Build It. They'll Come.: Recent Episodes
Helen Dalley
Candid interviews with successful Self-starters. On Build It. They'll Come, you'll hear from some amazing Australian entrepreneurs who bet big to build great businesses. Journalist Helen Dalley interviews business innovators and visionaries on how they turned their lightbulb idea into a viable, sustainable enterprise.
This podcast is about the human face behind taking a simple idea and turning it into a business or movement. It's the beating heart behind what it takes to build an empire, from concept to execution, and how they actually achieve it. Fuelled by blind faith and hard slog, how they transform their dream idea into concrete reality.
Gabrielle Requena, the founder of Wrinkles Schminkles, shares her entrepreneurial journey, detailing how she built a successful skincare brand from a simple idea. Starting with a Bachelor and Master of E-commerce, Gabrielle gained valuable experience at Deloitte Consulting and eBay, which laid the groundwork for her future venture.
Frustrated by the lack of effective solutions for chest wrinkles caused by side sleeping, Gabrielle developed 100% medical-grade silicone patches. These patches work by compressing the skin and stimulating blood flow and collagen, offering both instantaneous and cumulative results.
Initially a side project, Wrinkles Schminkles grew into a global business with nearly $20 million in annual revenue, primarily through direct-to-consumer e-commerce in Australia, the US, and the UK. Gabrielle discusses the challenges and triumphs of scaling the business, including navigating the competitive beauty market.
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When uni student Annabelle Chauncy volunteered in Uganda, in her words, she was blown away by the poverty and the lack of resources, including education, in much of rural Uganda. So she not only had a dream to try and change that, but she acted on it.
At 22 years of age, Annabelle set about building a small primary school for the most disadvantaged kids in a village. But first she had to raise the funds, work out how to buy some land, how to go about building a physical structure and then of course how to staff and run a school, in a community where virtually no-one spoke English. A feat that would surely be daunting for most of us. But now 15 years after her first school opened, this accidental entrepreneur has achieved enormous success with School for Life Foundation… it has educated now thousands of children across several schools and even a boarding school, with a cohort of 40 now studying at university, and School for Life employs 250 Ugandan staff. Annabelle Chauncy is a life-changing and inspiring leader.
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In this episode of Build It They'll Come. host Helen Dalley sits down with David Paradice AO, the founder and driving force behind Paradice Investment Management.
Starting 26 years ago with just a single client and $30 million under management, Paradice has built a boutique investing powerhouse that now manages and invests around $20 billion for major super funds, large institutions, and retail investors.
Paradice describes his deeply focused approach to stock picking, emphasising the importance of fundamental investing and maintaining face-to-face relationships with company management. He opens up about the immense pressure and sleepless nights that come with managing retirement savings, how he navigates volatile markets, and his core business philosophy: consistency over time equals returns.
Paradice discusses his passion for polo, his dedicated philanthropic work, and how a champion team will always outperform a team of champions. He even shares the unexpected business and life lessons hidden inside a favourite children’s book series kept at his office reception (listen to the end to learn which one!)
It is a candid look at the human touch behind a genuine home-grown Australian financial empire.
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When he took over the family wine business in 1994 at the tender age of 33, Darren De Bortoli continued a legacy his father Deen had built on that was De Bortoli Wines, centred around the vineyard his grandfather planted in the NSW Riverina.
Darren was a young superstar, having created as a newly qualified winemaker in 1982, the acclaimed Noble One Botrytis Semillon – to this day a globally renowned, medal-winning sticky wine, and a wine that quickly catapulted De Bortoli Wines into massive growth.
The company moved into other wine districts like the Yarra Valley, King Valley and more recently Rutherglen in Victoria, and also the Hunter Valley. Under Darren’s leadership they pioneered environmentally sustainable winemaking practices and today they grow wheat, barley and oat crops using eco-friendly waste water from the wineries.
Today De Bortoli Wines is the 6th largest wine company in Australia by revenue, yet still Australian and family owned and run. But as he reflects on the great legacy he’s helped build, Darren De Bortoli is candid about the considerable challenges he and others face: namely water access and climate change, a global wine glut and a downturn in wine consumption. Hope you enjoy Darren De Bortoli.
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After years as an art critic writing about art, art consultant Michael Reid decided to take the plunge into the business side of the market and become a gallerist. He had his university degrees, but Michael Reid knew his strongest foundation actually came from his time spent honing expertise and his business sense inside Christie’s, the massive global art world juggernaut. Based in London, Michael discovered that exposure to art and auctions and the business of art on the international stage was the best qualification he could possibly have.
This self described boy from country NSW, who describes himself as super ambitious, who is building and growing his “world” as he calls it, who has built physical galleries, online platforms, food destinations, a current pop-up gallery in Los Angeles with plans for a permanent exhibition space there, who loves to drop names and sells to some of the finest collectors in Australia, operates his global business from his quiet, peaceful home in a tiny town, yes … back in country NSW. And he’s not finished yet.
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David Tudehope left the finance world in the early 1990’s with a dream to service small to medium business who complained of poor service and overcharging by the monopolist at the time, Telstra. Tudehope wasn’t a digital expert nor a highly trained computer engineer. But he understood numbers, and that customers wanted good service, not delays and obfuscation. So he had his brother Aidan started a small business they called Macquarie Telecom, back in 1992, with only the savings the pair could scrounge up, and forged headlong into the ultimately capital-intensive telco space. This is long before the internet and smart mobile phones. But they took on the slow-to-change Telstra and stuck to their mission of offering better customer service and cheaper prices to the business customer. In just over 3 decades they’ve built (now named) Macquarie Technology Group into one of the Top 300 listed companies in Australia, with a market capitalisation of over $1.5 billon, offering major clients like the ATO, Officeworks and PayPal still telecom, but now cloud-based, cyber security services as well as massive investments in data centres to support the boom in AI. David appeared on the Australian Financial Review’s Rich List 2024 alongside brother Aidan with an estimated net worth of over $900 million.
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Since Dr Sarah Crowe had her lightbulb idea, and invented her completely mobile, vision testing and glasses kit, then ran a trial in remote Papua New Guinea and started to show the impact her OOXii Vision Kit could have, to medical professionals in India and Vanuatu, she was inundated with positive reaction. Here was a complete system not only offering mobile eye testing, but also durable glasses frames, with prescription lenses in them, were then dispensed on the spot to people in remote or under-served communities, thereby improving their vision right there and then, in their home communities. It was life-changing. A fantastic entrepreneurial idea to fix a massive global problem.
But Sarah’s journey with OOXii Global and her mission to help fix the world’s vision has not been without its challenges and significant hurdles along the way.
Listen to Dr Sarah Crowe take up the story.
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While navigating Australia’s mental health system to deal with his personal assessment and ongoing care, entrepreneur Zac Altman felt frustrated and thought, quite simply, there must be a better way to help the huge number of adults with ADHD get the proper care and support they need. To help solve what he saw as a very large unmet demand problem, Zac created and built the start-up Kantoko, a telehealth service offering online assessments and ongoing care for adults with ADHD, but using an unusual business model – subscription services. Kantoko has been operational since early 2024, with patients accessing Kantoko’s team of experienced ADHD psychiatrists and GPs focusing on mental health.
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When we last spoke to Luxury Escapes co-founder Adam Schwab, back in 2020, the online business had hit almost $500 million in sales. Today the luxury deals and discounts travel brand is ringing up over $1 billion in sales revenue, a doubling in 5 years. And it’s founder says it’s growing profitably, adding not only retail outlets, but Loyalty programs as well, to its online offering for travellers. Adam says he’s learned a heck of a lot in that time… hope you enjoy Adam Schwab.
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When Jesse Todd did grunt work on the IT “Help” desk in an investment bank many moons ago, he developed a passion for managing corporate data and information better. Over recent decades, as companies have got bigger, needing to hold ever more mountains of data and documents for compliance -- one of business’ biggest headaches -- Jesse saw a huge opportunity witnessing the way companies struggled to deal with those massive mountains of information, and turned his passion into reality by working away on a superior and elegant solution.
He and a small clever team he pulled together created and developed EncompaaS, a software platform that helps large companies and govt departments, mostly in highly regulated industries, manage and organise their massive amounts of data - be it files, documents, emails, legal contracts, photos, videos - into a compliant and efficient library of information. This not only allows the organisation to know what’s IN their data, and how to locate it quickly, but it can then leverage that for the company’s good use.
Jesse Todd has raised $30 million so far from investors, as he continues to develop EncompaaS to help solve the massive headache for corporates, that is data compliance and risk.
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You could say Les Schirato had a key advantage in his early business journey… he married the boss’s daughter! The western Sydney born and bred son of Italian and Maltese migrants, Les started work at Vittoria Coffee before he’d even left school, loved it, and was asked back into the business while waiting for his HSC results. Les did indeed marry Luisa Cantarella, but he’d already earned his business stripes in the eyes of her father Orazio Cantarella, who’d started Vittoria in 1947 with his brother, importing Italian foods like cheese, pasta and mineral water. Les also had a successful stint outside the family business, having climbed executive ranks at Fiat.
But since those early days, once Les and Luisa Schirato gained control of Vittoria, with other family members and more recently their son and daughter, they’ve built Vittoria into one of the largest and most successful family owned and run food and coffee groups in Australia. Along the way they turned Australia into a nation of coffee snobs and espresso lovers.
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Sydney-based Tamar Krebs started as a Registered Nurse, but her decades of experience as a senior manager operating Retirement Villages, Nursing Homes and Dementia Units, led this visionary thinker to believe we needed to deliver much better care for our aged and demented loved ones; that the existing model of 100 people living under the one roof, in an institution, is not giving people who need assistance the best outcomes. Tamar decided the entire sector needed upending – to go from the merely task-focused Transactional, to Transformational care that allows older and demented people to live in a small household, a home of roughly 6- 10 residents, with a staff to client ratio of 1 “homemaker” to 3 or 4 residents, and where everyone is involved in running the household, just as had happened in disability care. But back in 2011 this maverick was not well-received. Tamar knocked on 62 potential investors’ doors, mostly pitching to nay-sayers who dismissed her idea of people with dementia living in a small assisted household on a regular suburban street. But she persevered and won over a couple of high net worth individuals, who understood her vision, and backed her with seed money to buy her first house.
How she started with $5000 in her pocket just 13 years ago and grew her empire to now 22 homes all over Sydney, with 350 employees is an inspiring startup story, with lots of bumps and self-doubt along the way.
Take a listen to Tamar Krebs, a true thinker out of the box.
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Adelaide-born and raised Sophie Lovejoy jumped from being a well-paid TV producer into the precarious, fickle world of fashion, when she started out creating and then manufacturing cute boxer shorts to sell in her mum’s homewares store in Norwood, Adelaide. Fast forward a few years and Sophie took the plunge to move herself and her business to Los Angeles. Along the way she had transformed her brand Sant and Abel, into a luxury sleepwear and leisurewear fashion range that caught the eye of celebrities like the Kardashians and TV host Jimmy Fallon, who gave her brand the tick of approval by wearing her PJs, thereby helping catapult Sant and Abel to brand awareness and sales stardom in the biggest, juiciest clothing market in the world, the USA.
Hope you enjoy Sophie Lovejoy’s inspiring entrepreneurial story.
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Sydney-raised and educated Benjamin Plummer transformed himself from a business adviser and analyst into a startup entrepreneur and a guru in Artificial Intelligence. Ben’s San Francisco-based company Invisible Technologies is quietly powering the AI revolution in the epicentre of AI development, the west coast of the United States. Now, Ben did not start Invisible Technologies, but as CEO he built it big and it is transforming how companies are built and run, by helping them utilise cutting-edge AI technology coupled with the very best human know-how. In a nutshell, Ben and his team have been training the AI used by the world’s leading generative AI providers such as Chat GPT, Google and Microsoft. He also helped build a commercial spin off company alongside the inventor of IBM’s Watson. Along the way Ben worked closely with US billionaire and hedge fund investing guru Ray Dalio at Bridgewater Associates. In this episode, Ben shares invaluable insights, experiences and lessons learned about his journey, and the rapidly-changing landscape of AI. Enjoy!
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How do you revolutionise medicine, helping develop an entire new field of medical science in this country? Well, back when he was a young doctor Professor Gab Kovacs did just that. By starting small and taking 1 step at a time he helped change the practice of reproductive medicine, by pioneering IVF in this country – “test tube” babies they used to be called - as an option for infertile couples to have children in the late 1970’s. Professor Kovacs worked with the greats, lead by Dr Carl Wood and Alan Trounson, those doctors and scientists who researched, tested, achieved breakthroughs and broke down barriers, to change the way infertility was treated and managed.
