The Startup Playbook Podcast

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep220 – Adam Ewart (Co-founder & CEO – Send My Bag) on bootstrapping Send My Bag from a uni side project to global service September 25, 2025 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep220 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Adam Ewart, the Co-founder & CEO of Send My Bag.

Send My Bag is the international luggage shipping and relocation platform used by travellers and businesses around the world.

Adam’s story is a fascinating one. From building a global company out of a small town in Northern Ireland, to turning PR into a powerful growth engine, to deliberately bootstrapping even when VCs came knocking, his journey is full of practical lessons and hard-earned insights.

In this episode we dive into:

How he turned PR into one of his biggest growth drivers
Why he chose to bootstrap despite inbound investor interest
The challenges and opportunities of building a large global business out of Belfast

Timestamps:* 00:02:15 Adam’s early entrepreneurial roots and family business influences * 00:07:00 Why Adam never wanted a traditional job * 00:08:10 Using part-time wages and student loan to fund ventures * 00:10:45 First experiments: Middleman Mobiles and FillAJob.com * 00:13:30 The idea for Send My Bag * 00:18:20 First customers: student shipping during summer holidays * 00:27:00 From domestic student shipping to international expansion * 00:29:00 Spotting the airline baggage fee opportunity and PR growth * 00:34:00 Leveraging free publicity: Dragons’ Den appearance * 00:40:15 Expanding into the U.S. market and securing media coverage * 00:45:30 Building Send My Bag into a relocation and global logistics service * 00:52:00 Lessons learned on scaling, growth and resilience

Our partners:A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:

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Links mentioned:* The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator

Adam’s links:* Send My Bag * Adam on Twitter/X

People mentioned:* Grant Carmichael

Companies mentioned:* FillAJob.com (no longer active) * Dragons’ Den (BBC) * American Airlines

Feedback/connect/say hello:* Rohit@startupplaybook.co * @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) * /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) * @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) * My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep219 – Stirling Mortlock (Co-founder – XV Capital) on the journey from Wallabies Captain to Sports-Tech Investor August 28, 2025 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep219 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Stirling Mortlock.

Stirling is one of Australia’s greatest ever Rugby players. He’s a former Wallabies Captain, World Cup player, and one of the few players to score over 1,000 points in Super Rugby.

But his story goes well beyond the field. After retiring, he’s built a career as a founder and investor.

Today, he’s the Co-founder of XV Capital, where he’s backing the next generation of sports-tech and performance-led startups.

In this episode we dive into:

Lessons from professional rugby and how he’s applied them to his career post sport
The rhythms & role clarity behind high-performance teams
A resilience playbook: “feed the good wolf” through injuries & setbacks
Where sports-tech is heading
And much more!

I’m also excited to announce that Stirling will be joining The Komo Club as a speaker for Cohort 2. The program is the world’s first human accelerator, designed to help high performing founders and executives implement the right system and frameworks to help them succeed in business and all areas of their life. You can find out more at thekomoclub.com

Timestamps:* 00:02:15 Career arc: Brumbies mainstay, two World Cups, captaincy at Brumbies/Wallabies/Rebels, transition to life after rugby. * 00:07:08 Obsession with sport, MJ as childhood idol, and setting audacious goals back in Year 11. * 00:09:31 Overlooked early, late physical growth, and training like a pro at uni: why hard work fast-tracked selection. * 00:12:07 “Outliers” & relative age: flipping a potential disadvantage into a slingshot advantage. * 00:15:00 Seizing rep opportunities: NSW Country vs City, shadow call-up * 00:18:44 Keeping belief amid uncertainty: mentors and the power of goal-setting. * 00:27:26 Inside high-performance teams: weekly rhythm, role clarity, and leveraging strengths under pressure. * 00:30:24 Captaincy lessons: delegate to strengths and always do your job lead by example. * 00:32:28 Turning ADHD into a superpower; creating environments where people operate at their “optimal frequency.” * 00:48:37 Future of Sports-Tech * 00:59:38 15 operations & the “feed the good wolf” framework for setbacks; silver linings during rehab.

Our partners:A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:

Links mentioned:* The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator

Stirling’s links:* Stirling on LinkedIn * XV Capital

People mentioned:* James Godfrey * Gordon Ogilvy * Mark Davis * Phil Waugh * Jeremy Mortlock * Chris Malone * Andrew Walker * Tim Horan * Jason Little * George Gregan * Stephen Larkham * Joe Roff * Chuck Carter * Mel Brown

Companies & Organisations mentioned:* Prevent Biometrics * ACT Brumbies * Melbourne Rebels * Wallabies (Rugby Australia) * Gordon Rugby Club * Rugby Australia * Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) * British & Irish Lions

Resources mentioned:* Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Feedback/connect/say hello:* Rohit@startupplaybook.co * @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) * /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) * @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) * My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep218 – Nipun Mehra (Co-founder & CEO – Ula) On Ula’s hypergrowth, Bezos backing & the hard call to shut down August 7, 2025 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep218 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Nipun Mehra.

Nipun has had an incredible track record in his career. At Amazon he launched their first ever real time inventory management system, was an early team member at Flipkart helping build and scale one of India’s most successful and iconic startups before joining Sequoia India as an investor.

In 2020, he Co-founded Ula, a B2B e-commerce platform that set out to modernise retail supply chains for millions of small businesses starting in Indonesia.

Ula quickly become one of South East Asia’s fastest growing startups. They went from $0 to $300M in revenue within 2 years. Ola also raised over $140M from leading investors including Sequoia, Lightspeed, Tencent and even raised capital from Jeff Bezos himself, his first investment into this part of the world.

But in a candid and deeply honest conversation, Nipun shares – for the first time publicly – the full story of what happened behind the scenes from Ula when he decided to shut down the company and return the remaining capital to investors.

From hypergrowth to hard calls, this episode dives into the reality of building a company at scale and the weight of leadership at challenging times.

In this episode we cover:

Nipun’s lessons from his time with Amazon, Flipkart and Sequoia
The hypergrowth journey behind Ula
Why he decided to shut down Ula and return the capital vs find another path
Coming to terms with the ups and downs of the journey
& much more

I’m also excited to announce that Nipun will be joining The Komo Club as a speaker for Cohort 2. The program is the world’s first human accelerator, designed to help high performing founders and executives implement the right system and frameworks to help them succeed in business and all areas of their life. You can find out more at thekomoclub.com

Timestamps:* 00:03:08 Nipun’s background: Early entrepreneurial drive * 00:07:00 College startup attempts and discovering India’s nascent internet scene * 00:14:47 What Amazon & Flipkart taught him about audacious targets and culture * 00:20:38 How to set “aggressive but achievable” goals without crossing into folly * 00:29:23 Why Indonesia? The leap of faith that launched Ula in Southeast Asia * 00:38:37 Securing Jeff Bezos’ first SEA investment and the six-page memo that closed the deal * 00:41:31 Scaling to ~US $300 M GMV in two years during COVID * 00:43:20 The decision to shut down Ula and return the remaining capital to investors * 00:55:13 Lessons on investor alignment * 01:04:45 Nipun’s new venture, lessons from Ula he’s applying

Our partners:Thank you to Karl Noronha, Ganesh Rengaswamy and Prithvi Rajaram for their help with research for this interview!

A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:

Links mentioned:* The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator

Nipun’s links:* Nipun on LinkedIn

People mentioned:* Jeff Bezos * Larry Page * Marissa Mayer * Elon Musk * Karl Noronha * Ganesh Rengaswamy * Prithvi Rajaram

Companies mentioned:* Ula * Amazon * Flipkart * PhonePe * Sequoia Capital India / Peak XV Partners * Lightspeed Venture Partners * Boston Consulting Group * Tiger Global * Tencent * Prosus * Bezos Expeditions * Udaan * Shopee * Mercado Libre * Coupang * Google * Meta * Reliance Jio * Reliance Industries * Gojek * Tokopedia * Playbook Ventures

Feedback/connect/say hello:* Rohit@startupplaybook.co * @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) * /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) * @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) * My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep217 – Dr Steven Lu (Co-founder & CMO – Everlab) on building the future of preventative health July 24, 2025 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep217 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Dr. Steven Lu.

Dr. Steven Lu is the Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Everlab, Australia’s leading preventative health and longevity startups.

With over 15 years of clinical experience, Steven specialised in the prevention and management of complex medical conditions including heart attacks and strokes. After years of treating late-stage illness, he shifted focus to building a proactive model of healthcare, one that empowers people to catch risks early and take control of their long-term health.

That idea became Everlab.

Since launching, Everlab has scaled rapidly across Australia, combining full-body diagnostics, personalised blood testing, and AI-driven insights to make preventative healthcare more accessible and actionable.

The company recently closed a $15M AUD Seed round led by New York based Left Lane Capital. I was proud to continue backing Steven and the Everlab team through Playbook Ventures in this latest round.

In addition to our investment, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Steven through The Komo Club, where he’s a featured speaker in both Cohort 1 and 2. The Komo Club has also partnered with Everlab who support our members directly with DEXA scans, blood testing, and 1:1 medical consultations as part of their cohort experience.

In this episode, we discuss:

Steven’s transition from private practice to founding Everlab
The shortcomings of traditional healthcare and Everlab’s approach to solving them
The key health pillars every founder should build into their routine
How Steven manages his own health and family life while scaling a startup
Lessons from building a high-performance team in a highly regulated industry
& much more

Timestamps:* 00:02:13 Steven explains his transition from ICU and private practice to preventative medicine * 00:04:31 Migrant childhood between China and Australia builds empathy and listening skills * 00:14:00 Night‑shift epiphany in ICU: “we could save more lives by intervening earlier” * 00:29:45 Meeting Sam Kothari and transitioning from a boutique practice into a scalable startup * 00:51:22 The three pillars: nutrition, movement, rest. Which is the highest‑ROI starting point * 00:58:54 Chronic sleep debt in startup life, how to measure sleep quality with objective, subjective and behavioural data * 01:09:48 Dangers of visceral fat and how to reduce it * 01:30:00 Seed round validation: 40,000+ biomarker data points show significant member gains * 01:34:25 Balancing a high‑growth mission with fatherhood: savoring scarce moments with kids

Our partners:Thank you to Sam Kothari, Chai Ng and Kelly Huang for their help with research for this interview!

A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:

Links mentioned:* The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator

Steven’s links:* Steven on LinkedIn * Everlab

People mentioned: * Sam Kothari * Chai Ng * Bryan Johnson * Alexandra Zatarain

Companies mentioned:* Playbook Ventures * Eight Sleep * Whoop * Oura * Fitbit * Ramsay Health Care

Feedback/connect/say hello:* Rohit@startupplaybook.co * @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) * /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) * @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) * My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep216 – Chris Withers (Founder & CEO – Klikit) on lessons from Uber & Gojek, beating cancer & solving hard problems July 18, 2025 * rohitbhargava * Podcast, Uncategorized My guest for Ep216 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Chris Withers.

This week marks 9 years of The Startup Playbook Podcast.

What started as a side project in 2015 has now become a platform that’s shared the stories of 200+ founders, investors, and operators — and I’m so grateful to all of you who’ve tuned in, shared episodes, and supported the show along the way.

To mark the milestone, I couldn’t have asked for a better guest than Chris Withers, the Founder & CEO of Klikit, a platform helping merchants grow revenue, cut costs, and streamline operations through a powerful all-in-one operating system.

Before founding Klikit, Chris was part of the early Uber team in Australia & NZ, helped scale Uber Eats across Asia, and later became VP of Global Mobility at GoJek, giving him a front-row seat to some of the world’s most intense high-growth environments.

Chris is also someone I’ve personally backed through Playbook Ventures. Beyond the complexity of building in Southeast Asia, what’s inspired me most is his resilience, including his fight through a cancer diagnosis just months after raising capital as a solo founder.

In this episode, we dive into:

The high performance cultures at Uber and Gojek and what Chris took away from each
Why hard problems are worth solving
His battle with cancer and what it taught him about leadership, health, and grit
The realities and misconceptions about the Southeast Asian market
And much more!

Timestamps:* 00:02:15 Chris’ background, accidental entry into Uber via a “mechanics yard” interview in Brisbane * 00:04:26 Jumping to Uber Eats APAC: contrarian career move that paid off * 00:07:10 Chris explains “second-order thinking” and calculated risk-taking * 00:11:56 Lessons from Uber 1.0’s boundary-pushing culture of ownership * 00:15:00 Inside Gojek: mission, patriotism and Nadiem Makarim’s “Pasti Ada Jalan” mantra * 00:20:21 Genesis of klikit: running six virtual brands in one kitchen to test a thesis * 00:24:58 Building the “pipes and rails” before the creator-commerce vision * 00:29:51 Shipping fast and moving with speed * 00:33:24 Going multi-region early; why Southeast Asia forces breadth and depth * 00:38:26 Facing cancer diagnosis while running a venture backed startup * 00:56:04 eFishery fraud fallout and Chris’s plea not to write off Asian tech

Our partners:A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:

Links mentioned:* The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator

Chris’ links:* Chris on LinkedIn * Klikit

People mentioned:* Travis Kalanick * Paul Santos * Nadiem Makarim * Daniel Kahneman – Thinking Fast & Slow * Jeff Bezos * Ray Kroc * Ben Dunphy

Companies mentioned:* Uber * UberEats * Gojek * Grab * Playbook Ventures * TikTok Shop * Shopee * Lazada * Amazon * Google * MrBeast Burger * eFishery * Wavemaker

Feedback/connect/say hello:* Rohit@startupplaybook.co * @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) * /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) * @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) * My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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  - January 1, 2014ReplyLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep216 – Chris Withers (Founder & CEO – Klikit) on lessons from Uber & Gojek, beating cancer & solving hard problems appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep215 – Ben Dunphy (Co-founder & Partner – January Capital) on data-driven VC & leveraging both equity & credit for growth July 10, 2025 * rohitbhargava * Uncategorized My guest for Ep215 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Ben Dunphy.

Ben is the Co-Founder and Partner of January Capital, a VC fund that invests in early stage high growth startups in the Asia Pacific region. They also run an $85M growth credit fund, offering scale-stage companies access to non-dilutive capital.

I first had Ben on the show back in October 2016 and nearly a decade later, we revisit the journey and dive into:

What’s changed and what hasn’t in early stage investing
How January Capital is bridging the gap between equity and debt-based financing in an innovative model
The opportunities in Southeast Asia
And much more!

Timestamps:* 00:01:17 Ben’s background: Australia-born, now leading January Capital in Singapore * 00:03:16 What’s remained constant vs. what’s changed in nine years of APAC venture * 00:05:26 Proving billion-dollar outcomes outside Silicon Valley and the AI paradigm shift * 00:09:03 Founding January Capital: spotting gaps and launching with three partners * 00:12:41 Why (and when) startups should diversify into credit alongside equity * 00:19:21 Misconceptions about “one big Southeast Asia market” and the B2B focus * 00:24:07 January’s data-driven deal-sourcing engine and composite talent scoring * 00:27:53 Signals of exceptional founders * 00:31:00 Advice on timing investor outreach and the benefits of month-long rapport-building * 00:39:04 Case study: William Li’s whiteboard pitch for Akulaku and the power of clarity

Our partners:Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:

Links mentioned:* The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator

Ben’s links:* Ben on LinkedIn * January Capital

People mentioned:* Jonathan Hodson * Jason Edwards * William Li

Companies mentioned:* Akulaku * ShopBack * TikTok * Blue Sky Venture Capital

Feedback/connect/say hello:* Rohit@startupplaybook.co * @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) * /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) * @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) * My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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  - January 1, 2014ReplyLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep215 – Ben Dunphy (Co-founder & Partner – January Capital) on data-driven VC & leveraging both equity & credit for growth appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep214 – Pan Koutlakis (Co-founder & CEO – EatClub) on rebuilding EatClub from $0 revenue to global expansion after COVID July 3, 2025 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep214 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Pan Koutlakis.

Pan is the Co-Founder and CEO of EatClub, a platform that uses dynamic pricing to help restaurants fill empty tables during off-peak hours, while passing on great deals to diners.

EatClub saw remarkable growth early on, but like many in the industry, the business came to a standstill when COVID hit, with revenue dropping to zero overnight. Pan responded by drastically downsizing overheads, restructuring the company, and rebuilding momentum recently leading the business to secure an impressive $18.2 million Series A round.

In this episode we covered a variety of topics including:

How he convinced industry heavyweight Marco Pierre White to come on board
Navigating the uncertainty of COVID
The power of setting ambitious targets
Frameworks for making strategic long-term bets
And much more!

Timestamps:* 00:01:10 Pan’s Adelaide upbringing, law-and-economics studies & first jobs in hospitality * 00:08:41 Joining Rocket Internet’s ‘Suppertime’ and witnessing growth-at-all-costs firsthand * 00:10:17 Founding EatClub * 00:13:08 Cold-emailing Marco Pierre White, why the celebrity chef came on board * 00:16:12 Structuring deals with celebrities * 00:22:22 Signing the very first restaurant (on the first cold-call) and refining the MVP * 00:27:58 EVP’s initial pass, eventual investment and the overnight COVID revenue crash * 00:56:15 Tough cuts, shutdown of U.S. ops, and doubling-down on R&D during lockdown * 00:39:32 Founder/Investor relationship * 00:47:58 How he thinks about product roadmap and what features to build * 00:55:07 Post-pandemic rebound, UK market entry & closing the $18.2 M Series A

Our partners:A big thank you to Dan Szekely, Jonte Shaw and David Hodges for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:

Links mentioned:* The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator

Pan’s links:* Pan on LinkedIn * EatClub

People mentioned:* Marco Pierre White * David Berger * Ben Tyler * Matt Cantelo * Daniel Szekely * Jamie Oliver * Gordon Ramsay * Dan Szekely * Jonte Shaw * David Hodges

Companies mentioned:* EatClub * EVP * Suppertime * Foodora * Delivery Hero * Rocket Internet * Menulog * Groupon * Uber Eats * Mastercard

Feedback/connect/say hello:* Rohit@startupplaybook.co * @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) * /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) * @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) * My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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  - January 1, 2014ReplyLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep214 – Pan Koutlakis (Co-founder & CEO – EatClub) on rebuilding EatClub from $0 revenue to global expansion after COVID appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep213 – Rob Phillpot (Co-founder – Aconex) on scaling Aconex to a $1.6B exit and launching a $50M founders fund June 27, 2025 * rohitbhargava * Uncategorized My guest for Ep213 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Rob Phillpot.

