Hard Mode: Recent Episodes

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Welcome to this episode of Hard Mode featuring Seedooh Founder & CEO Tom Richter in conversation with Tractor Ventures Co-Founder and Co-CEO Matt Allen.

Seedooh is a fully automated, data-led Independent Verification Platform for public space advertising campaign reporting - the first of its kind. They’re committed to helping Australia develop a new industry standard in campaign playout reporting and they’re actively scaling into other highly-developed global markets.

Discussed in this episode is Advertising Technology trends, taking a sector-wide approach to big data, the changing face of advertising attribution and how Seedooh evolved in the early days from consultancy to a platform.

Talking points:

• Scaling an ad verification platform
• The solution for advertisers and advertising agencies, globally
• Taking a sector-wide approach to big data
• Transitioning from consultancy to platform
• Dividing a line between known and unknown
• The changing face of advertising attribution
• The future of integration and connectivity

Links:

• Seedooh
• AWS for Startups

Online: www.seedooh.com

Twitter: @SeedoohPlatform

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Tractor Ventures Co-Founder & Co-CEO Matt Allen: @mattallen

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Welcome to Hard Mode with Social Media College Co-Founders & Co-CEO's Daniele Tanner & Jonathon Tanner in conversation with Tractor Ventures Entrepreneur in Residence, Noga Edelstein.

Social Media College is the market leader for social media education. They work with the world's top social media experts who use all the social platforms every day to deliver real life education that helps people accelerate their business and career. They possess national accreditation for their Diploma of Social Media Marketing and engage with thousands of students and multiple universities.

In 2014, Jonathon and Daniele were working in the consulting and advertising media industries & realised employers were struggling to find qualified social media managers and tertiary education providers were finding it impossible to keep up with the constantly evolving nature of social media marketing. This set in motion bringing the concept of Social Media College to market.

Talking points:

• The beginnings as a digital video agency
• Leveraging the power of motion picture, online
• Moving into a specific niche problem to solve
• Moving from Southern California to

Links:

• Social Media College
• A Cloud Guru
• Canva
• Chargebar
• Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers List
• Open Colleges
• Pluralsight
• Social Media Marketing Diploma

Online: www.socialmediacollege.com

Twitter: @SMConnect

Instagram: @socialmediacollege

Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/SocialMediaCollegeTV

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Tractor Ventures Entrepreneur in Residence Noga Edelstein: @nogsE

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Welcome to Hard Mode with Joshua Williams, Founder & CEO of Cartelux. The Cartelux story is fascinating - they are shaping the future of retail marketing, empowering local area marketers to run digital campaigns in the most time efficient, cost efficient and brand compliant fashion possible, and have found particular product market fit within the automative industry.

Discussed in this episode is Josh's approach to solving niche problems, the challenge and discipline required to pivot from a good, working business model to embrace risk in transitioning to a global tech company. Josh permanently moved from California to Australia and continues to grow Cartelux's global trajectory. Great chat!

Talking points:

• The beginnings as a digital video agency
• Leveraging the power of motion picture, online
• Moving into a specific niche problem to solve
• Moving from Southern California to Australia
• The transition from filmmaker to entrepreneur
• Shutting down a good business to go all in on a global tech play
• A globally distributed team
• The hard part about hard things
• Creating a team-wide culture of conviction
• Leaning heavily into automotive industry

Links:

• Cartelux
• Aston Martin
• Audi
• BMW Group
• Ford
• Google
• Kristin Harder
• MG
• Nissan
• Patrick Doble
• Raoul Picello
• Renault
• Starcom
• Toyota

Online: https://cartelux.com/

Twitter: @Cartelux

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Tractor Ventures Entrepreneur in Residence Noga Edelstein: @nogsE

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Welcome to this episode of Hard Mode with Syncio Founder Jimmy Zhong in conversation with Tractor Ventures Co-CEO Matt Allen. Jimmy and Matt talk about the bootstrapped progression for Syncio, achieving network effect along the way

Syncio is on a mission to take commerce to its next stage - Collaborative Commerce. This is a world where merchants can seamlessly partner with other merchants to cross-promote and sell each others products, where merchants can grow together.

Syncio does this through real-time inventory, product, and order syncing across online stores. This reduces the immense time required to manage inventory across different shopfronts, ensuring all connected shopfronts have accurate stock levels to avoid overselling. 3000+ online stores use Syncio, syncing hundreds of millions of dollars in GMV on an annual basis.