This team was so successful, after years of hard work they built a thriving business that has enabled thousands of Australian women, and many more around the world, to have babies when their bodies’ biological doors seemed closed forever.
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In late 2023 we brought you an interview with serially successful entrepreneur Mark Woodland, who co-created and built the Kismet platform to provide digital tools to help NDIS participants easily link up with approved providers, reducing fraud and overcharging & improving compliance along the way. Kismet only began life as a business in August 2022, after Mark had kept the idea in his bottom drawer for 13 years. Then in early 2023 Mark raised a whopping $4 million from venture capital veterans AirTree Ventures, Daniel Petre AO and others, an enormous tick of approval for Mark Woodland, a former soldier and proud product of a single mum household. Now the latest news in September 2024, is Kismet completed a successful $32.5 million seed funding round from venture capital investors. Wow. Not bad for just over 2 years in business! Then again, Mark had already built successful childcare business, xplor, to streamline the admin process for parents and childcare operators alike, which he sold in 2020 to US private equity, reportedly making xplor worth $100 million, and putting Mark onto the Financial Review Young Rich List. Mark’s is such a remarkable startup journey, we thought we’d share it with you again. Enjoy.
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Babak Moini came to Australia with his family as an 8 year old, from Iran. He studied hard, went to university and became an actuary, earned good money. So far a fairly typical immigrant story. But Babak’s journey diverged considerably when he discovered retailing, of all things – his first foray was a small souvenir shop in Cairns - and he fell in love with the world of business, buying and selling. He dumped his actuarial career and with a co-founder friend, they ended up building a non-invasive beauty treatment empire, in Laser Clinics Australia, with some 80-plus clinics. What a wild ride it has been. Hope you enjoy Babak Moini.
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After coming to Australia with just $600 in her pocket and a dream to see the world, young Mandy Foley fell into waitressing. What she found was a haphazard industry for workers, with little structure or professionalism. So over the past almost 4 decades Mandy set about changing that, building up her Stedmans Hospitality Services business, which she a couple of friends started from scratch in the mid-1980s. Stedmans agency essentially offers outsourced hospitality staff for events, parties, caterers and boardrooms, thereby she says, taking the worry out of hiring casual staff. For the workers she offers them structure, training, professionalism, and a family-type environment. Though she’s lived through many ups and downs, which she happily shares in our interview, Mandy has not only survived, she’s thrived, and gives back a hell of a lot, to charities and the community.
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You’ve probably never heard of GROW Super or GROW Inc. And that’s just the way co-founder and CEO Mathew Keeley likes it. But GROW Inc is solving some of the logjam problems in the “back office” administration of our massive Superannuation Funds. GROW Inc instigated a new way for Superannuation fund customers like you and I, to better access and engage with our Super Funds, by creating and building an innovative administration software using blockchain, or Distributed Ledger Technology. GROW Inc claims its platform transforms legacy systems and business models and allows fund managers and their funds to offer more streamlined, real time information to customers about their Super.
So how did a 5th generation farm boy, end up revolutionising the way Superannuation Funds interact with clients and members, giving as easy an experience for fund members as Amazon gives their online shoppers?
And how the heck did Mat Keeley, with a tiny team of only 36 employees at the time, persuade one of the world’s biggest wealth managers, the US giant Vanguard – with something like $10 Trillion in their care – to take a punt on his Super fund “back office” platform GROW Inc? Well, tune in right now and you’ll find out. Enjoy Mathew Keeley’s extraordinary journey with GROW Inc.
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Tasmania born, schooled in Hong Kong, now working in Melbourne, scientist Nick Murphy is on the frontier of IVF reproductive medicine. Nick and his small highly skilled team developed a world-first genetic screening test for IVF embryos capable of detecting several thousand severe genetic diseases and life threatening conditions. And it’s done in one single, simple test, via whole genome sequencing of the pre-implantation embryo. It’s commercialised by Nick’s startup, GenEmbryomics. Dr Murphy will offer this test through existing IVF clinics, at as low a price as possible, and to as many couples going through IVF as need it.
While not available commercially yet in Australia, GenEmbryomics is in the process of securing patents for the test in the massive IVF market in the USA, worth some $9billion. There are plans to list the startup on New York’s NASDAQ exchange by mid-2024. It’s been a wild and fascinating journey for this genetic scientist turned entrepreneur, since the GenEmbryomics business began in 2019. Hope you enjoy Dr Nick Murphy.
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An immigrant child of Polish Jewish parents, Jack Gance ended up disrupting several entire industries with HIS model of shopkeeping through suburban Australia. The pharmacist turned into an entrepreneur by chance really. After gaining his Pharmacy degree, Jack and his brother Sam started with just 1 pharmacy in the early 1970’s, which they slowly built on. Along the journey, Jack Gance totally upended the way traditional pharmacies in Aussie suburbs operate, by essentially making all the other products chemists sell aside from prescriptions, much more enticing and cheaper for shoppers. He also built a distribution business in the process.
After 51 years in business Jack Gance, with Sam and co-founder Mario Verrocchi spent the past two-plus decades building their Chemist Warehouse business and brand into a household name, thereby revolutionising not just the pharmacy model, but the entire retailing landscape, by offering discounts on every product in the store. Now with 500 partner/franchise stores and a recently announced deal to merge with Sigma Healthcare, in order to expand the business, we’re replaying the interview we did in 2023 where Jack reflects, just a little, on that amazing entrepreneurial journey. And why he can’t stop!
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Host Helen Dalley interviews plenty more inspiring Aussie entrepreneurs in new episodes coming up in 2024! Both established superstars and newbie startup founders who have nurtured an idea from scratch, building it from nothing into a sustainable successful business.
In each episode Founders reveal deep frustrations, challenges, their doubts and near failures but also how they overcame them, offering up practical insights on how to create and build a fantastic business.
Be sure to stay tuned to Build It. They’ll Come in the new year, after we take a little break.
Thankyou for being great listeners and supporters. See you in January 2024!
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Not every budding entrepreneur wants to start a new bank. Banking is risky, highly regulated, and in this country dominated by the big 4 banks that could squash any little minnow that tries to challenge them. But my guest Joseph Healy has been a career banker, in fact a successful senior executive in 2 of those the big traditional banks, and his disillusionment with their modus operandi led him to start his own. After extensive chats with mate David Hornery, over beers at the local on a Friday, the pair decided on a vision for a new bank to service small to medium sized businesses, a neglected sector in their opinion. So they set out to back themselves into building that vision into something successful and sustainable.
Healy and Hornery founded Judo Bank in 2019, in the eye of the Covid storm. But they say that made the bank stronger, and they claim to have delivered what they promised for small to medium-sized businesses.
Now a higher interest rate environment produces new challenges for the minnow bank. Despite its shares being marked down, Judo’s lending book is now $9bill (as of June 30, 2023), and it achieved a strong 2023 profit. And Joseph Healy reckons they are building the culture, mind-set and model to ensure Judo grows into a sustainable success.
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Soldier-turned-entrepreneur Mark Woodland reckons he learned some tough lessons in the Army. The most fundamental that he brought with him into the startup world was how to be resilient. This self-confessed university dropout draws on his internal resilience he reckons every day, while scaling up his Kismet healthcare platform. Resilience, coupled with setting in stone the internal culture of your business right from the get-go, and staying humble are foundation stones for Kismet’s success.
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Serially successful entrepreneur Mark Woodland, co-created and built the Kismet platform to provide digital tools to help NDIS participants easily link up with approved providers, hopefully reducing fraud and overcharging & improving compliance along the way. Kismet only began life as a business in August 2022, after Mark had kept the idea in his bottom drawer for 13 years, but in early 2023 it raised a whopping $4million from venture capital veterans AirTree Ventures, Daniel Petre AO and others, an enormous tick of approval for Mark Woodland, a former soldier and proud product of a single mum household.
Then again, Mark had already built substantial childcare business, xplor, to streamline the admin process for parents and childcare operators alike, which he sold in 2020 to US private equity, reportedly making xplor worth $100million, and putting Mark onto the Financial Review Young Rich List. Hope you enjoy his remarkable startup journey.
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What’s next in Jack Gance’s Chemist Warehouse journey, is Optometrist Warehouse, yes indeed, his latest venture to disrupt the Optometry landscape is coming to a suburb near you. And could an IPO still be on the table? Plus, he explains how hocking everything in the early days was crucial to build up his retail and distribution chain, but how being completely debt-free since the early 1990’s has its advantages. And he pays tribute to his wife Evelyn, his family and his Jewish faith as the foundation stone in his life.
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An immigrant child of Polish Jewish parents, Jack Gance ended up disrupting several entire industries with HIS model of shopkeeping. The pharmacist turned into an entrepreneur by chance really. After university he and his brother started with just 1 pharmacy in the early 1970’s, which they slowly built on. Along the journey, Jack Gance totally upended the way traditional pharmacies in Aussie suburbs operate, by essentially making all the other products chemists sell aside from prescriptions, more enticing and cheaper for shoppers. He also built a distribution business in the process.
Over 51 years in business Jack Gance built up his Chemist Warehouse business and brand into a household name, thereby revolutionising not just the pharmacy model, but the entire retailing landscape. Now with 500 partner/franchise stores and around $8billion turnover a year, Jack reflects, just a little, on that amazing entrepreneurial journey.
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When you sell your small successful travel startup to one of the world’s biggest companies, isn’t that when the champagne pops and you sit back to revel in your success? Well no, according to serial entrepreneur Zac Altman, that’s when you effectively take on 2 full-time jobs. Navigating the transition presents a whole new set of challenges to meld both companies together seamlessly. In Part 2 of our interview Zac explains just what it takes. He also elaborates on how to scale up and why years of hard work iterating a product is the reality is preferable to the dream of the “overnight success”. Zac also believes founders need to protect their employees’ well-being and care for their own mental health, to avoid burnout.
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Sydney-sider Zac Altman’s first legit startup was a taxi booking app called Taxi Pro that Zac developed and built in his final year of high school. Before Uber had hit the ground running in Australia.
Greater success was to come with his 2nd venture. Still in his teens Zac moved to San Francisco and created and co-founded with 2 new mates the travel startup called LoungeBuddy, which enabled travellers to discover, book, and access over 400 airport lounges around the world, via the LoungeBuddy website or app.
After 7 years of slogging it out building up the business, with myriad challenges along the way, the trio built LoungeBuddy to have over 100,000 users every month. In 2019, the young founders sold LoungeBuddy to global giant American Express, reportedly for in excess of $100million. Zac Altman was in his mid-20’s. So how do you build not 1, but 2, successful startups, and where to from here for Zac Altman? 1/2
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George Vicino learnt from boyhood the value of family and a strong work ethic. In Part 2, George reveals how these drivers have been key in his entrepreneurial journey with SYPAQ, and why they underpin his ambition to be a world-leading engineering systems integrator. How his love of science and physics helped he and his in-house team of engineers to develop the highly advanced, autonomous, biodegradable cardboard drones that are now a secret weapon in Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion. Find out how his startup used adversity to kickstart growth. Here’s Part 2 of George Vicino.
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Systems engineer George Vicino started a small advanced engineering consultancy some 30 years ago, with experience and training from his years in the Australian Air Force under his belt. But he always had big ideas for his little company, SYPAQ. Not only has SYPAQ grown to help major Federal Government departments and large corporates integrate complicated technology systems into customer-friendly, seamless experiences, but the group now manufactures highly advanced engineering products for the Australian Defence Department. The latest is their Corvo fully autonomous aircraft, in the form of a smart drone. Or as George calls it, a clever flying box. But this is not just any ordinary drone, SYPAQ drones are made from cardboard, rubber bands and glue, and they’ve become a secret and much respected weapon in Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion.
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Perx Health co-founder and CEO Hugo Rourke reveals the “secret sauce” that drives the success of the Perx smartphone App, to help patients better manage treatment plans for their chronic health conditions like diabetes or heart disease. Also, right now, trying to crack into and expand in the biggest health market in the world, the United States, is surely the Holy Grail for a medical therapeutics App like Perx, but hear about the considerable challenges alongside the opportunities. And then how does a small start-up build trust with outside funders including governments and large corporates to support your vision and help you turn the start-up into a scale-up, and then build it into something substantial and sustainable? Take a listen to Hugo Rourke in Part 2 of our chat.