Rob and his co-founder Leigh Jasper have played a huge part in shaping Australia’s tech landscape, building Aconex into one of the country’s most iconic companies, taking it public in 2014 and ultimately selling it to Oracle in 2017 for $1.6 billion.

Since then, Rob has dedicated his time to advising startups, supporting philanthropy, and investing through his family office, Gravel Road Ventures. Most recently, Rob, Leigh Jasper, and A Cloud Guru founder Sam Kroonenberg teamed up to launch Glitch Capital, a $50 million founders fund backing the next generation of global tech companies.

In this episode, we cover a lot of ground, including:

Aconex’s journey to a $1.6B exit and overcoming multiple near-death experiences
What it was like to sell a company when he didn’t want to
Why advising founders is 20% strategy and 80% psychology
The secrets behind building a high-performance culture
Balancing big ambitions with family life
What Glitch Capital looks for when backing startups
And so much more.

Timestamps:* 00:01:50 Rob’s background * 00:06:27 Meeting Leigh Jasper: did school-friends always know they’d start a company together? * 00:09:15 Switching tracks: advice for people stuck in a career they don’t love * 00:11:07 Startup ecosystem in 2000 and the early days of Aconex * 00:13:46 Staying positive: how did Rob and Leigh keep morale when things looked bleak? * 00:18:22 Strength in vulnerability * 00:21:58 Cultivating Aconex’s culture and common founder mistakes * 00:37:58 The real story of the Aconex sale * 00:43:13 Life after the exit: what did stepping away from Aconex feel like? * 00:49:48 What Rob looks for as an investor * 00:58:13 80% psychology: common founder struggles Rob sees as an advisor * 01:00:48 Family, fitness and cooking dinner: balancing startup life with home life * 01:07:05 Philanthropy focus: why Rob created the Gravel Road Foundation and how he thinks about giving

Our partners:A big thank you to Ben Leach, Andrew Barron and Bill Phillpot for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:

Links mentioned:The Komo Club – Details here

Rob’s Links:* Rob on LinkedIn * Glitch Capital * Aconex * Gravel Road Foundation * Gravel Road Ventures

People mentioned:* Leigh Jasper * Sam Kroonenburg * Ben Leach * Andrew Barron * Simon Sinek * Geoff Tarrant

Companies mentioned:* Oracle * Multiplex * McKinsey & Company * Amazon Web Services * Deloitte * A Cloud Guru * HammerTech * Firmable * Payapps * Mr Yum * Leonardo.AI

Feedback/connect/say hello:* Rohit@startupplaybook.co * @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) * /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) * @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) * My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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  - January 1, 2014ReplyLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep213 – Rob Phillpot (Co-founder – Aconex) on scaling Aconex to a $1.6B exit and launching a $50M founders fund appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep212 – Matt Loop (Head of Asia – Rippling) on Leadership, Hiring & Growing Iconic Tech Companies June 19, 2025 * rohitbhargava * Uncategorized My guest for Ep212 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Matt Loop.

There are few people who’ve had as much influence in shaping the tech landscape in this region as Matt.

He began his career at Salesforce, where he was one of their earliest hires in Australia, before going on to lead sales at LinkedIn, first in ANZ, then later as Head of Enterprise in North America.

After that, he returned to Australia to take on the role of Head of Asia Pacific at Slack, helping the company scale its presence across the region.

Today, Matt is the VP and Head of Asia at Rippling, a workforce management platform that’s transforming how businesses manage their people, IT, and operations. Just last month, Rippling announced a $450 million Series G round, valuing the company at $16.8 billion.

In this episode, we dive into a range of topics, including:

How to build and lead high-performance teams
Matt’s approach to hiring and what he looks for in candidates
The frameworks he uses to choose which companies to join
Balancing a high-impact career with family life
And so much more.

Timestamps:* 00:02:07 Matt’s career arc: Salesforce, LinkedIn, Slack, Rippling * 00:08:45 Building Salesforce APAC * 00:12:29 GTM Advice to founders * 00:16:48 Leaving Salesforce: spotting comfort creep & moving to LinkedIn * 00:24:27 Leadership frameworks from all his previous experiences * 00:30:15 Cultivating Rippling’s high performance culture * 00:35:09 Frameworks for evaluating potential career opportunities * 00:46:13 Hiring “good humans” with a growth mindset * 00:50:02 Networking and personal branding * 00:55:13 Stepping back from the day-to-day and seeing the bigger picture * 01:00:10 Finding your own version of balance

Our partners:A big thank you to Katrina Loop, James Demetrios and Andrew McCarthy for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:

Links mentioned:The Komo Club – Details here

Matt’s Links:* Matt on LinkedIn * Rippling

People mentioned:* Marc Benioff * Satya Nadella * Mike Gamson * Alyssa Merwin * Cal Henderson * Parker Conrad * James Demetrios * Andrew McCarthy

Companies mentioned:* Salesforce * LinkedIn * Slack * Siebel * Oracle * SAP * Microsoft * Amazon * eBay * Notion * Atlassian * Playbook Ventures

Feedback/connect/say hello:* Rohit@startupplaybook.co * @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) * /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) * @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) * My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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  - January 1, 2014ReplyLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep212 – Matt Loop (Head of Asia – Rippling) on Leadership, Hiring & Growing Iconic Tech Companies appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep211 – Jodie Imam (Co-founder & CEO – Tractor Ventures) on startup exits, scaling with content and life-changing personal systems June 12, 2025 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep211 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jodie Imam.

Jodie is the Co-founder & CEO of Tractor Ventures, which provides non dilutive capital (between $100,000 – $1.5M) to tech enabled companies.

Since launching in 2020, Tractor has deployed nearly $100M, has 230 customers and is tracking at $5M in annual revenue.

Prior to this, Jodie was the Co-founder of Occasional Butler which was acquired in 2020.

She was also a member of Cohort #1 of the Komo Club, and in this episode we dive into a range of areas including:

Lessons from launching, growing and exiting Occasional Butler
How she uses content to attract talent and customers to Tractor Ventures
Systems and frameworks she utilises to manage a busy schedule between running a high growth business, multiple board seats, and a busy personal life
How personal goals created through The Komo Club have had a significant impact on her number one priority in life
And much more!

Timestamps:* 00:01:54 Jodie’s background * 00:03:29 How Jodie’s childhood shaped her perspective on life and business * 00:05:49 Early career: building Occasional Butler and co-working space Depo8 * 00:07:39 The decision to go all in on Occasional Butler * 00:08:50 What Jodie would do differently second time around with Occasional Butler * 00:11:36 How to build credibility as an early stage startup * 00:13:47 Selling Occasional Butler to Airtasker while raising two young children * 00:18:04 Founding Tractor Ventures with Matt & Aprill * 00:21:11 Early days of Tractor Ventures * 00:24:10 Challenges with the business, restructuring * 00:28:09 Culture design: 4-day workweek, 90-day scorecard & Level-10 meetings * 00:30:14 LinkedIn content engine that drives both deal flow and hiring * 00:44:09 Personal goals, The Komo Club & intentional parenting * 00:54:49 How Jodie structures her day and week

Our partners:A big thank you to Olivia Doherty, Andrew Fitzpatrick and Matt Allen for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:

Links mentioned:The Komo Club – Details here

Jodie’s Links:* Tractor Ventures * Jodie on LinkedIn

People mentioned:* Tim Fung * Matt Allen * Aprill Enright * Andrew Fitzpatrick * Olivia Doherty * Dan Siepen * Bryan Williams * Dean Swan * Cameron Falloon * Janine Allis * Leona Edmiston

Companies mentioned:* Airtasker * TaskRabbit * Gumtree * SBE Australia * Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship * University of Melbourne * FinTech Australia * Private Media * SmartCompany * Crikey * The Mandarin * Jim’s Mowing * Innovation Bay * Amazon * Leona Edmiston

Feedback/connect/say hello:* Rohit@startupplaybook.co * @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) * /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) * @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) * My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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  - January 1, 2014ReplyLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep211 – Jodie Imam (Co-founder & CEO – Tractor Ventures) on startup exits, scaling with content and life-changing personal systems appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep210 – James Fuller (Co-founder & CEO – Hnry) on turning a spreadsheet into platform processing $2.6B May 1, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep210 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was James Fuller. James is the Co-founder […]

The post Ep210 – James Fuller (Co-founder & CEO – Hnry) on turning a spreadsheet into platform processing $2.6B appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep209 – Mathew Ellis (Co-founder & CTO – Kismet) on vertical ownership and high performing teams April 3, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep209 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Mat Ellis. This episode is a little […]

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep208 – Jane Martino (Co-founder & Chair – Smiling Mind) on founder mental health, mindfulness & multiple exits March 27, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep208 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jane Martino. Jane has had […]

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep207 – Dean Swan (VP for APJ at Monday.com) on growing Monday.com zero to $100M+ in APJ February 27, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep207 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Vice President and General Manager […]

The post Ep207 – Dean Swan (VP for APJ at Monday.com) on growing Monday.com zero to $100M+ in APJ appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep206 – Adam Schwab (Co-founder & CEO – Luxury Escapes) on reinventing Luxury Escapes & Scaling to $1B+ GTV February 13, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep206 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Adam Schwab. Adam started […]

The post Ep206 – Adam Schwab (Co-founder & CEO – Luxury Escapes) on reinventing Luxury Escapes & Scaling to $1B+ GTV appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep205 – Damir Cuca (Founder & CEO – Basiq) on building and exiting 2x startups and being a father of six January 30, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep205 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Damir Cuca. […]

The post Ep205 – Damir Cuca (Founder & CEO – Basiq) on building and exiting 2x startups and being a father of six appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep204 – George Hartley (Co-founder & Co-CEO – Bluethumb) on lessons from building a $100M art marketplace January 23, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep204 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was George Hartley. George is the Co-founder […]

The post Ep204 – George Hartley (Co-founder & Co-CEO – Bluethumb) on lessons from building a $100M art marketplace appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep203 – Ben Pfisterer (Co-founder & CEO – Zeller) on becoming the fastest Australian company to achieve unicorn status January 16, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep203 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the Co-founder & CEO […]

The post Ep203 – Ben Pfisterer (Co-founder & CEO – Zeller) on becoming the fastest Australian company to achieve unicorn status appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep202 – Josh Ball (Co-founder – Farmers Pick) on using tech to save 7 million kg of food waste December 19, 2024 rohitbhargava Uncategorized My guest for Ep202 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder of Farmers […]

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep201 – Cheryl Mack (Co-founder & CEO – Aussie Angels) on how to get started as an angel investor December 13, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep201 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Cheryl Mack. Cheryl started […]

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep200 – Jason Wyatt (Co-founder & CEO – Marketplacer) on shutting down 8 companies to go all in on Marketplacer November 28, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep200 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jason Wyatt, the […]

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep199 – Jaimie Fuller (Former CEO & Chairman – SKINS) on building SKINS and bouncing back from bankruptcy October 31, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep199 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jaimie Fuller. Jaimie’s journey has […]

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep198 – Rohan Workman (Co-founder & CEO – Skalata) on taking risks & balancing speed with discipline October 24, 2024 rohitbhargava Uncategorized My guest for Ep198 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Rohan Workman. Rohan is the Co-founder […]

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep197 – Paul Stovell (Founder & CEO – Octopus Deploy) on turning a weekend project to a $100M ARR business September 12, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep197 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Paul Stovell.

Paul is the Founder & CEO of Octopus Deploy, a company he started as a “nights and weekends” project for 2 years before going full time in 2012.

The company was bootstrapped for almost a decade until 2021 when they raised USD$172.5M (roughly AUD$222M) from New York based Insight Partners which is the second largest VC funding round by an Australian company ever.

Octopus Deploy is now over 300 people and just crossed $100M in ARR.

I got to sit down with Paul at the Something Tech 2024 conference to do a live podcast interview and in this conversation we covered a range of topics including:

Why more founders should consider bootstrapping
Using customers as investors
Balancing culture of striving for quality vs bias for action
Why Paul decided to take on external funding and how it changed the business
& much more!

Timestamps:* 2:09 Paul’s Background * 5:32 The origin story of Octopus Deploy * 8:15 Balancing quality with speed * 10:00 The tipping point where he went all in on Octopus Deploy * 11:37 Competing with well resourced incumbents * 19:12 The decision to take on investors * 23:31 How the company changed after taking on capital * 25:54 Operating as a profitable company * 32:43 Attracting talent and testing for fit during the hiring process * 40:08 How to ensure company values are upheld as you grow * 45:10 Advice to founders just getting started

Our partners:A big thank you to Michael Noonan, Bob Walker and Simon Galbraith for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentioned:Paul’s links: * Paul on LinkedIn * Paul on X/Twitter * Octopus Deploy * Paul’s blog

People mentioned:* Sonia Stovell * Michael Noonan * Joel Spolsky * Eric Sink * Simon Galbraith * Simon Beard * Bob Walker

Companies mentioned:* Something Tech conference * Insight Partners * Credit Suisse * Redgate Software * Microsoft

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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- January 1, 2014ReplyLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat
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  - January 1, 2014ReplyLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep197 – Paul Stovell (Founder & CEO – Octopus Deploy) on turning a weekend project to a $100M ARR business appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep196 – Cam Falloon (Founder & CEO – BFT) on overcoming adversity and scaling to 700+ studios globally August 22, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep196 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Cam Falloon.

Every great story starts with overcoming adversity and Cam is no different.

Cam picked up a serious back injury which made it difficult for him to walk…to the point where it would take him 15mins to walk a 12m hallway and being told by doctors that he wouldn’t be able to workout again.

That life-altering injury sparked his passion for strength, conditioning, and training, not only to rehabilitate his own back but also to help others achieve peak physical health.

Cam’s expertise took him to the highest levels of personal training, including working with none other than Princess Diana and high-performance roles in the English Premier League with Derby County, as well as several AFL teams.

In 2015 he launched BFT, a group strength training studio that started with just four studios in Melbourne. Today, BFT has exploded into a global phenomenon with over 700 studios across 11 countries.

The growth and success of BFT hasn’t always been obvious with Cam having to navigate through the lockdown period during COVID and overcoming an aggressive $50M lawsuit from the largest competitor in the industry

In this episode, Cam shares lessons from his career so far and we cover topics such as:

The back injury that changed Cam’s life and set him on a path to becoming a leader in the fitness industry.
Cam’s experience working with Princess Diana and his role in high-performance training within the English Premier League and AFL.
The founding and rapid global expansion of BFT, growing from 4 to 700+ studios in just under a decade.
How BFT navigated the challenges of COVID-19 without shutting down any studios.
The $50M legal battle with a major competitor and what it taught Cam about resilience and perseverance in business.

Timestamps* 1:59 Cam’s background * 6:31 Hurting his back, how that led to fitness * 15:59 Training Princess Diana in London * 19:20 Working with Derby County Football Club * 27:14 Keeping things simple in business * 30:51 Challenges working in sports * 32:48 Applying lessons from sport and high performance to business * 36:22 Overcoming health challenges his wife was having * 40:24 Launching BFT * 47:47 Avoiding 7 as a feedback score * 50:21 Getting sued for $50M * 1:01:51 Navigating COVID * 1:07:49 Surrounding yourself with the right people in business * 1:14:04 How he gets a lot done while still finding balance

Our partners:A big thank you to John Glancy, Dave Aitchison, Sarah Nehme and Steve Latham for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentioned:Cam’s links:* Cam’s LinkedIn * Cam’s Instagram * Body Fit Training (BFT)

People mentioned: * Princess Diana * Terry Hennessy * Andrew Russell * Daniel Marrs * Matthew McGrath * Micha Kaufman * Ernie Merrick * Richard Burnet * Hamish McLachlan * Sarah Nehme * Steve Latham * John Glancy * David Aitchison

Companies mentioned: * Holmes Place Gym * Derby County Academy * Fiverr

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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  - January 1, 2014ReplyLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep196 – Cam Falloon (Founder & CEO – BFT) on overcoming adversity and scaling to 700+ studios globally appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep195 – Leigh Jasper (Co-founder & Co-CEO – Firmable) on jumping back in the founder seat after a $1.6B exit August 15, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep195 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Leigh Jasper.

This is a special edition of the podcast.

A few weeks ago, we celebrated hitting 8 years of the podcast. To celebrate the milestone, we hosted an in-person event with our community which included a “live” podcast recording with returning guest Leigh Jasper.

I first interviewed Leigh for the show in November 2016. Back then he was the Co-founder & CEO of Aconex, a construction tech company that had publicly listed 2 years prior and had a market cap of $1B.

