Newcastle Hustle: Recent Episodes
Adam Spencer
Today you’re going to hear the story of Diffuse Energy and it’s founders Joss Kesby, James Bradley and Sam Evans.
Diffuse Energy is a company that, right now, is building wind turbines that are twice as efficient as their competitors, but the vision that Joss and his team have for the company is, well, the sky is the limit.
We will hear all about that, but for now, let’s go back to day one where this story begins...
Today you’re going to hear the story of Andrew Mears and SwitchDin. SwitchDin provides software and hardware solutions for managing distributed energy resources. SwitchDin connects with utilities to help them work more efficiently with the grid.
We’re going to hear all about SwitchDin, where the idea come from, Andrew’s backpacking adventures, the pivots that SwitchDin has gone through and so much more, but for now, let’s go back to day one where this story begins…
Today you’re going to hear the story of Cake Server and Jade Ryan. Jade blew me away. Jade went to university to study structural engineering, became a structural engineer, started and built a side hustle while working full-time, is a mother of two young children and then, while on maternity leave went through the accelerator program ICON offered by Slingshot in partnership with the University of Newcastle and started a company called Cake Server, which you will hear about today. Oh and one more thing, Jade bought her house at 24.
By. Her. Self.
We’ll get deeper into Jade’s and Cake Server’s story. But for now, let’s go back to day one, where this story begins…
Today you’re going to hear the story of FEIKE and Daniel Spiteri. FEIKE is a business that helps get you home safely, the business has grown from an idea that Daniel had that he hoped would bring some quality of life for his family, to now a growing team, currently 3 team members, and helping to get over 1000 people home safely every year. Daniel’s vision is much larger than this though…
We’ll learn about that but for now, let’s go back to day one, where this story begins…
Today you’re going to hear the story of James Rabbitt and Broader Learning. Broader Learning provides STEM based learning programs to multiple schools. This approach allows Broader Learning to provide a higher quality and more cost-effective experience for the students than any one individual school could provide on its own. Broader Learning has grown out of James volunteering at local school’s helping with coding and robotics classes to now operating across a total of 5 campuses. The very first class they ran Broader Learning received over 3 times the student sign up than the school had anticipated… That’s very exciting and I’m really interested to see where James and the team can take this company. But for now, let’s go back to Day One, where this story begins...
Today you’re going to hear the story of Elite Robotics and it’s CEO Sahil. Sahil and his teams are developing robots that have human-like instincts! The Elite Robotics team have been finalists in 6 out 7 pitching competitions. They’ve built a successful prototype of their autonomous technology and have secured a partnership with a local golf-course to test and refine their groundbreaking creation. Some pretty great wins just there, and that’s just a few points, we’re going to cover more, but for now, let’s go back to day one where this story begins...
Let’s go back to Day One, where this story begins...
Today you’re going to hear the story of Heath Raftery from Newie Ventures. Newie Ventures is an engineering agency. They build solutions to their client's problems. Basically, their customers come to them with an idea, and Heath and his team go to work figuring out how to build it. In the last 12 months alone Newie Ventures’ client base has tripled and its headcount has more than doubled. But as Heath says although those numbers sound impressive in reality things have moved very carefully and very deliberately.
Let’s go back to Day One, where this story begins…
Today you’re going to hear the story of Justin Hales and Camplify. Camplify is Australia’s largest caravan and RV peer to peer sharing community and is expanding internationally. The company has made leaps and bounds since when it started back in 2014. With over 3500 listings on the site, growing at 500% year on year, with annual revenue of 12 million and forecasted of 16-18 million next year serving over 1500 customers per month, Camplify shows no sign of slowing down.
We’ll get into all that, for now, let’s go back to day one where Justin and Camplify’s story begins.
Today you’re going to hear the story of Crave and it’s founder Jessica Koncz. Jessica didn’t go to university. Jessica began to work in cafes and restaurants as soon as she could legally work. Today Jess is the director of a successful social media marketing agency employing 6 full-time team members and has won a pitch competition that will see her with the opportunity to launch her new app, that as of recording has well over 15,000 downloads in Newcastle alone, into the U.S market backed by a successful American angel investor.
We will get to that but for now let’s go back to Day One, where this story begins...