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While working as a management consultant at McKinsey’s, advising large retailers and others on loyalty programs and customer engagement, Hugo Rourke had the bright idea that if he could use the same tricks and tactics to help those with serious, chronic health conditions who had a greater need to engage and comply with treatments, it could be more beneficial for society. He and a mate Scott Taylor created an app that rewards those who must manage chronic illnesses likes diabetes and heart disease on a daily basis. They reward them by better engaging those patients via an app, offering enticements like movie tickets and gift vouchers if aspects of their treatment plans are carried out. But Perx is not just any old health or wellness app. This entrepreneurial duo worked with the University of Sydney to put it to the test by conducting a randomised trial to see if it improves health outcomes, with published results in the British Medical Journal. To date, they’ve not only attracted financial backing from venture capital, but they’ve won over the interest of major health providers and insurers both in Australia and the US. Here’s how they’re building Perx Health.
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Alex Badran’s startup digital platform, Spriggy, was the realisation of his dream to help children learn about better managing money and to help parents improve and streamline the pocketmoney routine inside households. But Spriggy’s success from the get-go meant that Alex and his co-founder had to deal with myriad challenges… including how not to go broke. In Part 2 of our chat he reveals how to avoid those treacherous pitfalls as a startup entrepreneur and just how he intends to expand and spend the roughly $50 million already raised from investors.
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When Alex Badran was doing his PhD, he turned down a guaranteed job in Silicon Valley with some of the world’s most innovative tech giants, to do his own thing back home in Oz. Who does that? Well, would-be entrepreneur Alex Badran for one. Sounds crazy, right? But Alex Badran did just that. Alex completed a fellowship in Silicon Valley California that basically involved him helping the likes of Netflix, Facebook, LinkedIn, Airbnb to solve their deep technical problems, meanwhile hanging out with their founders and senior execs scooping up whatever experience and learnings he could – but he turned his back on a guaranteed job over there with one of these global behemoths. Alex Badran always intended to return home to Sydney to realise his startup journey. He and a mate Mario Hasanakos had a dream to build something substantial from scratch. And Alex couldn’t let that go, even if it was Facebook calling. The pair founded technology company Spriggy in 2015 in Sydney, a platform they call a financial education tool. In short, it’s a pocket-money app for kids, all with parental supervision.
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Investors Mutual co-founder Anton Tagliaferro reveals his take on the new higher interest rate landscape and what that means for investors, and he reveals the ASX-listed companies & sectors he likes, and those he steers away from. He’s also very candid about competition from passive funds and losing some big clients. But he also offers insights into how he survived some of the biggest financial crises of the past 2 decades; and why football in Australia and Malta are a big part of his life.
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As an émigré from Malta via London 40 years ago, Anton Tagliaferro instantly fell in love with Sydney. He has spent the past 25 years building one of the most respected funds management firms in Australia, starting from scratch with just 1 or 2 employees. But through his shrewd, he would say “common sense”, conservative approach to investing other people’s money, Anton Tagliaferro built his Investors Mutual Ltd boutique funds management firm into now controlling over $5Billion in funds he manages and invests for other people in Australian shares. In the meantime cementing his reputation as one of the most astute, successful stock pickers in the country. So what’s his “secret sauce” and does he fervently stick to his investing strategy, now matter how volatile the market? Find out, happy listening, 1/2.
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Serial entrepreneur & Lyre’s Spirit Co co-founder Carl Hartmann offers a Masterclass in the most important pitfalls to AVOID in any startup; what’s Return on EFFORT, and how to get it right; and how Lyre’s Spirit Co struggled through, but survived Covid lockdowns, shutdowns in hospitality & global supply chain dramas.
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Noosa-based Carl Hartmann started cooking up entrepreneurial business ideas while at university in Queensland. His most recent startup, with his uni mate and co-founder Mark Livings, took shape first in the UK, and then exploded on the scene back home in Australia in mid 2019. The pair created Lyre’s Spirit Co, a brand and product line of alcohol-free spirits, like gin, bourbon, even tequila. They claim years of research & tinkering on their “liquids” gave them an edge – quality products that so closely mimic the original spirit but without the alcohol, so no hangover. Now Lyre’s Spirits are available in 75 countries around the world.
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Here comes 2023 when Build It. They’ll Come returns! With more amazing Aussie entrepreneurs who start with a humble business idea, an itch that needs scratching, and build that startup idea into an empire, a movement or just a damn good sustainable business. Great guests are in store for you in upcoming episodes, candid interviews offering real insights and tips into how they turned their lightbulb moment into reality, including the considerable ups and downs.
So stay tuned! Please subscribe, share with friends or your network, leave us a review. But mostly thank you for listening and coming along on the journey with some inspiring creatives who bet big to back themselves to build great businesses.
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When founder duo Genevieve Hewson & Lauren Emerson went to their very first Trade Fair to sell Walter.g fabrics to the interiors trade, theirs was just a fledgling company, and they claim they had no idea about the business side – Genevieve admitting she phoned her dad in a panic to ask how to charge wholesale buyers GST! But the pair quickly learned everything about the business of selling. Within their first year, they took the plunge into the massive, but scary and highly competitive US textiles market. In 2/2, they talk about managing the highs and lows of that scale-up, to ensure the US became integral to expansion of their fabrics empire. From India to NYC, with love! Here’s Genevieve Hewson and Lauren Emerson.
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Sydney-based high school besties Genevieve Hewson and Lauren Emerson say they are two peas in a pod, both cut from the same cloth, which is an apt, because when this pair fell head over heels in love with hand-blocked silks, cottons and linens, hand-printed by local village artisans in India, they followed their passion & created a startup. So obsessed with the look, feel & process of these hand-printed textiles, based on designs by the girls, but using centuries-old Indian craft techniques handed down from one generation of artisan to the next, that when the idea hit Genevieve and Lauren to turn their passion into a commercial business in Australia, this dynamic duo just went for it. No business plan, no market research! After living in Rajasthan India, learning all things hand-blocked fabric making, they started Walter.g Textiles in 2012. These days their fabrics grace such glamour interiors as the global Soho House hotel chain, among others.
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Mixing and experimenting with a home brew from his kitchen bench, brewer Ben Holdstock came up with the Heaps Normal zero-alcohol “recipe”. From there the 4 co-founders turned on its head the traditional way of building a beer company, by forgoing building their own expensive brewery from the get-go.
But the real mic drop moment for their little company was being accepted into the Startmate accelerator program, that gave them access to some great mentors, and crucial investment dollars, and set them on a rapid scale-up. But what gets founder Pete Brennan out of bed each day is the purpose behind why they’re doing what they’re doing with Heaps Normal. (2/2)
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With no less a mission than to change perceptions and actions around drinking alcohol, Heaps Normal founder Pete Brennan & 3 mates created from scratch a beer with zero alcohol but, they reckon, still full of great flavour.
In just 2 years the foursome have built an impressive new brand in Heaps Normal, the non-alc beer now sold in over 4,000 bottle shops, restaurants, even supermarkets in Australia & overseas.
And while Brennan and the team have been on a wild, scale-up journey with their startup, in the beginning they were almost laughed out of town. 1/2.
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After building a sustainable & successful industrial oil waste recycling business servicing Australia’s east coast, entrepreneur Dexter Dunworth craved other challenges… and what he chose came with considerable risks! The professional boxing ring! And as it turned out, not just for the exercise or discipline, but he wanted to actually fight far younger boxers on the pro circuit in the US. So how did that leap into the unknown then lead him into “giving-back” to the community back on home soil? Hope you enjoy Dexter Dunworth 2/2.
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From a standing start back in the late-1970s, young uni-dropout Dexter Dunworth, along with his older brother David, started out with 1 truck collecting used industrial oils from car and truck service centres around Sydney, cold-calling potential customers promising to get rid of their smelly oil waste.
It was oil recycling long before recycling became part of our business lexicon. From that humble beginning, the brothers scaled up to include collection, treatment plants, then recycling it as fuel to other customers in need, and over 4 decades the pair built a major oil waste recycling business throughout Australia’s east coast, with customers like Shell, BHP Steel at Port Kembla and most coal-fired power stations in the Hunter Valley.
Grabbing every opportunity became Worth Oil’s mantra, especially when it came to the key decision whether to sell out or not.
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With reproductive rights in the US now so uncertain, serial entrepreneur and campaign builder Wendy McCarthy knows exactly how to try to protect those rights in Australia; why she believes in bringing other women into the tent to succeed; and why she thrives on change. Pt2/2
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One-time teacher turned women’s advocate & activist Wendy McCarthy loves to shake cages, but then painstakingly build consensus around an idea that needs action. Over 5 decades she’s founded her own mentoring business & built from scratch organisations, movements, even political campaigns that focus on bettering the world for women and their families. She’s what you might call a portfolio entrepreneur!
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The onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic completely whacked for 6 so many in the food and restaurant industry. Matt Moran’s successful fine dining restaurant empire was no exception. In Part 2 of our chat, Matt talks about the terrifying first few days and weeks when Covid hit, in March 2020, when their revenue just stopped. Overnight, stopped. How he and his teams got through that, including several lockdowns, reveals a lot of about this particular entrepreneur, but Matt’s story is no doubt replicated in thousands of restaurants, cafes and bars across Australia. Then his empire was dealt another crushing blow by the floods earlier this year that hit SE Qld. But aside from those challenges & how he dealt with them, Matt Moran also shares his views on the “no meat” meat movement – particularly tricky when you are a producer of meat, like Matt; what’s next in post-Covid dining and he reveals a secret recipe for the humble roast chook.
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Uber-celebrity chef and restaurateur Matt Moran takes us into the heart of his food, farming and produce world. After falling instantly in love with cooking, namely French cooking, as a wide-eyed, teen apprentice back in the 80s, he talks of how he then built a restaurant, cookbook and consultancy empire, with the help and support of several great mates and mentors, having opened and operated about 30 restaurants in 35 years. This high-flying Sydney-based entrepreneur now has a massive new plan and project, and it might just surprise you where his happy place is.
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While Covid panicked share markets in early 2020, BetaShares ETFs co-founder Alex Vynokur says a curious thing happened: it was markedly less so in ETF investing.
In fact he had managed to grow to $10 billion in Funds under Management (FUM) within BetaShares’ first decade, but somewhere in these past 2, pandemic-dominated years their FUM skyrocketed to $20billion.
The reason? Well it’s a revolution called Millennials and Gen Z’ers, who are flocking to invest in ETFs.
Alex Vynokur calls this trend “democratised access to wealth creation for young Australians”, many of whom feel locked out of home ownership. Index fund managers like BetaShares are reaping the benefit. Alex also gives his tips and insights into the emerging trends in ETFs.
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When Alex Vynokur emigrated to Australia from Ukraine as a 16 year old, he was struck by the choice and opportunity offered by his new home, compared with the deprivations growing up in Soviet Ukraine. Even though the teen spoke no English when he arrived here he set about taking full advantage of what was on offer.
After completing university, he moved into financial services, working in funds management, including a stint working for Malcolm Turnbull’s financial business, in his pre-PM days. But Vynokur wanted to back himself as an entrepreneur, so he jumped off the deep end into the then little-known world of exchange traded funds, betting that local investors would invest their capital in funds that track any number of Indexes, be they the S&P 500 or ASX 200, or much more innovative indexes, to get a return.
Vynokur was not a stock picker, nor was he an “active” investor, but he helped disrupt investing traditions in this country by taking on the global big dogs – Vanguard, State Street, BlackRock – to build the BetaShares ETFs empire of now some 65 different funds, managing $23Billion in funds under management.
In Part 1 of our chat, Alex reveals just what role mastering the game of chess plays in his business game.
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The hip, all Australian-made Ultra Violette sunscreen had only been going a short while when the Covid pandemic struck. After initial panic and quickly testing disaster scenarios, Bec and Ava realised they needed to junk them, and step back on the accelerator! Fast-growing online sales in skin and suncare showed these founders they would flourish through Covid if they could stay nimble and lean. The endless Melbourne lockdowns, they say, made them and everyone else resilient. So what happened to their international expansion plans; and how do they make their partnership-- business marriage they call it-- work? Well, take a listen to Part 2 of our chat with dynamic duo who created and founded Ultra Violette Bec Jefferd and Ava Chandler-Matthews.
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So why do two young women, both with great jobs in the beauty industry, toss all that certainty & stability away, and put everything on the line (including re-mortgaging the house!) to back themselves into a startup? Particularly when the all Aussie-made sunscreen product they create will have to compete in a super crowded sector, where mass-market products fly off supermarket and chemist shelves. Are they crazy brave? Delusional? What’s going on? Well, take a listen to Part 1 of our chat with young entrepreneurs Ava Chandler-Matthews and Bec Jefferd, the creators, founders and owners of Ultra Violette, which now has its sights set firmly on conquering international markets, talk about the why and how they did it.