Since that interview, Aconex was acquired by Oracle for $1.6B and Leigh has and continues to hold several positions such as Chair of LaunchVic, Victorian governments startup agency, Co-founder and Chair of SecondQuarter Ventures, the first secondaries fund in Australia and NZ among several other board roles.

If that isn’t enough, Leigh decided to jump back into the founder seat as the Co-founder & Co-CEO of Firmable, which helps companies drive smarter decisions and outperform by allowing them to know more about their leads, customers and candidates. Firmable recently raised a $9M funding round led by AirTree.

We covered a lot of ground in this live interview including:

Lessons from launching, growing and eventually exiting a $1B+ startup
Leigh’s journey post Aconex (given he didn’t want to sell the company)
Why founders should take chips off the table via secondaries
What’s changed for Leigh as a second time founder
& much more!

Timestamps:* 3:12 What Leigh has been working on since the last interview in 2016 * 4:43 What it was like going from CEO of a private company to a public company * 7:21 The decision to sell Aconex to Oracle for $1.6B * 10:25 Navigating significant changes in a company as the founder/CEO * 12:34 What Leigh did after the Aconex acquisition, losing that identity * 18:40 Getting involved with LaunchVic * 20:53 Founding SecondQuarter Ventures * 22:15 When founders should take money off the table via secondaries * 25:49 Effective boards for startups * 32:56 The decision to start a new company (Firmable) * 34:41 Lessons from Aconex he’s applying to Firmable * 38:59 Finding the right investment partners for Firmable * 42:21 What drives Leigh today? * 44:26 How he stays calm under intense pressure * 47:27 How to balance being open/transparent with the team on everything happening in the business * 49:48 Thoughts on the current state of technology and the Australian startup ecosystem * 51:44 Audience Q&A

Our partners:A big thank you to Paul Perrett and Andrew Sypkes for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentioned:Leigh’s links:* Leigh’s LinkedIn * Firmable * SecondQuarter Ventures

People mentioned:* Paul Perrett * Craig Winkler * Kate Cornick * Rob Phillpot * Howard Leibman * John Henderson * Paul Bassat * Andrew Bassat * Karthik Venkatasubramanian

Audience questions:* Scott Phillips * Louis J Sisk * Sajjad Kamal

Companies mentioned:* Aconex * Oracle * MYOB * LaunchVic * Playbook Ventures * Canva * EVP * McKinsey & Company * IBM * Stripe * Airtree * Fidelity Investments * Blackbird * Square Peg * SEEK Growth Fund * Xero * Slack

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep195 – Leigh Jasper (Co-founder & Co-CEO – Firmable) on jumping back in the founder seat after a $1.6B exit appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep194 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jon Gregory.

Jon is the Founder & CEO of Vitruvian.

Vitruvian is an all-in-one digital home gym that uses AI to adjust resistance in real time to help users get the most out of their workout.

Since launching in 2018, they have gone on to raise USD$27M, with customers all around the world and working with a number of athletes such as Olympian and world champion sprinter, Justin Gatlin and the worlds strongest man, Thor Bjornsson.

We covered a wide range of topics in this interview including:

The value in doing hard things
The challenges around building and raising capital for hardware products
How to build using product led growth
& much more

Timestamps:* 2:28 Jon’s background * 6:08 How his science background helped him think through business problems * 7:49 The initial idea for Vitruvian * 16:35 Going from idea to product and iterating * 18:55 The early days of Vitruvian, attracting customers, partners and investors * 23:40 How COVID affected the business * 28:34 Having a product led philosophy * 30:52 Making decisions as a founder * 36:53 Having a community focus early on in the business * 40:38 Product led growth in practice for Vitruvian * 44:05 Fundraising tips for hardware startups * 46:48 Challenges building a global business from Perth * 50:35 The future of hardware and AI * 54:25 Developing a positive mindset

Our partners:A big thank you to Weibke Hensen for her help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentioned:8 year podcast event:* Live Podcast event with Leigh Jasper (Registration)

Giveaway:* Details for how to enter the giveaway

Jon’s links:* Jon’s LinkedIn * Vitruvian

People mentioned:* Jeff Bezos * Wiebke Hensen

Companies mentioned:* Peloton * Amazon

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep194 – Jon Gregory (Founder & CEO – Vitruvian) on product led growth and relentless positivity appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep193 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Llew Jury.

Llew is the General Partner and Executive Chairman of Sprint Ventures, a Queensland based VC with two funds and 18 portfolio companies that is investing in companies that build a better future. He has just helped Sprint secure funding from QIC’s VCDF for his third early stage Seed fund.

Prior to launching Sprint Ventures, Llew founded a number of successful businesses.

Between 2006 and 2016, Llew was the Founder and Managing Director of The Reload Group, one of Australia’s largest digital & eCommerce marketing agencies. Llew built the Reload business to 90 staff and 300 clients before Reload was acquired by Hardie Grant Media in 2022.

From 1999 to 2006 Llew was co-Founder of leading Queensland web, eCommerce and digital agency Alfresco, that was sold to a consortium led by the ASX listed STW Group.

In this episode we covered a range of topics including:

The common mistakes founders make when it comes to sales and marketing
Llew’s approach to backing and building generational businesses
How to leverage partners for growth
How to nurture relationships and talent
and much more!

Timestamps:* 1:58 Llew’s background * 7:10 Launching his first business Alfresco, growing it and getting acquired * 10:10 Lessons from first business and how he’s applied that to subsequent businesses * 11:55 Advice to founders on balancing life and work * 14:56 Things he looks for when investing in founders * 16:32 The story of finding his co-founder at The Reload Group * 19:46 Nurturing talent * 23:31 The process of expanding internationally out of Australia * 27:30 Tactics and common founder mistakes in sales, marketing and partnerships * 37:45 Sprint Ventures investment thesis * 42:57 His thoughts on the current investment landscape in Australia * 46:52 Running a services business vs high growth business * 49:28 Building relationships and playing the long game

Our partners:A big thank you to Kylie Merritt, Ian Campbell and Craig Sommerville for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentioned:8 year podcast event:* Live Podcast event with Leigh Jasper (Registration)

Llew’s links:* Llew’s LinkedIn * Sprint Ventures

People mentioned:* Kylie Merritt * Craig Somerville * Jim Collins * Georgia Barkell * Bryan Williams * Matt Vitale

Companies mentioned:* River City Labs * Subway * Hockey Stick Advisory * QIC * Queensland Venture Capital Development Fund (QVCDF) * Birchal * Brisbane Angels * Sydney Angels * Melbourne Angels * Guzman y Gomez

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep193 – Llew Jury (General Partner & Exec Chairman – Sprint Ventures) on nurturing talent and building generational companies appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep192 – Rohit Bhargava (Host – The Startup Playbook Podcast) on lessons from 8 years of podcasting (AMA episode) July 18, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast Welcome to a special milestone edition of the podcast, celebrating 8 years of the show!

On this day in 2016, I published the first 6 episodes of this podcast.

Over the last 8 years I’ve sat down with almost 200 successful entrepreneurs and investors to unpack their journey, lessons and insights.

I’m so thankful to all of the great guests who have made the time to come on this show, but I am also incredibly grateful to all of you in the Startup Playbook community who have listened, supported and shared this podcast over the last few years. The success, quality of guests and everything we have been able to achieve over the last 8 years would not have been possible without all of you, so I just wanted to say a quick thank you to all of you!

For this milestone ep, I wanted to do something a little different. So for this episode, my good friend James Harrisson is taking over the hosting duties and I’m jumping on the other side of the table to answer some questions from James and from our community in this AMA edition of the podcast.

In this episode, James and I spoke about lessons from the last 8 years and advice to anyone thinking about starting out on their own podcasting/business journey.

I also answered a number of community submitted questions on podcasting, PR, investing and much more!

Timestamps* 3:17 The original intention for the podcast and how that’s evolved over time * 8:28 Whether he would do anything differently if starting over * 11:32 Why he’s taken two extended breaks from publishing over the last 8 years and how that’s helped the show in the long run * 19:30 How the topics of the show have evolved over time as he’s evolved as a person, finding his own style * 35:51 Long term games vs short term games * 39:08 Should someone start a podcast today? * 43:35 What would his life be like if he never started the podcast? * 47:17 How he got initial followers and key initial growth tactics * 52:35 PR advice * 56:36 Advice for people starting a podcast * 59:08 How to get great guests for a podcast * 1:03:59 Best way to pitch investors and partners * 1:08:16 How running his own high growth startup affected his approach to podcasting and investing

Our PartnersOur partnersA big thank you to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentioned8 year podcast event:* Live Podcast event with Leigh Jasper (Registration)

People mentioned:* Joe Rogan * David Mcmanus * Justin Dry * Tim Mundy * Shelli Trung * Iain Dooley * Nakul Pednekar * Roohi Kazi * Marc Orchard * James Harrisson

Companies mentioned:* Vinomofo * Uber * Playbook Ventures

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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My guest for Ep191 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Stew Glynn.

Stew started his investing career after joining Shark Tank’s Steve Baxter in building out his family office, Transition Level Investments.

In 2019, they then launched TEN13 VC, where Stew is a Co-founder & Managing Partner. TEN13 is a global deal by deal venture capital firm that has invested $100M across 80 portfolio companies.

They have built up an incredible portfolio of companies including the likes of Linktree, Go1, Clipchamp and me&u (formerly known as Mr. Yum).

In this episode we covered a wide range of topics including

How his childhood experiences in Zimbabwe shaped his view towards risk and business
The pros and cons of the deal by deal investing model
TEN13’s approach to network based investing
Lessons from investing $100M across 80 companies
& much more

Timestamps* 2:05 Stew’s background * 15:11 How growing up in Zimbabwe shaped his views on innovation and investing * 19:34 Advice to founders on overcoming challenging times * 30:07 Staying in the game long enough to find product market fit * 35:47 Meeting and working with Steve Baxter, the origins of TEN13 * 40:37 The decision to make TEN13 a community based, deal by deal investing structure compared to a traditional venture fund * 48:23 Benefits and challenges of the deal by deal structure for founders and investors * 53:41 Investing in Australian vs international startups * 58:32 How TEN13 supports their portfolio companies * 1:03:43 How Stew supported the Mr Yum team on their merger with me&u * 1:08:23 The sectors Stew is currently excited to invest in

Our partnersA big thank you to Holly Cardew, Brendan Hill and An Vo for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentionedStew’s links:

Stew’s LinkedIn
Stew’s Twitter/X
TEN13

People mentioned:* Steve Baxter * Alex Zatarain * Adir Shiffman * Phil Knight – Shoe Dog * Alexander Dreiling * Holly Cardew * Liam Millward * Brendan Hill * An Vo * Kim Teo * Adrian Osman * Bevan Slattery

Companies mentioned:* Transition Level Investments * KPMG * General Electric * Eight Sleep * Nike * Clipchamp * Carted * Instant * SAP * Tola Capital * Microsoft * Spotify * Go1 * Y Combinator * Atlassian * Canva * River City Labs * PIPE Networks * TPG * Car Next Door / Uber Carshare * DoseMe * Playbook Ventures * Rockfish Data * Mr Yum / me&u * Airtree * Everlab

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep191 – Stew Glynn (Co-founder & Managing Partner – TEN13 VC) on lessons from investing $100M appeared first on Startup Playbook.

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

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My guest for Ep190 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Taryn Pieterse.

Taryn is a Partner of Rampersand VC, a dedicated seed fund that has invested over $100M across its funds, counting companies such as Sendle, Skedulo and Expert360 as part of its portfolio.

Prior to joining Rampersand, Taryn worked in Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs across Australia, the UK and Europe and at the family office of Radek Sali, the fomer CEO of Swisse Wellness.

In this episode we covered a range of topics including:

Taryn’s journey from Investment Banking into Tech & VC
Rampersand’s AAA approach in to investing in and supporting startups
How to think about financial modeling as an early stage founder
and much more!

Timestamps:* 1:28 Taryn’s background and journey to VC * 13:34 Building your reputation and personal brand * 20:44 Early career, working on the Campaign Monitor deal * 25:17 Things founders commonly overlook when pitching to investors * 33:39 Giant Warm Intro program for founders and investors to connect * 37:10 How to foster relationships with investors before you fundraise * 42:48 When to start charging customers and how to figure out pricing * 47:54 Rampersand’s AAA process for investing * 52:38 How to think about financial modeling as an early stage founder * 55:14 Advice to founders navigating a fundraise in this current challenging environment

Our partnersA big thank you to Paul Napthali and Chaz Heitner for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentionedTaryn’s links* Taryn’s LinkedIn * Rampersand * Giant Warm Intro

People mentioned* Radek Sali * George Calombaris * Paul Naphtali * Chanie Hyde * Chaz Heitner

Companies mentioned:* Goldman Sachs * Campaign Monitor * Light Warrior Group * SABMiller * AB InBev * Swisse * Wanderlust * Made by cow * Amazon * Hatch * The Iconic * Sapia * Expert360 * Cake

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep190 – Taryn Pieterse (Partner – Rampersand) on Rampersand’s AAA approach to investing appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep189 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, was Jalal Shaik.

Jalal is the Founder & CEO of Gameface.AI, a company that uses AI and machine learning to provide accurate and relevant performance insight for sports.

In 2022, Gameface was acquired for $33M by now publicly listed company, Slinger Sports after having only raised $1.2M in total funding.

Despite their success on paper, it was a difficult journey for Jalal and in this episode he opens up and shares a large part of the lessons and insights from his journey including:

The ups and downs of the GAMEFACE.AI journey
Challenges raising capital for an AI startup 6 years ago
How a deal with famous Indian Cricketer Virender Shewag, led to their acquisition
Lessons learned (the hard way) through the acquisition process
and much more!

Timestamps* 1:48 Jalal’s background * 5:53 Early exposure and learnings working for five companies that got acquired * 8:36 The initial idea for GAMEFACE.AI * 10:18 Going through Startmate accelerator * 13:09 Challenges raising capital for an AI startup 6 years ago (before today’s AI hype) * 19:09 Advice to founders currently fundraising * 22:01 Challenges in the early days of building GAMEFACE.AI * 25:12 Cultural challenges marrying his partner outside his family’s religion * 34:10 Most important traits for founders to develop * 35:35 Doing a deal with Virender Sehwag * 36:21 Lessons and warnings to founders going through the acquisition process * 46:39 Getting top talent to buy in to your vision

Our partnersA big thank you to Danny Bhandari and Adir Shiffman for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount

Links mentionedJalal’s links* Jalal’s LinkedIn * GAMEFACE.AI

People mentioned* Jason Calacanis * Nick Crocker * Rayn Ong * Danny Bhandari * Kylie Frazer * Adir Shiffman * Niki Skevac * Virender Sehwag

Companies mentioned* NVIDIA * IBM * Arm * VXL Technology * Connexa * NXP Semiconductors * SMIC * Australian Foundry Institute * Startmate * Telstra * Cricket Australia * FIFA * Sehwag Cricket Academy

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep189 – Jalal Shaik (Founder & CEO – GAMEFACE AI) on AI, persistence and M&A pitfalls appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep188 – Jessy Wu (Partner – AfterWork VC) on brand, storytelling and community powered VC June 20, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep188 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jessy Wu.

Jessy is a partner of AfterWork Ventures, a $20M pre-seed and seed stage Venture Capital Fund.

She has a background in English literature and linguistics and has used her power of storytelling to build a powerful brand not just for herself but also for AfterWork VC, allowing them to compete for deals against large incumbents.

In this episode we covered a variety of topics including:

Jessy’s background in linguistics and philosophy and how she applies that to investing today
The value of building a personal brand, and the strategy she’s used to build her own
How to build a challenger brand that competes against large incumbents
and much more!

Timestamps* 1:37 Jessy’s background * 15:50 Core tenets of storytelling and character development when writing * 21:02 Strategies for building a professional personal brand * 29:01 Building a challenger brand in VC * 38:07 Dealing with the negatives and criticism that can come from creating content * 42:27 Building a community powered VC * 52:05 Insight into the investment decision making process for AfterWork and other funds * 58:52 Grapevine: an initiative bringing awareness and pragmatic discourse around abuses of power in the tech ecosystem

Our partnersA big thank you to Fab Mackojc, Daniel Wang and Mike Forster for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentionedJessy’s links* Jessy’s LinkedIn * AfterWork VC * Grapevine

People mentioned* Daniel Petre * Casey Flint * Michael Batko * Tom Alder * Alex Brogan * Fab Mackojc * Mike Forster * Daniel Wang * Alex Khor * Adrian Petersen * David Wei * Chris Withers

Companies mentioned* NAB Ventures * Dollar Shave Club * Warby Parker * Bailey Nelson * Koala * Casper * Luxottica * Blackbird * Airtree * Square Peg * Investible * Playbook Ventures * Klikit * Everlab

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep188_-_Jessy_Wu.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

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Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep188 – Jessy Wu (Partner – AfterWork VC) on brand, storytelling and community powered VC appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep187 – George Peppou (Founder & CEO – Vow) on talent, health and building the future of food June 13, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep187 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was George Peppou.

George is the Founder & CEO of Vow, a company on a mission to create a new category of food that is good for you, your health and the planet.

Unlike all the other players in this space, Vow isn’t looking to reproduce the meats we know. They are focused on using cultured meat technology to craft an entirely new category of food by inventing new meats that are tastier and more nutritious than animals.

In November 2022, Vow raised a AUD$73.5M (USD$49M) Series A funding round led by Blackbird and Prosperity7 Ventures. Their seed round in 2021 made them just the 3rd company to have both Blackbird and Square Peg on their cap table at the Seed stage.