Talking points:

• Jimmy’s beginnings in fashion
• The thing about marketplaces
• Pivoting to ethical and sustainable lifestyle fashion focus
• Creating and leaning on the network effect
• Shifting to full time focus on Syncio
• Launching into accelerator programs
• To go down VC path or to not go down VC path?
• The reality of the founder journey away from the shiny stuff
• Hard Mode
• An admiration for the growth of Singapore
• Creating a category: Collaborative Commerce

Links:

• Syncio
• Akagu
• Ethi
• Kookai
• Lee Kuan Yew
• Melbourne Accelerator Program
• Modern Singapore
• Patagonia
• Startmate
• Shopify

Online: www.syncio.co

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Matt Allen: @mattallen

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Welcome to this episode of Hard Mode featuring The English Farm Founder Matthew Radich.

The English Farm was created by teachers to be the best place on the Internet to learn English - They’re a community of more than 120 teachers, based all around the world, with Matthew himself residing in Auckland New Zealand.

During the podcast chat with Tractor Head of Engagement Garry Williams, Matthew dives into the origins of starting The English Farm in Japan and Brazil, new Māori language focussed business streams and the importance of people, especially with a workforce based all around the world.

Talking points:

• Beginning the business in one of the most difficult markets
• A long history wth Japan
• The challenges of dealing with a remote distributed team
• Building trust with a large amount of staff all around the world
• Factoring in seasonality
• Hard to find downtime!
• Down to the last $20…
• Make or Break time
• Luck plays a part in building the business
• The gratification in building a business
• Taking steps towards end goals

Online:

https://theenglishfarm.com/

Facebook: @theenglishfarm

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Garry Williams: @gwilliamsALTS

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Welcome to this episode of Hard Mode featuring Urban Plant Growers Co-Founders Dilhan Wickremanayake & Peter Cole. Urban Plant Growers address the issue of food wastage and environmental degradation by selling indoor plant growing products to the average person.

Much of the food we eat comes from industrial farms that rely heavily on fertilisers and pesticides that reduce the long term health of the soil they grow in. Furthermore the plants we commonly eat are those that are suited not to taste and freshness, but to being driven halfway across the country in a cold steel box to get to you.

Hydroponics and indoor farming provides the opportunity for city dwellers to become self sustainable, allowing them to live healthier and more environmentally friendly lives.

Dilhan and Peter chat to Garry Williams from Tractor about their backgrounds as engineers, launching an equity crowdfunding campaign to fund the next phase of life for UPG from the people and their importance on the team culture.

Talking points:

• An interview in the middle of a fundraise
• Growing a holistic gardening company
• 2 engineers meet at university
• A COVID contribution to sales
• Launching an equity crowdfunding campaign
• Scaling up the ambition by hiring for needs
• An eye to further overseas expansion
• Realities of shipping & supply chain logistics
• People as an integral part of the business
• A range of new products that enables people to grow food at the point of consumption

Links:

• Urban Plant Growers
• Costco
• David Jones
• Eden Gardens
• Equitise
• Flower Power
• Marine Traffic

Online:

https://www.urbanplantgrowers.com/

Instagram: @urbanplantgrowers

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Garry Williams: @gwilliamsALTS

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Welcome to this episode of Hard Mode featuring Paperform Co-Founders Diony & Dean McPherson.

Paperform is a flexible online form builder like no others. It combines beautiful design with serious digital smarts to create endless possibilities - you’ll hear the company referred to as a digital Swiss Army knife more than once in this episode.

Payments, bookings, onboarding - all is possible in the Paperform experience, which is used by thousands of customers all around the world.

Diony and Dean talk to us about running the business while running a family together, why optionality is important, building a great team culture for what’s important and getting very good at arguing well. We discuss their journey as a bootstrapped company, venturing into new enterprise offerings and how they feel about the term 'lifestyle business' particularly as it relates to the balance between the company and family.

Talking points:

• The origins of the big vision
• How do we feel about the perception of a lifestyle business?
• Building a great culture with family and community first
• To scale or not to hyper scale?
• A customer base predominantly overseas.
• Between optionality and end-games
• Hard mode moments in the journey
• Getting good at arguing well
• Making sure that responsibility and authority are matched
• A background in arts/culture to a career in SaaS
• A-ha moment of where Paperform sits in the market
• Utmost emphasis on customer success
• Turn on the tap with enterprise product offerings

Links:

• Paperform
• 37Signals
• ANU
• Basecamp
• Google Arts & Culture
• Macquarie University
• Linktree
• Zapier

Online:

https://paperform.co/

Twitter: @PaperformCo

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Matt Allen: @mattallen

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Welcome to this episode of Hard Mode featuring Talisium Founder Tony Brennan. Talisium are reimagining global health education by providing a global focussed training platform that enables health employers and professionals to access thousands of health courses to upskill and stay current.