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The investing landscape has changed so dramatically in just the past few years, where discussion and action around ESG now dominates all boardroom and company leadership discussions. Ethical Partners Funds Management founders Matt Nacard and Nathan Parkin were ahead of the game on this trend, having built their Ethical Partners Funds Management boutique firm, from scratch 3 and a half years ago, to the point where it now has almost $3.5 Billion in Funds Under Management, precisely because of its laudable twin foundations of achieving above-market returns for their investors, but equally important, making genuine ethical investing decisions. In Part 2 the dynamic duo discuss the wider investing landscape, how they pick their portfolio, and what sectors and stocks they like supporting at the moment on the ASX. They also reveal what’s important when starting a fin services wealth business in an already crowded market. Hope you enjoy!
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How Ethical Partners’ founders Matt Nacard and Nathan Parkin built their funds management business on the laudable twin foundations of achieving above-market returns for their investors, but equally important, making genuine ethical investing decisions – be they around climate change mitigation, modern slavery elimination in supply chains, products that don’t harm. After family trips to poor villages in Cambodia awakened their urge to do something practical to alleviate poverty, they raised money to build maternity clinics and local school there. That experience was the germ of their business startup idea. In Part 1, how these two former senior executives at respectively Macquarie Bank and Perpetual, backed themselves and went out on their own. And from a standing start barely 3 and a half years ago, they’ve built Ethical Partners into a boutique ethical investment powerhouse, with almost $3.5 Billion now in Funds Under Management.
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Dr Ben Hurst loved the huge numbers of younger people who increasingly engaged with HotDoc online, at the height of the Covid testing & booking vaccinations. But madly chasing new patients is not his core motivation. Improving the patient experience is! And being a former practicing doctor means Ben Hurst puts patients front and centre of HotDoc’s culture and growth. How the online platform more easily allows patients to interact with their doctors, with a few mouse clicks, rather than endless phone calls, is his team’s reason to go to work every day. HotDoc has now expanded to 110 full-time employees, with revenue around $19million a year. So what’s his secret sauce, and where do chess and Tolstoy fit into his business picture? Well, take a listen to Part 2 of my chat with Dr Ben Hurst.
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Working as a young medico in a Melbourne maximum security prison, Dr Ben Hurst realised that perhaps one-on-one healthcare doesn’t necessarily help the most people manage their health problems, nor did it give him the creativity he desired. But it wasn’t until he was sitting with friends in a bar in New York city, that his lightbulb idea struck him: he heard about a novel business in the US, enabling patients to make online appointments. That simple nugget of an idea that a patient could have access to a doctor’s schedule, that Ben Hurst says, just blew up his mind. He became obsessed by the possibilities of the idea, and set about making it happen in Australia. In 2012, he founded HotDoc, an e-health software platform giving patients the ability to book medical appointments with mainly, GP’s. 10 years on, his startup HotDoc links patients to almost 20,000 GP’s in Australia, all at the click of a few buttons. To date he’s raised around $20mill from Venture Capital supporters like AirTree Ventures.
In Part 1 of our chat, hear how the COVID pandemic became an extraordinary opportunity, since it massively catapulted HotDoc into the e-health stratosphere. With “hot” patient demand for virus tests, and later vaccinations, the number of appointments booked on HotDoc DOUBLED to 2million per month through 2020. Pretty good for a guy with not a jot of business experience prior to this medical startup journey!
Enjoy Part 1, Dr Ben Hurst.
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2 decades ago Mark Kelly thought globally, but acted locally, creating then building up his Global Surf Industries by appealing to the mass market of beginner & intermediate surfers rather than world champs; and offering customers certainty of supply and consistently good quality brand surf and paddle boards. GSI flourished to become a major supplier of boards in some 74 countries around the world. Along the way, Mark Kelly became a political activist, without really meaning to, by thinking locally, and acting globally. In 2018 he began a small local grassroots campaign, on a closed Facebook group, with the catchy title “Vote Tony Out”. The “Tony” being former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and the campaign’s aim was to vote Tony Abbott out as the federal Member for the seat of Warringah. Gutsy? Yes. Provocative? Certainly. Successful? Yes. What Kelly ended up building was a community-based political campaign, via savvy use of social media and yes, old-fashioned t-shirt sales, that helped turf Tony Abbott out of the federal seat he’d held for a quarter of a century. Kelly’s campaign also boosted the new Independent candidate, now sitting MP, Zali Steggall.
In Part 2 of our chat this week, find out how exactly Mark built a successful political campaign, from scratch, and helped usher in the new wave of Independents!
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Mark Kelly only learned to surf on a board at the age of 30, but that cemented his lifelong love of the ocean, first sparked when his dad took him scuba diving as a teen. Kelly came to adore surfing and its calming connection with the sea and nature. Having learned the international sales, marketing and distribution ropes working as a senior exec with massive global brands Adidas and Bausch + Lomb, Mark Kelly took the leap to start his own surfboard and stand-up paddle board business. Always with an eye on disrupting the somewhat haphazard cottage industry of supplying surfboards in Australia, he set his sights on 3 essentials to give him an edge – thinking globally; going after the mass market of beginner surfers rather than world champs; and offering retailers certainty of supply and consistently good quality brand boards to offer customers. 2 decades ago, Global Surf Industries was born and has since become a major supplier of boards in some 74 countries around the world. All done from his base in Manly Beach, Sydney. Somewhere along the way, Mark Kelly became a political activist too, without really meaning to. In 2018 he began what started as a meme really, a small local grassroots campaign with the catchy title “Vote Tony Out”. The “Tony” being former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and the campaign’s aim was to vote Tony Abbott out as the federal Member for the seat of Warringah. Gutsy? Yes. Provocative? Yes. Successful? Yes. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
In Part 1 of our chat, this week, Mark talks of his business do’s and don’ts; how to deal with the often huge challenges of growing internationally; COVID’s substantial highs for his business, but the lows too, with subsequent supply chain problems facing all industries. In Part 2 next week, find out how exactly Mark built a successful political campaign, from scratch!
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Barry Lambert has built not 1, but 3 business empires over the past 4 decades, but he doesn’t consider himself an entrepreneur! Starting out as a 16 year old, who began work at the Commonwealth Bank Taree branch, Lambert went on to create and build Count Financial, a grouping of accountants which he expanded into a large franchise operation. After listing Count Financial on the stock exchange in 2000, he sold it to CBA for $373 million just a decade later. His empire no. 2, CountPlus, among other successes, bought back Count Financial for a meagre $2.5million, after the banking Royal Commission severely battered CBA’s wealth management credentials. Then a dreadful illness that befell his granddaughter led Barry to create his 3rd empire – an international medicinal cannabis business, called Ecofibre, now listed on the ASX. Lessons from this self-described reluctant entrepreneur, about solving problems for others, and why you don’t have to be the best, you just have to be better than your competition.
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How do you maintain your momentum, your optimism, your entrepreneurial spirit in the face of devastating bushfires that torched one of the jewels in your business crown, not to mention Covid-enforced lockdowns & border closures’ uncertainty? Hayley & James Baillie’s biz empire - and their leadership - have been sorely tested in the past 2 years. Bushfire ripped through their Southern Ocean Lodge in windswept Kangaroo Island, leaving little but ashes. Then various Covid border closures meant stop/start trading at their luxury lodges in remote NT & Lord Howe Island. Many might’ve given up. Not Hayley and James. Find out how they built resilience and hope into their business, and say they’re the better for it. Enjoy Part 2 of our chat.
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Part 1 – As thoughts of travel escape to exotic locales starts to take shape as we open up from COVID-19 lockdowns and border closures, you might dream about the luxury lodges, or “luxury redefined” as they describe it, that married couple Hayley and James Baillie have created & developed in their Baillie Lodges portfolio. In some of Australia’s most spectacular, but often remote locations, Hayley and James took a punt almost 2 decades ago that other travellers with a bit of coin would share their passion for being immersed in nature while enjoying high-end luxury food, wines and accommodation at the end of the day in a remote, beautiful, & remarkable destinations. They went for it and built a little empire of luxury in their Capella Lodge on Lord Howe Island, Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island, and Longitude 131 at Uluru, Central Australia. While they freely admit they got a help at the start from Hayley’s dad, renowned Aussie entrepreneur and adventurer Dick Smith, they tell how they built it through their own vision, blood, sweat & tears. While COVID 19 has hit the entire travel industry hard, including the remote Baillie Lodges, it was actually the devastating bushfires of the summer of 2020 which razed their beloved Southern Ocean Lodge to the ground, that severely dented their courage & entrepreneurial spirit. (You’ll have to wait for Part 2 for that bit!) Stay tuned now to find out what is their “secret sauce”. Hope you enjoy Hayley and James Baillie.
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When Katherine McConnell was a Macquarie banker specializing in asset finance she knew there was a genuine & untapped opportunity that no big bank could take advantage of. And that was to provide new ways to help ordinary householders invest hefty upfront charges in renewable energy in their homes, be it rooftop solar, battery or blinds. So she mortgaged her family’s home, scrimped and saved every penny, including her kids’ (former) private school fees, and created Brighte, which essentially offers a Buy Now, Pay Later payment plan – with no interest charged – for expensive renewable energy assets in the home. It was a masterstroke plan that actually started life in 2015 as a blog she wrote to help consumers think about renewables. That blog turned into a business plan, which turned into HER business plan. And that transformed into her startup in 2016 – Brighte. Brighte has since attracted the attention of tech billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, who have heavily backed her venture. Hear HOW Katherine stole a march on territory that should have been bread and butter for big banks – providing credit to households; how she built her empire from an initial 6 employees to currently 180 in the team; and how she has navigated and managed Brighte’s wild ride in just 5 years.
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Adapting Aspen Medical’s outsourced healthcare hospitals, clinics and highly-trained medical personnel to suddenly and expertly deal with the COVID-19 pandemic was an extraordinary challenge for the company. But one it executed highly effectively. Not only did Aspen Medical operate strict infection control protocols on some of the early repatriation flights out of Wuhan into Australia, and successfully manage Covid-infected crew members on the stricken Diamond Princess ship stuck in Japan, in early 2020, but this year Aspen set up pop-up respiratory clinics for Covid testing, and helped existing health services get the Vaccine into the arms of hundreds and thousands of Aged Care and Disability accommodation residents as well as staff, via Aspen Medical’s mobile clinics. Yet that’s just part of Glenn Keys’ commitment to those with a disability. Part of his personal philanthropy, through Project Independence, was sparked by the birth of his son, with Down Syndrome.
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When Glenn Keys AO spent his boyhood living above his parents shop in regional NSW, little did he know that he was soaking up his folks' entrepreneurial spirit. That childhood revolving around the family small business, instilled in Glenn an ability to take calculated risks and back himself. And that combined with his adult training as an engineer, and work in the military, equipped him to bet big to pursue an idea in 2003 to provide quality healthcare outcomes for clients around the world that had stretched or non-existent healthcare services. With a friend, they built Aspen Medical, from Glenn's dining table in Canberra, into a world-class Australian-owned outfit now employing some 7,500 people, engaged in over 100 projects operating in 18 countries across the globe. They provide fully-staffed and equipped mobile hospitals, surgical or maternity clinics, dental or opthalmology units in war-torn Iraq, East Timor & Ebola-ridden West Africa, as well as Covid-19 vaccination hubs for disability charities back home in Australia.
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As Apple iPods, then iPhones, Music streaming services like Spotify and now COVID-19 have all seriously disrupted the music industry over recent decades, how has Michael Chugg navigated these potential minefields, and turned the internet from a disrupter into an opportunity for musicians? And is there a future for the live music scene, when life and borders open back up post-COVID?
Well for an entrepreneur who has demonstrated such currency, impact and longevity in the industry, his insights into the path for success for young musicians might surprise you. In Part 2 of our interview he also reveals some of the work in the music and major events landscape of which he is most proud, not just for the sheer entertainment it provided to audiences, but for its ability to really mean something, for others in need. And that includes his largely unsung role helping turn the Paralympic Games into a world-class, quality, hugely popular event.
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How 15 year old Michael Chugg transformed his love of music, and particularly Aussie rock music, into a major business empire, that ended up bringing to Australia, promoting, staging concerts and touring many of THE biggest music stars & bands in the world.
