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep210 – James Fuller (Co-founder & CEO – Hnry) on turning a spreadsheet into platform processing $2.6B May 1, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep210 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was James Fuller. James is the Co-founder & CEO of Hnry. Hnry automates taxes for sole traders, so they never have to think about tax again. The company started from a spreadsheet that James and his wife and Co-founder, Claire, created to solve their own problem. They shared these spreadsheets with friends who passed it on to other friends before realising that there was a real business opportunity underneath these spreadsheets. Today, Hnry has 150 staff across 3 countries, has raised over $60M in funding and processes $2.6B in payments every year in Australia and New Zealand. In this episode, we dive deep into a range of topics including: The advantages that come from being a husband and wife founding team The opportunities and challenges that come from being first to market How the value of fairness is embedded not just into their company culture, but also their pricing strategy How James and Claire have overcome some of the more challenging periods of their business, including times when they’ve both wanted to quit the business And much more! Timestamps: 1:57 James’ background. 3:19 Being co-founders and spouses: pros, cons, and how they navigate disagreements. 12:29 Hnry’s growth over the years: 150 staff, 3 countries, billions of dollars processed. 18:13 Customer led product development, building trust over time, high referral rates and strong NPS as proof points. 22:43 Overcoming traditional industry challenges, educating the market about a “new category” of full-stack service. 32:43 Fairness & Hnry’s Unique Pricing Model. 38:37 Culture & team building across three countries 42:53 Balancing parenthood and startup life Our partners: A big thank you to Karan Anand for his help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club – Details here James’ Links: Hnry James on LinkedIn People mentioned: Claire Fuller Karan Anand Vinny Pujji Companies mentioned: Xero Left Lane Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep210_-_James_Fuller.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep210 – James Fuller (Co-founder & CEO – Hnry) on turning a spreadsheet into platform processing $2.6B appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep209 – Mathew Ellis (Co-founder & CTO – Kismet) on vertical ownership and high performing teams April 3, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep209 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Mat Ellis. This episode is a little special. Not only is it Mat’s first-ever podcast interview, but we’ve also been close friends since grade 7. And many years ago, after months of trying, I finally convinced him to join as one of the co-founders of my first startup, StageLabel. But Mat’s not on the show just because we’re friends. He’s genuinely one of the best engineers in the country. He’s the Co-founder and CTO of Kismet Healthcare, a company tackling the deep inefficiencies in healthcare and disability services. Kismet has seen phenomenal growth in just a short period of time, scaling quickly with a small, high-performing team of 30 – including an engineering team of just five. At Playbook Ventures, we were lucky enough to back Kismet from the pre-seed stage and have had a front-row seat to their incredible growth. In this episode, we unpack some of the principles behind that growth, including: Why smaller teams get more done The 2 core values that make hires successful at Kismet The importance of vertical ownership Why every engineer on Matt’s team spends one day a month on customer support calls And much more. Toward the end of the episode, we also get personal and reflect on the growth we’ve both had across all areas of our lives. Mat’s also a member of Cohort #1 of The Komo Club, where we go deep on these exact themes, exploring how to build not just high-performing businesses, but high-performing lives. If you want to find out more, check out TheKomoClub.com Timestamps: 2:29 Mathew’s background and early interest in software 4:36 Discovering startups and autonomy 7:41 StageLabel and lessons in ownership 9:54 The importance of doing something you like 11:54 Lessons from early in his career that he applies now at Kismet 18:33 Transition to Xplor 23:53 Co-founding Kismet 31:09 Scaling with small, high trust teams, why vertical ownership (end-to-end accountability) drives better outcomes 39:32 Hiring for culture fit at Kismet: humility and ownership and what to look for in technical talent 43:54 Why Kismet does its best to scare people off in interviews 49:25 Overcoming challenges of scale and the sacrifice you make when starting a company 55:31 Personal Growth: From work first to a balanced life, how a holistic approach improves work performance 1:02:50 How Mat has stopped being a passenger in his own life 1:05:40 How taking care of himself properly allows him to perform better at work Our partners: A big thank you to Mark Woodland, Harry Travers and Bejoy Machumpurath for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club – Details here Mathew’s Links: Kismet Mat on LinkedIn Kismet’s email People mentioned: Mark Woodland James Chin-Moody David Goggins Jocko Willink Jason Fried Companies mentioned: StageLabel Department of Defense Lockheed Martin Xplor Playbook Ventures Sendle Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep209_-_Mathew_Ellis.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep209 – Mathew Ellis (Co-founder & CTO – Kismet) on vertical ownership and high performing teams appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep208 – Jane Martino (Co-founder & Chair – Smiling Mind) on founder mental health, mindfulness & multiple exits March 27, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep208 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jane Martino. Jane has had an incredibly successful career as a director, investor, advisor and founder of a number of companies that have successfully exited. She’s best known as the Co-founder & Chair of Smiling Mind, one of the worlds leading mindfulness and mental health tools with over 9.3M downloads and 14M young people reached globally. She now helps individuals reach their maximum potential through her coaching business, Kintsugi Way. In this episode, we cover: Lessons from launching, scaling and exiting several businesses The role of good advisors and board members How to deal with co-founder conflicts How to deal with emotions and stress as a founder And much more. PS we go deep into several important topics in this episode and they are just some of the topics we dive into at The Komo Club. The Komo Club is a private program I’ve launched for high-performing founders, operators and executives who want to win not just in business, but across all areas of life—from health and relationships to personal growth and leadership. It’s an 8-week cohort experience that combines world class content, practical systems and frameworks a curated community to help you reach your goals. And I’m incredibly proud to share that Jane will be joining us as one of the featured guest speakers for the upcoming cohort. She’ll be diving deeper into the frameworks and lessons she’s used to lead with purpose, avoid burnout, and create lasting impact; personally and professionally. If this episode resonates with you, I think you’ll love what Jane will be sharing inside The Komo Club as well. Cohort 1 applications are now open. You can learn more at TheKomoClub.com or by reaching out to me directly at [email protected]. Timestamps: 3:07 Janey’s background 13:49 Founder mental health 18:59 Experience with meditation and practical uses for business 24:27 Communicating with co-founders and colleagues 35:33 How she applied these to the situation at Unlockd 45:40 Thoughts on hustle culture 56:48 How she’s approached being a founder 59:30 Her approach to advisory roles 1:09:58 How she helps co founders decide on the roles they’ll play in the business 1:20:55 The journey with Smiling Mind Our partners: A big thank you to Laura Henshaw and Andrew Duncan for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club – Details & Cohort #1 applications available here Janey’s links: Jane on LinkedIn Kintsugi Way Smiling Mind People mentioned: Rachael Neumann Robin Sharma James Tutton Laura Henshaw Companies mentioned: Unlockd AWS CSIRO Aussie Founders Club Boost Mobile Tesco Mobile Google Kic DiSC profile Headspace Calm Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://youtu.be/JZ9chMylhxA https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep208_-_Jane_Martino.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep208 – Jane Martino (Co-founder & Chair – Smiling Mind) on founder mental health, mindfulness & multiple exits appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep207 – Dean Swan (VP for APJ at Monday.com) on growing Monday.com zero to $100M+ in APJ February 27, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep207 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Vice President and General Manager for Asia-Pacific & Japan at Monday.com, Dean Swan. Dean spent 11 years at Microsoft before becoming the Country Manager for Australia & New Zealand at Dropbox. He’s now the Vice President and General Manager of APJ at Monday.com. When Dean joined Monday.com as the first hire in the region, he set an audacious goal: to grow his part of the business to $100 million in 5 years – an ambitious target considering the entire company was valued at $120 million at the time. Fast forward to today, he’s grown the team to 140 people and is just $2 million shy of that $100 million target – months ahead of schedule. In 2021, Monday.com went public and now boasts a market cap of $15.97 billion. In this episode we covered a variety of topics including:  How to effectively expand into new markets and territories How to hire and attract the best talent How Dean grew the business from zero to $100M in the APJ region The steps he takes to perform at his best, which led to him losing 20kg+ And much more! Timestamps: 3:38 Dean’s background 5:19 Early career experiences as a chef 9:12 Transitioning into technology 11:02 Learnings from 11 years at Microsoft 16:04 How to build culture in a company 21:35 His experience expanding Dropbox and monday.com into other markets 30:58 His own entrepreneurial journey prior to Dropbox & monday.com 38:22 Balancing vision with daily focus 42:18 Why he left Dropbox to help build out monday.com in APJ, early challenges 46:23 How he looks for and attracts talent 52.47 His initial growth plans for monday.com 59:33 Thoughts on AI and how he’s using it personally and at monday.com 1:06:56 The catalyst that made him prioritise his health and lose 20kg Our partners: A big thank you to Greg Walsom help his help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club – Details & Cohort #1 applications available here Dean’s Links: Dean on LinkedIn monday.com People mentioned: Bill Gates Steve Balmer Satya Nadella Roy Mann Eran Zinman Greg Walsom Adam Schwab David Shein Companies mentioned: Microsoft Dropbox Google Hum Technologies Amazon G2 Luxury Escapes Tourism Australia Canva OpenAI Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep207_-_Dean_Swan.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep207 – Dean Swan (VP for APJ at Monday.com) on growing Monday.com zero to $100M+ in APJ appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep206 – Adam Schwab (Co-founder & CEO – Luxury Escapes) on reinventing Luxury Escapes & Scaling to $1B+ GTV February 13, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep206 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Adam Schwab. Adam started his career as a lawyer before transitioning to startups and has had a number of successful businesses, but is best known as the Co-founder & CEO of Luxury Escapes. Luxury Escapes is one of the world’s leading travel brands, revolutionising the way people book luxury getaways. Despite their success, it hasn’t always been a straightforward journey for the company, particularly going through periods such as COVID (an extremely difficult time for all travel businesses) and with Adam stepping away from the CEO role for a period of time. However he stepped back in the role with a renewed vision of the company and has seen the business grow from $350M pre-COVID to now doing over $1B in GTV sales annually. In this episode we covered a variety of topics including: Why Adam no longer looks at acquisitions as a growth strategy Why stepping away from Luxury Escapes made him a 10X better CEO The pivot in the business led to them growing from $350 million GTV to $1 billion+ GTV And much more! Timestamps: 3:05 Adam’s background 7:10 Early entrepreneurial journey, inherent traits and developed skills that helped him 9:39 Lessons from first business 13:14 Initial growth strategies at Luxury Escapes 18:50 Getting sued by Gabby & Hessi and then doing JV deals with them 25:23 Pivoting the business model 29:11 Creating culture and hiring at scale 33:45 Barefoot running 35:14 Understanding the needs of the customer and market 37:33 Leaving Luxury Escapes 43:41 Playing offense instead of defence during COVID as a travel company 48:55 the choice to limit outside funding 50:49 Key business metrics he tracks at Luxury Escapes 52:06 Future plans for Luxury Escapes 55:44 The changes he made coming back to Luxury Escapes after leaving 58:25 Taking care of health 1:00:28 How life priorities shift over time Our partners: A big thank you to Jeremy Sane and Shay Hamama for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club – Details & Cohort #1 applications available here Adam’s Links: Adam’s LinkedIn The Contrarians with Adam and Adir Luxury Escapes People mentioned: Jeremy Same Evan Spiegel Elon Musk Mark Zuckerberg Warren Buffet Mike Sneesby Steve Jobs Gabby Leibovich Hezi Leibovich Mark Hoenig Joshua Landy Chris McDougall Jensen Huang Shay Hamama Campbell McComb  Hamilton Helmer Jeff Bezos Adir Shiffman Companies mentioned: AirBnB OpenTable Groupon Herbert Smith Freehills Nine Microsoft LivingSocial eBay Scoopon Menulog Wesfarmers Catch.com.au Amazon Expedia Trip Auctus Investment Group Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep206_-_Adam_Schwab.