During this conversation with Tractor Ventures Entrepreneur in Residence Noga Edelstein, Tony dives into his unbelievable career journey, and unpacks the motivations behind running this high impact business.

Tony has a background in the Australian army, including time with the Parachute Surgical Team, where he trained in severe trauma medicine and aviation medicine. Tony completed a law degree and spent time practicing in the areas of corporate finance, corporate advisory and M&A. And as an academic, Tony was Australia’s youngest Adjunct Law Professor and has taught law and foreign direct investment across Australia and Asia.

He has worked in corporate advisory across Asia, the Middle East and South America and more recently was the CEO for a medical and health services company where he developed training and medical projects in Afghanistan, the Middle East, USA, Africa and Haiti.

Talking points:

• Providing Health Education with Impact
• Now THAT is a career trajectory
• Solving problems on a big scale
• A love of entrepreneurship as a career
• Funding perspective for growing an impact focussed business
• Pinch-me moments in developing Talisium
• ‘We make our own luck’
• High Praise for those who step into the unknown

Links:

• Talisium
• Clayton Utz
• National University of Singapore

Online:

talisium.com

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Noga Edelstein: @nogsE

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Welcome to this episode of Hard Mode featuring Framefox Founder George Coltart. George helps people design simple, beautiful custom framing to easily frame any poster, print, or photo without leaving the house.

Framefox have been a predominantly bootstrapped business that has benefitted from particular marketing techniques and word of mouth, which George attributes to the way that they are transforming a somewhat boring industry into something translatable into the digital focused world.

In the conversation with Tractor Ventures General Partner (NZ) Lance Hodges, we dive into George's background in UX/UI design, transitioning the side-project to a full-time business and solving for a number of complexities along the way, including international expansion.

Talking points:

• A background in digital design forming the origins of the Framefox story
• Transitioning from side project to full business
• A one-person operation (for a time)
• Solving for complexities by outsourcing roles
• A predominant focus of outsourcing complex tech needs of the business
• Seeing scaling marketing return results
• The slow pace of bootstrapping gets word of mouth kicking in
• International expansion

Links:

• Haus
• Kubb Brothers
• Nik Sharma

Online:

www.framefox.com.au

www.framefox.co.nz

Framefox on Instagram: @framefoxframes

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Lance Hodges: @lancehodges

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Welcome to this episode of Hard Mode featuring Dashdot Co-Founder & CEO Goose McGrath. Goose & his Co-Founder Gabi Billing lead a team of ~70 people helping people to achieve their life and financial goals and with much less risk.

Dashdot are Property Portfolio Growth Partners, on a mission to transform the way the world invests. They help their clients build prolific, profitable property portfolios, so they can achieve financial freedom faster, and live a life by design, not default. It’s Data and heart that sets them apart.

In this conversation with Tractor Head of Engagement Garry Williams, Goose outlines the Dashdot approach to content and marketing, how you make people feel about branding, and making sure people understand that the team can be the biggest growth engine in your business (if you build that team right.)

Talking points:

• Helping people to achieve their life and financial goals and with much less risk
• Identifying the best property investment opportunities at the best time
• Property doubles every 7 years, right?
• A very unconventional path into investment focussed careers
• Changing the way people think about wealth
• Becoming a self-initiated content factory
• How you make people feel with branding
• The team can be the biggest growth engine in the business

Online: dashdot.com.au

Dashdot on Instagram: @dashdotproperty

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Garry Williams: @gwilliamsALTS

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Welcome to this episode of Hard Mode featuring Glow Founder & CEO, Tim Clover. Glow is best-in-class research-tech that makes it easier and faster to gather actionable human insights.

Glow gives users the power to get their market research right and the confidence to act on insights now. Teams within brands, consultancies, market research agencies and marketing agencies across the globe use Glow’s technology to make an impact.

In this conversation with Tractor Co-Founder & CEO Matt Allen, Tim outlines how Glow access insights from 110 million people globally, streamlining research processes and creating a new category of fast insight originally.