Stars like Elton John, Robbie Williams, Bob Dylan, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, the Police, Dixie Chicks, Madonna and so many more. Michael Chugg backed himself, built relationships in the music business not just locally, but in the UK and the US as well.
So how did he do it? By never being afraid of hard work, doing everything that was needed to put on a major concert tour, and he means EVERYTHING. And what are his insights into resilience and longevity in a fast-changing music industry? Always putting the customer – that is, the acts and the fans – first, he says. They are the most important piece of the pie, and if they are right, well, the money would follow.
Michael Chugg started Michael Chugg Entertainment in the late 70’s; then co-founded Frontier Touring with the late Michael Gudinski; and more recently he started Chugg. Entertainment on his own.
Over 5 decades later, he's still taking risks, still scouting and supporting young Aussie music talent, and in this time of the pandemic when musicians are joining together to urge us all to get vaccinated, Michael Chugg is still optimistic about the post-COVID-19 live music scene. Hope you enjoy Part 1 of my chat with Michael Chugg.
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After great success in the UK with her hand-made, artisanal, ethically sourced chocolate company, Coco Chocolate, with 2 stores in Edinburgh and a successful contract supplying Harvey Nichols' signature chocolates, Rebecca Knights returned to Australia, with small children, and was thrown what she calls a few curve-balls. But in Part 2, Rebecca reveals how start-up entrepreneurs must be resilient enough to navigate the disasters & learn "new tricks" as she puts it. Rebecca reckons she was long ago experienced in that area, as she explains what led to her leaving home and fending for herself at such a young age, and never being afraid of hard work.How she changed course several times in her business to develop new ways to expand and grow offers unique insights into the sort of grit and determination needed to sell a hand-made food product in your own start-up. So what happened when the COVID-19 pandemic struck? Well hear for yourself how, among other things, online e-commerce came to save the day. Hope you enjoy Part 2 of this candid interview with Rebecca Knights.
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Rebecca Knights built a boutique chocolate company and the Sydney Chocolate School by sticking to her dream of producing all hand-made, artisanal chocolates, tempered on marble, using the finest ethically sourced ingredients from both here and overseas. After leaving home at the tender age of 16, she knew she would have to build a life, and she hoped a business, for herself. While she was neither a trained chef, nor a food technician, she put in the hard yards washing dishes and then waiting on tables in restaurants, before finally getting an education. How she then translated her creativity into training in the age-old European tradition to become a chocolatier in France, then creating a product -- a finely crafted chocolate product at that -- designing the beautiful packaging and selling her wares in the UK, including to prestigious Harvey Nicholls department stores, and achieving that all by herself, is a story of determination and chutzpah. She's even innovated to produce completely sugar-free chocolate! Yes, sugar-free. And despite intense competition in the chocolate industry Rebecca never allowed the mass-produced sweet stuff on supermarket shelves that dominates sales in the industry to snuff out her entrepreneurial dream. But her journey is not without salutary lessons, given considerable business high's and low's. But how she deals with them is a lesson in smarts, leadership and plain grit. Hope you enjoy Rebecca Knights!
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High school dropout Luke Anear didn’t set out to build a global technology company that was recently valued at over $2billion, but that’s exactly what happened when he saw a problem in the workplace – namely accidents that didn’t have to happen – and started to help solve it. Luke created his mobile safety and quality checklist app that became SafetyCulture. Now, Luke’s vision is expanding, with grand designs to build a global e-marketplace for any consumables used in a workplace, from work boots to chefs’ aprons, a kind of Amazon for the workplace, as he describes it. And ever wondered why those big global tech stocks have staggeringly high valuations? Well, Luke gives a feisty explanation of why they’re not ridiculous! Plus, he shares some heart-felt thoughts on sudden wealth and what to do with it. Enjoy Part 2 of my chat with Luke Anear.
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When Luke Anear worked as a private investigator investigating workplace mishaps and chasing workers' compo cheats, he realised he wanted to turn that negative into a positive. So he set about helping companies vastly improve their safety procedures in the workplace, to try and prevent workers having accidents in the first place. His little startup took shape in the proverbial garage of his suburban Townsville home, and he began slowly, selling safety checklists delivered on Word documents. But then Luke Anear transformed his little business baby into a multi-million dollar global technology empire, when he and a uni dropout mate created an app, called iAuditor -- essentially a mobile safety checklist app to suit each individual workplace. That completely changed Luke Anear's life, and set SafetyCulture on course to become a $2 billion Aussie success story.How that has mushroomed to now service almost 28,000 customers around the world, and what Luke Anear has learned along the way from the smartest venture capital investors in the room, including mentors and supporters like Atlassian's Scott Farquhar is a story and a half. Plus what Luke learned and how he navigated the panic-struck arrival of the COVID pandemic offers lessons for most entrepreneurs. Hope you enjoy Luke Anear!
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Kim McKay doesn’t really consider herself an entrepreneur. But that’s exactly what she is, having built not 1, but 2, impressive “empires”. The non-science trained marketing guru is transforming the Aust Museum – yes, the one Sydney-siders all remember going to on school excursions, a natural history museum and Australia’s oldest museum – from being somewhat faded-around-the-edges to now bringing it firmly into the 21st century digital age, as a world-class cultural institution. How is she doing it? By cajoling politicians who control the pursestrings, inspiring scientists to continue their research and engaging supporters and the public alike to take a fresh look at the Museum’s newly refurbed spaces, including the new glittering glass box entrance. Kim reveals how she twists arms! And already she’s increased attendance numbers several-fold.
Perhaps less known is the 1st “empire” Kim McKay helped build into a global not-for-profit phenomenon – the Clean Up Australia & Clean Up the World community campaigns. That event started in 1989 from a tiny idea solo yachtsman & pal Ian Kiernan had, to clear waterways of plastic and rubbish. With the support, hard work and passion of his co-founder Kim McKay, the pair first launched Clean Up Sydney Harbour, which turned out to be a dazzling success on the 1st weekend it was held. So just how did they build that up into the successful & substantial Clean Up Australia campaign -- a volunteer, community-based event that in its first year alone involved over 200 cities and towns across Australia? Well, when Kim managed to get the United Nations involved, Kiernan and McKay took their “Clean Up” to the world! The Clean Up movement became one of Australia’s most successful public action campaigns ever. And that campaign helped transformed community awareness about the damage from ocean pollution. Enjoy the dynamo that is Kim McKay!
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Managing the rapid scale-up of fast-growing Zip Co meant co-founder & CEO Larry Diamond instigated a culture of Building and Flying at the exact same time; find out how such a high-wire act meant Diamond and his team often came close to falling over, thinking they might have to close their doors. In the early days, surprisingly they had no retail expert on their team. Yet by putting 1 foot in front of the other, taking 1 step at a time, they grew from signing on 1 small suburban bike shop to accept their Buy Now Pay Later product, to signing up tens of thousands of merchants, including big players like Wesfarmers’ Bunnings & Kmart, and online retailers like kogan. And the secret sauce? Diamond says if you have the passion, then the startup life is really all about endurance. Oh, and taking every Saturday off, switching off all computers and devices, & re-charging one’s own batteries with family and friends!
Enjoy Part 2 of my chat with Zip’s Larry Diamond.
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Part 1 -When Larry Diamond came up with his idea for a new payment method he wanted with a passion to disrupt existing payment systems, particularly credit cards, that had a stranglehold on the online space, but were clunky and un-user friendly in his view. Pitching his idea to would-be investors, they sort of metaphorically patted him on the head and shooed him away, saying, nice idea Larry, but you don’t know what you’re talking about! Rather than drop his idea for a Buy Now Pay Later digital product, he persevered and found a perfect partner, consumer credit expert Peter Gray, to help realise his vision. That vision was providing small amounts of credit to consumers involving “fees” but would do away with “interest charges” completely. ZipMoney, later becoming Zip Co, was born in 2013 over a number of beers in their local pub!
The co-founders landed on a product that gelled with younger consumers, in a big way as it’s turning out, as a kind of cross between a debit card and a credit card. 8 years later, overcoming several mammoth hurdles along the way which you’ll hear about, Zip now boasts 7 million customers worldwide, including 2.5 million Australian customers using their most popular product Zip Pay, at everywhere from Bunnings and Woolies to online e-tailers Kogan and Catch.
While another Aussie startup Afterpay began later but has grown much bigger, and there’s also strong competition promised from US giant PayPal and CBA’s part-owned Klarna in the BNPL space, Larry Diamond says bring on competition! Founder Larry Diamond now owns just 10% of Zip, making him very wealthy already. But, he tells me, more important are his expanding global growth plans for Zip, including greater penetration into the lucrative US.
Hope you enjoy Part 1 of my interview with Zip co-founder and CEO Larry Diamond.
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Richard Sattler’s entrepreneurial journey from Tassy farmer to owner of world-class golf courses was far from straightforward… there were lots of bunkers and bogeys (to go with the golfing metaphor) thrown up in his path. After creating the almost instantly successful Barnbougle links course – attracting golf enthusiasts from the mainland as well as overseas -- how Sattler went on to battle and eventually win a legal stoush with former partners, when he came to build his 2nd links course, Lost Farm, became a painful lesson in perseverance. Then when the Covid19 pandemic hit the island leisure destination in 2020, and Tasmania was shut down for the best part of several months, find out how Richard Sattler and his dedicated team of workers turned that near-disaster to their distinct advantage. He also talks of the true impact family support has been through it all. Enjoy Part 2 of my chat with Richard Sattler.
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How non-golf player Richard Sattler saw the potential & seized the opportunity to transform his cattle & potato farm into one of the best champion links golf courses in the world. The former shearer, who’d never played golf before, took a massive risk on backing the idea of developing a top-quality links course amongst the pristine sand dunes of his coastal stretch of North-East Tasmania, and ended up having to underwrite the 2-year building project of Barnbougle Links course, The Dunes. But he quickly realised the concept of building a wilderness experience for golf might mean they could create a whole new market for themselves in remote Tassy, and that’s exactly how Barnbougle became not just a local, but a world golf destination.
Years of hard slog battling huge hurdles in his business journey in the island state of Tasmania – from the devastating Pilots’ strike of 1989, and the ’91 recession which saw interest rates of 20% mean almost crippling debt – equipped Sattler with the experience, tenacity and passion to go all out on the Barnbougle experiment. But it paid off, and handsomely. Not only has Sattler expanded his links courses empire, but Barnbougle sits comfortably in the Top 50 golf courses in the world! And it remains one of the few courses in Australasia, where those golf enthusiasts who make the pilgrimage, rarely come away disappointed!
Hope you enjoy Part 1 of my chat, on the roller coaster business ride of golfing entrepreneur and empire builder Richard Sattler.
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When Liz Ann Macgregor was lured from the UK to take on the job of turning around & re-building the moribund Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in 1999, she knew it would be a massive financial challenge. As a kid growing up in remote Orkney Islands in northern Scotland she had experience on the margins, so she figured how hard could a museum be, at the other ends of the earth in Sydney, despite seeing newspaper headlines emblazoned “Gallery no-one goes to” and “Money for Wankers”. But on arrival downunder and learning not only was the MCA so close to bankruptcy, but a fight with some of her board members within her first 48 hours, meant she almost turned on her heels and fled. Lucky for the MCA, Sydney and Australia that she didn’t, and for the next few years Liz Ann and her small team knuckled down, kept a tight rein on cash flow, persuaded politicians (sweetly , of course!), and enticed both audiences from all parts of the community and more donors. Over the past 2 decades, Liz Ann took the business of contemporary art, often seen as elitist and inaccessible to audiences, and turned it on its head. How Liz Ann Macgregor marshalled all resources she could lay her hands on to re-build the harbourside museum, visitor by visitor, supporter by supporter, blockbuster exhibition by blockbuster exhibition and transform it into one of Australia’s most visited and loved cultural institutions is a masterclass in entrepreneurialism, innovation and true engagement with customers. Does she think of herself in those terms? Well, take a listen to this chat with the indefatigable Liz Ann Macgregor OBE and find out.
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Tony Nash’s school & uni life didn’t work out the way he had planned. While he knew he wasn’t studious, didn’t concentrate, he equally understood he had enormous stores of passion, energy and enthusiasm when it came to a project he wanted to pursue. When it came to creating e-commerce bookselling site, Booktopia, initially from a tiny office in suburban Sydney, Tony’s unbridled energy and enthusiasm helped he and his co-founders to build it into one of Australia’s truly homegrown digital success stories. But it was, well, a medical diagnosis that came only in more recent years that finally gave him clarity and helped him improve his business as well as personal life. Hope you enjoy Part 2 of my chat with maverick entrepreneur Tony Nash.