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep206 – Adam Schwab (Co-founder & CEO – Luxury Escapes) on reinventing Luxury Escapes & Scaling to $1B+ GTV appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep205 – Damir Cuca (Founder & CEO – Basiq) on building and exiting 2x startups and being a father of six January 30, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep205 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Damir Cuca. From tinkering with toys and electronics and immigrating to Australia as a child without knowing the language to building and exiting two successful businesses, Damir’s career has been a masterclass in determination, resilience and growth. He’s best known as the Founder & CEO of Basiq, an Open Banking platform that offers secure access to consumer financial data. Basiq went on to raise several funding rounds from top-tier strategic investors in the space including Salesforce Ventures, NAB Ventures and Westpac’s Reinventure fund before being acquired by payments giant, Cuscal, in 2023.  How to design a company culture that thrives on competitiveness and performance What the process of acquisition looks like and what it meant for him personally How he balances having an ambitious career with being a husband and a father to six children And much more! Timestamps: 1:28 Damir’s background 10:14 Pivoting from a blue collar path to software engineering 17:49 Building a technical and commercial skill set 25:18 Tips on defining problems to focus on in business 29:34 Moving to Serbia to set up Basiq 37:15 Building the culture at Basiq 41:41 Instilling continuous learning mindset 44:17 When to fight and when to let go 48:56 How he approached fundraising and the acquisition process 54:32 The experience of going through the exit 58:45 How he thinks about raising his 6 kids Our partners: A big thank you to Rohen Sood, Jake Osborne, Victor Leung and Elizabeth Cuca for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: Damir’s links: Damir’s LinkedIn People mentioned: Rohen Sood  Victor Leung Jake Osborne Steve Jobs Companies mentioned: Basiq  Salesforce Ventures NAB Ventures Reinventure Cuscal Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep205_-_Damir_Cuca.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep205 – Damir Cuca (Founder & CEO – Basiq) on building and exiting 2x startups and being a father of six appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep204 – George Hartley (Co-founder & Co-CEO – Bluethumb) on lessons from building a $100M art marketplace January 23, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep204 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was George Hartley. George is the Co-founder & Co-CEO of Bluethumb, Australia’s largest art marketplace. Since its launch in 2012, Bluethumb has grown into the leading art marketplace platform, connecting over 23,000 artists with buyers and selling more than $100 million worth of artwork. In addition to Bluethumb, George was also the Co-founder and CEO of SmartrMail, an email marketing platform designed to help e-commerce businesses delight their customers and boost sales. SmartrMail’s success led to its acquisition by Relay Commerce in 2022, delivering a 5x return to its seed investors. In this episode, George shares insights into: Why Bluethumb waited three years to raise their seed round and why they’ve stayed bootstrapped since The importance of continuously taking risks and experimenting to drive growth The unique challenges and strategies for scaling consumer marketplaces versus SaaS companies Timestamps: 1:49 George’s background 7:30 His journey from music to tech 11:33 How to know when to stick with something vs pivot 15:45 The early days of Bluethumb 19:52 Staying true to your vision despite external noise 24:18 The fundraising journey for Bluethumb 32:03 The SmarterMail journey 38:02 Identifying and hiring talent 45:34 How he thinks about taking risks and running experiments 52:54 US Expansion Our partners: A big thank you to Freddy Grant and Ed Hartley for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: George’s links: George on LinkedIn Bluethumb Bluethumb on Instagram Art in my Home Podcast People mentioned: Steve Jobs Richard Branson Edward Hartley Philip Slusarski Bradford D. Smart – Topgrading Freddy Grant Lorenzo Ghiberti Companies mentioned: Costco Apple SoundCloud Luxury Escapes Zappos Startmate SmartrMail LivingSocial EVP Klayvio Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep204_-_George_Hartley_Bluethumb.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep204 – George Hartley (Co-founder & Co-CEO – Bluethumb) on lessons from building a $100M art marketplace appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep203 – Ben Pfisterer (Co-founder & CEO – Zeller) on becoming the fastest Australian company to achieve unicorn status January 16, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep203 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the Co-founder & CEO of Zeller, Ben Pfisterer. Ben is a returning guest on the show. Our last interview was in August 2020 when Ben had left his role as Country Manager for Square to launch his new company, Zeller, which had just come out of stealth mode to announce their $6.3M funding round. Since then Zeller has become the fastest Australian company to a $1B valuation, reaching that milestone in less than 2 years. Zeller has 85,000 customers, 260 staff and to date has raised $180M in funding from leading investors. In this interview we covered a range of topics including: The challenges that come with scale How raising capital changes from Seed to Series B stage How hiring and company culture evolves as you scale the company Why Ben doesn’t do any one-on-ones with any of his direct reports And much more! Timestamps: 2:06: Ben’s background 7:09: How to find your path in career 8:36: The background of Zeller 11:05: The storytelling aspect of raising capital 15:07: The unexpected challenges that came from taking on the big banks 21:05: How transparent should you be with your company and investors? 23:22: Hiring talents and maintaining culture as you scale 39:19: How he thinks about product at Zeller 47:41: How he’s worked with investors as Zeller grows 56:50: How he structures his time 1:01:21: The horizon theory 1:05:07: The mission and objective with Zeller 1:06:17: How he’s found his own balance with work and life Our partners: A big thank you to Josh McNichol for his with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: Ben’s links: Ben’s LinkedIn Zeller Zeller roles People mentioned: Mark Woodland Dominic Yap Josh McNicol Companies mentioned: Square NAB Siemens Hewlett-Packard Square Peg Capital Kismet Apex Capital Partners Headline Spark Capital Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep203_-_Ben_Pfisterer.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep203 – Ben Pfisterer (Co-founder & CEO – Zeller) on becoming the fastest Australian company to achieve unicorn status appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep202 – Josh Ball (Co-founder – Farmers Pick) on using tech to save 7 million kg of food waste December 19, 2024 rohitbhargava Uncategorized My guest for Ep202 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder of Farmers Pick, Josh Ball. Farmers Pick helps save food waste by rescuing wonky food that is often discarded by supermarkets and making it available to order by consumers. Since launching in 2020, they have saved 7 million kilograms of produce and the company now has 120 employees and generated $16M in revenue last year.  In this interview we covered a range of topics including: The importance of having a strong mission and values to help guide strategic business decisions balancing frugality with 100% YoY growth Why they decided to go down the equity crowdfunding path rather than raising from traditional VC funds Scaling storytelling to both their staff and to their customers And much more! Timestamps: 1:45 Josh’s background 7:12 The origin story of Farmers Pick 12:29 How he validated the initial idea 18:27 The operational complexities of growing a physical goods business 27:52 Finding the balance between focussing on new customers vs expansion of existing customers 29:50 Using social media to grow the brand 31:05 The decision to crowdfund vs raise venture capital 35:29 Negotiation advice 37:41 Making sure the vision/mission stays consistent across whole company as you grow 42:43 Thinking about expansion 48:04 How his role has evolved as the business has grown 54:00 Staying out of the weeds and making strategic decisions 55:40 What’s next for Farmers Pick Our partners: A big thank you to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: Josh’s links: Josh’s LinkedIn Farmers Pick People mentioned: Joshua Brooks-Duncan Simon Griffiths Adrian Osman Companies mentioned: PromisePay Xero Misfits Market Who Gives A Crap MILKRUN Playbook Ventures me&u Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep202_-_Josh_Ball.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep202 – Josh Ball (Co-founder – Farmers Pick) on using tech to save 7 million kg of food waste appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep201 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Cheryl Mack. Cheryl started her journey launching and growing Startcon, which was Australia’s largest startup conference at the time. She’s now involved with a number of different projects including The Pillars, 361 Angel Club and the First Cheque Podcast but she is best known as the Co-founder & CEO of Aussie Angels. Aussie Angels is a platform that manages the backend infrastructure of investments, allowing angel investors to invest in startups via syndicates. To date, over 1,700 angels have invested $23M through their platform. In this interview we covered a range of topics including: The importance of brand, marketing and storytelling How to get started with angel investing What founders should look for when adding angel investors to their cap table What investors really mean when they say they look for “good” founders, markets and investment opportunities & much more! Timestamps: 1:43 Cheryl’s background 3:54 Growing up in Canada and moving to Australia 8:25 Building StartCon, Australia’s biggest startup conference in Australia at the time 14:31 Choosing themes/sectors as an Angel Investor 20:49 What Cheryl looks for when personally investing in companies 29:26 Learnings from early mistakes as a new Angel Investor 35:41 Advice for new Angel Investors 38:00 Benefits of joining a syndicate 47:43 How founders should think about taking money from angel investors 54:06 Signals investors should look for when deciding whether to invest 1:00:44 Challenges and benefits of working with your partner, balancing family life 1:10:13 Redistributing wasted toys Our partners: A big thank you to Tom Worden and Alexandra Lewis for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: Cheryl’s links: Cheryl’s LinkedIn Aussie Angels The Pillars 361 Angel Club First Cheque Podcast People mentioned: Mike Cannon-Brookes Matt Barrie Rod Drury James Harrisson Thomas Worden Adrian Osman Cliff Obrecht Melanie Perkins Alexandra Lewis Companies mentioned: StartCon The Startup Network (formally Startup Victoria) Freelancer Xero Airtree Blackbird Playbook Ventures AWS Cut Through Venture me&u (formally Mr Yum) Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here The post Ep201 – Cheryl Mack (Co-founder & CEO – Aussie Angels) on how to get started as an angel investor appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep200 – Jason Wyatt (Co-founder & CEO – Marketplacer) on shutting down 8 companies to go all in on Marketplacer November 28, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep200 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jason Wyatt, the Co-founder & CEO of Marketplacer. Jason’s journey started with a bike marketplace called BikeExchange, the global success of this marketplace led to others wanting to create and launch their own versions of marketplaces. These opportunities led to him launching 8 Joint Ventures in different verticals. Despite some success with this model, Jason saw a much bigger opportunity for this solution as a “platform” play that could scale and grow globally. As a result, he ended up wrapping up the JVs to go all in Marketplacer. Marketplacer is a marketplace platform that allows enterprise companies to scale and grow their ecommerce operations, counting companies such as Qantas, Tesco and Optus as customers. Marketplacer has quickly become a global leader in marketplace technology, powering over 100 marketplaces worldwide and facilitating billions of dollars in transactions. To date, they have raised over $85M from leading investors around the world. In this episode we covered a range of topics including: Why Jason decided to shut down eight different companies to go all in on Marketplacer Lessons from launching, growing, and hiring globally The importance of having strategic investors like Salesforce Ventures and much more! Timestamps: 2:22 Jason’s background 4:46 Business and sport experiences as a teenager 10:58 Starting BikeExchange 17:23 Where the conviction for BikeExchange came from 23:35 Trying to launch into other verticals with The Exchange Group and how that led to Marketplacer 27:31 Getting their first enterprise customers 30:23 The decision to switch off 30% of revenue to focus on the bigger opportunity 32:38 Having a productive board relationship 37:05 Pulling yourself out of the day to day to see the bigger picture in business 40:40 Finding and recruiting talent 45:27 Expanding Globally 51:54 Finding strategic investors 55:43 Balancing business with family 1:02:50 Getting through tough times, dealing with the loss of his father and brother Our partners: A big thank you to Bob Schwartz, Richard Hankin and Sam Salter for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: Jason’s links: Jason’s LinkedIn Marketplacer People mentioned: Sam Salter Mark Philippousas Greg Roebuck Lance Armstrong Michael Jordan Gerry Harvey Peter Bartels Bob Schwartz Sean van Waes Richard Hankin James Harrisson Jade Wyatt Companies mentioned: BikeExchange KPMG Reuters Morgan Stanley Shopify Magento Carsales Telstra Tesco Qantas Woolworths Providoor BigCommerce Nordstrom SAP IBM Gap Salesforce Ventures Portmans The Just Group Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep200_-_Jason_Wyatt.