In this episode we covered a range of topics including:

the challenges and opportunities in building a business in hard mode
how George has attracted world class talent from some of the world’s leading companies
why and how George prioritises his physical health and energy management as a founder
& much more

Timestamps* 1:39 George’s background in commercial kitchens and as an inventor * 12:33 His first experience with startups * 13:53 Lessons from earlier experiences he applied to Vow * 18:36 The early days of Vow * 23:26 How he approached fundraising in Australia as a deep tech company * 25:57 The R&D process for Vow * 28:35 Bringing manufacturing in house * 32:32 Attracting world class talent * 37:42 Prioritising health as a founder * 42:31 Handling pressure and chaos during challenging periods with the company * 49:49 Doing business on “hard mode” * 53:24 Finally launching after 5 years of work * 55:33 What’s next for Vow

Our partnersA big thank you to Ellen Dinsmoor and James Tynan for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentionedGeorge’s links* Vow * George on LinkedIn * George on Twitter/X

People mentioned* Edward Jung * Nathan Myhrvold * Anastasia Volkova * James Tynan * Ines Lizaur * Ellen (Murray) Dinsmoor

Companies mentioned* Meat & Livestock Australia * Grow Ag * Regrow Ag * Blackbird * Square Peg * CSIRO * Quantal Bioscience * SpaceX * Tesla * Zoox * 4 Pines * Forged

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
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My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep187 – George Peppou (Founder & CEO – Vow) on talent, health and building the future of food appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep186 – Rohen Sood (General Partner – Reinventure) on the story behind investing in Coinbase June 6, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep186 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Rohen Sood.

Rohen is a General Partner at the Reinventure Group, a Venture Capital fund with a dedicated focus on Fintech companies.

Reinventure raised $150M across 3 funds, with the bank, Westpac, being an anchor LP in the fund to invest into emerging global fintech companies.

This led to an investment in Coinbase as part of their $75M Series C raise when the company was just 30 months old and had 2.3M users. Reinventure Fund 1 held 1.2M shares of Coinbase which yielded $546M gross gain.

Reinventure sold half its stake, following Coinbase’s IPO in 2021 which provided it’s LP, Westpac, with a $288M gain on the Coinbase investment alone.

This is Rohen’s first ever podcast interview and in this wide ranging interview we covered everything from:

the benefits and drawbacks from having Westpac as an LP of the fund
the story behind their Coinbase investment
thematic vs generalist investing
Rohen’s personal journey from Investment Associate to General Partner at Reinventure over the last 10 years
& much more

Timestamps* 1:37 Rohen’s background * 8:23 The path from engineering to management consulting to venture capital * 15:48 The early days of venture capital in Australia * 25:29 Thematic vs generalist investing * 27:21 Navigating founder/investor dynamics * 32:45 Reinventure’s investment into Coinbase * 39:47 How he builds conviction in ideas * 44:36 How he assesses founders and opportunities * 47:03 Rohen’s 10 year journey with Reinventure * 55:55 Learnings from going through his first cycle in venture

Our partnersA big thank you to Simon Cant, Paul Weingarth and Damir Cuca for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount

Links mentionedRohen’s links* Rohen’s LinkedIn * Rohen’s Twitter/X * Reinventure

People mentioned* Maxine Minter * Paul Weingarth * Simon Cant * Danny Gilligan * Damir Cuca

Companies mentioned* Blackbird * Airtree * Square Peg * SocietyOne * Westpac * Coinbase * Union Square Ventures * Draper Associates * Auror * Slyp * Basiq

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My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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My guest for Ep185 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Maxine Minter.

Maxine is the Founder & General Partner of CoVentures a $5M pre-seed fund.

Alongside her role at Co Ventures, she is also the Founder of Co Lab, a platform that matches Founders & CEOs with executive coaches.

In this interview we covered a range of topics including,

why Maxine decided to launch a dedicated pre-seed fund
how she assess investment opportunities at that stage
the importance of effective communication as a leader
How to get the most out of an executive coach
& much more

Timestamps

1:40 Maxine’s background
14:46 Making the leap to startups
21:11 Performance coaching for founders
26:52 Leadership mental models
30:29 Developing better communication and empathy skills
41:12 Common traits of world class performers
50:38 Launching a dedicated Pre-Seed fund
55:24 The huge opportunity in the Australian ecosystem
1:04:16 What Maxine looks for when investing in early stage companies
1:22:04 Lessons from previous venture backed startup

Our partnersA big thank you to Chris Bartlett and Jax Vullinghs for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount

Links mentionedMaxine’s links* LinkedIn * Co Ventures * Co Lab

People mentioned* Dustin Dalganow * Lawrence Lessig * Nick Crocker * Jackie Vullinghs * Bill Campbell * Marc Andreessen * Ben Horowitz * Sergey Brin * Larry Page * Andy Grove – High Output Management * Carol Dweck * Janathan Haidt * Bill Gurley * Chris Bartlett * Adir Shiffman * Simon Sinek – The Infinite Game

Companies mentioned

Blackbird
CodeX
Plaid
Segment
Notion
Whatsapp
Instagram
DoorDash
43
Airtree
intel
Benchmark
Playbook Ventures
Snowflake

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep185 – Maxine Minter (Founder & GP – Co Ventures) on pre-seed, performance and mental models appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep184 – Adrian Osman (Co-founder & COO – Me&U) on metrics, ratios and mergers May 23, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Episode 184 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Adrian Osman.

Adrian is the Co-founder & COO of Me&U formerly known as Mr. Yum.

He started his career as the Founder of pitchblak, an agency that helped hundreds of Australian entrepreneurs to validate and test their startup ideas.

From that agency, the idea of Mr. Yum was born to provide sales and marketing tools for the hospitality industry. The business found product market fit very quickly and raised a $89M Series A funding round led by Tiger Global in 2021.

In late 2023, Mr. Yum merged with their largest competitor, Me&U to become the global leader in its category, collectively processing over $2B in dining transactions per year.

In this interview we covered a wide range of topics including:

The early days of Mr Yum
Focusing on ratios over volume
Lessons from raising a record $89M Series A funding round led by Tiger Global
Behind the scenes look at the merger between Mr Yum and me&u
and much more!

Timestamps:* 2:12 Adrian’s background * 7:02 Lessons from early career sales roles * 9:16 Adrian’s first consulting business, pitchblak * 14:25 The initial idea for Mr Yum * 22:29 When is the right time to speak with VC’s and how to pitch to them * 27:43 The launch of Mr Yum and initial customers * 37:02 Growing the business and navigating Covid * 42:36 Raising a $89M Series A * 46:58 Challenges scaling the business post raise * 53:58 The merger between Mr Yum and me&u * 1:08:13 Navigating structural changes to the company post merger * 1:14:06 Learning and growing as a leader at the same rate as the company * 1:18:19 Developing and sharing a compelling vision for a company as a leader * 1:22:54 Building culture and high performing teams

Our partnersA big thank you to Kim Teo, Boden Westover and Stew Glynn for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount

Links mentionedAdrian’s links* Adrian on LinkedIn * me&u

People mentioned* Kim Teo * Stew Glynn * Tobi Skovron * Stevan Premutico * Ben Horowitz – The Hard Thing About Hard Things * Boden Westover

Companies mentioned* Optus * Telstra * pitchblak * Uber * Uber Eats * Apple * Google * WeChat * Zapier * Airtable * Playbook Ventures * DoorDash * Airtree * Ten13 * Tiger Global * Shopify * Amazon * Afterpay * Block

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
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My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep184 – Adrian Osman (Co-founder & COO – Me&U) on metrics, ratios and mergers appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep183 – Howard Leibman (Founder & General Partner – EVP) on being the “founder whisperer” May 16, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep183 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder of EVP, Howard Leibman.

Howard is the Founder and General Partner of EVP, a VC fund focused on investing in B2B software companies in Australia and New Zealand.

In 2023, they raised $100M for Fund 4, taking its total funds under management to $300M.

EVP takes a very hands on approach with their investments including taking board seats in their portfolio companies. Howard currently sits on the board of portfolio companies such as Practice Ignition and Deputy which in March 2024 became the first Australian company in 2 years to hit the $1B valuation status.

This is Howard’s first ever podcast interview and in this rare interview he opens up about:

His career and journey
EVPs framework to assess potential investment opportunities
Managing changes in executive leadership as companies scale
Being the “founder whisperer”
& much more!

Timestamps:* 2:00 Howard’s career background * 13:23 How his early career shaped his investment lens for EVP * 17:20 Early investment into Shippit * 20:18 How he builds conviction in founders and market opportunities * 22:09 Early stage vs later stage investing * 27:33 What he looks for in investment opportunities * 30:57 EVP investing frameworks * 35:06 How the role of the founder can evolve over time * 41:04 Taking an active role in companies they invest in * 45:20 How founders can build deeper relationships with their investors * 48:12 How EVP thinks about optimal fund size * 54:01 How he approaches hiring and people at EVP

Our partnersA big thank you to Justin Lipman and Guy Pearson for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount

Links mentionedHoward’s links* Howard’s LinkedIn * EVP

People mentioned* Les Szekely * Justin Lipman * Daniel Szekely * William On * Rob Hango-Zada * Guy Pearson * Simon Lenoir * Mark Velik

Companies mentioned* General Electric * Medtronic * Shippit * Rezdy * Deputy * Oneflare * DesignCrowd * Procter & Gamble * Deloitte * Ignition * Hnry * Mutinex

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
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My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep183 – Howard Leibman (Founder & General Partner – EVP) on being the “founder whisperer” appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep182 – Rolf Weber (CEO – Marley Spoon Australia) on building culture through resilience May 9, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep182 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Rolf Weber, the CEO of Marley Spoon Australia.

Rolf joined Marley Spoon as their Australian CEO in March 2015

Prior to this he co-founded, BrandsExclusive in 2009, before they were eventually fully acquired in 2014. He then went on to launch and invest in a number of businesses including being a Founding shareholder and Director in Mad Paws.

In this episode we covered a broad range of topics including:

Lessons from launching, growing and exiting BrandsExclusive
The ups and downs of the Marley Spoon journey including their IPO with a market cap of over $260 million, to some of the challenges during Covid
Building a culture of resilience
& much more!

Timestamps:* 1:47 – Rolf’s Background * 3:56 – Moving from Germany to Australia * 6:23 – His time at Ikea * 9:35 – Launching Brands Exclusive * 11:32 – Importance of co-founder dynamics * 15:53 – Advice on making the leap to startups later on in your career * 20:01 – Fundraising in 2008 * 23:00 – Building a business with the intention to sell from the beginning * 28:49 – Clauses founders should be aware of during an acquisition process * 31:45 – How he approached next career steps post acquisition * 37:59 – Staying balanced during ups and downs of entrepreneurship * 43:13 – The decision to join Marley Spoon * 46:59 – Operational challenges during Covid * 52:58 – Differences between building Brands Exclusive and Marley Spoon * 59:58 – Preparing for and going through an IPO, operating in public

Our partnersA big thank you to Justus Hammer for his help with this interview.

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over seven thousand fast-growing companies including Atlassian, Flo Health and Quora that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount

Links mentionedRolf’s links* Rolf’s LinkedIn * Marley Spoon

People mentioned* Daniel Jarosch * Justus Hammer * Sam Kothari * Bjorn Behrendt * Alexis Soulopoulos * Jeff Bezos * Fabian Siegel

Companies mentioned* IKEA * brandsExclusive * Marley Spoon * PwC * eBay * Playbook Ventures * Everlab * APN Media * Mad Paws * Telstra * Amazon * Blue Apron

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep181 – James Tynan (Partner – Square Peg Capital) on storytelling & entering the business olympics May 2, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep181 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was James Tynan, Partner at Square Peg Capital.

Square Peg Capital is one of Australia’s largest venture capital funds. In 2022, Square Peg closed a $860M fund, taking its total funds under management to $2.4B across all of its funds.

Prior to this, he founded Tiny Green Gorilla, a company he bootstrapped for 8 years before it was acquired in 2008.

He was also an early team member and eventually the VP of Strategy and Operations at the Khan Academy, which was the largest edtech startup in the world at that time.

In this episode we covered a range of topic including:

How James and his wife make important decisions by their “moleskinning” process
The key ingredients that made Kahn Academy so successful
Why investors need to overcome their own fears
The importance of operating in your zone of genius
& much more!

Timestamps* 01:50 – James’ Background * 03:41 – Starting his first business in first year university * 08:17 – Joining Khan Academy * 12:08 – “Moleskine-ing” tool for decision making * 14:55 – Building a venture backed business isn’t for everyone * 21:22 – What made Khan Academy so successful * 32:40 – Transitioning out of Khan Academy and deciding what’s next * 36:36 – The early days of Startmate * 42:15 – How investors should think about helping companies they invest in * 44:34 – The decision to leave Startmate and join Square Peg * 52:16 – James’ “zone of genius” * 57:31 – Overcoming your fear as an investor and coming from a place of service * 03:23 – Picking the right fund and partner as a founder * 01:05:09 – Advice to founders on approaching investors * 01:06:28 – What James looks for when making investments * 01:07:38 – Storytelling advice to founders

Our partnersA big thank you to Kate Mason, Jethro Cohen and George Peppou for their help with this interview.

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook.

Links mentionedJames’ links* LinkedIn * Twitter/X * Square Peg

People mentioned* Sal Khan * Kate Mason * Bill Gates * John Doerr * Annie Case * Eric Schmidt * Cliff Obrecht * Didier Elzinga * Daniel Petre * Niki Scevak * Nick Crocker * Michael Batko * Jethro Cohen * George Peppou * Alex Zatarain

Companies mentioned

McKinsey & Company
Canva
Culture Amp
Khan Academy
Y Combinator
Google
Stanford University
Playbook Ventures
Kleiner Perkins
Microsoft
MIT
Harvard University
Uber
Startmate
Blackbird
Grok Ventures
Skip Capital
Vow
Q-CTRL
EightSleep

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep180 – Daniel Petre (Co-founder – Start Giving) on family, philanthropy and truth seeking April 25, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep180 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Daniel Petre.

Daniel is the godfather of Australian tech and venture capital.

Back in 1988, Daniel joined Microsoft as their Managing Director for Australia before being promoted as one of the 5 VPs of product under Bill Gates.

He would then go on launch over 3 Venture Capital funds, most recently Co-founding AirTree, one of the 3 largest venture capital funds in Australia.

Any introduction I give to Daniel won’t do justice to everything he has achieved in his career to date, aside to say he’s been one of the most influential people in shaping the Australian startup ecosystem into what it is today.

He now spends his time on philanthropic efforts as the Founder of Start Giving, which helps to inspire tech founders and execs to start their philanthropic journey.

In this episode we covered everything from how to effectively manage your investors and boards to the importance of doing the right thing, family time and giving back.

I’ve been wanting to interview Daniel for a long time and excited to finally share this conversation with you!

Timestamps* 4:27 Daniel’s background * 6:04 Why Daniel chose to go down the computer science path * 7:55 Daniel’s time at Microsoft * 15:01 Commonalities of high performing founders * 23:24 How investors should think about helping founders * 29:24 Picking exceptional founders to invest in * 33:58 Doing the right thing, addressing the power imbalance between founders and VCs * 41:22 How founders can do due diligence on investors * 47:04 surrounding yourself with the right people * 50:21 Advice on finding mentors * 55:47 The importance of having real personal relationships, not just business relationships * 58:54 Daniel’s focus on philanthropy with StartGiving * 1:07:17 How a personal tragedy shifted his perspective on life * 1:12:09 Finding balance between work and life

Our partnersA big thank you to Mark Woodland, Anil Sabharwal and Alison Deans for their help with this interview.

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook.

Links mentionedDaniel’s links* Daniel’s LinkedIn * StartGiving * Daniel’s Christmas message (2023) on Medium

People mentioned* Bill Gates * Luke Anear * Scott Farquhar * Mike Cannon-Brookes * Mark Woodland * Paul Bennets * Melanie Perkins * Cliff Obrecht * Cameron Adams * Alison Deans * Anil Sabharwal * George Benson * Antonia Ruffell * Peter Singer * Gretel Packer * Sundar Pichai * M. Scott Peck

Companies mentioned* Microsoft * Airtree * IBM * Compaq * Toshiba * Dell * NEC * Kismet * Canva * HotDoc * HealthEngine * Blackbird * Xplor * Union Square Ventures * A16Z * Sequioa Capital * McKinsey & Company * eBay * The Life You Can Save * GiveWell * Google

Podcasts & resources mentioned:* Startup Playbook Ep179 – Ben Thompson (Co-founder & CEO – Employment Hero) on growth, PMF & principles * Startup Playbook Ep173 – Mark Woodland (Co-founder & CEO – Kismet) on timing, leadership & high performance * The road less travelled by M. Scott Peck

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
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My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep179 – Ben Thompson (Co-founder & CEO – Employment Hero) on growth, PMF & principles April 18, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep179 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Ben Thompson, the Co-founder & CEO of Employment Hero.

Employment hero is one of Australia’s great startup success stories.

The business launched in November 2014 and fast forward almost a decade later, they have 2.5M users and 300,000 SME customers globally and in 2023 they raised a $263M Series F funding round, taking their total funding to $650M at a valuation just shy of $2B.

In this episode we get into many of the insights and lessons from his journey in building a $2B business, but as you may have seen, Ben and Employment Hero have also been in the news recently for their fight with Hostplus, an industry Super Fund that is an LP in Airtree, which is also one of the investors in Employment Hero.