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Despite dropping out of university, having no publishing experience and not even being a book lover, Tony Nash decided he could take a punt on the commercial possibilities he saw in online book-selling, in the internet’s infancy. Shrugging off the risks of going up against the already dominant player in that same market – Amazon – Tony convinced a few family members to support his vision, and started Booktopia, an entirely Aussie home-grown online book seller. What began as a small hustle on the side – Tony’s brother gave him a budget of $10 a day to create Booktopia, & he had to continue doing his day job at the same time – was built over the next 15 years into an e-commerce success story. Booktopia is set to achieve almost $220 million in revenue this financial year, employing 250 people, with a healthy chunk of all online book sales. But along that journey to success for Booktopia, exactly what impact did Jessica Seinfeld’s best-selling memoir have? And was there ever a single lightbulb moment for Tony Nash? Well, listen and you’ll find out. Hope you enjoy Part 1 of Tony Nash’s unorthodox entrepreneurial story
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After 17 years building up their Aconex software platform into a globally renowned game-changer for construction & infrastructure process & document management, founders Leigh Jasper & Rob Phillpot knew they needed access to more capital to continue growing worldwide. But when they took Aconex public in 2014, life as a publicly-listed company dealt them plenty of downside, along with the advantages! So how did they deal with short sellers, share price roller-coaster rides and more? And what really drove the decision to sell out completely, to US giant Oracle – was it just the massive pile of money offered? Well in Part 2 of my chat with co-founder leigh Jasper he reveals some home truths on the entrepreneur’s journey in public company land, and why he is now trying to support & guide other startups based on amazing ideas through the maze of potential pitfalls. Enjoy!
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When Leigh Jasper was helping out in his dad’s car business, as a kid in north-eastern Victoria, he of course couldn’t foresee that he would create and build one of Australia’s great innovation success stories of recent years. But that’s exactly what Jasper, with co-founder and long-time mate Rob Phillpot, did when the pair came up with the idea that the project management part of what they saw as the messy, uncoordinated and document-heavy construction sector needed streamlining, to help the industry itself become more efficient. They created Aconex in 2001 as a web-based platform where all documents relating to a project build could be stored and accessed on one digital platform, by every participant in the project, from the owner and builder right through to all sub-contractors. Aconex suddenly offered better transparency, improved cost controls for all participants in a building project, thereby reducing risks of cost overruns and delays or disagreements. Within 2 decades Aconex grew to become an ASX 200 listed public company, offering their SaaS (software as a service) product to massive engineering, construction and infrastructure projects across global markets. Projects like the large 3rd lock expansion to the Panama Canal, and the Marina Bay Sands complex of buildings dominating the Singapore skyline. Before selling out eventually in 2018 to US giant Oracle, which valued Aconex at over $1billion, company revenue hit almost $200million. So how did they do it? Well like many great success stories, it started with a lightbulb moment. Enjoy Part 1 of my chat with Leigh Jasper.
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When medically trained Dr Lisa O’Brien took over The Smith Family as CEO, some 10 years ago, the venerable charity was on a fairly solid footing – it had a long history with a recognisable, highly respected brand name. But to make it in the crowded welfare charity sector, genuinely addressing the real & underlying needs of disadvantaged children at risk of falling through the cracks, The Smith Family needed transforming into a more streamlined & focused organisation. But perhaps even more importantly, Lisa O’Brien set her considerable entrepreneurial mindset & honed management skills on making it far more accountable, with laser-like focus on measurable outcomes. After all, she and a group of her women friends had already started up a decade before, a homeless women’s drop-in centre, called Lou’s Place, in the heart of Sydney’s Kings Cross. So at The Smith Family Lisa wanted to ensure the entire organisation with its several thousand volunteers as well as leadership team were all fighting for the same mission – to ensure they could deliver and then measure the outcomes of services to help alleviate disadvantage for children in our community. And while The Smith Family prior to Lisa’s time was already on track providing education support, it was under Lisa O’Brien’s guidance as Chief Executive that the organisation expanded its reach into disadvantaged families, concentrating wholly on kids’ education.
The charity now provides its Learning for Life education program to 56,000 children, while a total 170,000 disadvantaged children and young people across the country now participate in Smith Family programs, an increase of 30% over the past 5 years. As Lisa O’Brien now moves on from running The Smith Family, she built and leaves behind a sustainable legacy at one of Australia’s most loved and important charities
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When Olivia Humphrey decided to take on the giant and tough US market, to grow her Kanopy film streaming business into the educational and public library sectors there, she didn’t count on the often unscrupulous actions of some competitors. But armed with some private equity investment from billionaire & Phoenix Suns NBA team owner Jahm Najafi, Olivia fought to win over the large Public Library market to her film streaming service. She eventually built Kanopy into an impressive global streaming empire offering 30,000 film titles into some 5,000 University & Public Library branches in the US and Australia, with over 100 staff globally, and more than 8 million active monthly users, who can access the service at no cost to them, with simply a swipe of their library card!
So why did she eventually sell Kanopy, & how has massive wealth changed her life? And how is she now helping next gen entrepreneurs?
Find out, in Part 2 of my chat with Olivia Humphrey.
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While Netflix, Stan and Disney streaming services are the dominant juggernauts in the on demand, online entertainment world, a young Australian entrepreneur, Olivia Humphrey has quietly built a smaller, but no less significant player that has managed to match the big guys at their own game. What she started from the front room of her house in Perth 13 years ago, as a small, arthouse film DVD service, selling to university libraries to help improve their film collections, Olivia proceeded to build into an online streaming service that now includes 30,000 independent, foreign and arthouse film & documentary titles, available through university and local public libraries across the United States and Australia.
It took years of hard slog -- Olivia even moved her young family to America to better manage the rapid scale-up of her business -- struggling to survive the cut-throat competitors in the tough US market who wanted to crush her out of business. But Olivia Humphrey succeeded in building a multi-national empire.
And the beauty of Olivia’s Kanopy product? These thousands of films cost nothing for the end customer, and are accessible with just the swipe of a library card.
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After years of hard slog trying to build sales on his online services marketplace Airtasker, Tim Fung then found rapid scale-up of the business challenging once growth started to kick in ... including managing his own role as CEO, which he says completely changed every year as the company grew. But even though Airtasker is yet to make a profit, Tim Fung says he’s motivated by the jobs Airtasker has created in its 9 years of operation, which translated into $143million in total sales through the Airtasker marketplace last year, empowering the 150,000 “taskers” who’ve earned money on the site, supported by almost 1 million paying customers. In Part 2 of our chat, Tim reveals why he chose to list on the ASX while keeping all his shares, and staying on as CEO; how they navigated through the COVID pandemic and why listening to others and being open to taking advice is sometimes crucial.
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After a stint working in finance at Macquarie Bank, and then working pro bono at one of Sydney’s biggest modelling agencies, young Tim Fung got noticed by one of the agency’s owners, who gave Tim opportunities to help a small team start up a sim-only mobile virtual phone network operator, which turned into Australia’s 4th-largest mobile service provider Amaysim. Living through that successful start-up helped give Tim Fung the confidence needed when he and a friend came upon their simple idea, whilst moving house, to try and match those many people with skills and talents to those customers who needed jobs done—anything from gardening and fixing leaks to drafting up contracts and assembling IKEA furniture —and to do that via a digital marketplace, where customer and “tasker” decide on the price. While Airtasker was born less than a decade ago, it still took a number of years of struggle to get traction in the marketplace, and demonstrate credibility in order to win the trust of end users, who after all had to feel confident about letting strangers into their homes to perform the tasks. But 9 years on, Tim has built an e-commerce platform in Airtasker that boasts 950,000 paying customers, and hundreds of thousands of genuine and rave reviews from customers. Last week, when Tim Fung IPO’d Airtasker, publicly listing it on the ASX, the share price skyrocketed in its first trading days, buoyed according to The Australian Financial Review by Millennial traders giving Airtasker a definite thumbs up. How exactly did Tim Fung turn his humble idea into the Airtasker phenomenon? In Part 1 of our chat, we’ll find out how and where it all began.
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Once Epic Pharmacy Group’s co-founders Cathie Reid & Stuart Giles had carefully worked through their GFC-inspired near-death business experience, they pulled back on their own risk-taking, but persevered with their bold expansion vision. But this time, with their pharmacy business profitability and growth on track, they did it with the benefit of partnerships and then later with Quadrant private equity to help guide their expansion into cancer care oncology clinics, the Icon Cancer Care group, not only in regional Queensland and NSW, but across Australia and also into Asia. Then came another life-changing deal to bring in other partners, in the form of Queensland Investment Corp & Goldman Sachs consortium in 2017, which led to a valuation on the group, widely reported as more than $1billion. By 2020, Cathie – who’s also been a huge supporter of Brisbane Lions’AFLW team, and on the board -- and Stuart debuted on the AFR Rich List, with an estimated wealth of $550million. So how does Cathie Reid, the girl who grew up in the La Trobe Valley, view that massive wealth and the responsibility of philanthropy? And how the heck does space tourism, and international cricket through an Australian Premier League new startup now fit into her life’s picture? Find out in Part 2 of my chat with Cathie Reid.
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Growing up in country Victoria, Cathie Reid worked part-time, as a schoolgirl, in the local pharmacy re-stocking shelves & vacuuming floors, thinking her life trajectory would likely involve marrying her teenage sweetheart and life would be sweet and uncomplicated. Well, that plan fell apart when the sweetheart marriage fell apart! But armed with a solid work ethic from her mum and dad, and her pharmacy degree, what Cathie did next, is an inspirational tale of how uncertainty in life can be seized and turned into genuine possibility and reality! Cathie decided then and there she would lead an epic life! Over the 2 decades since Cathie Reid and her 2nd husband Stuart Giles slowly but strategically built up one of Australia’s largest private pharmacy groups – Epic Pharmacy, for aged care facilities and private hospitals -- and integrated cancer care services group, Icon Cancer Care. They did it without a well-known brand name; they worked with competitors, not against them; and they had to put their tears and fears when the Global Financial crisis swamped them in 2008, to one side to work their way out of a deep mire of debt. Along that journey to build their impressive business, and create serious wealth, she’s managed to indulge her AFL passion (once a Victorian, always a Victorian!), as a Brisbane Lions board member and become a philanthropist, through their Epic Good foundation. In Part 1 of my chat, Cathie Reid reveals how they bootstrapped & built their business, how failure is never far away, and what she’s learned as a startup queen and a leader of people.
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In Part 2 of our chat, Adore Beauty founder Kate Morris talks of the fun, if scary ride scaling up her start-up, when rapid growth starts to happen. Find out what was the hardest part of the 20 year journey from starting her idea in a garage, to building her online website selling beauty and skincare products – now one of the largest in Australia -- to taking her business baby public and listing on the ASX. The joy was watching employees and team members grow and flourish. She also reveals what role the humble Tim Tam biscuit plays in Adore’s customer shopping experience! And she explains why internal culture is so critical to team success.
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While studying at uni, Kate Morris loved working part-time selling beauty products behind the cosmetics counter at Myer. But she quickly came to believe many women customers felt somewhat intimidated by the whole buying experience at a physical cosmetics counter. So with no business experience, barely any tech skills, the 21-year-old dropped out of uni, borrowed a $12,000 loan from her partner James’ dad, and began to disrupt bricks & mortar beauty shops with her online startup, at a time when no-one else was really blazing an e-commerce beauty trail in Australia. Kate thought she could create a better customer experience, by doing it online: giving women more easily accessible information on makeup & skincare products to empower them to make better purchases for their needs. But it was no overnight success. In Part 1 of our chat, Kate explains what a hard slog was Adore Beauty’s first 12 years, but how that set her business up for rapid growth in the last 8 years. And in late 2020, Kate and James floated Adore Beauty Group on the ASX, described in the media as “one of the hottest listings of the year”. Brought up in Tasmania Kate tells how her parents encouraged independence and a strong work ethic in her and her siblings; and how you need to embrace failure.
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Building a successful, sustainable movement in the medical field is never easy. But Cerebral Palsy Alliance Ceo Rob White and newborn intensive care specialist Professor Nadia Badawi, Macquarie Grp Chair of CP took on that herculean task 15 years ago. They believed that by inspiring, engendering and funding best practice global research into better understand CP, that together with some of the world’s best researchers including Australia’s own Professor Iona Novak and Sarah McIntyre, who were there from the beginning, they could help find better preventions, treatments and ultimately a cure for children and babies with Cerebral Palsy. Not only did these collaborators pursue their lightbulb idea, by building a world-respected Research Foundation from the ground up, but along the way they helped decrease not only the incidence of CP in this country, but how severely it affects those CP kids and babies.