Talking points:

• Capturing Customer Feedback in Hard to Reach Places
• A new category of fast insight
• Taking a new idea to market
• Building enough tech to get early traction
• A complex set of interacting processes
• Creating a syndicated data product
• A-ha moments in user research
• The dangers of being in Hard Mode
• Balancing internal and external needs
• Extending decision making throughout the team
• Market Value Barometers
• Working with investors to look outwards

Links:

• Glow
• Glow Social Responsibility Score
• Coles
• Linktree
• Nielsen
• PWC
• Target

Online: www.glowfeed.com

Glow on Twitter: @glowfeed

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Matt Allen: @mattallen

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Welcome to this episode of Hard Mode featuring Multitudes Founder & CEO, Laurent Peate. Multitudes helps engineering leaders and teams deliver well without burning people out. It's an ethical team analytics tool that uses GitHub (and soon, Slack and Jira) integrations to uncover everything from key DevOps metrics to who’s missing out on feedback and who needs a check-in about burnout in their next 1:1. They then help teams take action with their dynamic 1:1 guides.

In this conversation with Tractor Co-Founder & CEO Matt Allen, the chat dives into the collective potential of teams, the need for psychological safety, the early grind in developing Multitudes and pinch me moments when building a startup.

Talking points:

• Inspired by the collective potential of teams
• The early grind to grow the vision
• The need for teams to have psychological safety
• Equity and Inclusion to negate underestimation of team members
• ‘Kudos!’
• Hard Mode in product ownership
• Criss Crossing career paths
• Building an engineering team that helps engineering teams build
• Pinch Me moments building Multitudes
• Interacting directly with personal heroes
• Doubling down on action from insights

Links:

• Multitudes
• Buffer
• Ellen Pao
• Zebra Movement

Online:

https://www.multitudes.co/

Multitudes on Twitter: @MultitudesCo

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Matt Allen: @mattallen

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Welcome to this episode of Hard Mode featuring Usability Hub Co-Founder & CEO, Matt Milosavljevic. UsabilityHub is a remote usability testing platform that allows you to backup design decisions with real user data.

In this conversation with Tractor Co-Founder & CEO Matt Allen, the chat dives into how UsabilityHub operate with their 3 co-founders, their company beginnings being somewhat of a happy accident, the particulars of scaling a bootstrapped tech business, how modest success can be totally acceptable when doing so, and finding true success in outcomes such as building a solid team.

Talking points:

• Usability Hub beginnings (a happy accident)
• Operating nowadays as a 3-founder company
• Where Usability Hub fits in the research market
• The problem being solved
• Five-second tests on everything (even penguin enclosures)
• The particulars of running a high scaling and bootstrapped tech business
• How modest success can be completely acceptable when bootstrapping
• Hiring opportunities and hiring challenges
• ‘Not a lifestyle business’
• The success in building a solid team
• Reaching new levels and milestones
• A love of Buildkite
• Emphasising Customer Success

Links:

• UsabilityHub
• Matt Milosavljevic
• Nicholas Firth-McCoy
• Tristan Gamilis
• Alan Downie
• Apple
• Atlassian
• Bugherd
• Buildkite
• fivesecondtest.com
• Startmate

Online:

https://usabilityhub.com

UsabilityHub on Twitter: @UsabilityHub

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Matt Allen: @mattallen

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Welcome to this episode of Hard Mode Podcast featuring HEX founder Jeanette Cheah. The HEX team help thousands of young people bring their future to life by training up future startup founders, social activists and corporate innovators ,and giving them the skills, tools and brain-hacks they need.

HEX are creating a generation of leaders who take action to create the world they want to live in, via seriously fun virtual programs, study abroad experiences and hackathon-style events that 5000+ students have loved.

We talk about the transferral of magic to pivot HEX into what it is today, creating their own category, fundraising, the value in social capital and the factors of Jeanette's upbringing that have influenced the flavour of HEX's 'Innovation Gap Year' mission.

Talking points:

• ‘Love a Good Origin Story’
• The beginnings of the HEX journey
• Testing the MVP and developing the partnerships
• Transferring the magic in order to pivot when the world changed
• Interrupting the flow by creating HEX’s own category
• Resilience building through early International exposure
• Not likely to shift to ‘EASY MODE’
• Network building for growth support
• The value in social capital
• Fundraising with an overwhelmingly high percentage of women investors
• Receiving signals from the wider world, for Innovation Gap Year
• Hex-cellent moments to reflect on

Links:

• HEX
• General Assembly
• Kathy Rhodes
• LMBDW
• RMIT
• SBE
• SXSW
• Tractor Ventures

Online:

www.startwithhex.com

HEX on Instagram: @startwithhex

HEX on Twitter: @startwithhex

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Noga Edelstein: @nogsE

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Blackbird Co-Founder Niki Scevak joins Tractor Ventures Co-Founder Matt Allen on the Hard Mode Podcast to talk about the history of starting Blackbird Ventures and the interactions with numerous founders shaping the trajectory of the AU/NZ technology ecosystem.