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep200 – Jason Wyatt (Co-founder & CEO – Marketplacer) on shutting down 8 companies to go all in on Marketplacer appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep199 – Jaimie Fuller (Former CEO & Chairman – SKINS) on building SKINS and bouncing back from bankruptcy October 31, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep199 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jaimie Fuller. Jaimie’s journey has been full of highs and lows. He is best known as the former CEO and Executive Chairman of compression apparel company SKINS. SKINS was a global phenomenon with elite athletes and sporting teams all around the world using their products. The business had incredible global growth before ultimately filing for bankruptcy in 2019. Outside of his work with SKINS, Jaimie was also an activist within sports, through #ChooseTheRightTrack tackling doping in sports and #NewFIFANow to call out corruption in football leading to a number of arrests in FIFA in 2015. Jaimie is now back with his latest company, eo, which is helps accelerate human progress through innovative sports technology. In this episode we covered a range of topics including: The ups and downs of the SKINS journey How he personally dealt with the fallout from filing for bankruptcy How SKINS was able to use brand to build a premium offering and compete with the likes of Nike all over the world The vision and mission behind eo and much more! Timestamps: 1:49 Jaimie’s background 3:33 His first printing business 7:25 The challenges of growing at a rapid pace beyond 250 employees 13:49 Doing the right thing in business 26:10 The founding journey of SKINS 32:56 What gave him the conviction to go all in on SKINS 42:53 Importance of brand and storytelling 52:01 Maintaining a challenger brand ethos as you scale 1:05:32 replacing himself as CEO 1:08:01 Filing for bankruptcy 1:21:13 The decision to start again with eo 1:26:15 The mission of eo Our partners: A big thank you to Dean Hawkins and Anthony Gregorio for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: Jaimie’s links: Jaimie’s LinkedIn Eo Lab’s website Eo Lab’s Instagram People mentioned: Rupert Murdoch Dean Hawkins Bradley Duffy Mike Stone Graham Arnold Cristiano Ronaldo Lionel Messi Anthony Gregorio Steve Waugh Robert Louis-Dreyfus Julia Louis-Dreyfus Companies mentioned: SKINS Essendon Football Club Nike Adidas Puma Eatbigfish NSWIS UBS Amazon International Athletics Federation Sport 2000 Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep199_-_Jaimie_Fuller.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep199 – Jaimie Fuller (Former CEO & Chairman – SKINS) on building SKINS and bouncing back from bankruptcy appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep198 – Rohan Workman (Co-founder & CEO – Skalata) on taking risks & balancing speed with discipline October 24, 2024 rohitbhargava Uncategorized My guest for Ep198 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Rohan Workman. Rohan is the Co-founder & CEO of Skalata, a seed stage venture capital firm that was established in 2018 and count a portfolio of over 80 companies across their 2 funds. Prior to this, he was the Director of MAP, Melbourne Uni’s Accelerator program that he built to become the 8th ranked program in the world. Rohan also previously founded RosterCloud, a cloud-based software management tool for events and catering businesses. RosterCloud was acquired by Rision in 2016. In this interview we covered a range of topics including: What his first job out of uni, working in corporate recovery, taught him about business Lessons from his first startup, Roster Cloud Why Skalata evolved from an accelerator program to a more traditional fund structure & much more! Timestamps: 1:43 Rohan’s background 4:02 Importance of health & fitness as a founder 12:08 Tough lessons from his time at McGrathNicol 15:25 Advice for navigating challenging people situations in business 21:24 Balancing speed with discipline 26:50 Mistakes and lessons from RosterCloud 30:36 Time at Melbourne Accelerator Program in the early days 39:45 The genesis for Skalata 46:35 Skalata’s investment thesis and process 57:10 Taking risks and being bold Our partners: A big thank you to Maxine Lee, Laura Williams and Rosemary Workman for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: Rohan’s links: Rohan’s LinkedIn Skalata VC People mentioned: S. N. Goenka John Berry Sam Kothari Leigh Jasper Jocko Willink Darrell Wade Maxine Lee Lisa Paul Daniel Madhavan Sarah Morgan Anthony Glenning Kate Cornick Justin Lipman Connor Hagan Alex Ewart Companies mentioned: KPMG McGrathNicol Melbourne Accelerator Program (MAP) Melbourne University RosterCloud Vipassana Meditation Everlab The Big Group LaunchVic Explorate EVP Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep198_-_Rohan_Workman.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep198 – Rohan Workman (Co-founder & CEO – Skalata) on taking risks & balancing speed with discipline appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep197 – Paul Stovell (Founder & CEO – Octopus Deploy) on turning a weekend project to a $100M ARR business September 12, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep197 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Paul Stovell. Paul is the Founder & CEO of Octopus Deploy, a company he started as a “nights and weekends” project for 2 years before going full time in 2012. The company was bootstrapped for almost a decade until 2021 when they raised USD$172.5M (roughly AUD$222M) from New York based Insight Partners which is the second largest VC funding round by an Australian company ever. Octopus Deploy is now over 300 people and just crossed $100M in ARR. I got to sit down with Paul at the Something Tech 2024 conference to do a live podcast interview and in this conversation we covered a range of topics including:  Why more founders should consider bootstrapping Using customers as investors Balancing culture of striving for quality vs bias for action Why Paul decided to take on external funding and how it changed the business & much more! Timestamps: 2:09 Paul’s Background 5:32 The origin story of Octopus Deploy 8:15 Balancing quality with speed 10:00 The tipping point where he went all in on Octopus Deploy 11:37 Competing with well resourced incumbents 19:12 The decision to take on investors 23:31 How the company changed after taking on capital 25:54 Operating as a profitable company 32:43 Attracting talent and testing for fit during the hiring process 40:08 How to ensure company values are upheld as you grow 45:10 Advice to founders just getting started Our partners: A big thank you to Michael Noonan, Bob Walker and Simon Galbraith for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: Paul’s links: Paul on LinkedIn Paul on X/Twitter Octopus Deploy Paul’s blog People mentioned: Sonia Stovell Michael Noonan Joel Spolsky Eric Sink Simon Galbraith Simon Beard Bob Walker Companies mentioned: Something Tech conference Insight Partners Credit Suisse Redgate Software Microsoft Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep197_-_Paul_Stovell.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep197 – Paul Stovell (Founder & CEO – Octopus Deploy) on turning a weekend project to a $100M ARR business appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep196 – Cam Falloon (Founder & CEO – BFT) on overcoming adversity and scaling to 700+ studios globally August 22, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep196 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Cam Falloon. Every great story starts with overcoming adversity and Cam is no different. Cam picked up a serious back injury which made it difficult for him to walk…to the point where it would take him 15mins to walk a 12m hallway and being told by doctors that he wouldn’t be able to workout again. That life-altering injury sparked his passion for strength, conditioning, and training, not only to rehabilitate his own back but also to help others achieve peak physical health. Cam’s expertise took him to the highest levels of personal training, including working with none other than Princess Diana and high-performance roles in the English Premier League with Derby County, as well as several AFL teams. In 2015 he launched BFT, a group strength training studio that started with just four studios in Melbourne. Today, BFT has exploded into a global phenomenon with over 700 studios across 11 countries. The growth and success of BFT hasn’t always been obvious with Cam having to navigate through the lockdown period during COVID and overcoming an aggressive $50M lawsuit from the largest competitor in the industry In this episode, Cam shares lessons from his career so far and we cover topics such as: The back injury that changed Cam’s life and set him on a path to becoming a leader in the fitness industry. Cam’s experience working with Princess Diana and his role in high-performance training within the English Premier League and AFL. The founding and rapid global expansion of BFT, growing from 4 to 700+ studios in just under a decade. How BFT navigated the challenges of COVID-19 without shutting down any studios. The $50M legal battle with a major competitor and what it taught Cam about resilience and perseverance in business. Timestamps 1:59 Cam’s background 6:31 Hurting his back, how that led to fitness 15:59 Training Princess Diana in London 19:20 Working with Derby County Football Club 27:14 Keeping things simple in business 30:51 Challenges working in sports 32:48 Applying lessons from sport and high performance to business 36:22 Overcoming health challenges his wife was having 40:24 Launching BFT 47:47 Avoiding 7 as a feedback score 50:21 Getting sued for $50M 1:01:51 Navigating COVID 1:07:49 Surrounding yourself with the right people in business 1:14:04 How he gets a lot done while still finding balance Our partners: A big thank you to John Glancy, Dave Aitchison, Sarah Nehme and Steve Latham for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: Cam’s links: Cam’s LinkedIn Cam’s Instagram Body Fit Training (BFT) People mentioned: Princess Diana Terry Hennessy Andrew Russell Daniel Marrs Matthew McGrath Micha Kaufman Ernie Merrick Richard Burnet Hamish McLachlan Sarah Nehme Steve Latham John Glancy David Aitchison Companies mentioned: Holmes Place Gym Derby County Academy Fiverr Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep196_-_Cam_Falloon.