That fight started when Ben called out HostPlus on a LinkedIn post and escalated to the point where HostPlus pushed for Ben to be sacked as CEO of his company.

For the first time since the incident, Ben shares his side of the story on what went down on this podcast.

Timestamps* 4:27 Ben’s background and early career * 12:33 Decision to launch a tech startup * 17:01 Early days at Employment Hero * 19:52 Different funding options available for founders * 27:13 Managing multiple businesses and competing priorities * 30:49 Importance of strong personal relationships as a founder * 33:22 Employment Hero global expansion during Covid * 37:05 Finding product market fit in different markets when expanding * 40:45 How to think about product decisions and requests from different markets * 43:57 How the CEO role has evolved over time for Ben * 46:07 Finding and hiring the right people at the right time * 48:48 Ben’s thoughts on the Hostplus situation * 57:20 Staying true to company vision * 59:34 What’s next for Employment Hero

Our partnersA big thank you to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook.

Links mentionedBen’s links* LinkedIn * Twitter/X * Employment Hero * Hero Foundation

People mentioned* Dave Tong * Elon Musk * Marc Andreessen – Why software is eating the world * Luke Anear * Eric Ries – The Lean Startup * Geoffrey Moore – Crossing the Chasm * Clayton Christensen – The Innovator’s Dilemma * Bradford Smart – Topgrading * Rob Paterson * Scott Farquhar * Mike Cannon-Brookes * Dr Sam Prince * Phil Bernie * Kevin Rawlings

Companies mentioned

Sydney Futures Exchange
Employment Innovations
Din Tai Fung
SafetyCulture
Power2Motivate
Partners for Growth
Airtree
OneVentures
Atlassian
KeyPay
AMP Capital
Volt Bank
Hostplus
Starlink
Swag

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@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
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@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep178 – Tobi Skovron (Co-founder & CEO – Creative Cubes) on the curse of ambition April 11, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep178 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Creative Cubes, Tobi Skovron.

Tobi has had a fascinating career journey to date

He started his first business, Pet Loo with Sim, who is now his wife, and a $20,000 investment from his father-in law.

They grew that business to $10M in ARR before eventually being acquired by PetSafe in 2012.

It wasn’t always a straightforward journey however with many bumps along the way and in this episode, Tobi opens up on some of these stories including how we owed a manufacturer $1M in payments and only had $15K in the bank account and how overnight he lost almost half of the $300,000 he took with him to the US because of the global market and Australian dollar collapsing.

But Tobi is no stranger to resilience and perseverance – something that has shown through his experience across several businesses including that as the Co-founder & CEO of Creative Cubes, a coworking space and community that not only survived during the COVID period, but opened up new locations!

Timestamps* 03:50 Tobi’s background * 14:52 Losing his father * 22:32 Building Pet Loo * 31:22 Challenges expanding Pet Loo to the US * 34:36 Perspective shifts from being in a co-working space, surrounded by Uber, Snapchat etc * 39:22 Covid challenges for CreativeCubes * 46:47 Frameworks for getting through challenging periods * 50:20 Leadership principles * 55:53 Finding balance and prioritising health * 1:01:22 Mindset shifts required to take the business to the next level * 1:04:43 Finding non obvious opportunities

Our partnersA big thank you to Sim Skovron, Louie Gallina and Steve for their help with research for this interview!

Also a big thank you to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook.

Links mentionedTobi’s links* LinkedIn * CreativeCubes

People mentioned

Sim Skovron
Shaquille O’Neal
Travis Kalanick
Evan Spiegel
Mark Cuban
Nathan Buckley
Mark Stern
Gabby Leibovich
George Garth
Gav Fernando
Geoff Harris
Rachael Neumann
Louie Gallina
Randy Boyd
Kamaru Usman
Matt Allen

Companies mentioned

Pet Loo
PetSafe
Google
Snapchat
UPG (United Pet Group)
AWS
BYOG
LA Lakers
Everlab
Lululemon
Porsche
Side Stage Ventures
Playbook Ventures

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
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@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep177 – Sam Kothari (Co-founder & COO – Everlab) on building world class teams and reinventing the primary care experience March 28, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Episode 177 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Sam Kothari, the Co-founder & COO of Everlab.

Sam is an entrepreneur in the truest sense of the word having previously run everything from tuition businesses and ice cream shops to starting a popular Poke bowl chain across Sydney and Mebourne called, Poked.

He is now the Co-founder & COO of Everlab, a first of its kind preventative health protocol that gives you access to cutting-edge diagnostics, a personal doctor and tailored programs – designed to improve wellbeing and longevity.

Everlab recently raised a $3M pre-seed funding round led by European VC fund, B2Ventures. My investment syndicate, Playbook Ventures, also participated in this round and I am personally very excited and bullish on what Sam and the team are building!

In this episode Sam and I discuss a lot of his journey to date and the early days of Everlab including:

Early lessons from founding and operating hospitality businesses
Sam’s approach to attracting world class talent and building high performing teams
Frameworks and tests to ensure Co-Founders are aligned
Why prioritising your health makes you a better founder
How to systematically approach fundraising
and much more!

Timestamps:* 03:42 Sam’s background * 05:30 Learnings from Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger * 07:33 Going into business, challenging cultural norms * 11:55 First attempts at business in hospitality * 20:41 Importance of radical candour * 24:27 Frameworks for personal relationships * 29:21 How the founding team for Everlab came together * 34:38 Frameworks for assessing co-founder dynamics * 40:40 How Everlab is reinventing the primary care experience * 42:30 Why health is so important for founders * 46:56 Sam’s health routines * 51:32 The Everlab protocol * 59:52 How Everlab approached their fundraise * 01:04:59 Fundraising advice to founders * 01:06:21 How to identify and attract talent * 01:15:52 Finding the balance between being kind and direct

Our partnersA big thank you to Marc Hermann, Dr. Steven Lu, Fab Makojc and Justin Huang for their help with research for this interview!

Also a big thank you to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook.

Links mentionedSam’s links* Sam’s LinkedIn * Everlab * Founder Questions Template

People mentioned* Dr Steven Lu * Anshul Jain * Marc Hermann * Warren Buffet * Charlie Munger * Justin Huang * Jessy Wu * Adrian Petersen * Alex Khor * Nassim Taleb * Simon Crowe * Dr John Gottman * Benjamin Franklin * Wim Hof * Bryan Johnson * Andrew Huberman * Peter Attia * Alex Zatarain * Ed Hooper * Fab Mackojc * Mark Woodland * Luke Anear

Companies mentioned* Airwallex * Seek * Salesforce * Amazon * Eight Sleep * Kismet * SafetyCulture * Borders Books * Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation * GXE * Flying Fox Ventures * Ten13 * Afterwork Ventures * B2 Venture * Foodspring * Connect Education * Pokéd * Chipotle * Guzman y Gomez * Mad Mex * Lucas Group * Messina * Fitbit

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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  - January 1, 2014ReplyLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep177 – Sam Kothari (Co-founder & COO – Everlab) on building world class teams and reinventing the primary care experience appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep176 – Luke Anear (Founder & CEO – SafetyCulture) on lessons from building a $2.7B company March 21, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Episode 176 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Luke Anear, the Founder & CEO of SafetyCulture.

Luke is one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs.

He started SafetyCulture in 2004 out of a garage in Townsville, initially as a lifestyle business, before conversations with Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes the co-founders of Atlassian, convinced him to take on Venture Capital funding.

What started off as a checklist app for the construction industry has evolved into a fully fledged operations platform for businesses all around the world.

In 2023, SafetyCulture raised $34M at a $2.7B valuation.

In this episode Luke shares a lot of lessons and insights from his journey so far including:

Luke’s entrepreneurial journey from a glass recycling business in Townsville at 16 to building SafetyCulture
The decision to become a technology company and take on VC funding
Personal growth and learnings from Mike & Scott at Atlassian
How his role has evolved from the founder of a scrappy startup to the CEO of a global multi-billion dollar company
& much more!

Timestamps:* 3:44 Luke’s background and early business ventures * 6:02 First business challenges and lessons from Bill Smith * 9:42 Founding SafetyCulture * 14:45 SafetyCulture’s evolution and growth * 18:08 Validating a new product * 19:12 Taking on VC funding * 23:40 Personal growth and learnings from Mike & Scott at Atlassian * 26:33 Leadership and Scaling Challenges * 31:47 How founders can share the vision of their company * 35:32 Leadership and incentivising teams * 40:35 How founders can work out what to focus on in the early stages * 44:52 Advice to founders on dealing with stress * 46:41 Helping your team grow

Our partnersA big thank you to Rick Baker for his help with research for this interview!

Also a big thank you to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook.

Links mentionedLuke’s links* Luke’s LinkedIn

People mentioned

Rick Baker
Gary Vaynerchuk
Mike Cannon-Brookes
Scott Farquhar
Alex Zatarain
Cliff Obrecht
Melanie Perkins
Bill Bartee
Bill Smith
Craig Tiley
Tony Robbins
Dare Jennings
Reg Mombassa
Caleb Holloway

Companies mentioned* SafetyCulture * Telstra * Blackbird Ventures * Eight Sleep * Canva * Atlassian * Insight Partners

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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My guest for Ep175 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Ed Hooper, the Co-founder & CEO of GXE.

Ed was previously the Co-founder & CEO of Omny Studio, which was an audio management platform used by media companies and podcasters to grow their audience, reduce production costs and monetize their platform. Omny was later acquired by Triton Digital.

Ed then went on to launch Cardinia Ventures, a Venture Capital fund that invests in hardware and software startups from pre-seed to Series A stage and counts companies such as Chornosphere, Edrolo and SpiceAi in its porfolio.

He is now the Co-founder & CEO of GXE, which is an all-in-one platform for Investment Funds, Family Offices and Syndicates.

It’s also the platform we use to manage my syndicate, Playbook Ventures.

In this episode, Ed shares the key lessons as an investor and founder including:

Building & selling Omny Studio (acquired by Triton Digital)
The frameworks Ed uses to make product feature decisions and assess trade offs
How Ed approaches building professional relationships
His approach to investing into startups
& much more!

Ps stick around till the end of the interview for an announcement!

Timestamps* 4:08 – Ed’s background * 5:16 – SOAK (Ed’s first company) * 8:57 – Learnings from Silicon Valley, advice to early stage founders * 12:22 – Time at ANZ, Rome2Rio, Groupon * 15:06 – Omny Studio origin story * 19:02 – Launching SoundGecko * 21:54 – How to think about product feature trade offs * 25:27 – Things to consider when raising using SAFE notes * 29:47 – Frameworks for solving business problems * 32:09 – Raising from corporate VCs * 35:03 – Omny Studio acquisition * 39:07 – Building relationships and networks * 42:27 – Strategically building relationships with investors * 46:17 – How Cardinia Ventures started and what they invest in * 50:05 – How to structure a fundraising round * 53:27 – GXE journey * 58:37 – How to prioritise product feature requests * 1:00:48 – Playbook Ventures rolling fund

Our partnersA big thank you to Andrew Armstrong for his help with research for this interview!

Also a big thank you to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook.

Links mentionedEd’s links* Ed’s LinkedIn

Playbook Ventures Rolling Fund* Website https://www.playbookventures.com.au/ * Email: fund@playbookventures.com.au

People mentioned* Dan Lewin * Bill Gates * Book: Steve Jobs – Walter Isaccson * Long Zheng * Bernhard Tschirren * Michael Cameron * Clive Dickens * Andrew Armstrong * Rory McNeice * Leigh Jasper * Rachael Neumann * James Harrisson * Hamish & Andy

Companies mentioned* GXE * Cardinia Ventures * Omny Studio * SOAK * Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) * Triton * Microsoft * York Butter Factory * StageLabel * Rome2Rio * Groupon * ANZ * TechCrunch * Slack * Flickr * Atlassian * Pandora * Shazam * Apple * Twitter/X * Spotify * Mamamia * iHeartMedia * Playbook Ventures * Scale Investors * Flying Fox Ventures

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep175 – Ed Hooper (Co-founder & CEO – GXE) on frameworks, exits and investing appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep174 – Alexandra Zatarain (Co-founder – Eight Sleep) on branding, company DNA and category creation February 22, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep174 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & VP of Brand & Marketing of Eight Sleep, Alexandra Zatarain.

Back in 2014, Alex moved from NYC to Silicon valley to launch a smart mattress company as 4 “outsiders” to the silicon valley startup scene. They wanted to build and create a first of its kind hardware product, built by a founding team with no prior hardware experience between them!

In 2015, Eight Sleep launched via an Indigogo campaign that raised over $1M in pre-sales and fast forward to today, Eight Sleep is the world’s leader in helping people build their sleep fitness.

The company has gone on to raise a total of over $150M (valuing the company over $500M), operates in 13 countries and has over 200 of the worlds leading athletes across F1, Tour de France, NBA and the NFL (to name a few) using their product.

In this episode, Alex shares a lot of the journey, lessons and insights over the last decade in building Eight Sleep. Some of the topics we covered included:

How to think about your company DNA
The importance of brand messaging and positioning
The benefits and challenges of creating your own category
How to run successful influencer marketing campaigns
and much more!

Time stamps:* 3:33 – Alex’s background, growing up in Mexico * 9:43 – The decision to move to San Francisco and launch Eight Sleep * 15:13 – The early days of building Eight Sleep * 17:51 – Importance of brand messaging and positioning * 21:23 – How to think about company branding * 23:53 – Philosophy on brand messaging and company DNA * 28:21 – Benefits and challenges of category creation * 31:43 – Keeping stakeholders engaged when making big changes to a company * 34:23 – How Alex thinks about marketing campaigns * 37:13 – Product innovation and iterations * 39:23 – How Eight Sleep leverages high profile athletes in their marketing * 42:03 – Setting up successful influencer/athlete partnerships * 48:34 – Insights from user data * 51:37 – Sleep tips

Our partnersA big thank you to Matt de Boer for helping make this episode happen!

Also a big thank you to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook.

Links mentionedAlex’s links* Alex’s Twitter/X * Eight Sleep

People mentioned* Matteo Franceschetti * Elon Musk * Mark Woodland * Andy Cunningham – Get to Aha * Al Ramadan – Play Bigger * Aaron Judge * Brock Purdy * Matt de Boer

Companies mentioned* Fitbit * Jawbone * Kismet * Indiegogo * Peloton

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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  - January 1, 2014ReplyLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep174 – Alexandra Zatarain (Co-founder – Eight Sleep) on branding, company DNA and category creation appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep173 – Mark Woodland (Co-founder & CEO – Kismet) on timing, leadership & high performance February 15, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Uncategorized My guest for Episode 173 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Kismet, Mark Woodland.

Mark has had a fascinating journey to date.

He joined the military to fulfil his brothers dreams before leaving to do “admin” for his mums childcare business.

That experience led him to starting Xplor education, a childcare management platform that he grew from $0 to $40M ARR in 5 years before eventually being acquired by Advent International.

Mark is now back with his next company, Kismet, to reduce the barriers to access disability and healthcare services – a company that he initially had the idea for and pitched way back in 2010 before being laughed out of the room because as Mark puts it, it was a different generation back then!

Fast forward to today and Kismet raised a $4M pre-seed round led by AirTree Ventures in early 2023 and recently closed a Series A funding round after seeing exceptional growth for the company.

In this interview we covered a range of topics including:

Mark’s journey from the Australian Army and running childcare centres to building Xplor which was acquired by private equity
Why his retirement after his exit only lasted 2 weeks before he started his new venture Kismet
Leadership principles and how he builds and inspires high performing teams
How to get crystal clear on a product vision and avoid short term distractions
& much more!

Time stamps:* 4:33 – Mark’s background * 12:08 – Service mindset in business and life * 16:18 – Meeting with AirTree for the first time while building Xplor * 19:18 – The vision behind Xplor * 22:03 – Lessons from building a childcare business vs tech startup * 24:28 – The decision to exit from Xplor * 27:03 – How to build high performance, humble company culture * 33:18 – Thoughts on leadership * 38:18 – The thesis behind Kismet and why Mark ended his retirement after 2 weeks to build it * 40:18 – The importance of timing with startups * 43:03 – The difference between being a solo founder with Xplor and having 5 co-founders with Kismet * 47:33 – Staying focussed on the bigger vision and not getting distracted by short term wins * 51:48 – How founders can clearly define their product vision * 55:53 – How to push your team without breaking them * 58:48 – How Mark approached hiring the first 150 employees at Xplor

Our partnersA big thank you to Daniel Petre, Elicia McDonald, Matt Ellis and Stefan Cordiner for their help with research for this interview!

Also a big thank you to our partners for the show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook.

Links mentionedMark’s links

Twitter/X
LinkedIn
Kismet (website)
Kismet (LinkedIn)

People mentioned

Daniel Petre
Paul Bennets
Craig Blair
Helen Norton
Elicia McDonald
Mat Ellis
Stefan Cordiner
Adam Neumann

Companies mentioned

Kismet
Xplor
Playbook Ventures
AirTree
WeWork
Uber
Airbnb

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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  - January 1, 2014ReplyLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep173 – Mark Woodland (Co-founder & CEO – Kismet) on timing, leadership & high performance appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep172 – Ben Grabiner (Co-founder & General Partner – Side Stage Ventures) on VC as a product February 8, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Uncategorized My guest for Episode 172 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & General Partner of Side Stage Ventures, Ben Grabiner.

There are few people in the Australian startup ecosystem with the background on both sides of the table as Ben!