Blackbird is a venture capital firm with the mission to be a partner to the greatest business stories born from Australia and New Zealand. Prior to Blackbird Ventures, Niki founded Startmate, an accelerator that helps nerds with ideas become great CEOs and build global startups. Earlier, he co-founded two software companies.

Founded in 2012, Blackbird partners with founders at the very beginning and surrounds them with a community of other founders who have built successful technology companies before.

Talking points:

• Starting a VC fund akin to starting a business (aka Hard)
• An amalgamation of no’s
• An unlikely, but hugely rewarding partnership
• The early hard moments in Blackbird
• An eclectic bunch of folks in Blackbird Fund 1
• ‘Its hard to build big teams on management fees alone on small funds’
• Building Blackbird as a startup, with team members invested in the process.
• Working with a large amount of founders
• Hard mode company problems = people problems
• Indicators of a successful portfolio company
• Unlikely founders solving problems they don’t feel they are qualified to…
• Venture Capital not necessarily the model for all
• Hard Mode for first time fund creators

Links:

• Niki Scevak
• Blackbird
• Blackbird GIANTS
• Startmate
• Startmate Fellowship
• 500 Startups
• Accel
• Aconex
• Andreessen Horowitz
• Atlassian
• Benchmark Fund
• Campaign Monitor
• Cliff Obrecht
• Didier Elzinga
• Grabble
• Halfbrick Studios
• Luke Anear
• Melanie Perkins
• MLC
• Nick Crocker
• Redbubble
• RetailMeNot
• Rick Baker
• Rowan Simpson
• Samantha Wong
• Sequoia Capital
• Scott Farquhar
• Timely
• Vend
• Xero

Follow Niki Scevak on Twitter: @nikiscevak

Follow Blackbird on Twitter: @blackbirdvc

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

Online:

www.blackbird.vc

www.tractorventures.com

This episode was hosted by Matt Allen: @mattallen

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Welcome to Hard Mode with the founder of Financial Services group Claimo: Nathan Mortlock. Claimo are specialists in claiming back junk insurance refunds for thousands of consumers that have outlaid on car finance, credit cards, personal loans and mortgages.

This team do the investigative work with finance institutions to recover these funds on behalf of the consumer, and we cover some fortunate recent aspects of the business such as consumer advocacy and referrals, plus national media coverage which boosted their customer base hugely.

Talking points:

• Being one of the first to market, solving a problem for Aus customers, as part of Claimo’s origin
• Banging the drum for consumers rights after Royal Commission findings
• Consumer advocacy and storytelling as a claims management business
• Experiencing a win with national media coverage
• Taking the time to discover how the market worked, but engaging with community groups
• Being in the midst of exponential growth at Claimo
• Tapping into more verticals in the near future

Links:

• Claimo
• Claimo Channel 9 report
• Royal Commission into banking misconduct
• How I Built This Podcast

Online:

claimo.com.au

Nathan Mortlock on Twitter: @ClaimoNathan

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Garry Williams: @gwilliamsALTS

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This episode of Hard Mode features the founders of Float: CEO Glenn Rogers & CTO Lars Gelfan.

Float brings the most powerful set of resource management features together in one place to make scheduling your team’s time faster, easier, and more efficient. Built for teams big and small across all industries, the world’s top companies rely on Float to manage their resources more efficiently and deliver great work.

We talk about how Float manage a globally distributed & remote-first team, how they develop the features for 4000+ teams worldwide to use & love their platform and dive into the particulars of being self-funded since 2012, growing, and profitable.

Talking points:

• Creating a fully remote global company, born of solving a specific problem
• Moving Float from side project to full time thing
• 4000 teams across the globe use Float!
• Being remote-first from day one
• Changes in the profile of employees enquiring about working with Float?
• Started off creating something simple that met your needs
• Some hard mode snafu’s
• How to know your co-founder when working in a remote-first team
• Building the company that the co-founders always wanted to work for

Links:

• Float.com
• Float - Best Work Life Blog
• AirBnB
• Bootstrappers.com - Does a Startup Need Funding to Be Successful? This Founder Says No
• NASA
• Real Madrid Football Club

Online:

www.float.com

Float 'Best Work Life' Blog: www.float.com/blog

Float on Twitter: @float

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Garry Williams: @gwilliamsALTS

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This Hard Mode Podcast focusses on Versus Merch, welcoming CEO & Founder Evan McLellan and COO Scott Cooper to the microphone for a chat.

