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:
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 partnersA 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:
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Links mentionedEd’s links* Ed’s LinkedIn
Playbook Ventures Rolling Fund* Website https://www.playbookventures.com.au/ * Email: fund@playbookventures.com.au
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
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