He was an investor at Local Globe, one of the leading VC funds in the UK and Europe before jumping into starting Platoon, A platform to discover and develop the very best emerging creative talent, including the likes of Billie Eilish who they helped to discover and release her first song.

In 2018, Platoon was acquired by Apple.

After spending some time integrating and growing Platoon inside Apple, Ben is now back in the investment chair, as the Co-founder & General Partner of Side Stage Ventures.

In this interview we covered a range of topics including:

Ben’s experience as a Co-founder of Platoon from discovering talent like Billie Eilish to ultimately selling to Apple
Lifting the lid on what Ben looks for and their process when investing through Side Stage
Why Ben thinks of VC as a product, and the specific inputs they measure to ensure they’re on track despite the long feedback loops
How the Australian Venture Capital landscape has evolved over time, and why now is one of the best times to build a huge global business in Australia
and much more!

Time stamps:* 4:00 – Early career, working at LocalGlobe, founding Platoon * 5:45 – Leaving Polonize to join LocalGlobe * 6:50 – Launching an early stage seed fund in the UK * 9:20 – Evolution of the Australian Venture Capital landscape * 11:30 – Idea and model behind Platoon * 18:00 – The two things Side Stage focuses on * 19:15 – What Side Stage looks for when investing * 21:30 – Investment decision process for Side Stage * 23:45 – The decision to sell Platoon to Apple * 27:45 – The experience Ben had post acquisition * 30:30 – How Side Stage thinks about investing and building a fund from a product perspective * 32:40 – Metrics and signals that Side Stage look for internally to make sure they’re on the right track * 34:50 – The vision behind Side Stage

Our partnersA big thank you to Emily Casey for her help with research for this interview as well as to our partners for this show:

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook.

Links mentionedBen’s links* Twitter/X * LinkedIn * Side Stage Ventures * Side Stage Email

People mentioned* Saul Klein * Billie Eilish * Eazy-E * Denzyl Feigelson * Alex Zaccaria * Anthony Zaccaria * Emily Casey

Companies mentioned* LocalGlobe * Platoon * Apple * LoveFilm * Seedcamp * Blackbird * Soundcloud * Spotify * YouTube * Linktree

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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  - January 1, 2014ReplyLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep172 – Ben Grabiner (Co-founder & General Partner – Side Stage Ventures) on VC as a product appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter * Facebook * YouTube * Instagram Ep171 – Micha Kaufman (Co-founder & CEO – Fiverr) on risk, virality and frameworks February 1, 2024 * rohitbhargava * Podcast My guest for Ep171 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, was Micha Kaufman the Co-founder & CEO of Fiverr.

Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger launched Fiverr in 2010 as a marketplace to connect freelancers to people and businesses. The pitch was simple, you could hire people for tasks around the world for $5 or less.

Like many ideas ahead of its time, Micha was laughed at by the first 20 people he pitched Fiverr to, which only made him more convinced about the idea!

Fast forward to today and Fiverr employs hundreds of employees serving millions of users around the world. The company went public in 2019 and currently has a market cap over $1B.

In this episode, Micha opens up on his journey, lessons and insights including:

How his parents’ journey from Argentina to Israel, and his wife’s battle with cancer shaped his worldview and appetite for risk.
His transition from practising lawyer to founder and lessons from first three companies before Fiverr.
The framework for assessing ideas he created that helped him land on the idea for Fiverr.
Launching and growing a double sided marketplace
Maintaining culture as you scale a company
and much more!

Timestamps * 5:20 – Lessons from his parents and upbringing * 9:30 – Supporting his wife through her battle with cancer, how that pushed him to transition from law to entrepreneurship * 15:00 – Challenges and lessons from first three companies * 18:25 – Using a “think tank” to create framework of how to think about ideas to work on * 21:30 – Early concept of Fiverr * 31:20 – Approaching the chicken and egg problem of launching a two sided marketplace * 35:45 – Maintaining company culture as Fiverr scaled from a small startup to publicly listed company * 43:00 – Advice to founders on navigating uncertain times ahead

Our partnersScendar Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business.. Find out more at Scendar.com

VantaVanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Get started with a Sydney-based Vanta team member today, or watch a 3-minute demo to learn more, at vanta.com/playbook.

Links Mentioned Micha’s links* Fiverr * Micha’s LinkedIn * Micha on Twitter/X

People mentioned* Ben Hensman (Portfolio Manager – Square Peg Capital)

Companies mentioned* Uber * Lyft * Airbnb * Amazon * Etsy * Square Peg Capital

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Paycheck

Other channels:Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep170 – Pete Davis (Co-founder & CEO – 1FF) on building the future of football August 3, 2023 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep170 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, was the Co-founder & CEO of One Future Football, […]

The post Ep170 – Pete Davis (Co-founder & CEO – 1FF) on building the future of football appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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The Startup PlaybookConnecting you to the best entrepreneurs, investors and resources from around the world Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep169 – Jax Vullinghs (Partner – AirTree) on valuations, IC and moats August 25, 2022 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep169 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jax Vullinghs, Partner at AirTree Ventures. Jax has had […]

The post Ep169 – Jax Vullinghs (Partner – AirTree) on valuations, IC and moats appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep168 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & Co-CEO of Shippit, Will On. Will and his co-founder Rob started Shippit in 2014. They raised $500K as their first funding round bringing in a number of strategic investors on board when it was just the two of them in the business. […]

The post Ep168 – Will On (Co-founder & Co-CEO – Shippit) on fundraising, secondaries and the Co-CEO model appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep167 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Justin Lipman, Partner at EVP. Justin started his career in Finance working inside organisations like Credit Suisse, EY and Investec before taking the plunge to join EVP in the very early days of the Venture Fund. The team spent the first year advising startups before […]

The post Ep167 – Justin Lipman (Partner – EVP) on metrics, focus and valuations appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep166 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Dan Krasnostein, Partner at Square Peg Capital. Dan began his career in management consulting before making the switch to joining Seek in strategy roles. After spending 4 formative years at Seek, Dan was ready for a change and despite in his own words not knowing […]

The post Ep166 – Dan Krasnostein (Partner – Square Peg Capital) on teaching, culture and conviction appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep165 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Glenn Rogers, the Co-founder & CEO of Float. Glenn and his Co-founder Lars started Float 11 years ago to solve some of the resource management issues they were seeing through their work at a New York based agency, Razorfish They tried to raise capital at […]

The post Ep165 – Glenn Rogers (Co-founder & CEO – Float) on focus, constraints & scale appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep164 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, was Chris Hitchen the Co-founder & Managing Partner of Possible Ventures. Possible Ventures is an early stage venture capital fund that invests in frontier technology. Their approach in investing early, with a high cadence and investing globally has resulted in an incredible portfolio of over 100 […]

The post Ep164 – Chris Hitchen (Managing Partner – Possible Ventures) on investing in the possible appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep163 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jaddan Comerford, the Founder & CEO of Unified Music Group and Partner at Side Stage Ventures. Jaddan started Boomtown Records as a 17 year old to help launch the record for his own band. Fast forward 20 years later and he is now the Founder […]

The post Ep163 – Jaddan Comerford (CEO – Unified Music Group) on investing in creativity appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep162 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Dan Peters, the Managing Director of Clearco Australia. Clearco is the world’s largest Ecommerce investor. They provide revenue based financing options to Ecommerce businesses with their data driven approach to investment decisions providing capital to 8x as many female founders as traditional venture capital funds […]

The post Ep162 – Dan Peters (Managing Director – Clearco) on partnerships, benchmarks and data driven capital appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep161 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Partner at TEN13 VC, Steve Baxter. Steve is best known for his role on TV as a “Shark” on Australia’s Shark Tank, but prior to this he had a highly successful career as an entrepreneur. In this episode we cover his journey and lessons […]

The post Ep161 – Steve Baxter (Partner – TEN13 VC) on capability, competitors & investing appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep160 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Kasada, Sam Crowther. Sam launched Kasada as a 19 year in 2015 to help protect businesses from bots. Fast forward 7 years and the company is now used by many Fortune 50 companies and has gone on to raise $39M […]

The post Ep160 – Sam Crowther (Co-founder & CEO – Kasada) on sales, structure and the founder journey appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 159 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & General Partner of Blackbird Ventures, Niki Scevak. Blackbird Ventures is one of the leading Venture Capital funds in Australia and NZ, counting companies such as Canva, Culture Amp and Safety Culture as part of its portfolio. Niki and previous podcast guest, […]

The post Ep159 – Niki Scevak (Co-founder & Partner – Blackbird VC) on raising ambition appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep158 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Bellroy, Andy Fallshaw.

Andy, his brother (Matt) and sister-in-law (Lina) decided to get into business together and instead of launching 1 business, they ended up launching 9 businesses over the span of 2-3 years.

One of those companies was Bellroy, which launched in 2010 with their first product, the slim sleeve wallet, which redesigned the wallet experience.

Fast forward to today and Bellroy is the world’s leader in the carry category, having expanded out into multiple product ranges such as iPhone cases, AirPods cases and travel bags.

Despite having built a large global brand and experienced incredible 600-700% YoY growth over the last 11 years, they only took on external capital for the first time, 2 years ago.

In this episode we discussed a wide range of topics including:

Andy's business philosophy on taking the stairs rather than the elevatorHow Bellroy applies agile development techniques when launching new productsWhy founders should think about building for resilienceThe deliberate and strategic evolution of Bellroy’s product range from a "hidden" wallet brand to products across a range of categoriesHow to create the right environment and structure to get feedback& much more

Timestamps

2.20 - An introduction to Andy and Bellroy 8.07 - Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs and building business a for-purpose business11.53 - Why Andy and his co-founders started nine businesses at once16.17 - How Bellroy determined the product was a good market fit20.22 - The process of developing a product and getting quality feedback24.18 - Seeking good feedback and the type of people you should be getting it from29.14 - Designing the perfect backpack and the keys to great product design 36.18 - Finding your Northstar 37.39 - How to decide on your next product line and why usually the natural progression is the best option42.17 - Why having more control and keeping operations in-house could be the best path to success when building a purpose-driven business45.50 - Deciding whether freelancers, an agency or in-house is the best fit for your team50.32 - The decision to raise capital and the non-financial benefits 55.08 - Seeking feedback, finding mentors and being able to take constructive criticism 1.00.29 - Ensuring the business values stay at the forefront of operations when running a purpose-driven business1.05.10 - How to get in contact with Andy

Links Mentioned

Andy’s Links

Andy’s LinkedInAndy’s TwitterBellroy’s Website Carryology’s Website

People Mentioned

Lina CalabriaMatthew Fallshaw Jo FallshawFrank GaillardProfessor Norman McNallyDaniel Kahneman Jimmy GleesonDane O’ShanassyYvon Chouinard

Companies Mentioned

RipcurlFallshaw Wheels & CastorsRadiopaediaB Corporation PatagoniaThe Glasgow School of ArtShopify Magento

Previous Episodes Mentioned

Episode 155 - Ash Davies Episode 154 - Nick Franklin

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Lina Calabria and Dane O'Shanassy for their help with research for this interview!

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

Find all links to the podcast here.

https://youtu.be/HnzhotWH4Co

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I'm delighted to be welcoming back David Shein, the Co-founder and General Partner of Our Innovation Fund, as my guest for Episode 157 of The Startup Playbook Podcast.

We last spoke on the podcast a year ago, where David shared his lessons and journey as the Founder of Com Tech, a business that over 14 years he grew to 1,400 staff before being acquired by Dimension Data for $1B.

We also spoke about David’s role as the Co-founder & General Partner at our Innovation Fund, an early stage VC fund that has just closed it’s 3rd fund worth over $100M to invest in exciting Australian startups.

David is coming back on the podcast to discuss his recently published a book titled; “The Dumbest Guy at the Table: How I founded Australia’s first unicorn” to uncover many of the lessons he picked up from his time as a founder & investor.

Not only is the book full of fantastic insights and lessons, the book is supporting a great cause as well with 100% of the proceeds from this book going to The Black Dog Institute to raise money for mental health research.

In this episode we discussed a wide range of topics including:

The importance of keeping A players and how to deal with bad hiresWhat David looks for in early stage investmentsLessons from having legendary sports starts such as Bob Dwyer and Ian Chappel on the Com Tech BoardWhy founders should keep it simple& much more

Ps - as mentioned at the end of this episode, I will be doing a giveaway of a few copies of David's book. To enter, head over to the LinkedIn post here and share your favourite lesson from this or any previous episode of The Startup Playbook Podcast.

Alternatively you can buy David's book here

Timestamps

2.45 - Introduction to David and his new book6.07 - How David started his first company and how business has changed since then7.30 - Knowing when your business isn't working out and when to leave it 11.41 - Why someone isn’t always an expert just because they know more about something than you14.14 - Managing people and the importance of letting people go when they aren't the right fit18.16 - Why you should hire for attitude and teach specific skills20.53 - What David looks for in founders and a founding team to invest in23.55 - Making intuitive investment decisions 27.40 - Building culture and why an Employee Share Option Plan (ESOP) isn't the answer to all company culture problems31.19 - Implementing company culture effectively 37.29 - Focusing on getting a core product right before doing too many different things40.47 - The similarities between sport and business culture46.02 - Defining the business focus and whether the systems or people are most important 50.36 - Why profits are made on the buying, not the selling53.24 - What David believes will always be true and relevant in startups 57.23 - Where to find David and how to get a copy of his new book

Links Mentioned

David’s Links:

David’s LinkedIn The Dumbest Guy at the Table Book Our Innovation Fund Website Our Innovation Fund LinkedIn

People Mentioned:

Satya Nadella Bob IgerElon Musk Jeff BezosMark Zuckerberg Reed HastingsAnthony EisenNick MolnarMelanie Perkins Cliff ObrechtMike Cannon-BrookesScott FarquharLarry DiamondMatt Browne Jack WelchBob DwyerIan Chappell Emily PheifferBen CroweAsh BartyDylan AlcottGabby Leibovich Neil Perry

Companies Mentioned

Black Dog InstituteCiscoMicrosoftAfterpayCanvaZipNetflix AWS XeroAmazon AtlassianBlack Nova VenturesGeneral Electric (GE)Richmond Football Club Deliveroo CatchSquare Rockpool

Other Links Mentioned

Netflix Show - The PlaybookNetflix Show - Bad SportApple TV Show - Ted LassoCatch Of The Decade Book

Past Episodes Mentioned

Episode 133 - David SheinEpisode 156 - Matt BrowneEpisode 135 - Gabby Leibovich

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@ro...

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My guest for Ep156 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Matt Browne, the Co-founder & Managing Partner of Black Nova Ventures.

Prior to becoming a VC, Matt was the Co-founder and CEO of DoneSafe, a cloud based safety platform that grew to over 1.5M paying users before being acquired by HSI in 2020.

He also Co-founded Whispli, a Y-Combinator alumni SaaS startup that provides a whistleblowing platform for clients such as Qantas, Westpac and Oxfam.

Now, alongside being one of the founding members of Upflowy, Matt is also the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Black Nova Ventures. A $20M early-stage VC fund built for B2B technology startups.

Despite only recently announcing the launch their fund, they have already made 23 investments to date.

In this interview we discussed a range of topics including:

Matt’s journey in launching, scaling and eventually exiting DoneSafeDealing with co-founder breakupsHow to build investor conviction for pre-revenue or pre-product startupsThe rise of the Founder VCs & much more!

Timestamps

2.24 - Matts career journey from starting a business as a teenager to starting Black Nova Ventures 5.22 - Matt’s early interest in business and how side hustles can fuel a future passion for startups 7.59 - The decision to go full time at Donesafe 10.27 - Matt’s Financial advice for businesses and the way raising has changed since he first started 12.55 - What Black Nova looks for in founding teams and how they support founders to be more secure financially14.58 - Finding the right co-founder and managing when a co-founder leaves the business20.02 - Managing the process when a partner leaves and the importance of having empathy in the situation22.42 - The process of getting acquired and how the first acquisition of Donesafe fell through in the final hour 27.22 - How a company changes post-acquisition and how to decide whether you will stay or leave 28.51 - Working with good people and Matt's decision to work with his co-founder Darcy32.05 - Black Nova’s structure and how they manage their funds34.23 - Why Black Nova focuses on supporting founders and businesses they invest in rather than just funding them36.57 - Why Matt likes to be hands-on when supporting the businesses they have invested in39.20 - What Black Nova looks to invest in and why they like to be very early investors40.57 - What Matt looks for in founders when making investment decisions42.55 - The importance of focusing on what you're good at and trusting others with what they're good at 45.38 - How starting your first business can be very humbling 48.05 - Thriving in the US and global market compared to Australia 50.01 - How to get in contact with Matt

Links Mentioned

Matt’s Links

Matt’s LinkedIn Matt’s Twitter Black Nova VC WebsiteBlack Nova LinkedInBlack Nova Twitter

Companies Mentioned

Donesafe WhispliLeighton ContractorsWaud CapitalY CombinatorCommonwealth BankAdventure Capital Venture ManagementAntlerFounder InstituteUpflowyHSITablo

People Mentioned

Darcy Naunton Matt AllenMatt KneeAsh Davies

Past Episodes Mentioned

Episode 40 - Darcy Naunton Episode 28 - Matt AllenEpisode 137 - Matt Allen Episode 155 - Ash Davies

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Darcy Naunton and Matt Allen for their help with research for this interview! ?

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

Find all links to the podcast here.

https://youtu.be/RH3qpLhD-hs

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My guest for Ep155 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder & CEO of Tablo, Ash Davies.

Tablo is one of the world’s leading book publishing platforms which allows over 100,000 authors to publish and distribute printed books at the touch of a button.