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When visionary charity CEO Rob White got together with dynamic neonatal intensive care expert Professor Nadia Badawi, they set about building an entrepreneurial startup - CPA Research Foundation- within the not-for-profit Rob White was already reforming into a modern, focused charity - Cerebral Palsy Alliance. The Research Foundation, created from scratch 15 yrs ago, had the vision to fund world-leading researchers to find better prevention, treatments, and ultimately a cure for those children and babies living with cerebral palsy, a condition affecting 17 million people globally, and 1 child born with it every day in Australia. Along the way to ensuring the Foundation’s success, the pair forged a deep and enduring professional partnership, while making a remarkable difference every day to the lives and outcomes of children and their families coping with CP. Today, researchers alongside clinicians have reduced both the rate and severity of CP incidence in this country. Find out HOW they built it, and achieved success.
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While business entrepreneur Garrick Hawkins made his fortune as a young man in the more traditional fields of stockbroking, finance & investment banking, over the past 3-decades he’s been quietly creating & building his legacy in the less trodden field (pun intended) of horticulture. As a schoolboy Garrick Hawkins’ dream of one day owning a farm, & building his family a country house and garden on it, became a larger vision which has been slowly, tenaciously, beautifully realised in Oberon NSW, west of the Blue Mtns.
Starting with 1 working sheep farm in 1984, Garrick Hawkins was inspired by the grand European gardens, as he set out to create and build – with the partnership & help of talented local trades and craftspeople -- a vast cool-climate garden but with a unique Australian country flavour, that now spreads across an entire valley, and is one of the largest privately- owned, cool-climate gardens in the world. How one man’s folly became a garden for all Australians to enjoy, and how that finance guy learned to slow down and enjoy watching his legacy blossom and flourish.
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Business strategist Ralph Evans not only helped build a boutique consultancy that actually merged and morphed into Boston Consulting Group in Australia, one of the world’s largest & most respected management advice companies, but Evans unwittingly turned into an entrepreneur! He went on to advise and invest in the management buyout of Aussie wine brand Orlando, which went on to make its investors a tidy bundle; and he then turned around a rather moribund Austrade, Australia’s official booster for Australian trade, by transforming it in the 1990’s into an outward-looking, entrepreneurial organisation to help local companies seize the benefits of exports. Over the past few decades, Evans has been involved in Venture Capital and advised Venture Capital funds, and more recently he’s turned his strategic analytical skills to the vexing issue he says is so urgent -- climate change. In a new book, called Toast, Evans builds a business case to persuade the community, as well as the sceptics and deniers he says, for why we must take far greater action on climate change.
How to check out Toast, by Ralph Evans:--
https://www.amazon.com.au/Toast-Climate-enormous-Australians-effects-ebook/dp/B08CGVRLCX
https://www.bookdepository.com/Toast-Ralph-Evans/9780648880424
https://www.booktopia.com.au/toast-ralph-evans/book/9780648880424.html
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Entrepreneur Naomi Simson, aka the Red Shark from tv’s Shark Tank show, took her early vision for RedBalloon gifting website she’d created, and blew it sky high – the vision blossomed along with the hard goal of global sales. She and new biz partner David Anderson built Big Red Group into a clutch of brands all offering experiences to customers on their e-commerce marketplaces - be they extreme sport, or lifestyle and luxury experiences. Naomi and her team proudly boast they have now built RedBalloon and Big Red Group into the 3rd-largest experience provider in the world! And that means they have helped grow the small businesses of their 2,000 experience suppliers. But along with the positive side of this journey, there are always the bad days as well. In Part 2 of our chat, Naomi is candid about both, and in particular she reveals how she dealt with tough times as she was growing her business; and why Australia needs great start-ups.
How to connect with Naomi Simson :
Three LinkedIn Learning Courses
Two books
One newsletter
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After grinding away as a freelancer creating marketing plans for household brand names, Naomi Simson decided she wanted to re-set when her own children came along. So she created an idea for an overarching brand that would help market small business operators to much wider markets and audiences. She founded and set about building, with lots of ups and downs along that way, a website around that brand she called RedBalloon. But her genius was in setting that brand around gifting. You could say Naomi Simson was a trailblazer in this space and her RedBalloon website became a mushrooming marketplace for experiences, long before the first world hunger for “experiences” became a massive worldwide trend.
How to connect with Naomi Simson :
Three LinkedIn Learning Courses
Two books
One newsletter
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Philippa McCaffery says she was given the worst piece of advice when she worked as a hospital administrator – “learn to let go”, a former boss told her. But as it turned out, she flipped that on its head, and says that in fact, persistence has been her secret weapon in building her successful, sustainable skincare business. Through a ton of trial and error, fuelled by enormous passion for what she was offering women, plus working hard at nurturing great partnerships across 18 years growing the business, she and her partner Alarna realised their long-held dream. But they also knew that selling their beloved “baby” to a corporate partner with deep pockets, was the best way to ensure their business would flourish into the future. Was it bittersweet? Well, let’s find out. I hope you enjoy Part 2 of my chat with Philippa McCaffery and Alarna Longes.
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Dr Philippa McCaffery started her entrepreneurial journey, almost by chance, after becoming just a little disillusioned working first as a GP, and then as a hospital administrator in the public & private health system in Sydney. Nonetheless that early career experience stood her in good stead when she pivoted from public medicine to buying one single suburban skincare clinic, one of the first in Sydney doing laser hair removal. That first clinic was so overwhelmed with women clients needing help with unwanted body hair, that she and her new business partner Alarna Longes, a young uni graduate who came on board initially to help boost marketing, built up their business - not only doing hair removal by laser, but also offering a non-surgical, non-oral drug treatment for adult female acne. It proved to be a game-changer.
After years of hard work, with a few missteps along the way, the result was many many happy clients. 45 clinics later, the pair had built something substantial, and in mid-2018 they sold their cosmetic skincare clinic business to large ASX-listed company, Australian Pharmaceutical Industries for a cool $127million.
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When Gabby Leibovich migrated to Melbourne from strife-torn Israel in the mid-1980s as a teenager, he had no idea what he wanted to do, besides being obsessed with soccer, having fun and trying to master English. After university he worked in his father’s electronics store and the sales bug bit him. Last Episode Gabby explained how he graduated from working the bricks and mortar shop floor to eventually expanding into selling online, and building with his brother their first e-commerce empire in Catch of the Day. In Part 2 of my chat with Gabby Leibovich, he tells how they pivoted into online food ordering, creating a business that eventually became Menulog and made them another fortune. He also gives inside tips for budding startup entrepreneurs on the importance of “frenemies” in business, and how being a risk-taker can lead to massive fails as well as successes. Plus he’s candid about the one great investment opportunity that got away, and why he’s lived to regret it!
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When Melbourne-based Gabby Leibovich, and his brother Hezi stumbled across the internet, they were already experienced salesmen, Gabby had worked for years on the floor of his father’s single electronics shop In the Melbourne suburb of Brighton, interacting with customers and selling product. The brothers had also branched out and sold products at suburban market stalls around Melbourne. Then they jumped to a store on eBay, and the internet‘s vast possibilities hooked them. In Part 1 of my interview with Gabby Leibovich, he explains how that 1st foray into online selling morphed into the brothers’ own e-commerce website that started as deals.com and progressed to the wildly successful Catch of the Day. They built that business up from scratch & ending up selling their Catch Group to giant Wesfarmers in 2019 for $230million. But wait, there’s more! Gabby & Hezi along the way also started Scoopon, and food ordering site called Eat Now, which merged with Menulog, and sold for almost $900million. This is their startup journey.
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Serial startup innovator & Redbubble co-founder Martin Hosking believes that aside from those enduring values learned from his mum, his University of Melbourne History degree, of all things, plus his career stint as an Australian diplomat, navigating the tricky politics of the Middle East, were perfect foundations for his eventual entrepreneurial journey. Throw in returning to uni to complete an MBA and time working as a management consultant at McKinsey’s, Hosking believes all that experience gave him one of the most valuable gifts a good entrepreneur needs: Perspective. In Part 2 of our chat, Martin reveals why competitors, even someone as dominant and canny as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos cannot really successfully compete with, knock off or steal Redbubble’s business; why delaying a public listing helped Redbubble; and he offers sage but unexpected advice to younger would-be entrepreneurs, keen to make their mark.
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Martin Hosking co-founded art & design website Redbubble to put visual artists’ creative output directly in touch with consumers. But for its first 3 years Redbubble went virtually nowhere, with no traction and few sales. But little by little, with the support & belief of the artists themselves, and a few funders, Redbubble began to make headway. While initial scale up was so difficult, Hosking and his team have built Redbubble into a global design market juggernaut. Starting and still based in Melbourne, it has 300 employees, and offices now stretching to San Francisco, New York and Berlin. A staggering almost 7 million customers bought on the website in just the last year alone.
When COVID hit, Hosking was as shocked as anyone else, worried about his staff, artists, customers and yes, his global business. But Redbubble has boomed in corona times. Since COVID, Redbubble has seen 100% year-on-year growth. And Martin Hosking believes it won’t stop there.
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Law academic, linguist and theologian Dr Michael Spence AC has been Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney for a dozen years, & in that time he’s modernised and simplified the venerated sandstone institution, by essentially bringing together what he saw as a bunch of warring Faculty factions, to unite to make the university more community-facing, rather than inward-looking. Along the way he’s had his critics and some spectacular fails. But one of his enduring successes was the massive Inspired! fundraising initiative instigated by Michael Spence 10 years ago. With an initial target to raise $600million, Spence and his team built the campaign around some winning arguments to potential donors around the exciting future between the university and the community’s needs. And contrary to what many warned him about Australians not giving to higher education, Spence backed his own judgement that Australians would donate generously, if the ask was framed properly. The Inspired! campaign ended up outdoing itself…
the final amount raised was $1 Billion.
In this interview Spence talks about how he and the team built and executed that winning campaign. Plus, how he and USyd are managing through the Covid19 crisis, not only with international border closures and absent foreign students, but also with the growing political backlash towards China and its influence affecting universities.
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Melbourne-born corporate lawyer Adam Schwab was 24 years old when he and a schoolmate began their entrepreneurial journey. While Adam was still living at home with his parents, the two friends started out sub-letting apartments to backpackers, as a side gig.
Bit by bit, through much trial and error – including waging war on bed bugs! – the pair made enough money to dream bigger. They gave up their lucrative day jobs and they ventured into the digital online space. The co-founders created the successful e-commerce platform, deals.com, before eventually co-founding Luxury Escapes travel package deals website.
In this Episode, Adam Schwab tells HOW, in just 7 years, they built Luxury Escapes into a trusted online brand that’s become one of Australia’s fastest-growing boutique consumer travel businesses, with now more than 1.3 million Facebook followers. And how they learnt to truly value and develop customer service, where they’ve made many of their customers “sticky”, becoming Luxury Escapes’ devotees for life.
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Co-founder of AirTree Ventures has been an Australian role model & trailblazer in the digital technology space for over 3 decades. But after early business career success working for Bill Gates at Microsoft, a seismic personal event made Daniel Petre decide there was more that he needed to do to become, in his view, a better person and a good dad to his daughters. So he set out on a slightly less travelled path. He kept up the business success – as one of Australia’s premier venture capital investors in promising startups -- but along the journey he also managed to become a strong philanthropist, and even a best-selling author on, of all subjects, fatherhood!
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Co-founder of AirTree Ventures, Daniel Petre is a serial entrepreneur - not only did he build successful digital startups inside bigger companies for bosses like Bill Gates and Kerry and James Packer, but in the past 7 years he’s built up over $600million in Venture Capital funds to invest in many promising Aussie startups, creating one of Australia’s largest VC companies in AirTree Ventures.
In Part 1 of this interview, Daniel Petre talks about how he came to work for the brilliant Bill Gates in Microsoft’s heady heyday of the late 80’s; & what he learnt about rigorous thinking that informs the way he appraises tech startups to invest in today via his VC funds. But he also speaks candidly about personal issues that he continues to deal with; and why Australia must ride the current wave into a genuine digital future.