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep196 – Cam Falloon (Founder & CEO – BFT) on overcoming adversity and scaling to 700+ studios globally appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep195 – Leigh Jasper (Co-founder & Co-CEO – Firmable) on jumping back in the founder seat after a $1.6B exit August 15, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep195 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Leigh Jasper. This is a special edition of the podcast. A few weeks ago, we celebrated hitting 8 years of the podcast. To celebrate the milestone, we hosted an in-person event with our community which included a “live” podcast recording with returning guest Leigh Jasper. I first interviewed Leigh for the show in November 2016. Back then he was the Co-founder & CEO of Aconex, a construction tech company that had publicly listed 2 years prior and had a market cap of $1B. Since that interview, Aconex was acquired by Oracle for $1.6B and Leigh has and continues to hold several positions such as Chair of LaunchVic, Victorian governments startup agency, Co-founder and Chair of SecondQuarter Ventures, the first secondaries fund in Australia and NZ among several other board roles. If that isn’t enough, Leigh decided to jump back into the founder seat as the Co-founder & Co-CEO of Firmable, which helps companies drive smarter decisions and outperform by allowing them to know more about their leads, customers and candidates. Firmable recently raised a $9M funding round led by AirTree. We covered a lot of ground in this live interview including: Lessons from launching, growing and eventually exiting a $1B+ startup Leigh’s journey post Aconex (given he didn’t want to sell the company) Why founders should take chips off the table via secondaries What’s changed for Leigh as a second time founder & much more! Timestamps: 3:12 What Leigh has been working on since the last interview in 2016 4:43 What it was like going from CEO of a private company to a public company 7:21 The decision to sell Aconex to Oracle for $1.6B 10:25 Navigating significant changes in a company as the founder/CEO 12:34 What Leigh did after the Aconex acquisition, losing that identity 18:40 Getting involved with LaunchVic 20:53 Founding SecondQuarter Ventures 22:15 When founders should take money off the table via secondaries 25:49 Effective boards for startups 32:56 The decision to start a new company (Firmable) 34:41 Lessons from Aconex he’s applying to Firmable 38:59 Finding the right investment partners for Firmable 42:21 What drives Leigh today? 44:26 How he stays calm under intense pressure 47:27 How to balance being open/transparent with the team on everything happening in the business 49:48 Thoughts on the current state of technology and the Australian startup ecosystem 51:44 Audience Q&A Our partners: A big thank you to Paul Perrett and Andrew Sypkes for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: Leigh’s links: Leigh’s LinkedIn Firmable SecondQuarter Ventures People mentioned: Paul Perrett Craig Winkler Kate Cornick Rob Phillpot Howard Leibman John Henderson Paul Bassat Andrew Bassat Karthik Venkatasubramanian Audience questions: Scott Phillips Louis J Sisk Sajjad Kamal Companies mentioned: Aconex Oracle MYOB LaunchVic Playbook Ventures Canva EVP McKinsey & Company IBM Stripe Airtree Fidelity Investments Blackbird Square Peg SEEK Growth Fund Xero Slack Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep195_-_Leigh_Jasper.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep195 – Leigh Jasper (Co-founder & Co-CEO – Firmable) on jumping back in the founder seat after a $1.6B exit appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep194 – Jon Gregory (Founder & CEO – Vitruvian) on product led growth and relentless positivity August 8, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep194 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jon Gregory. Jon is the Founder & CEO of Vitruvian. Vitruvian is an all-in-one digital home gym that uses AI to adjust resistance in real time to help users get the most out of their workout. Since launching in 2018, they have gone on to raise USD$27M, with customers all around the world and working with a number of athletes such as Olympian and world champion sprinter, Justin Gatlin and the worlds strongest man, Thor Bjornsson. We covered a wide range of topics in this interview including: The value in doing hard things The challenges around building and raising capital for hardware products How to build using product led growth & much more Timestamps: 2:28 Jon’s background 6:08 How his science background helped him think through business problems 7:49 The initial idea for Vitruvian 16:35 Going from idea to product and iterating 18:55 The early days of Vitruvian, attracting customers, partners and investors 23:40 How COVID affected the business 28:34 Having a product led philosophy 30:52 Making decisions as a founder 36:53 Having a community focus early on in the business 40:38 Product led growth in practice for Vitruvian 44:05 Fundraising tips for hardware startups 46:48 Challenges building a global business from Perth 50:35 The future of hardware and AI 54:25 Developing a positive mindset Our partners: A big thank you to Weibke Hensen for her help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: 8 year podcast event: Live Podcast event with Leigh Jasper (Registration) Giveaway: Details for how to enter the giveaway Jon’s links: Jon’s LinkedIn Vitruvian People mentioned: Jeff Bezos Wiebke Hensen Companies mentioned: Peloton Amazon Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep194_-_Jon_Gregory.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep194 – Jon Gregory (Founder & CEO – Vitruvian) on product led growth and relentless positivity appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep193 – Llew Jury (General Partner & Exec Chairman – Sprint Ventures) on nurturing talent and building generational companies July 25, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep193 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Llew Jury. Llew is the General Partner and Executive Chairman of Sprint Ventures, a Queensland based VC with two funds and 18 portfolio companies that is investing in companies that build a better future. He has just helped Sprint secure funding from QIC’s VCDF for his third early stage Seed fund. Prior to launching Sprint Ventures, Llew founded a number of successful businesses. Between 2006 and 2016, Llew was the Founder and Managing Director of The Reload Group, one of Australia’s largest digital & eCommerce marketing agencies. Llew built the Reload business to 90 staff and 300 clients before Reload was acquired by Hardie Grant Media in 2022. From 1999 to 2006 Llew was co-Founder of leading Queensland web, eCommerce and digital agency Alfresco, that was sold to a consortium led by the ASX listed STW Group. In this episode we covered a range of topics including: The common mistakes founders make when it comes to sales and marketing Llew’s approach to backing and building generational businesses How to leverage partners for growth How to nurture relationships and talent and much more! Timestamps: 1:58 Llew’s background 7:10 Launching his first business Alfresco, growing it and getting acquired 10:10 Lessons from first business and how he’s applied that to subsequent businesses 11:55 Advice to founders on balancing life and work 14:56 Things he looks for when investing in founders 16:32 The story of finding his co-founder at The Reload Group 19:46 Nurturing talent 23:31 The process of expanding internationally out of Australia 27:30 Tactics and common founder mistakes in sales, marketing and partnerships 37:45 Sprint Ventures investment thesis 42:57 His thoughts on the current investment landscape in Australia 46:52 Running a services business vs high growth business 49:28 Building relationships and playing the long game Our partners: A big thank you to Kylie Merritt, Ian Campbell and Craig Sommerville for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: 8 year podcast event: Live Podcast event with Leigh Jasper (Registration) Llew’s links: Llew’s LinkedIn Sprint Ventures People mentioned: Kylie Merritt Craig Somerville Jim Collins Georgia Barkell Bryan Williams Matt Vitale Companies mentioned: River City Labs Subway Hockey Stick Advisory QIC Queensland Venture Capital Development Fund (QVCDF) Birchal Brisbane Angels Sydney Angels Melbourne Angels Guzman y Gomez Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep193_-_Llew_Jury.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep193 – Llew Jury (General Partner & Exec Chairman – Sprint Ventures) on nurturing talent and building generational companies appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep192 – Rohit Bhargava (Host – The Startup Playbook Podcast) on lessons from 8 years of podcasting (AMA episode) July 18, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast Welcome to a special milestone edition of the podcast, celebrating 8 years of the show! On this day in 2016, I published the first 6 episodes of this podcast. Over the last 8 years I’ve sat down with almost 200 successful entrepreneurs and investors to unpack their journey, lessons and insights. I’m so thankful to all of the great guests who have made the time to come on this show, but I am also incredibly grateful to all of you in the Startup Playbook community who have listened, supported and shared this podcast over the last few years. The success, quality of guests and everything we have been able to achieve over the last 8 years would not have been possible without all of you, so I just wanted to say a quick thank you to all of you! For this milestone ep, I wanted to do something a little different. So for this episode, my good friend James Harrisson is taking over the hosting duties and I’m jumping on the other side of the table to answer some questions from James and from our community in this AMA edition of the podcast. In this episode, James and I spoke about lessons from the last 8 years and advice to anyone thinking about starting out on their own podcasting/business journey. I also answered a number of community submitted questions on podcasting, PR, investing and much more! Timestamps 3:17 The original intention for the podcast and how that’s evolved over time 8:28 Whether he would do anything differently if starting over 11:32 Why he’s taken two extended breaks from publishing over the last 8 years and how that’s helped the show in the long run 19:30 How the topics of the show have evolved over time as he’s evolved as a person, finding his own style 35:51 Long term games vs short term games 39:08 Should someone start a podcast today? 43:35 What would his life be like if he never started the podcast? 47:17 How he got initial followers and key initial growth tactics 52:35 PR advice 56:36 Advice for people starting a podcast 59:08 How to get great guests for a podcast 1:03:59 Best way to pitch investors and partners 1:08:16 How running his own high growth startup affected his approach to podcasting and investing Our Partners Our partners A big thank you to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned 8 year podcast event: Live Podcast event with Leigh Jasper (Registration) People mentioned: Joe Rogan David Mcmanus Justin Dry Tim Mundy Shelli Trung Iain Dooley Nakul Pednekar Roohi Kazi Marc Orchard James Harrisson Companies mentioned: Vinomofo Uber Playbook Ventures Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep192_-_Rohit_Bhargava.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep192 – Rohit Bhargava (Host – The Startup Playbook Podcast) on lessons from 8 years of podcasting (AMA episode) appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep191 – Stew Glynn (Co-founder & Managing Partner – TEN13 VC) on lessons from investing $100M July 11, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep191 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Stew Glynn. Stew started his investing career after joining Shark Tank’s Steve Baxter in building out his family office, Transition Level Investments. In 2019, they then launched TEN13 VC, where Stew is a Co-founder & Managing Partner. TEN13 is a global deal by deal venture capital firm that has invested $100M across 80 portfolio companies. They have built up an incredible portfolio of companies including the likes of Linktree, Go1, Clipchamp and me&u (formerly known as Mr. Yum). In this episode we covered a wide range of topics including How his childhood experiences in Zimbabwe shaped his view towards risk and business The pros and cons of the deal by deal investing model TEN13’s approach to network based investing Lessons from investing $100M across 80 companies & much more Timestamps 2:05 Stew’s background 15:11 How growing up in Zimbabwe shaped his views on innovation and investing 19:34 Advice to founders on overcoming challenging times 30:07 Staying in the game long enough to find product market fit 35:47 Meeting and working with Steve Baxter, the origins of TEN13 40:37 The decision to make TEN13 a community based, deal by deal investing structure compared to a traditional venture fund 48:23 Benefits and challenges of the deal by deal structure for founders and investors 53:41 Investing in Australian vs international startups 58:32 How TEN13 supports their portfolio companies 1:03:43 How Stew supported the Mr Yum team on their merger with me&u 1:08:23 The sectors Stew is currently excited to invest in Our partners A big thank you to Holly Cardew, Brendan Hill and An Vo for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned Stew’s links: Stew’s LinkedIn Stew’s Twitter/X TEN13 People mentioned: Steve Baxter Alex Zatarain Adir Shiffman Phil Knight – Shoe Dog Alexander Dreiling Holly Cardew Liam Millward Brendan Hill An Vo Kim Teo Adrian Osman Bevan Slattery Companies mentioned: Transition Level Investments KPMG General Electric Eight Sleep Nike Clipchamp Carted Instant SAP Tola Capital Microsoft Spotify Go1 Y Combinator Atlassian Canva River City Labs PIPE Networks TPG Car Next Door / Uber Carshare DoseMe Playbook Ventures Rockfish Data Mr Yum / me&u Airtree Everlab Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep191_-_Stew_Glynn.