Versus Merch provides custom branded merchandise and promo item solutions for businesses, events, sporting clubs, peak bodies and more, with uniforms, employee onboarding packs, gift packages and literally anything you can imagine.

We cover some really interesting aspects of the businesses origins, such as its evolution from the punk & hardcore realm of the music industry, through to scaling a traditionally non-tech venture via technology scaling processes.

Talking points:

• The parallels between music industry and business
• The skills you pick up from hobbies
• The origins of Versus Merch
• Scaling non-tech businesses with tech business scaling experience
• Expanding overseas
• From one-person operation to a fully invested team operation
• Big picture thinking and learning from mistakes
• ‘We put your name on anything’
• Capitalising on trends to help guide clients and customers
• Acknowledging significant wins in building the right team in the right way
• Growth via Tractor Ventures partnership
• As the events industry begins to emerge again…
• Growth via networks and partnerships

Links:

• Versus Merch
• Article: How being in a band taught me everything I know about marketing and running a business
• Bowls Victoria
• Drawboard
• FuckUp Nights
• GO1
• JW Player
• Levis
• Liverpool Football Club
• Red Bull
• Tractor Ventures
• Waywire
• Y Combinator

Online:

www.versusmerch.com

Versus Merch on Instagram: @versusmerch

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Garry Williams: @gwilliamsALTS

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Welcome to this episode of Hard Mode featuring the Founders of Brisbane based visual content production platform Creatively Squared - Ruth Stephensen and Scott Thomas.

Companies like Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, Heineken and Google use the Creatively Squared platform to maximise their content budget and create original photos and videos at scale, via a highly engaged network of content creators who are a crucial part of the platform.

We talk about their experience building this three sided marketplace - flying around the world in the initial days to grow an enterprise client base, growing a business and a family together at the same time and helping creators monetise their passions.

Talking points:

• Creating a company from a community
• Ultra-affordability for everyday creatives to get started
• Developing a three sided marketplace between brands and creators
• The view on creating a category
• Where we are heading from a visual creative perspective
• Helping creators monetise their skills
• Can’t replace the value of face to face interactions with enterprise customers
• Some particularly hard mode moments
• Some insight into running a bootstrapped startup with your partner as a co-founder
• Loving the wins in the business
• What does the future look like?

Links:

• Creatively Squared
• Bootstrappers.com - How This Couple Built a $1 Million Life-Friendly Startup That Helps Visual Storytellers Monetize Their Passions
• Cisco
• Drift
• Heineken
• Johnson & Johnson
• Shopify
• Tractor Ventures

Online:

www.creativelysquared.com

Creatively Squared on Instagram: @creativelysquared

Creatively Squared on Twitter: @creativelysqrd

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Garry Williams: @gwilliamsALTS

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Disco Labs Founder & CEO Gavin Ballard joins us on Hard Mode to talk about Disco’s next phase of life - transitioning to a product-first company for future growth. Disco Labs are a world–leading agency specialising in custom software and integrations for Shopify Plus merchants.

They’re inaugural Shopify Plus Partners, having worked with the platform since 2008 and as they themselves say, they literally wrote the book on Shopify development.

We talk about their decade long journey in the Shopify ecosystem, the future of ecommerce and what type of persona makes a good product focussed team member.

Talking points:

• The transition to a product-first company
• A decade long journey in the Shopify ecosystem
• Shifting a companies focus for future growth
• The balancing act between client and product
• 'Didn’t end up becoming a palaeontologist’
• Pairing up with Tractor for optionality
• The future of ecommerce
• Technical vs non-technical product people

Links:

• Disco Labs
• Shopify
• Submarine
• Bootstrappers.com - How This Ex-Lawyer Turned Software Engineer Launched a $1 million+ Shopify SaaS
• Clubhouse
• Hasbro
• JB HiFi
• Stripe
• Twilio
• We Make Websites
• Wildbit

Online:

www.discolabs.com

Disco Labs on Twitter: @DiscoLabs

Gavin Ballard on Twitter: @GavinBallard

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Lance Hodges: @lancehodges

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This episode of Hard Mode Podcast features Accurassi Founder and Executive Chair, Ross Sharman. Accurassi are a modular Customer Acquisition and Management Platform for the next generation of energy retailers. Their energy retail software supports the decentralisation of energy infrastructure, and they deploy renewable technology at scale to facilitating excess energy trading between customers.

Their built for purpose energy retailer software is modular, scalable, and engineered for our net-zero future. We talk about positioning the company for capitalising on mega-trends, discuss capital and growth opportunities and building a team with the right people around you.