But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing!

In this interview, Ash Shares for the first time how a failed acquisition offer from Apple, led to a pivot and evolution into building the business that Tablo is today.

Outside of Tablo, Ash also runs two highly successful side hustles, name Nonsense Inc, which creates parody car air freshners such as Elon's Musk and last year he launched Melbourne Mask Company, which has become Australia's largest distributor of reusable face masks.

In this interview we also discussed:

How he’s taken a data-driven approach that has allowed him to grow the business 40-50% YoY despite only raising $400K in funding 7 years ago.How 2 successful side-hustles have helped him to focus and create a better business at TabloHow Ash approaches execution of new ideasEarly mistakes Ash made when trying to grow TabloThe importance of self awareness as a founderHow a failed acquisition by Apple led to a pivot and evolution into creating the business that Tablo is today& much more!

Timestamps

2.34 - Introduction to Ash and Tablo 3.25 - How Ash’s passion for business came from building go-karts6.41 - Ash’s experience at University and deciding to pave out a unique career path9.05 - Starting Tablo after seeing first-hand the struggles of self-publishing and ebook publishing 12.31 - How Ash first built a version of Tablo with very little technical experience 15.23 - Why it's important to launch a product rather than spending too much time perfecting it17.01 - The value of using free trial offers to validate an idea and connect with customers18.31 - The benefits of participating in an accelerator program 20.24 - The importance of building a solid business rather than focusing on just raising capital23.26 - Partnering with Apple and pivoting after the project fell through28.28 - Deciding what is important to focus on and what isn’t worth continuing with 29.49 - Why Ash suggests launching customer-facing features first so you can find pain points in the backend initially 32.43 - Keeping calm and making smart decisions in times of stress 35.44 - Why it's important to have a deep love for the product and be able to turn 'failures' into opportunities 39.46 - Why Ash prefers working on multiple projects and businesses at the same time47.01 - How Ash started a reusable mask business at the start of the pandemic 48.34 - How past projects falling through allowed for a successful move into print publishing 52.25 - Spending over a year working on print publishing without knowing whether it was the right move for the company 54.16 - Focusing on customers and building a great product over PR and marketing in the early days 57.39 - Building customer relationships as an early-stage founder 1.00.29 - How to get in contact with Ash

Links Mentioned

Ash’s Links

Ash’s TwitterAsh’s LinkedInAsh’s Instagram Ash’s YouTubeTablo’s WebsiteTablo’s Twitter Tablo’s LinkedIn

People Mentioned

Adrian StoneAlex EckermannRudyard Kipling (Poet of If--)

Companies Mentioned

Top Gear SquarespaceWordPressAppleAmazon WooformAngelCubeElon’s MuskMelbourne Mask Company

Past Episodes Mentioned

Episode 23 - Adrian Stone

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Amy Lee and Alex Eckermann for their help with research for this interview! ?

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

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My guest for Ep154 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder and CEO of ChartMogul, Nick Franklin.

ChartMogul is the leading subscription analytics platform for SaaS companies and Nick has had a unique approach to building the company.

He launched ChartMogul in 2014 as a solo founder, has grown a globally distributed team of 57 across 3 head quarters in Toronto, Berlin and Seoul and despite having spent over $20M in building their platform and company, he has not raised external funding over the last 4 years.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

A deep dive into Key SaaS metrics for startupsWhy Nick has decided to “fundstrap" the businessWhy he operates as both the CEO and Head of ProductChartMogul’s approach to pricing strategy and why they introduced a free tier& much more!

Timestamps

2.45 - Nick’s background and starting ChartMogul3.53 - How the idea for tChartMogul came from his time working at Zendesk7.32 - Pursuing a business idea when you’re working for another company and managing competitors launching before you do11.07 - How competitors enhanced Nick’s conviction for their product 13.54 - Differentiating your business from competitors through finding your strengths and staying focussed on them17.10 - Deciding what to focus on and why defining the target audience is so important20.35 - Trying and failing with new product lines 27.10 - The importance of focusing on existing customers to reduce the churn rate 30.11 - The key metrics startups should be focusing on to track success34.23 - The choice to raise early then moving focus to customer revenue as a source for growth 41.06 - Why ChartMogul have taken their approach to raising and their future plans43.35 - The pricing strategy used by ChartMogul and why it was the best approach 47.18 - How to decide on the pricing strategy that is best for your business and making sure existing customers are comfortable when making pricing changes52.32 - Choosing where to open offices around the world and how ChartMogul approached it 57.51 - How Covid-19 impacted how ChartMogul worked remotely 1.02.35 - How Nick manages being the Head of Product and CEO 1.05.12 - Getting in contact with Nick and ChartMogul

Links Mentioned

Nick’s Links

Nick’s Twitter Nick’s LinkedIn ChartMogul Website ChartMogul Twitter

People Mentioned

Patrick Llewellyn

Companies Mentioned

Zendesk Pipedrive99designs LinktreeWho Gives A CrapStripe ChargebeeRecurlyPayPalApple AppStore ConnectGoogle Play

Past Episodes Mentioned

Episode 85 - Patrick Llewellyn

Connect with VCs and Angel Investors:

If you are planning on fundraising in the next 3-6 months and want to connect to VCs and Angel investors, apply to get featured in my monthly newsletter, Playbook Deal Flow. More details here.

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

Find all links to the podcast here.

https://youtu.be/-xbpXqyShKA

The post Ep154 – Nick Franklin (Founder & CEO – ChartMogul) on pricing, metrics and fundstrapping appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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This week, The Startup Playbook Podcast hit the special 5 year milestone of the podcast. To celebrate we turned the mic on Rohit and got him to answer some questions for this special episode.

In this Episode, Rohit answered some of the FAQs and audience submitted questions on the lessons, process and journey of the podcast over the last 5 years.

In this episode we covered topics such as:

The end-to-end podcast process Rohit follows for each episodeKey lessons learnt from 150+ episodesThe most fulfilling (and embarrassing) moments of the showHow he lands guests like Malcolm Turnbull, Cal Henderson (Co-founder of Slack), DHH and many others& much more!

Also a big thank you to all of our previous podcast guests and listeners of the show for your continued support over the last 5 years!

Timestamps

1.27 - What Rohit was doing pre-podcast and how he first got interested in startups2.52 - How Rohit decided to start the podcast after listening to only a few podcast episodes5.20 - Rohit’s commitment to the show being at least a 10 year project7.36 - What has changed and stayed the same since the podcast launched11.16 - Why Rohit speaks to people close to the guest in preparation for each interview13.39 - Rohits’ favourite part of the podcast process15.02 - How Rohit finds and secures such high caliber guests17.25 - The number one guest that Rohit would love to have on the show19.25 - The longest lengths he had to go to in order to get a guest on the show21.05 - Fantasy Football - Startup Edition23.01 - The podcasts place in the startup ecosystem24.16 - Rohit’s biggest takeaways and insights from guests on the show28.06 - How Rohit kept going especially during tough times32.31 - The best feedback he’s received from listeners of the show 34.23 - Rohit’s most embarrassing moment on the show36.58 - Rohit’s most fulfilling moment on show 39.42 - The moment Rohit realised the power of the show 41.40 - The pre-process ritual Rohit uses to prepare for the show44.41 - What Rohit does for fun outside the podcast45.53 - Rohit’s biggest takeaway about investing47.18 - Rohit’s biggest takeaway about founding a startup48.58 - What is the future of The Startup Playbook Podcast51.28 - A thank you to the listeners for the last five years

Links mentioned

Rohit’s Links

Rohit’s TwitterRohit's LinkedIn

Tyla’s Links

The Unlock Earth Podcast

People Mentioned:

Gary VaynerchukTim FerrisMalcolm TurnbullAdam MilgromRachael NeumannAlister ColemanWill Richardson Paul NaphtaliJames Chin MoodyStewart ButterfieldCal HendersonKate MorrisJustin DryGabby Leibovich

Companies Mentioned

Flying Fox VenturesAmazon Web Services (AWS)SendleSlack Flickr

Previous Episodes Mentioned

Episode 114 - Malcolm TurnbullEpisode 125 - Adam MilgromEpisode 57 - Rachael NeumannEpisode 130 - Rachael NeumannEpisode 152 - Alister ColemanEpisode 73 - Will RichardsonEpisode 5 - Paul NaphtaliEpisode 129 - James Chin MoodyEpisode 118 - Cal HendersonEpisode 64 - Kate MorrisEpisode 3 - Justin DryEpisode 135 - Gabby Leibovich

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

Find all links to the podcast here.

https://youtu.be/DWUfoviWZg0

The post Ep153 – Rohit Bhargava AMA on 5 years of the Startup Playbook Podcast appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep152 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & Managing Partner at Folklore Ventures, Alister Coleman.

Alister started his career in portfolio management and banking for family offices before going on to become the Co-founder of ShippingEasy in 2011. 5 years later, ShippingEasy was acquired by stamps.com for $80M.

He is now the Co-founder & Managing Partner of Folklore Ventures, which is a $55M pre-seed and seed stage VC fund.

In this interview we discussed:

Lessons from Al’s journey with ShippingEasy including why selling too early is not a great outcome for founders & investorsFolklore’s unique investment approach which has led to a portfolio with next to no overlap with other VC funds in AustraliaA look into Folklore’s thorough due diligence processAlister and Folklore’s vision and approach in building a multi generation fund& much more

Timestamp

1.59 - Alisters’ background and startup experience2.59 - Lessons learned from working with Shipping Easy 5.27 - The significance of Shipping Easy in the early days of ecommerce8.59 - Balancing the investor and founder visions 11.26 - Hiring the best team to work with you 13.58 - Acquisition and knowing when it's the right time to sell20.55 - Managing stressful times and getting support from your team23.55 - Hiring for intellect and skills that can't be taught 28.04 - The importance of investing in companies that have a positive impact on the world 34.04 - Folklores’ approach to investment and why the safe option isn't always actually safe38.37 - Supporting startups who are doing the ‘impossible’ 41.40 - Innovation in the drone industry and how it can be used for the distribution of vaccinations43.42 - Building a mentor-mentee relationship with founders and why that support is so valuable 48.08 - The future of the Australian startup and investment ecosystem 51.57 - How to get in contact with Allister and Folklore

Links Mentioned

Alister’s Links:

Alister's LinkedInAlister's TwitterFolklore VC WebsiteContact Folklore VC

People Mentioned

Mark HelvadjianHannah Field (Folklore)Brett CairnsEric Peck

Companies Mentioned

Folklore VCTempus PartnersHealthMatch Shipping EasyMagellanAurorSwoop Aero

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Hannah Field and Eric Peck for their help with research for this interview!

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

Find all links to the podcast here.

https://youtu.be/9UzBaVXQRSE

The post Ep152 – Alister Coleman (Co-founder & Managing Partner – Folklore VC) on due diligence, focus and multigenerational funds appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep151 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & Partner of Flying Fox Ventures, Kylie Frazer.

Kylie started her career as a lawyer before leaving her legal career to first start an innovation lab for professional services and then a health tech business called Scancheck.

After exiting out of Scancheck, Kylie then transitioned over to the other side of the table as an angel investor through her angel syndicate, Eleanor Ventures.

She has now teamed up with Rachael Neumann to become the Co-founder and Partner at Flying Fox Ventures.

Unlike traditional VC funds, Flying Fox has a unique cohort based model, where they will have a rolling $5M fund that will invest in 10 companies per fund.

Once the capital is deployed, new and existing angel investors are able to buy into the next $5 million fund for the next 10 companies that Flying Fox Ventures will invest in.

In this interview we discussed:

The difference between the angel investor and VC mindsetThe terms on term sheets that you should pay attention to (and what not to spend time on)The importance of founder runwayThe benefits behind Flying Fox Ventures unique rolling fund model& much more!

Timestamps

2.25 - Introduction to Kylie and her background 3.03 - The positive outcome from her first business failing 5.14 - How Kylie met her business partner in business school which lead to her next business ScanCheck6.39 - Why it’s important to learn about being an investor as a founder to better understand what investors are looking for9.40 - Kylie’s learnings as an investor and how they have evolved over time11.19 - What angel investors are looking for in startups to invest in17.38 - How Kylie supports the businesses and investors in her syndicates21.27 - An investors role in coaching founders and why it is constantly changing 25.18 - Why raising isn’t always about getting as much capital as possible, but the right amount for what is needed28.09 - The importance of being comfortable investing smaller amounts or through a syndicate 30.25 - The right number of investors and when to clean up your cap table 32.05 - What Kylies focus is on and what she avoids when investing based on her legal background35.27 - Kylie’s relationship with her co-founder Rachael and why it was important to make sure they were a good match early 37.35 - The safety, support and learning benefits of investing with Flying Fox VC39.41 - What Kylie and Flying Fox VC is looking for in founders and businesses to invest in41.02 - How having an obsession and understanding of customers, can trump reputation or experience in an industry42.18 - The importance of a founders 'personal runway' 44.05 - What to expect when applying for Flying Fox VC44.55 - How long the process takes from application to investment with Flying Fox VC46.03 - Building a relationship with investors and why you have to be careful on how you present yourself and your company to investors48.39 - Making an effective pitch deck 49.38 - How to connect with Kylie and Flying Fox VC

Links Mentioned

Kylies’ Links:

Kylies’ LinkedInKylies’ TwitterFlying Fox Twitter Flying Fox Website Flying Fox Application Form

People Mentioned:

Jill BerryBen WilliamsonRachael Neumann

Companies Mentioned:

Flying Fox Ventures Eleanor VentureAdatree Fresh EquitiesBlackbirdInvestibleRampersandFolkloreAirtreeWorking Theory AngelsStartmate

Past Episodes Mentioned

Episode 57 - Rachael Neumann Episode 130 - Rachael Neumann

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Ben Williamson and Rachael Neumann for their help with research for this interview! ?

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes?

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My guest for Ep150 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & Partner at Blackbird Ventures, Rick Baker.

Blackbird is one of, if not the leading Venture Capital Fund in Australia.

Since launching in 2012, Blackbird has raised 4 funds for a combined committed capital of $1.24B with an astonishing net internal rate of return of 46.7% for every dollar invested as of June 30, 2020.

Their portfolio includes some of Australia’s most iconic companies such as Culture Amp, Safety Culture and Canva where they own 14% ownership stake, which is by far the largest of any external investor.

The overall success of their first fund led them to selling 40% of their fund 1 for $100M, providing a 3x return to all of their LPs.

In this interview we discussed:

The story behind Blackbird’s first fundWhy Blackbird has a unique rule in backing in only backing founders who are not looking for exitsHow Blackbird’s internal culture and curiosity led to investments in the future of food, space and autonomous vehiclesThe thinking behind Blackbird’s decision to sell 40% of their first fund for $100MWhen and how to reach out to Blackbird for investment& much more!

Timestamps

3.03 - Intro to Rick Baker and his background 6.07 - How Rick got connected to his co-founder Niki and they started Blackbird 8.16 - Starting Blackbird during a time when VC was dying in Australia 11.10 - Early days of Blackbird and not paying themselves for the first 18 months 11.53 - What Blackbird looks for in founders and experience working with Baraja 16.00 - Blackbirds goal to be more than just a financial fund by offering connections and other support 17.58 - Blackbirds no exits rule and why they have it21.53 - Shift in founders ambition in Australia since the growth of the startup industry23.12 - Why Blackbird is selling off part of their Fund 126.53 - How Blackbird helps founders to stay motivated, engaged and involved in the business 29.27 - Supporting founders through difficult times 32.50 - The importance of giving constructive feedback35.14 - Building the Blackbird team and the importance of having a solid team for the growth and success of the company 39.24 - Choosing what to invest in and how those decisions have changed from the beginning of Blackbird 41.30 - Maintaining company culture as a team grows 43.50 - Defining the culture at Blackbird45.23 - Looking for opportunities and Blackbirds’ choice to invest in new industries and technologies 49.12 - When is the right time to pitch Blackbird and why it’s never too early 51.53 - The importance of social proof and the ability to bring people on your journey as a founder 53.49 - Getting investment from Blackbird or joining the Startmate Accelerator56.22 - What Blackbird are looking for in new and future investments 59.45 - Where Blackbird is going next 1.02.04 - How to get in contact with Rick and Blackbird

Links Mentioned

Ricks Links

Ricks’ LinkedInRicks’ Twitter Blackbird Website Sunrise21 (Blackbird Event)Blackbird EventsBlackbird Contact Form

People Mentioned

Niki ScevakFederico Collarte Cibby PulikkaserilCraig BarrattSam Wong Nick Crocker

Companies Mentioned

MLCAtlassianCampaign MonitorAconexRedbubbleHalf Brick StudiosAustralian Investment Council (AIC)ZooxBarajaCanva Safety CultureCulture AmpStartmate

Past Episodes Mentioned

Episode 146 - Federico Collarte Episode 109 - Nick Crocker

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Niki Scevak, Federico Collarte and Cibby Pulikkaseril for their help with research for this interview!

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

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My guest for Ep149 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Phil Morle, Partner of Main Sequence Ventures

Phil started his career as a Theatre Director, before taking those skills into tech initially as CTO of file-sharing company, Kazaa before going on to Co-found the first tech incubator in Asia-Pacific, Pollenizer.

He is now a Partner at CSIRO’s venture capital fund, Main Sequence Ventures, which has $490M in funds under management to invest in emerging Australian deep-tech and science based startups to solve the world’s biggest problems.

In this interview we discussed:

Why 50-50 equity splits between co-founders are a bad signal to investorsTaking leaps and having a high velocity of learningThe art of FlearningThe important balance between “soft skills” and Venture science& much more!