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep191 – Stew Glynn (Co-founder & Managing Partner – TEN13 VC) on lessons from investing $100M appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep190 – Taryn Pieterse (Partner – Rampersand) on Rampersand’s AAA approach to investing July 4, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep190 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Taryn Pieterse. Taryn is a Partner of Rampersand VC, a dedicated seed fund that has invested over $100M across its funds, counting companies such as Sendle, Skedulo and Expert360 as part of its portfolio. Prior to joining Rampersand, Taryn worked in Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs across Australia, the UK and Europe and at the family office of Radek Sali, the fomer CEO of Swisse Wellness. In this episode we covered a range of topics including: Taryn’s journey from Investment Banking into Tech & VC Rampersand’s AAA approach in to investing in and supporting startups How to think about financial modeling as an early stage founder and much more! Timestamps: 1:28 Taryn’s background and journey to VC 13:34 Building your reputation and personal brand 20:44 Early career, working on the Campaign Monitor deal 25:17 Things founders commonly overlook when pitching to investors 33:39 Giant Warm Intro program for founders and investors to connect 37:10 How to foster relationships with investors before you fundraise 42:48 When to start charging customers and how to figure out pricing 47:54 Rampersand’s AAA process for investing 52:38 How to think about financial modeling as an early stage founder 55:14 Advice to founders navigating a fundraise in this current challenging environment Our partners A big thank you to Paul Napthali and Chaz Heitner for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned Taryn’s links Taryn’s LinkedIn Rampersand Giant Warm Intro People mentioned Radek Sali George Calombaris Paul Naphtali Chanie Hyde Chaz Heitner Companies mentioned: Goldman Sachs Campaign Monitor Light Warrior Group SABMiller AB InBev Swisse Wanderlust Made by cow Amazon Hatch The Iconic Sapia Expert360 Cake Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep190_-_Taryn_Pieterse.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep190 – Taryn Pieterse (Partner – Rampersand) on Rampersand’s AAA approach to investing appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep189 – Jalal Shaik (Founder & CEO – GAMEFACE AI) on AI, persistence and M&A pitfalls June 27, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep189 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, was Jalal Shaik. Jalal is the Founder & CEO of Gameface.AI, a company that uses AI and machine learning to provide accurate and relevant performance insight for sports. In 2022, Gameface was acquired for $33M by now publicly listed company, Slinger Sports after having only raised $1.2M in total funding. Despite their success on paper, it was a difficult journey for Jalal and in this episode he opens up and shares a large part of the lessons and insights from his journey including: The ups and downs of the GAMEFACE.AI journey Challenges raising capital for an AI startup 6 years ago How a deal with famous Indian Cricketer Virender Shewag, led to their acquisition Lessons learned (the hard way) through the acquisition process and much more! Timestamps 1:48 Jalal’s background 5:53 Early exposure and learnings working for five companies that got acquired 8:36 The initial idea for GAMEFACE.AI 10:18 Going through Startmate accelerator 13:09 Challenges raising capital for an AI startup 6 years ago (before today’s AI hype) 19:09 Advice to founders currently fundraising 22:01 Challenges in the early days of building GAMEFACE.AI 25:12 Cultural challenges marrying his partner outside his family’s religion 34:10 Most important traits for founders to develop 35:35 Doing a deal with Virender Sehwag 36:21 Lessons and warnings to founders going through the acquisition process 46:39 Getting top talent to buy in to your vision Our partners A big thank you to Danny Bhandari and Adir Shiffman for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount Links mentioned Jalal’s links Jalal’s LinkedIn GAMEFACE.AI People mentioned Jason Calacanis Nick Crocker Rayn Ong Danny Bhandari Kylie Frazer Adir Shiffman Niki Skevac Virender Sehwag Companies mentioned NVIDIA IBM Arm VXL Technology Connexa NXP Semiconductors SMIC Australian Foundry Institute Startmate Telstra Cricket Australia FIFA Sehwag Cricket Academy Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep189_-_Jalal_Shaik.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep189 – Jalal Shaik (Founder & CEO – GAMEFACE AI) on AI, persistence and M&A pitfalls appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep188 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jessy Wu. Jessy is a partner of AfterWork Ventures, a $20M pre-seed and seed stage Venture Capital Fund. She has a background in English literature and linguistics and has used her power of storytelling to build a powerful brand not just for herself but also for AfterWork VC, allowing them to compete for deals against large incumbents. In this episode we covered a variety of topics including: Jessy’s background in linguistics and philosophy and how she applies that to investing today The value of building a personal brand, and the strategy she’s used to build her own How to build a challenger brand that competes against large incumbents and much more! Timestamps 1:37 Jessy’s background 15:50 Core tenets of storytelling and character development when writing 21:02 Strategies for building a professional personal brand 29:01 Building a challenger brand in VC 38:07 Dealing with the negatives and criticism that can come from creating content 42:27 Building a community powered VC 52:05 Insight into the investment decision making process for AfterWork and other funds 58:52 Grapevine: an initiative bringing awareness and pragmatic discourse around abuses of power in the tech ecosystem Our partners A big thank you to Fab Mackojc, Daniel Wang and Mike Forster for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned Jessy’s links Jessy’s LinkedIn AfterWork VC Grapevine People mentioned Daniel Petre Casey Flint Michael Batko Tom Alder Alex Brogan Fab Mackojc Mike Forster Daniel Wang Alex Khor Adrian Petersen David Wei Chris Withers Companies mentioned NAB Ventures Dollar Shave Club Warby Parker Bailey Nelson Koala Casper Luxottica Blackbird Airtree Square Peg Investible Playbook Ventures Klikit Everlab Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here The post Ep188 – Jessy Wu (Partner – AfterWork VC) on brand, storytelling and community powered VC appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep187 – George Peppou (Founder & CEO – Vow) on talent, health and building the future of food June 13, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep187 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was George Peppou. George is the Founder & CEO of Vow, a company on a mission to create a new category of food that is good for you, your health and the planet. Unlike all the other players in this space, Vow isn’t looking to reproduce the meats we know. They are focused on using cultured meat technology to craft an entirely new category of food by inventing new meats that are tastier and more nutritious than animals. In November 2022, Vow raised a AUD$73.5M (USD$49M) Series A funding round led by Blackbird and Prosperity7 Ventures. Their seed round in 2021 made them just the 3rd company to have both Blackbird and Square Peg on their cap table at the Seed stage. In this episode we covered a range of topics including: the challenges and opportunities in building a business in hard mode how George has attracted world class talent from some of the world’s leading companies why and how George prioritises his physical health and energy management as a founder & much more Timestamps 1:39 George’s background in commercial kitchens and as an inventor 12:33 His first experience with startups 13:53 Lessons from earlier experiences he applied to Vow 18:36 The early days of Vow 23:26 How he approached fundraising in Australia as a deep tech company 25:57 The R&D process for Vow 28:35 Bringing manufacturing in house 32:32 Attracting world class talent 37:42 Prioritising health as a founder 42:31 Handling pressure and chaos during challenging periods with the company 49:49 Doing business on “hard mode” 53:24 Finally launching after 5 years of work 55:33 What’s next for Vow Our partners A big thank you to Ellen Dinsmoor and James Tynan for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned George’s links Vow George on LinkedIn George on Twitter/X People mentioned Edward Jung Nathan Myhrvold Anastasia Volkova James Tynan Ines Lizaur Ellen (Murray) Dinsmoor Companies mentioned Meat & Livestock Australia Grow Ag Regrow Ag Blackbird Square Peg CSIRO Quantal Bioscience SpaceX Tesla Zoox 4 Pines Forged Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep187_-_George_Peppou.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep187 – George Peppou (Founder & CEO – Vow) on talent, health and building the future of food appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep186 – Rohen Sood (General Partner – Reinventure) on the story behind investing in Coinbase June 6, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep186 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Rohen Sood. Rohen is a General Partner at the Reinventure Group, a Venture Capital fund with a dedicated focus on Fintech companies. Reinventure raised $150M across 3 funds, with the bank, Westpac, being an anchor LP in the fund to invest into emerging global fintech companies. This led to an investment in Coinbase as part of their $75M Series C raise when the company was just 30 months old and had 2.3M users. Reinventure Fund 1 held 1.2M shares of Coinbase which yielded $546M gross gain. Reinventure sold half its stake, following Coinbase’s IPO in 2021 which provided it’s LP, Westpac, with a $288M gain on the Coinbase investment alone. This is Rohen’s first ever podcast interview and in this wide ranging interview we covered everything from: the benefits and drawbacks from having Westpac as an LP of the fund the story behind their Coinbase investment thematic vs generalist investing Rohen’s personal journey from Investment Associate to General Partner at Reinventure over the last 10 years & much more Timestamps 1:37 Rohen’s background 8:23 The path from engineering to management consulting to venture capital 15:48 The early days of venture capital in Australia 25:29 Thematic vs generalist investing 27:21 Navigating founder/investor dynamics 32:45 Reinventure’s investment into Coinbase 39:47 How he builds conviction in ideas 44:36 How he assesses founders and opportunities 47:03 Rohen’s 10 year journey with Reinventure 55:55 Learnings from going through his first cycle in venture Our partners A big thank you to Simon Cant, Paul Weingarth and Damir Cuca for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount Links mentioned Rohen’s links Rohen’s LinkedIn Rohen’s Twitter/X Reinventure People mentioned Maxine Minter Paul Weingarth Simon Cant Danny Gilligan Damir Cuca Companies mentioned Blackbird Airtree Square Peg SocietyOne Westpac Coinbase Union Square Ventures Draper Associates Auror Slyp Basiq Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep186_-_Rohen_Sood.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep186 – Rohen Sood (General Partner – Reinventure) on the story behind investing in Coinbase appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep185 – Maxine Minter (Founder & GP – Co Ventures) on pre-seed, performance and mental models May 30, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep185 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Maxine Minter. Maxine is the Founder & General Partner of CoVentures a $5M pre-seed fund. Alongside her role at Co Ventures, she is also the Founder of Co Lab, a platform that matches Founders & CEOs with executive coaches. In this interview we covered a range of topics including,  why Maxine decided to launch a dedicated pre-seed fund how she assess investment opportunities at that stage the importance of effective communication as a leader  How to get the most out of an executive coach & much more Timestamps 1:40 Maxine’s background 14:46 Making the leap to startups 21:11 Performance coaching for founders 26:52 Leadership mental models 30:29 Developing better communication and empathy skills 41:12 Common traits of world class performers 50:38 Launching a dedicated Pre-Seed fund 55:24 The huge opportunity in the Australian ecosystem 1:04:16 What Maxine looks for when investing in early stage companies 1:22:04 Lessons from previous venture backed startup Our partners A big thank you to Chris Bartlett and Jax Vullinghs for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount Links mentioned Maxine’s links LinkedIn Co Ventures Co Lab People mentioned Dustin Dalganow Lawrence Lessig Nick Crocker Jackie Vullinghs Bill Campbell Marc Andreessen Ben Horowitz Sergey Brin Larry Page Andy Grove – High Output Management Carol Dweck Janathan Haidt Bill Gurley Chris Bartlett Adir Shiffman Simon Sinek – The Infinite Game Companies mentioned Blackbird CodeX Plaid Segment Notion Whatsapp Instagram DoorDash 43 Airtree intel Benchmark Playbook Ventures Snowflake Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep185_-_Maxine_Minter.