Talking points:

• Tackling the Climate Change issue with Accurassi
• Understanding what’s needed and being ready to execute hen the opportunity exists
• Hard mode for Accurassi
• The capital conversation, especially when executing on mega-trends
• Fleeting moments of imposter syndrome
• Building with the right people around you
• Transitioning leadership for product-focussed reasons
• Celebrating the wins when they land
• Accelerating growth for globalisation
• Out of the Box Thinking for hiring
• The realities of the aged care industry

Links:

• Accurassi
• Amaysim
• B Corp
• Colin Fraser
• FrankieOne
• Frollo

Online:

www.accurassi.com

Twitter: @accurassi

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Kirsti Grant: @KirstiGrant

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Age Up Health Founder Grace Petherick joins us on the Hard Mode podcast to talk about her journey impacting and changing the way aged care is planned and delivered. Age Up Health are an Aged Care Provider offering a more flexible approach to in-home support and their services are driven by their cornerstones of health, individuality and community.

They offer easy access to top health professionals and carers, a flexible set of memberships for every lifestyle and budget, and access to a network of personality-matched community groups that can help people explore interests and stay connected.

We hone in on the inspirations for Grace to build out such a platform and scale the capacity through technological implementation, and of course, the original inspiration for venturing down this path originally- operating in a complex environment.

Talking points:

• The inspiration for solving problems in aged health care
• Finding Product Market Fit and learning more about core customers
• Helping people to stay living independently at home as they age
• The peculiarity of the fundraising process as a business owner
• The focus on providing value for the business
• The Big vision
• The realities of the aged care industry

Links:

• Age Up Health
• Skalata Ventures
• SBE Australia
• Tractor Ventures

Online:

www.ageuphealth.com.au

www.tractorventures.com

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

This episode was hosted by Jodie Imam: @JodieImam

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Rowan Simpson joins us to have a conversation with Matt Allen on the Hard Mode podcast, discussing his journey in navigating technology ecosystems and his role over the years as a founder of and early investor in multiple high-growth technology businesses, including companies such as Timely, Vend, Xero and Trade Me.

Rowan is the Chairman of Hoku Group family office, which combines private investments, early-stage venture investments and Hoku Foundation, a non-profit foundation. His active startup investments include Atomic, Melodics, Mentemia, Parkable, StickyBeak and Thematic, and as referenced, Rowan is a significant investor into Tractor Ventures itself.

Rowan elaborates on capital investment trends, how technology and people can achieve great things together, the skill in execution and much much more from his extensive experience.

Talking points:

• The life story in reverse chronological orders
• An emphasis on what technology and people can do together
• Building software companies for which there doesn’t exist a big blueprint
• Bootstrapping before it was even a term
• The grind of doing the things when no-one is watching
• Struggles in startup land
• A series of stumbling into success moments
• The people that make all the difference
• Emerging trends in how founders are thinking about capital
• The ‘Quite Ones’
• What’s next for Rowan

Links:

• Rowan Simpson
• Hoku
• Atomic
• Melodics
• Mentemia
• Parkable
• Stickybeak
• Thematic
• Accenture
• Bernie Taupin
• Breve
• Charlie Munger
• Edmund Hillary
• Elton John
• Flathunt
• Tenzing Norgay
• Timely
• Trade Me
• Vend
• Xero

Follow Rowan Simpson on Twitter: @rowansimpson

Online:

rowansimpson.com

hoku.nz

rowansimpson.substack.com

www.tractorventures.com

This episode was hosted by Matt Allen: @mattallen

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Joining Tractor Ventures Co-Founder Aprill Allen on this episode of Hard Mode is Alexandria Garlan (COO) and Mitchell Harmer (CEO) - the Co-Founders of construction-technology startup SignOnSite.

SignOnSite is an in-field connected worker platform for the construction industry, which removes roadblocks for people on site. They discuss with Aprill their 'Why' behind starting the company, the challenges they overcame in the earliest days, complex stakeholder trees in construction and finding inspiration as founders.