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While Bronte Capital’s self-styled eccentric co-founder John Hempton has made a reputation chasing corporate frauds; he also loves, delves deeply into and invests in, strong, quality companies around the world. Another surprising thing about him? Hempton can also admit when he’s pursuing the wrong strategy, and the 10-year bull market since the GFC, has proved a bit of thorn in his side. What might also surprise, in Part 2 of this interview, he shares some rather unexpected investing tips for young investors, and he argues very strongly for the importance of finding good bosses and mentors early on in a career.
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Global fund manager John Hempton, co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at Sydney-based Bronte Capital is a maverick investor who prides himself on being eccentric and loves to track down corporate frauds and short sell their shares. He creates critics, particularly amongst managements, because he’s a short-seller. In Part 1 of this interview, Hempton explains why he short sells, or bets against companies whose shares he believes will go down. In its 11 years, he says Bronte Capital has shorted over 1,000 stocks globally. But he also invests long in good, quality companies. He talks of the crucial importance of portfolio risk management as a short-seller; and why Europe’s biggest stock fraud - the recent scandal engulfing Wirecard- not only burnt Bronte Capital but why it could happen in Australia.
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Canva co-founder Cameron Adams reveals how the Canva teams pulled out all stops in the past 12 months to fuel massive growth, leaping from serving individuals’ design needs, to servicing much larger corporates’ needs, and how that’s paying off. While much of Canva’s product is still free, Canva Pro team has launched a new tool giving paying customers access to some 60 million different photos and illustrations, up from just 5 million available previously. Cameron also reveals how translating their online offering into more than 100 languages has fed strong growth in non-English speaking markets, like Brazil and Russia. He talks about the lessons he learned at Google working on a secretive project with the legendary Lars Rasmussen, that he brought to Canva; and how his net worth is a “real opportunity” to help the world, going towards needy projects, rather than simply buying “more stuff”. The entrepreneurial journey of this home-grown emerging business leader is both humble and inspiring, and well worth a listen.
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Cameron Adams began mucking around with computer games as a kid, in the back room of his dad’s suburban Melbourne computer shop. After uni he parlayed that computer literacy, fuelled by a passion for graphic design, into a job at Google. But his entrepreneurial spirit serendipitously led him to meet 2 young people with a dream - Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht wanted to transform their small school year book production company into a global vision to democratise design online, allowing anyone & everyone to design anything online through the design tools platform - from lost dog flyers, to concert posters, small business brochures, websites, now even corporate online presentations. Cameron Adams shared that vision and the home-grown tech startup Canva was born. With funding from Silicon Valley and Australian venture capital investors, Canva has mushroomed. From just the 3 founders at the start, it now employs over 1,000 employees, across 5 offices around the world, with Cameron as Chief Product Officer. The Sydney-based Canva’s most recent funding round in June 2020, valued the company at over $8 billion, with Cameron Adams a billionaire. In recent years they’ve doubled both revenue and user growth. As Canva approaches it’s 8th anniversary, it celebrates over 30 million active users. How did they do it? Take a listen.
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Graham Skroo Turner was bitten hard by the travel bug. Twice. Creating and building not 1 but 2 business empires specialising in travel. There’s the massive, now publicly listed Flight Centre, which operates in 24 countries, and writes billions of dollars in travel sales each year. But then there is another empire he built, from scratch, with the help of a few mates back in the early 1970’s, at just 24 years of age while travelling in London: his 1st babythe cheap European bus tours group Topdeck Travel. This boy who grew up on a Queensland apple orchard, started Topdeck with just one converted double decker bus. But he transformed it into a thriving business, soon running a fleet of some 70 buses across Europe, North Africa and Asia.,
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Flight Centre co-founder Graham Skroo Turner witnessed bookings & sales in the giant global travel company’s leisure division plunge 97%, within just 1 week in March, as nations, Governments & states closed borders; ordered citizens & businesses into lockdown; and planes essentially stopped flying. How Skroo Turner & his leadership team went straight into survival mode to shore up capital & protect the jobs & company he’s built up, after starting with just 1 shop 38 years ago. The toughest decision? Standing down a staggering 70% of his 20,000-strong workforce. While the respected serial entrepreneur & business veteran reckons he’s faced several disasters to hit travel sector – 9/11, the GFC, 2 Gulf Wars – and come through them, in Part 1 of our interview, he says nothing NOTHING compares to the Covid19 crisis that engulfed the world in March, April & May 2020.
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Carolyn Creswell started her entrepreneurial journey young… she was just 18 years old, working part-time as a student mixing up small batches of muesli for a mum & dad operation. When that business was about to fold, with her job threatened, she and a pal bought it for just $1,000 each. But it was no overnight success. After several years of hard grind -- perfecting muesli recipes, sourcing quality local grains, nuts & fruits, carrying around bags full of her product to court potential supermarket customers, and mostly being constantly broke-- Carolyn Creswell prevailed. Fuelled by passion, she says, to put delight into a brekkie bowl every day, Carolyn built that tiny operation into an impressive empire now selling breakfast & snack products, across 8 different ranges, in some 34 countries. Over the last 25 years Carolyn says she’s never lost sight of her customer, nor the importance of her young family, as she pursued her foodie dream.very
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Four Pillars Gin entrepreneur & marketing whizz Stuart Gregor and his co-founders LOVE making craft gin, pouring heart and soul, plus the best local & exotic botanicals into their boutique Aussie brand. In just over 6 years, Four Pillars has won prestigious international awards, become a local G&T favourite, and was selling an impressive 600,000 bottles of gin a year. That is, until COVID-19 knocked them for six. Find out HOW the pandemic lockdown led to their saviour: when Gregor & co turned their beloved gin-making distillery in country Victoria into a hand sanitiser factory for hospitals and health care workers, overnight!
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Young, 3rd-Year Resident, who is yet to graduate in her Specialty training, Dr Daniela Petraglia talks candidly about the almost crushing challenges faced by frontline doctors & nurses caring for the avalanche of ill Covid-19 patients which threatened to collapse the entire hospital system of Emilia-Romagna, one the hardest hit regions of Northern Italy. The heart-breaking decisions forced on senior doctors as to who gets ICU ventilator care and who doesn’t during the crisis peak of late March, April, early May is an experience that haunts her still. Called away from General Practice to come back & work in one of Piacenza’s busiest small hospitals at Castel San Giovanni -- the first COVID19-dedicated hospital in Italy -- Dr Petraglia speaks of the distressing reality of patients crying into their ventilator helmets, fearful & isolated from loved ones for weeks & weeks. How she and her colleagues, many of whom caught the virus themselves, managed in the storm of this disease, and the lessons to learn from Italy. Courageous and incredibly dedicated during these past 2 months, a young doctor’s perspective.
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Professor David Isaacs, senior Sydney pediatric specialist in respiratory virus infections and immunisations, at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, bluntly assesses WHY Australia has managed this pandemic pretty well so far compared to many world-leading nations and HOW only minor, firmly-controlled COVID-19 infection breakouts might occur once lockdown lightens. Plus he calmly explains the evidence on whether children spread this virus; the case for schools to stay open; and is asymptomatic spread a huge danger for our community as we venture more outside our homes.
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Melbourne-based medical device entrepreneur Jefferson Harcourt talks of the heroic collaboration going on right now between normal business competitors, to build from scratch and then deliver 2,000 invasive breathing Ventilators: new, much-needed “weapons” in the frontline fight against COVID-19, which will contribute to the Federal Government’s National Medical Stockpile. But what’s amazing about this extraordinary effort by several Aussie high-tech manufacturers, is that this entire project, from concept to complete execution, is taking just a few months! Not only will these ventilators better protect Australians, but possibly our Pacific neighbours too. Not bad for a tech innovator who started his advanced engineering company while still a uni student, 2 decades ago.
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With less than 2 years as a practicing doctor, Internal Medicine Physician Dr Anna O’Kelly talks candidly about the heart-breaking challenges faced by frontline doctors & nurses in ICU caring for Covid-19 patients, who need to be invasively ventilated, to hopefully breathe again. Working in one of Boston’s busiest hospitals in the USA - now the global epicentre of this highly infectious, dangerous virus - Dr O’Kelly talks of the distressing reality of patients dying without families by their sides, and with only the caring doctors and nurses to stand by them, and the difficult yet touching conversations they must have with families and loved ones. Resilient, warm, highly dedicated and ultimately positive, take a listen.
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3D-printing entrepreneur Paul Docherty speaks about HOW his small advanced medical manufacturing facility is currently trialling their new 3D-printed swabs for much-needed Covid-19 tests, in conjunction with the Doherty Institute and University of Melbourne, to test the swab’s efficacy, and await TGA approval. 3DMEDiTech is also 3D-printing parts for the crucial breathing ventilators, all part of a collaborative approach by governments to get the best medical and business know-how together to make essential medical tools right here in Australia, to combat this disease.
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Making it onto Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 List for 2019 shows just how rapidly Kristy Chong’s baby, Modibodi reusable leak-proof underwear, is growing: from a humble start-up 7 yrs ago to a global star. But what really drives this young entrepreneur is giving customers what they want & need: a solution to personal hygiene leaks and spills, and a solution to the billions of fem hygiene tampons and pads dumped in landfill globally each year. Modibodi’s turnover is now close to $50million a year.
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New mum Kristy Chong wanted to solve an everyday, often embarrassing, problem for women, & men, without the massive amounts of disposable personal hygiene products eventually being dumped in landfill. With passion & perseverance she created revolutionary underwear that promises to soak up leaks, periods and perspiration, building Modibodi into an empire growing recently by up to 400% a year.
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Highly experienced virus & infectious diseases specialist Professor Dominic Dwyer who’s working on the frontline at Westmead Hospital, talks plainly about where we are at with COVID-19, & what are the crucial weapons in the fight to diagnose, treat and stop the spread of this virus & disease, that ALL of us in the community MUST engage in, & what he is worried about. Prof Dwyer also explodes some of the Internet myths & tips on exactly what kills the virus. Calm, knowledgeable and ultimately optimistic, take a listen.
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How entrepreneurial Tony & Josephine Sukkar’s hands-on approach to everything -- from interviewing every cadet to negotiating massive building contracts – built their empire. But it also boosted their ability to agitate for gender equality and changen not only on building sites but in one of our oldest sports, Rugby Union! Hear how Josephine was instrumental in pushing rugby to establish the Women’s competition, Super W!
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Fleeing civil war in Lebanon as a teen, while protecting his younger siblings, made Tony Sukkar AM resilient and ready for any crisis, later forging a construction empire out of his former employer’s corporate collapse.
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Entrepreneurial Fund Manager Geoff Wilson AO, founder & CIO of Wilson Asset Management, on Being a Maverick, Outspoken Shareholder
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“Fundie” whizz Geoff Wilson bet big to back his financial judgement at just under 40 years of age: HOW he took his life savings of $500,000 & turned them into a massive business investing and growing other people’s money. 21 years later he now has $3.5 billion in funds under management. And find out just how much of a factor in that success was running a book on the Caulfield Cup, as a schoolboy?
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How being retrenched pushed entrepreneurial Alexandra Smart to create a start-up fashion label with her sister, that grew into Ginger & Smart, a high-end designer brand & retail business, now sold around Australia and the world. “We thought, if we work this hard, and kill ourselves for someone else, let’s do it for ourselves.”
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In Part 2 of Helen’s chat with travel website Rome2rio’s co-founder, Michael Cameron, he details HOW he turned his simple frustration into an idea then into concrete reality, disrupting online travel along the way and building a globally reknowned website business, in less than a decade; a shining example of an Aussie start-up that now claims a staggering 18 million unique visitors per MONTH. It was recently sold for $40million!
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In Part 1, How self-described tech nerd Michael Cameron and his mate, co-founder Bernie Tschirren transformed their travel frustrations into a multi-million dollar business. And this humble idea was built up, from scratch, in Michael's folks' living room in suburban Melbourne, to become the massive global travel disruptor and innovator, Rome2rio.com
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Billionaire Gerry Harvey admits to massive Fails; and how he runs a true gender-equal life and leadership team with wife & CEO Katie Page; and the absolute key to building a business
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How billionaire retailer Gerry Harvey built not one, but two business empires out of the ashes of a traumatic family twist of fate in childhood.
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On Build It. They’ll Come, you’ll hear from some amazing Australian entrepreneurs who bet big to build great businesses. Journalist Helen Dalley interviews business innovators and visionaries on how they turned their lightbulb idea into a viable, sustainable enterprise.This podcast is about the human face behind taking a simple idea and turning it into a business or movement. It’s the beating heart behind what it takes to build an empire, from concept to execution, and how they actually achieve it. Fuelled by blind faith and hard slog, how they transform their dream idea into concrete reality.
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