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep185 – Maxine Minter (Founder & GP – Co Ventures) on pre-seed, performance and mental models appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep184 – Adrian Osman (Co-founder & COO – Me&U) on metrics, ratios and mergers May 23, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Episode 184 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Adrian Osman. Adrian is the Co-founder & COO of Me&U formerly known as Mr. Yum. He started his career as the Founder of pitchblak, an agency that helped hundreds of Australian entrepreneurs to validate and test their startup ideas. From that agency, the idea of Mr. Yum was born to provide sales and marketing tools for the hospitality industry. The business found product market fit very quickly and raised a $89M Series A funding round led by Tiger Global in 2021. In late 2023, Mr. Yum merged with their largest competitor, Me&U to become the global leader in its category, collectively processing over $2B in dining transactions per year. In this interview we covered a wide range of topics including: The early days of Mr Yum Focusing on ratios over volume Lessons from raising a record $89M Series A funding round led by Tiger Global Behind the scenes look at the merger between Mr Yum and me&u and much more! Timestamps: 2:12 Adrian’s background 7:02 Lessons from early career sales roles 9:16 Adrian’s first consulting business, pitchblak 14:25 The initial idea for Mr Yum 22:29 When is the right time to speak with VC’s and how to pitch to them 27:43 The launch of Mr Yum and initial customers 37:02 Growing the business and navigating Covid 42:36 Raising a $89M Series A 46:58 Challenges scaling the business post raise 53:58 The merger between Mr Yum and me&u 1:08:13 Navigating structural changes to the company post merger 1:14:06 Learning and growing as a leader at the same rate as the company 1:18:19 Developing and sharing a compelling vision for a company as a leader 1:22:54 Building culture and high performing teams Our partners A big thank you to Kim Teo, Boden Westover and Stew Glynn for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount Links mentioned Adrian’s links Adrian on LinkedIn me&u People mentioned Kim Teo Stew Glynn Tobi Skovron Stevan Premutico Ben Horowitz – The Hard Thing About Hard Things Boden Westover Companies mentioned Optus Telstra pitchblak Uber Uber Eats Apple Google WeChat Zapier Airtable Playbook Ventures DoorDash Airtree Ten13 Tiger Global Shopify Amazon Afterpay Block Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep184_-_Adrian_Osman.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep184 – Adrian Osman (Co-founder & COO – Me&U) on metrics, ratios and mergers appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep183 – Howard Leibman (Founder & General Partner – EVP) on being the “founder whisperer” May 16, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep183 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder of EVP, Howard Leibman. Howard is the Founder and General Partner of EVP, a VC fund focused on investing in B2B software companies in Australia and New Zealand. In 2023, they raised $100M for Fund 4, taking its total funds under management to $300M. EVP takes a very hands on approach with their investments including taking board seats in their portfolio companies. Howard currently sits on the board of portfolio companies such as Practice Ignition and Deputy which in March 2024 became the first Australian company in 2 years to hit the $1B valuation status. This is Howard’s first ever podcast interview and in this rare interview he opens up about: His career and journey EVPs framework to assess potential investment opportunities Managing changes in executive leadership as companies scale Being the “founder whisperer” & much more! Timestamps: 2:00 Howard’s career background 13:23 How his early career shaped his investment lens for EVP 17:20 Early investment into Shippit 20:18 How he builds conviction in founders and market opportunities 22:09 Early stage vs later stage investing 27:33 What he looks for in investment opportunities 30:57 EVP investing frameworks 35:06 How the role of the founder can evolve over time 41:04 Taking an active role in companies they invest in 45:20 How founders can build deeper relationships with their investors 48:12 How EVP thinks about optimal fund size 54:01 How he approaches hiring and people at EVP Our partners A big thank you to Justin Lipman and Guy Pearson for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount Links mentioned Howard’s links Howard’s LinkedIn EVP People mentioned Les Szekely Justin Lipman Daniel Szekely William On Rob Hango-Zada Guy Pearson Simon Lenoir Mark Velik Companies mentioned General Electric Medtronic Shippit Rezdy Deputy Oneflare DesignCrowd Procter & Gamble Deloitte Ignition Hnry Mutinex Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep183_-_Howard_Leibman.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep183 – Howard Leibman (Founder & General Partner – EVP) on being the “founder whisperer” appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep182 – Rolf Weber (CEO – Marley Spoon Australia) on building culture through resilience May 9, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep182 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Rolf Weber, the CEO of Marley Spoon Australia. Rolf joined Marley Spoon as their Australian CEO in March 2015 Prior to this he co-founded, BrandsExclusive in 2009, before they were eventually fully acquired in 2014. He then went on to launch and invest in a number of businesses including being a Founding shareholder and Director in Mad Paws. In this episode we covered a broad range of topics including: Lessons from launching, growing and exiting BrandsExclusive The ups and downs of the Marley Spoon journey including their IPO with a market cap of over $260 million, to some of the challenges during Covid Building a culture of resilience & much more! Timestamps: 1:47 – Rolf’s Background 3:56 – Moving from Germany to Australia 6:23 – His time at Ikea 9:35 – Launching Brands Exclusive 11:32 – Importance of co-founder dynamics 15:53 – Advice on making the leap to startups later on in your career 20:01 – Fundraising in 2008 23:00 – Building a business with the intention to sell from the beginning 28:49 – Clauses founders should be aware of during an acquisition process 31:45 – How he approached next career steps post acquisition 37:59 – Staying balanced during ups and downs of entrepreneurship 43:13 – The decision to join Marley Spoon 46:59 – Operational challenges during Covid 52:58 – Differences between building Brands Exclusive and Marley Spoon 59:58 – Preparing for and going through an IPO, operating in public Our partners A big thank you to Justus Hammer for his help with this interview. Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over seven thousand fast-growing companies including Atlassian, Flo Health and Quora that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount Links mentioned Rolf’s links Rolf’s LinkedIn Marley Spoon People mentioned Daniel Jarosch Justus Hammer Sam Kothari Bjorn Behrendt Alexis Soulopoulos Jeff Bezos Fabian Siegel Companies mentioned IKEA brandsExclusive Marley Spoon PwC eBay Playbook Ventures Everlab APN Media Mad Paws Telstra Amazon Blue Apron Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep182_-_Rolf_Weber.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep182 – Rolf Weber (CEO – Marley Spoon Australia) on building culture through resilience appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep181 – James Tynan (Partner – Square Peg Capital) on storytelling & entering the business olympics May 2, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep181 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was James Tynan, Partner at Square Peg Capital. Square Peg Capital is one of Australia’s largest venture capital funds. In 2022, Square Peg closed a $860M fund, taking its total funds under management to $2.4B across all of its funds. Prior to this, he founded Tiny Green Gorilla, a company he bootstrapped for 8 years before it was acquired in 2008. He was also an early team member and eventually the VP of Strategy and Operations at the Khan Academy, which was the largest edtech startup in the world at that time. In this episode we covered a range of topic including: How James and his wife make important decisions by their “moleskinning” process The key ingredients that made Kahn Academy so successful Why investors need to overcome their own fears The importance of operating in your zone of genius & much more! Timestamps 01:50 – James’ Background 03:41 – Starting his first business in first year university 08:17 – Joining Khan Academy 12:08 – “Moleskine-ing” tool for decision making 14:55 – Building a venture backed business isn’t for everyone 21:22 – What made Khan Academy so successful 32:40 – Transitioning out of Khan Academy and deciding what’s next 36:36 – The early days of Startmate 42:15 – How investors should think about helping companies they invest in 44:34 – The decision to leave Startmate and join Square Peg 52:16 – James’ “zone of genius” 57:31 – Overcoming your fear as an investor and coming from a place of service 03:23 – Picking the right fund and partner as a founder 01:05:09 – Advice to founders on approaching investors 01:06:28 – What James looks for when making investments 01:07:38 – Storytelling advice to founders Our partners A big thank you to Kate Mason, Jethro Cohen and George Peppou for their help with this interview. Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook. Links mentioned James’ links LinkedIn Twitter/X Square Peg People mentioned Sal Khan Kate Mason Bill Gates John Doerr Annie Case Eric Schmidt Cliff Obrecht Didier Elzinga Daniel Petre Niki Scevak Nick Crocker Michael Batko Jethro Cohen George Peppou Alex Zatarain Companies mentioned McKinsey & Company Canva Culture Amp Khan Academy Y Combinator Google Stanford University Playbook Ventures Kleiner Perkins Microsoft MIT Harvard University Uber Startmate Blackbird Grok Ventures Skip Capital Vow Q-CTRL EightSleep Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep181_-_James_Tynan.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep181 – James Tynan (Partner – Square Peg Capital) on storytelling & entering the business olympics appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep180 – Daniel Petre (Co-founder – Start Giving) on family, philanthropy and truth seeking April 25, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep180 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Daniel Petre. Daniel is the godfather of Australian tech and venture capital. Back in 1988, Daniel joined Microsoft as their Managing Director for Australia before being promoted as one of the 5 VPs of product under Bill Gates. He would then go on launch over 3 Venture Capital funds, most recently Co-founding AirTree, one of the 3 largest venture capital funds in Australia. Any introduction I give to Daniel won’t do justice to everything he has achieved in his career to date, aside to say he’s been one of the most influential people in shaping the Australian startup ecosystem into what it is today. He now spends his time on philanthropic efforts as the Founder of Start Giving, which helps to inspire tech founders and execs to start their philanthropic journey. In this episode we covered everything from how to effectively manage your investors and boards to the importance of doing the right thing, family time and giving back. I’ve been wanting to interview Daniel for a long time and excited to finally share this conversation with you! Timestamps 4:27 Daniel’s background 6:04 Why Daniel chose to go down the computer science path 7:55 Daniel’s time at Microsoft 15:01 Commonalities of high performing founders 23:24 How investors should think about helping founders 29:24 Picking exceptional founders to invest in 33:58 Doing the right thing, addressing the power imbalance between founders and VCs 41:22 How founders can do due diligence on investors 47:04 surrounding yourself with the right people 50:21 Advice on finding mentors 55:47 The importance of having real personal relationships, not just business relationships 58:54 Daniel’s focus on philanthropy with StartGiving 1:07:17 How a personal tragedy shifted his perspective on life 1:12:09 Finding balance between work and life Our partners A big thank you to Mark Woodland, Anil Sabharwal and Alison Deans for their help with this interview. Also a big shout out to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook. Links mentioned Daniel’s links Daniel’s LinkedIn StartGiving Daniel’s Christmas message (2023) on Medium People mentioned Bill Gates Luke Anear Scott Farquhar Mike Cannon-Brookes Mark Woodland Paul Bennets Melanie Perkins Cliff Obrecht Cameron Adams Alison Deans Anil Sabharwal George Benson Antonia Ruffell Peter Singer Gretel Packer Sundar Pichai M. Scott Peck Companies mentioned Microsoft Airtree IBM Compaq Toshiba Dell NEC Kismet Canva HotDoc HealthEngine Blackbird Xplor Union Square Ventures A16Z Sequioa Capital McKinsey & Company eBay The Life You Can Save GiveWell Google Podcasts & resources mentioned: Startup Playbook Ep179 – Ben Thompson (Co-founder & CEO – Employment Hero) on growth, PMF & principles Startup Playbook Ep173 – Mark Woodland (Co-founder & CEO – Kismet) on timing, leadership & high performance The road less travelled by M. Scott Peck Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep180_-_Daniel_Petre.