Talking points:

• The SignOnSite founders background in construction
• The ‘Why’ and beginnings behind SignOnSite
• What informs a management style
• An emphasis on life-long learning
• Evaluating the current status of SignOnSite when not follow the traditional VC model
• Overcoming challenges in the earliest days of starting a startup
• Earliest indicators of success on the journey to validate heading in the right direction
• Creating ones own category and the infancy of construction tech
• Being the only woman tech founder in an industry that employs 10% of Australia’s workforce
• The complex stakeholder tree in construction, and the opportunities within it
• The double edged sword of accelerators
• The influence of external help in fuelling SignOnSite growth
• Finding inspiration as founders
• Attracting talent aligned to company values
• Building to solve the right problems in the right way

Links:

• SignOnSite
• Aconex
• Adore Beauty
• Apple
• Barangaroo
• Bootstrappers.com
• Kate Morris
• Lean Startup
• Lego
• PlanGrid
• Procore
• Simon Butt

Follow SignOnSite on Twitter: @SignOnSite

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

Online:

signonsite.com

tractorventures.com

This episode was hosted by Aprill Allen: @knowledgebird

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Professor Karen Nelson-Field, the Founder and CEO of Adelaide based Amplified Intelligence, joins the Hard Mode podcast to discuss the company's significant impact and upwards trajectory.

Amplified Intelligence lead the global attention economy - recognising that current metrics fail advertisers and cause media spend to disappear with minimal value to brands. The team focus on audience measurement and attention, with their proprietary technology evening the playing field by adding human measures that are fair to all platforms and highly effective when applied.

Karen discusses her journey from academia to entrepreneurship, the importance of public engagement and challenging assumptions amongst other talking points in this great chat.

Talking points:

• From academic to accidental entrepreneur
• Growing an attention measurement business & category
• Becoming a thought leader in your space
• The importance of public engagement
• Challenging assumptions to make people feel empowered
• Leaving comfort behind to pursue the means to solve the problem
• Enjoying leaving a mark and creating a legacy in the process
• The AI ways to attract business & talent
• Tech ecosystem help in scaling businesses with specialists
• Turning the hard stuff into a positive
• Whats next, where’s the main excitement with huge scaling growth?

Links:

• Teamgage
• Ben Colley
• Canva
• Envato
• Kobe Bryant
• Simon Griffiths
• Terry Gold
• Techstars
• Thankyou
• Who Gives A Crap?

Links:

• Amplified Intelligence
• Book: The Attention Economy and How Media Works
• Book: Viral Marketing, The Science of Sharing
• Book: No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
• Book: Play Bigger: How Rebels and Innovators Create New Categories and Dominate Markets
• University of South Australia

Follow Amplified Intelligence on Twitter: @amplified_intel

Follow Prof Karen Nelson-Field on Twitter: @KNelsonField

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

Online:

amplifiedintelligence.com.au

www.tractorventures.com

This episode was hosted by Garry Williams: @gwilliamsALTS

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Joining Tractor Ventures CEO & Co-Founder Matt Allen on the very first episode of Hard Mode is Noelle & Ben Smit, the founders of Adelaide-based software company Teamgage.

Teamgage are the modern alternative to pulse and engagement surveys, enabling everyone to continuously improve their own team and organisation. Teamgage were the first company to join the Tractor Ventures roster, so it is only fitting to invite them to participate first in this podcast series, leaning into the realities of creating sustainable, growing startups.

Talking points:

• The Teamgage origin story
• Creating a category of continuous improvement for teams
• The reality of scaling a startup to this point
• Hard things along the journey
• Best laid career plans
• Running a startup as life partners
• Disaster/ Partnership
• Where workplace can learn from elite sports
• Being able to seperate from your business
• Finding inspiration from other leaders
• ‘What’s on the radar?’

Links:

• Teamgage
• Ben Colley
• Canva
• Envato
• Kobe Bryant
• Simon Griffiths
• Terry Gold
• Techstars
• Thankyou
• Who Gives A Crap?

Follow Teamgage on Twitter: @teamgage

Follow Ben Smit on Twitter: @ben7smit

Follow Noelle Smit on Twitter: @NoelleSuze

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

Online:

teamgage.com

www.tractorventures.com

This episode was hosted by Matt Allen: @mattallen

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Welcome to the Hard Mode podcast - a storytelling series focusing on the startup founder reality as they embarked on their journey towards growing impressive, sustainable businesses, on their terms.

We feature Tractor Ventures CEO & Co-Founder Matt Allen on this launch episode, where Matt talks about what we're doing here for the Hard Mode podcast, the types of founders that impress him the most, the cost of capital to a business and of course, what we're so excited for at Tractor Ventures.

Notes:

• Tractor Ventures
• Matt Allen & Aprill Allen
• Age Up Health
• Amazon Web Services
• Amplified Intelligence
• Envato
• Realestate.com.au
• Redbubble
• Rowan Simpson
• SignOnSite
• Startmate
• Teamgage

Follow Matt on Twitter: @mattallen

Follow Tractor Ventures on Twitter: @tractorventures

Online:www.tractorventures.com

This episode hosted by Gaz Williams: @gwilliamsALTS