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep180 – Daniel Petre (Co-founder – Start Giving) on family, philanthropy and truth seeking appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep179 – Ben Thompson (Co-founder & CEO – Employment Hero) on growth, PMF & principles April 18, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep179 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Ben Thompson, the Co-founder & CEO of Employment Hero. Employment hero is one of Australia’s great startup success stories. The business launched in November 2014 and fast forward almost a decade later, they have 2.5M users and 300,000 SME customers globally and in 2023 they raised a $263M Series F funding round, taking their total funding to $650M at a valuation just shy of $2B. In this episode we get into many of the insights and lessons from his journey in building a $2B business, but as you may have seen, Ben and Employment Hero have also been in the news recently for their fight with Hostplus, an industry Super Fund that is an LP in Airtree, which is also one of the investors in Employment Hero. That fight started when Ben called out HostPlus on a LinkedIn post and escalated to the point where HostPlus pushed for Ben to be sacked as CEO of his company. For the first time since the incident, Ben shares his side of the story on what went down on this podcast. Timestamps 4:27 Ben’s background and early career 12:33 Decision to launch a tech startup 17:01 Early days at Employment Hero 19:52 Different funding options available for founders 27:13 Managing multiple businesses and competing priorities 30:49 Importance of strong personal relationships as a founder 33:22 Employment Hero global expansion during Covid 37:05 Finding product market fit in different markets when expanding 40:45 How to think about product decisions and requests from different markets 43:57 How the CEO role has evolved over time for Ben 46:07 Finding and hiring the right people at the right time 48:48 Ben’s thoughts on the Hostplus situation 57:20 Staying true to company vision 59:34 What’s next for Employment Hero Our partners A big thank you to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook. Links mentioned Ben’s links LinkedIn Twitter/X Employment Hero Hero Foundation People mentioned Dave Tong Elon Musk Marc Andreessen – Why software is eating the world Luke Anear Eric Ries – The Lean Startup Geoffrey Moore – Crossing the Chasm Clayton Christensen – The Innovator’s Dilemma Bradford Smart – Topgrading Rob Paterson Scott Farquhar Mike Cannon-Brookes Dr Sam Prince Phil Bernie Kevin Rawlings Companies mentioned Sydney Futures Exchange Employment Innovations Din Tai Fung SafetyCulture Power2Motivate Partners for Growth Airtree OneVentures Atlassian KeyPay AMP Capital Volt Bank Hostplus Starlink Swag Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep179_-_Ben_Thompson.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep179 – Ben Thompson (Co-founder & CEO – Employment Hero) on growth, PMF & principles appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep178 – Tobi Skovron (Co-founder & CEO – Creative Cubes) on the curse of ambition April 11, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep178 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Creative Cubes, Tobi Skovron. Tobi has had a fascinating career journey to date He started his first business, Pet Loo with Sim, who is now his wife, and a $20,000 investment from his father-in law. They grew that business to $10M in ARR before eventually being acquired by PetSafe in 2012. It wasn’t always a straightforward journey however with many bumps along the way and in this episode, Tobi opens up on some of these stories including how we owed a manufacturer $1M in payments and only had $15K in the bank account and how overnight he lost almost half of the $300,000 he took with him to the US because of the global market and Australian dollar collapsing. But Tobi is no stranger to resilience and perseverance – something that has shown through his experience across several businesses including that as the Co-founder & CEO of Creative Cubes, a coworking space and community that not only survived during the COVID period, but opened up new locations! Timestamps 03:50 Tobi’s background 14:52 Losing his father 22:32 Building Pet Loo 31:22 Challenges expanding Pet Loo to the US 34:36 Perspective shifts from being in a co-working space, surrounded by Uber, Snapchat etc 39:22 Covid challenges for CreativeCubes 46:47 Frameworks for getting through challenging periods 50:20 Leadership principles 55:53 Finding balance and prioritising health 1:01:22 Mindset shifts required to take the business to the next level 1:04:43 Finding non obvious opportunities Our partners A big thank you to Sim Skovron, Louie Gallina and Steve for their help with research for this interview! Also a big thank you to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business.. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook. Links mentioned Tobi’s links LinkedIn CreativeCubes People mentioned Sim Skovron Shaquille O’Neal Travis Kalanick Evan Spiegel Mark Cuban Nathan Buckley Mark Stern Gabby Leibovich George Garth Gav Fernando Geoff Harris Rachael Neumann Louie Gallina Randy Boyd Kamaru Usman Matt Allen Companies mentioned Pet Loo PetSafe Google Snapchat UPG (United Pet Group) AWS BYOG LA Lakers Everlab Lululemon Porsche Side Stage Ventures Playbook Ventures Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep178_-_Tobi_Skovron.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep178 – Tobi Skovron (Co-founder & CEO – Creative Cubes) on the curse of ambition appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep177 – Sam Kothari (Co-founder & COO – Everlab) on building world class teams and reinventing the primary care experience March 28, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Episode 177 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Sam Kothari, the Co-founder & COO of Everlab. Sam is an entrepreneur in the truest sense of the word having previously run everything from tuition businesses and ice cream shops to starting a popular Poke bowl chain across Sydney and Mebourne called, Poked. He is now the Co-founder & COO of Everlab, a first of its kind preventative health protocol that gives you access to cutting-edge diagnostics, a personal doctor and tailored programs – designed to improve wellbeing and longevity.  Everlab recently raised a $3M pre-seed funding round led by European VC fund, B2Ventures. My investment syndicate, Playbook Ventures, also participated in this round and I am personally very excited and bullish on what Sam and the team are building! In this episode Sam and I discuss a lot of his journey to date and the early days of Everlab including: Early lessons from founding and operating hospitality businesses Sam’s approach to attracting world class talent and building high performing teams Frameworks and tests to ensure Co-Founders are aligned Why prioritising your health makes you a better founder How to systematically approach fundraising and much more! Timestamps: 03:42 Sam’s background 05:30 Learnings from Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger 07:33 Going into business, challenging cultural norms 11:55 First attempts at business in hospitality 20:41 Importance of radical candour 24:27 Frameworks for personal relationships 29:21 How the founding team for Everlab came together 34:38 Frameworks for assessing co-founder dynamics 40:40 How Everlab is reinventing the primary care experience 42:30 Why health is so important for founders 46:56 Sam’s health routines 51:32 The Everlab protocol 59:52 How Everlab approached their fundraise 01:04:59 Fundraising advice to founders 01:06:21 How to identify and attract talent 01:15:52 Finding the balance between being kind and direct Our partners A big thank you to Marc Hermann, Dr. Steven Lu, Fab Makojc and Justin Huang for their help with research for this interview! Also a big thank you to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business.. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook. Links mentioned Sam’s links Sam’s LinkedIn Everlab Founder Questions Template People mentioned Dr Steven Lu Anshul Jain Marc Hermann Warren Buffet Charlie Munger Justin Huang Jessy Wu Adrian Petersen Alex Khor Nassim Taleb Simon Crowe Dr John Gottman Benjamin Franklin Wim Hof Bryan Johnson Andrew Huberman Peter Attia Alex Zatarain Ed Hooper Fab Mackojc Mark Woodland Luke Anear Companies mentioned Airwallex Seek Salesforce Amazon Eight Sleep Kismet SafetyCulture Borders Books Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation GXE Flying Fox Ventures Ten13 Afterwork Ventures B2 Venture Foodspring Connect Education Pokéd Chipotle Guzman y Gomez Mad Mex Lucas Group Messina Fitbit Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep177_-_Sam_Kothari.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep177 – Sam Kothari (Co-founder & COO – Everlab) on building world class teams and reinventing the primary care experience appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep176 – Luke Anear (Founder & CEO – SafetyCulture) on lessons from building a $2.7B company March 21, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Episode 176 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Luke Anear, the Founder & CEO of SafetyCulture. Luke is one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs. He started SafetyCulture in 2004 out of a garage in Townsville, initially as a lifestyle business, before conversations with Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes the co-founders of Atlassian, convinced him to take on Venture Capital funding. What started off as a checklist app for the construction industry has evolved into a fully fledged operations platform for businesses all around the world. In 2023, SafetyCulture raised $34M at a $2.7B valuation. In this episode Luke shares a lot of lessons and insights from his journey so far including: Luke’s entrepreneurial journey from a glass recycling business in Townsville at 16 to building SafetyCulture The decision to become a technology company and take on VC funding Personal growth and learnings from Mike & Scott at Atlassian How his role has evolved from the founder of a scrappy startup to the CEO of a global multi-billion dollar company & much more! Timestamps: 3:44 Luke’s background and early business ventures 6:02 First business challenges and lessons from Bill Smith 9:42 Founding SafetyCulture 14:45 SafetyCulture’s evolution and growth 18:08 Validating a new product 19:12 Taking on VC funding 23:40 Personal growth and learnings from Mike & Scott at Atlassian 26:33 Leadership and Scaling Challenges 31:47 How founders can share the vision of their company 35:32 Leadership and incentivising teams 40:35 How founders can work out what to focus on in the early stages 44:52 Advice to founders on dealing with stress  46:41 Helping your team grow Our partners A big thank you to Rick Baker for his help with research for this interview! Also a big thank you to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business.. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook. Links mentioned Luke’s links Luke’s LinkedIn People mentioned Rick Baker Gary Vaynerchuk Mike Cannon-Brookes Scott Farquhar Alex Zatarain Cliff Obrecht Melanie Perkins Bill Bartee Bill Smith Craig Tiley Tony Robbins Dare Jennings Reg Mombassa Caleb Holloway Companies mentioned SafetyCulture Telstra Blackbird Ventures Eight Sleep Canva Atlassian Insight Partners Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep176_-_Luke_Anear.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep176 – Luke Anear (Founder & CEO – SafetyCulture) on lessons from building a $2.7B company appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep175 – Ed Hooper (Co-founder & CEO – GXE) on frameworks, exits and investing March 14, 2024 rohitbhargava Uncategorized My guest for Ep175 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Ed Hooper, the Co-founder & CEO of GXE. Ed was previously the Co-founder & CEO of Omny Studio, which was an audio management platform used by media companies and podcasters to grow their audience, reduce production costs and monetize their platform. Omny was later acquired by Triton Digital. Ed then went on to launch Cardinia Ventures, a Venture Capital fund that invests in hardware and software startups from pre-seed to Series A stage and counts companies such as Chornosphere, Edrolo and SpiceAi in its porfolio. He is now the Co-founder & CEO of GXE, which is an all-in-one platform for Investment Funds, Family Offices and Syndicates. It’s also the platform we use to manage my syndicate, Playbook Ventures. In this episode, Ed shares the key lessons as an investor and founder including: Building & selling Omny Studio (acquired by Triton Digital) The frameworks Ed uses to make product feature decisions and assess trade offs How Ed approaches building professional relationships His approach to investing into startups & much more! Ps stick around till the end of the interview for an announcement! Timestamps 4:08 – Ed’s background 5:16 – SOAK (Ed’s first company) 8:57 – Learnings from Silicon Valley, advice to early stage founders 12:22 – Time at ANZ, Rome2Rio, Groupon 15:06 – Omny Studio origin story 19:02 – Launching SoundGecko 21:54 – How to think about product feature trade offs 25:27 – Things to consider when raising using SAFE notes 29:47 – Frameworks for solving business problems 32:09 – Raising from corporate VCs 35:03 – Omny Studio acquisition 39:07 – Building relationships and networks 42:27 – Strategically building relationships with investors 46:17 – How Cardinia Ventures started and what they invest in 50:05 – How to structure a fundraising round 53:27 – GXE journey 58:37 – How to prioritise product feature requests 1:00:48 – Playbook Ventures rolling fund Our partners A big thank you to Andrew Armstrong for his help with research for this interview! Also a big thank you to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business.. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook. Links mentioned Ed’s links Ed’s LinkedIn Playbook Ventures Rolling Fund Website https://www.playbookventures.com.au/ Email: [email protected] People mentioned Dan Lewin Bill Gates Book: Steve Jobs – Walter Isaccson Long Zheng Bernhard Tschirren Michael Cameron Clive Dickens Andrew Armstrong Rory McNeice Leigh Jasper Rachael Neumann James Harrisson Hamish & Andy Companies mentioned GXE Cardinia Ventures Omny Studio SOAK Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) Triton Microsoft York Butter Factory StageLabel Rome2Rio Groupon ANZ TechCrunch Slack Flickr Atlassian Pandora Shazam Apple Twitter/X Spotify Mamamia iHeartMedia Playbook Ventures Scale Investors Flying Fox Ventures Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep175_-_Ed_Hooper.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep175 – Ed Hooper (Co-founder & CEO – GXE) on frameworks, exits and investing appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep174 – Alexandra Zatarain (Co-founder – Eight Sleep) on branding, company DNA and category creation February 22, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep174 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & VP of Brand & Marketing of Eight Sleep, Alexandra Zatarain. Back in 2014, Alex moved from NYC to Silicon valley to launch a smart mattress company as 4 “outsiders” to the silicon valley startup scene. They wanted to build and create a first of its kind hardware product, built by a founding team with no prior hardware experience between them! In 2015, Eight Sleep launched via an Indigogo campaign that raised over $1M in pre-sales and fast forward to today, Eight Sleep is the world’s leader in helping people build their sleep fitness. The company has gone on to raise a total of over $150M (valuing the company over $500M), operates in 13 countries and has over 200 of the worlds leading athletes across F1, Tour de France, NBA and the NFL (to name a few) using their product. In this episode, Alex shares a lot of the journey, lessons and insights over the last decade in building Eight Sleep. Some of the topics we covered included: How to think about your company DNA The importance of brand messaging and positioning The benefits and challenges of creating your own category How to run successful influencer marketing campaigns and much more! Time stamps: 3:33 – Alex’s background, growing up in Mexico 9:43 – The decision to move to San Francisco and launch Eight Sleep 15:13 – The early days of building Eight Sleep 17:51 – Importance of brand messaging and positioning 21:23 – How to think about company branding 23:53 – Philosophy on brand messaging and company DNA 28:21 – Benefits and challenges of category creation 31:43 – Keeping stakeholders engaged when making big changes to a company 34:23 – How Alex thinks about marketing campaigns 37:13 – Product innovation and iterations 39:23 – How Eight Sleep leverages high profile athletes in their marketing 42:03 – Setting up successful influencer/athlete partnerships 48:34 – Insights from user data 51:37 – Sleep tips Our partners A big thank you to Matt de Boer for helping make this episode happen! Also a big thank you to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business.. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook. Links mentioned Alex’s links Alex’s Twitter/X Eight Sleep People mentioned Matteo Franceschetti Elon Musk Mark Woodland Andy Cunningham – Get to Aha Al Ramadan – Play Bigger Aaron Judge Brock Purdy Matt de Boer Companies mentioned Fitbit Jawbone Kismet Indiegogo Peloton Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep174_-_final.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep174 – Alexandra Zatarain (Co-founder – Eight Sleep) on branding, company DNA and category creation appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep173 – Mark Woodland (Co-founder & CEO – Kismet) on timing, leadership & high performance February 15, 2024 rohitbhargava Uncategorized My guest for Episode 173 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Kismet, Mark Woodland. Mark has had a fascinating journey to date. He joined the military to fulfil his brothers dreams before leaving to do “admin” for his mums childcare business. That experience led him to starting Xplor education, a childcare management platform that he grew from $0 to $40M ARR in 5 years before eventually being acquired by Advent International.  Mark is now back with his next company, Kismet, to reduce the barriers to access disability and healthcare services – a company that he initially had the idea for and pitched way back in 2010 before being laughed out of the room because as Mark puts it, it was a different generation back then! Fast forward to today and Kismet raised a $4M pre-seed round led by AirTree Ventures in early 2023 and recently closed a Series A funding round after seeing exceptional growth for the company. In this interview we covered a range of topics including: Mark’s journey from the Australian Army and running childcare centres to building Xplor which was acquired by private equity Why his retirement after his exit only lasted 2 weeks before he started his new venture Kismet Leadership principles and how he builds and inspires high performing teams How to get crystal clear on a product vision and avoid short term distractions & much more! Time stamps: 4:33 – Mark’s background 12:08 – Service mindset in business and life 16:18 – Meeting with AirTree for the first time while building Xplor 19:18 – The vision behind Xplor 22:03 – Lessons from building a childcare business vs tech startup 24:28 – The decision to exit from Xplor 27:03 – How to build high performance, humble company culture 33:18 – Thoughts on leadership 38:18 – The thesis behind Kismet and why Mark ended his retirement after 2 weeks to build it 40:18 – The importance of timing with startups 43:03 – The difference between being a solo founder with Xplor and having 5 co-founders with Kismet 47:33 – Staying focussed on the bigger vision and not getting distracted by short term wins 51:48 – How founders can clearly define their product vision 55:53 – How to push your team without breaking them 58:48 – How Mark approached hiring the first 150 employees at Xplor Our partners A big thank you to Daniel Petre, Elicia McDonald, Matt Ellis and Stefan Cordiner for their help with research for this interview! Also a big thank you to our partners for the show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business.. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook. Links mentioned Mark’s links Twitter/X LinkedIn Kismet (website) Kismet (LinkedIn) People mentioned Daniel Petre Paul Bennets Craig Blair Helen Norton Elicia McDonald Mat Ellis Stefan Cordiner Adam Neumann Companies mentioned Kismet Xplor Playbook Ventures AirTree WeWork Uber Airbnb Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep173_final.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep173 – Mark Woodland (Co-founder & CEO – Kismet) on timing, leadership & high performance appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep172 – Ben Grabiner (Co-founder & General Partner – Side Stage Ventures) on VC as a product February 8, 2024 rohitbhargava Uncategorized My guest for Episode 172 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & General Partner of Side Stage Ventures, Ben Grabiner. There are few people in the Australian startup ecosystem with the background on both sides of the table as Ben! He was an investor at Local Globe, one of the leading VC funds in the UK and Europe before jumping into starting Platoon, A platform to discover and develop the very best emerging creative talent, including the likes of Billie Eilish who they helped to discover and release her first song. In 2018, Platoon was acquired by Apple. After spending some time integrating and growing Platoon inside Apple, Ben is now back in the investment chair, as the Co-founder & General Partner of Side Stage Ventures. In this interview we covered a range of topics including: Ben’s experience as a Co-founder of Platoon from discovering talent like Billie Eilish to ultimately selling to Apple Lifting the lid on what Ben looks for and their process when investing through Side Stage Why Ben thinks of VC as a product, and the specific inputs they measure to ensure they’re on track despite the long feedback loops How the Australian Venture Capital landscape has evolved over time, and why now is one of the best times to build a huge global business in Australia and much more! Time stamps: 4:00 – Early career, working at LocalGlobe, founding Platoon 5:45 – Leaving Polonize to join LocalGlobe 6:50 – Launching an early stage seed fund in the UK 9:20 – Evolution of the Australian Venture Capital landscape 11:30 – Idea and model behind Platoon 18:00 – The two things Side Stage focuses on 19:15 – What Side Stage looks for when investing 21:30 – Investment decision process for Side Stage 23:45 – The decision to sell Platoon to Apple 27:45 – The experience Ben had post acquisition 30:30 – How Side Stage thinks about investing and building a fund from a product perspective 32:40 – Metrics and signals that Side Stage look for internally to make sure they’re on the right track 34:50 – The vision behind Side Stage Our partners A big thank you to Emily Casey for her help with research for this interview as well as to our partners for this show: Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business.. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook. Links mentioned Ben’s links Twitter/X LinkedIn Side Stage Ventures Side Stage Email People mentioned Saul Klein Billie Eilish Eazy-E Denzyl Feigelson Alex Zaccaria Anthony Zaccaria Emily Casey Companies mentioned LocalGlobe Platoon Apple LoveFilm Seedcamp Blackbird Soundcloud Spotify YouTube Linktree Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep172_-_Ben_Grabiner.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep172 – Ben Grabiner (Co-founder & General Partner – Side Stage Ventures) on VC as a product appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep171 – Micha Kaufman (Co-founder & CEO – Fiverr) on risk, virality and frameworks February 1, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep171 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, was Micha Kaufman the Co-founder & CEO of Fiverr. Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger launched Fiverr in 2010 as a marketplace to connect freelancers to people and businesses. The pitch was simple, you could hire people for tasks around the world for $5 or less. Like many ideas ahead of its time, Micha was laughed at by the first 20 people he pitched Fiverr to, which only made him more convinced about the idea! Fast forward to today and Fiverr employs hundreds of employees serving millions of users around the world. The company went public in 2019 and currently has a market cap over $1B. In this episode, Micha opens up on his journey, lessons and insights including: How his parents’ journey from Argentina to Israel, and his wife’s battle with cancer shaped his worldview and appetite for risk. His transition from practising lawyer to founder and lessons from first three companies before Fiverr. The framework for assessing ideas he created that helped him land on the idea for Fiverr. Launching and growing a double sided marketplace Maintaining culture as you scale a company and much more! Timestamps  5:20 – Lessons from his parents and upbringing  9:30 – Supporting his wife through her battle with cancer, how that pushed him to transition from law to entrepreneurship 15:00 – Challenges and lessons from first three companies 18:25 – Using a “think tank” to create framework of how to think about ideas to work on 21:30 – Early concept of Fiverr 31:20 – Approaching the chicken and egg problem of launching a two sided marketplace 35:45 – Maintaining company culture as Fiverr scaled from a small startup to publicly listed company 43:00 – Advice to founders on navigating uncertain times ahead Our partners Scendar  Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business.. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook. Links Mentioned  Micha’s links Fiverr Micha’s LinkedIn Micha on Twitter/X People mentioned Ben Hensman (Portfolio Manager – Square Peg Capital) Companies mentioned Uber Lyft Airbnb Amazon Etsy Square Peg Capital Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep171_-_Micha_Kaufman_Co-founder__CEO_-_Fiverr_on_risk_virality_and_frameworks.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep171 – Micha Kaufman (Co-founder & CEO – Fiverr) on risk, virality and frameworks appeared first on Startup Playbook.