Timestamps

2.26 - How Phil got started in theatre and transitioned into building startups10.19 - Common mistakes and traits Phil has seen in business since working with startups 19.54 - The importance of taking leaps and the success of Spreets28.25 - Decision to close Pollenizer after two final chances and the importance of closing when it’s the right time38.00 - The importance of reputation and being willing to put your reputation on the line44.51 - The power of giving employees equity for motivation and commitment 49.14 - Bringing together the CSIRO and Hungry Jacks to create v2food56.48 - The important lessons for startups working with large companies 1.03.34 - Collaborative work with businesses and coming together to share experiences1.09.11 - Identifying opportunities and the balance between soft and hard skills in founders 1.13.55 - Main Sequence Ventures new fund and what projects they are working on1.18.24 - Where to find Phil and Main Sequence Ventures

Links Mentioned

Phil's Links:

Phil's LinkedInPhil's TwitterMain Sequence Ventures

Companies Mentioned

Main Sequence VenturesPollenizerSpreetsHungry JacksCSIROY Combinator

People Mentioned

Mick LiubinskasDean McEvoyDavid BurtJack CowinNick HazellPaul Graham

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Nick Hazell and Mick Liubinskas for their help with research for this interview! ?

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

Find all links to the podcast here.

https://youtu.be/ExmReWFj-6E

The post Ep149 – Phil Morle (Partner – Main Sequence Ventures) on leaps, equity and the art of flearning appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep148 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Qsic, Matt Elsley.

Qsic leverages smart devices and other inputs such as music to drive changes in real-time consumer behaviour such as increasing their spend in retail stores.

They have had a fascinating journey since launching in 2012, initially bootstrapping for the first few years before going on to raise an angel round from some of their early customers.

They are now used in over 2,500 retail stores including 7-eleven and McDonalds in the US and this week announced their Series A funding round of $4M led by Carthona Capital.

In this interview we discussed:

Their decision to shut down their first business to go all in on QsicThe journey from bootstrapped to VC funded companyHow to sell to large enterprises like McDonalds and 7-Eleven in the USHow COVID helped Matt and his team reassess and refocus the businessHow to get the most out of your advisors and investors& much more!

Timestamps

2.20 - Introduction to Matt and the story behind finding Qsic 7.00 - Decision to shut down his previous business and focus on Qsic 9.16 - How the introduction of streaming platforms helped to inform the market and with finding customers11.30 - Importance of having support and investment from customers especially in the early days14.55 - Pre-investment bootstrapping, borrowing from friends and family, maxing out cards 16. 14 - Building a startup with young families to support 19.06 - Sharing the conviction for the idea and bringing the team on the journey22.34 - What they hired for in the early stages of the business and why their fist hire was a CTO23.42 - Attracting the best people in the early stages 26.06 - The story behind the haunted office space they previously worked in 28.53 - The importance of co-founders and how Matt met his co-founder, Nick, in school29.58 - Getting key customers such as 7/11 and McDonalds US early on in the journey32.40 - Acquiring enterprise customers and the importance of doing both talking and listening in pitch meetings34.58 - Finding the industries your product is ideal for a pitch to the largest players within the industry 38.13 - Listening to the customers to first understand their focus, their why and their needs 39.30 - How COVID-19 provided the team time to reassess and refocus the business43.50 - Attracting the right people as advisors and connecting with people47.34 - Making the most out of advisors/board members 49.00 - Raising $4M Series A during COVID-19 41.49 - Trusting your instincts when choosing between investors 54.12 - What’s next for Qsic 55.28 - Where to find Matt and Qsic

Links Mentioned

Matt's Links

Matts’ LinkedIn Qsic Website Qsic LinkedIn

People Mentioned

Nick Larkins - Matts’ Co-founderMatt Allen - Qsic ChairmanDean Dorrell - Carthona Capital James Synge - Carthona Capital Andy Mullins - Sand Hill Road Group

Companies Mentioned

Carthona Capital

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Matt Allen and Andy Mullins for their help with this interview! ?

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

Find all links to the podcast here.

https://youtu.be/wtS-XOh2Um4

The post Ep148 – Matt Elsley (Co-founder & CEO – Qsic) on teams, fundraising and enterprise sales appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep147 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the General Partner of Tidal Ventures, Wendell Keuneman.

Prior to Tidal, Wendell had over 20 years of deep operational experience including seeing 3 companies grow and scale from startups to successful exits.

He was the Co-founder & CTO of Carbon Twelve (acquired by Broadsoft), CTO of Inference (acquired by Five9s) and as the Head of Product of Atlassian’s Confluence product, with the company IPOing in 2015 and with a current market cap of $59B.

He is now the General Partner at Tidal Ventures, a $30M seed stage investor into product-led companies and founders.

In this interview we discussed:

Lessons from taking 3 companies from startups to successful exitsHow to develop product principles for your startupModels for effective product managementHow to find value adding investors& much more!

Timestamps

2.04 - Introduction to Wendell and his background 3.17 - Basketball principles that Wendell has used to inform in his startup journey5.29 - How Wendell started coding as a hobby and the journey he took to pursuing it further 7.21 - How Wendell navigated starting a business with family pressure and support10.28 - Wendells’ journey starting Carbon12 12.34 - Starting a second company following first company success 15.51 - How Wendell started working for Atlassian after seeing a sign in their office window and interviewing on the spot 18.53 - Early days of Atlassian and their focus on product 20.11 - The similarities between successful products across all Wendells’ past ventures 21.59 - Importance of establishing product principles 24.17 - How early stage founders should begin defining their product principles 27.53 - Revisiting product principles as a company grows and changes29.46 - Getting buy in from team members on new or changing product principles 32.28 - Frameworks founders can implement to support growth in their business35.50 - The three questions Wendell asked himself to make the move from Atlassian41.04 - Ensuring values are applied in an additive way rather than being weaponised 42.58 - What support should founders expect from their VC’s 46.02 - The theme’s Tidal prioritises when reviewing startup opportunities47.47 - How founders can determine the best VC to work with when presented with different options 52.13 - Wendell’s superpower to be able to sort through content to find the most important information for his portfolio partners55.16 - Delivering information and advice in a way that is most appropriate to the founder 56.35 - Where you can find Wendell and get involved with Tidal Ventures

Links Mentioned

Wendells’ Links:

Wendells’ Twitter Wendells’ Linked In Wendells’ Blog Tidal Ventures Website Tidal Ventures Linked In Tidal Ventures TwitterTidal Ventures Contact Email

People Mentioned:

Mike Cannon-Brookes (Atlassian)Scott Farquhar (Atlassian)Craig Cowdrey (Sonder)Andrea Kowalski (Tidal Ventures)Matt Barnett (Bonjoro)

Companies Mentioned:

AtlassianInference SolutionsCiscoBroadsoft Carbon 12 (acquired)Jira (Atlassian Product)Confluence (Atlassian Product)Trello (Atlassian Product)Five9

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Matt Barnett and Craig Cowdrey for their help with research for this interview ?

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/3nj777kHdhQ

The post Ep147 – Wendell Keuneman (General Partner – Tidal Ventures) on building your product principles appeared first...

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My guest for Ep146 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Barja, Federico Collarte.

Baraja are the creators of the Spectrum Scan LiDAR technology, which simply put, enables autonomous vehicles to “see” the road via lasers.

Their pioneering technology completely rethinks environment scanning for autonomous vehicles, by exploiting the wavelength properties of light to steer lasers through a prism in order to better detect objects at range.

To date, Baraja has raised $63.9M led by funds such as Blackbird and Main Sequence Ventures.

In this episode we covered a range of topics including:

The importance of being contrarian (and right!)Balancing long term vision with short term executionThe challenges and opportunities that come from building a market from scratchHow Baraja got investment for a deep tech business at a very early prototype stage& much more!

Time Stamps

2.34 - The focus of Federicos’ company Baraja - LiDAR technology3.24 - Federico’s background, why and how he started Baraja 14.34 - Building an idea and business with conviction18.45 - How Federico got from Blackbird and the importance of a personal connection and experiencing the product when partnering with a VC22.28 - The challenges of hiring staff in a new industry 27.09 - The pros and cons of building a startup in Australia31.09 - What Federico and Baraja look for when hiring talent34.22 - Building and maintaining culture in a growing organisation37.30 - The power of bringing well known and respected people into the company40.19 - The importance of understanding your customers needs early in the development journey43.47 - The long term systems worth investing in especially in the early stages of launching the business45.53 - The importance of long-term contact and interaction with both the customers and the product 48.32 - What’s next for the Baraja following a $40M funding round50.30 - How you can get in contact with Federico and find out more information about Baraja

Links Mentioned:

Federico’s Link:

Federico Collarte Linked In Baraja Baraja Careers

People Mentioned:

Cibby Pulikkaseril (Co-Founder + CTO)Rick Baker (Blackbird)Sam Wong (Blackbird) Niki Scevak (Blackbird) Bill Bartee (Formerly Blackbird)Duncan Ross (Baraja Early Hire)Craig Barratt - (Board Member)

Companies Mentioned:

Blackbird Main Sequence VenturesZoox Cochlear

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Cibby Pulikkaseril, Duncan Ross and Rick Baker for their help with research for this interview ? .

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/A4DJ4qM3C1M

The post Ep146 – Federico Collarte (Co-founder & CEO – Baraja) on building the future of autonomous vehicles appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep145 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Deputy, Ashik Ahmed.

Ashik launched Deputy in 2008, initially as the co-founder and CTO of the business.

He transitioned to the CEO role after Deputy raised there Series A funding round in 2017.

Deputy has since gone on to being used by 250,000 businesses across more than 100 countries and the company has raised a total of AUD$144M ($101M USD) including Australia’s largest ever Series B funding round of AUD$111M ($81M USD).

However, it hasn’t been all plain sailing with the company suffering significantly through COVID last year having to stand down 30% of it’s staff.

In this interview we covered a wide range of topics including:

How Deputy and Ashik managed the challenges of COVIDWhy founders need to retain their customer obsession and love customers who complainAshik’s journey from software developer to the CEO roleAshik’s approach to fundraising and building relationships with VCs and investorsWhy more companies die from indigestion rather than starvation& much more!

Timestamps

2.08 - An introduction to Ashik and his company Deputy2.47 - What the early days of Deputy where like and how that formed how the company operates today4.09 - The importance of customers loving your product and using Net Promoter Score (NPS) to inform product changes7.29 - When you should start measuring NPS and why it should continue even as the company grows9.10 - How to incorporate customer feedback and be accessible to customers whilst growing11.24 - Transitioning from Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) during a period of growth and Series A fundraising16.51 - Learning to be a CEO and growing with the company whilst remaining humble19.47 - The tools and approach Ashik used to develop his CEO skills21.44 - Surviving and pivoting during the challenges of 202028.58 - Managing a team through COVID and letting people go32.42 - The importance of values for culture and always aiming for success36.44 - Ashik's advice for founders on how to define your companies’ values39.45 - How to build and maintain relationships with investors44.23 - Focusing on the right goals, staying focused and executing quickly48.14 - Where to find Ashik and Deputy

Links Mentioned

Ashik's Links

Ashik's TwitterAshik's LinkedInDeputyDeputy careers

People Mentioned

Howard LeibermanSteve LoughlinLisi SchappiSimon Griffiths Dave ZinmanDHHMat BeechePaul BassatTobi LutkeMelanie PerkinsElon MuskJeff BezosJason Fried

Companies Mentioned

OpenViewSquarePeg Capital

Resources Mentioned:

How OpenView won the Deputy Deal - Article by Howard Leiberman

Past Episodes Mentioned

Ep120 - Simon GriffithsEp119 - DHH

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Lisi Schappi, Paul Bassat and Howard Leibman for their help with research for this interview .

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/h_0l7x7nmjI

The post Ep145 – Ashik Ahmed (Co-founder & CEO – Deputy) on COVID, conviction and customer obsession appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep144 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the Co-founder & CEO of Code Pilot, David Lemphers.

Dave has recently returned to Australia after spending 12 years in the US.

He initially moved there to be an early member of the Windows Azure engineering team, before jumping out and launching his own startups.

To date Dave has co-founded and successfully exited 4 AI startups including; ZenDeals which was acquired by RetailMeNot for $22M just 2 years after launching and his last startup, Code Pilot, which was acquired by AngelList.

If that wasn’t enough, David has also authored 3 US patents on AI and ML and serves as the CTO in residence at Techstars.

In this interview we covered a wide range of topics including:

Dave’s Lessons from founding, growing and exiting 4 companiesParticularly how to setup and negotiate an acquisition dealLifting the lid on what happens after the acquisition goes throughHow to attract great talentHow to create an environment of flow state for your teamHow to create and set gold standards& much more!

Timestamps

1.59 - Davids’ journey from growing up in Melbourne to making an impact in the startup industry and working with some of biggest companies in the world 4.32 - The impact of and learnings from living and working in the U.S.9.58 - The difference between Australia and the U.S. start up culture13.14 - How and why David had the desire to begin his first startup venture17.03 - Why founders should go to the U.S. to experience the local startup culture and the value of in-person interaction21.01 - Recreating the startup culture in Australia 25.55 - Davids’ introduction to machine learning and getting buy in for upcoming technologies 32.57 - Hiring for potential over existing skills and building a great team 38.28 - Understanding no two businesses are the same and finding the right cultural fit for your team39.32 - The process of being acquired and the challenges of due diligence - reference to acquisition of Zen Deals by RetailMeNot 51.34 - Advice for founders to prepare for a successful acquisition56.12 - Building a successful company and incorporating practises in preparation for acquisition 57.43 - The importance of diversity in skill, knowledge and expertise especially in the early stages of a startup 1.04.29 - Sharing company vision to attract great talent and important things to consider when looking for work at a startup1.10.52 - Creating challenging work to encourage a flow state within a team 1.16.25 - How to get in contact with David

Links Mentioned

Davids’ Links

Davids’ LinkedIn

People

Eric Schmidt Yousef KhalidiGary FlakeDave Cutler Rachael NeumannBill Gates Cotter Cunningham Steven PhoGeorge ChondrosShreyas KarnikBrian Tuttle

Companies

Code PilotZenDeals Super! RetailMeNotAngelListMicrosoft PWC BroomlyYahoo SlackASSA ABLOYOverture

Past Episodes

Ep57 – Rachael NeumannEp130 – Rachael Neumann

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Shreyas Karnik and George Chondros for their help with research for this interview ? .

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/8DlNXYhXDaw

The post Ep144 – David Lemphers (Co-founder & CEO – Code Pilot) on exits, thinking big and creating gold standards appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 143 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & Executive Chairman of AgriWebb, Justin Webb.

Describing Justin as a successful serial entrepreneur, would not be doing justice to his background.

He studied economics and applied mathematics at Harvard and did a post-graduate MBA at Oxford. He would then take his work on the application of Machine Learning and AI in asset management to found and grow 2 hedge funds before selling them to Macquarie Bank and Westpac.

He then went on to found and build PacWealth Capital into a $4Bn Advisory firm in the South Pacific.

He is now the Co-founder & Executive Chairman of AgriWebb which is on the mission to digitise on-farm production data.

Since launching 6 years ago, the company manages over 15m head of livestock across 90m acres around the globe and recently raised a $30M Series B round, valuing the company north of $100M.

In this interview we covered a range of topics including:

AgriWebb’s journey to $100M valuationHow to attract and retain great talentHow to find your believers and early adoptersThe future of Agtech& much more!

Timestamps

2.53 - Justin’s background before and leading up to starting AgriWebb 6.51 - The parallels between sport and business following Justin's past as a Rower 10.37 - How Justin started two hedge funds that were eventually sold to Westpac and Macquarie13.37 - Moving back to Australia and getting involved in family business16.22 - Where the idea for AgriWebb stemmed from and advice for finding a business idea for early stage founders21.33 - Building a great team 29.01 - Finding the early adopter customer in traditionally slow to market industries34.36 - Choosing when and how to respond to customer feedback when creating features42.01 - Managing a growing team and how the founders role changes as the team grows47.42 - Building family first culture within a team and building culture remotely 1.00.37 - Where to find AgriWebb and Justin

Links Mentioned

Justin Webbs’ Links

AgriWebb Justin Webb - Linked In

People

Rachael NeumannAl BentleyKevin Baum (Justins’ Co-founder) John Fargher (Justins’ Co-founder) Chris CoePhilip Chan (AgriWebb Chief Product Officer)Kenny Sabir (AgriWebb Head of Engineering)Eric Martinez de Morentin (AgriWebb Development Manager) Paul Parton (AgriWebb Software Engineer)Laurence Hey (AgriWebb Lead Software Engineer)Kogulan Baskaran (AgriWebb Senior Software Engineer)

Past Episodes

Ep142 - Al BentleyEp57 - Rachael NeumannEp130 - Rachael Neumann

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Kevin Baum and Chris Coe for their help with research for this interview ? .

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/ZJWRX47iBQM

The post Ep143 – Justin Webb (Co-founder & Chairman – AgriWebb) on building the future of AgTech appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep142 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder & CEO of Simply Wall St., Al Bentley.

Al started Simply Wall St (then known as Ninjavest) as a weekend project from a startup weekend competition back in 2013.

Fast forward 8 years later and the company now has more than 3M users and has raised $3.4M including it’s last round of $2.4M in funding that it raised from its own member base.

In this interview we covered a range of topics including:

How Al built an organic growth engine that allowed Simply Wall St to acquire 3M usersHow to prioritise feedback on product requests from customersHow Al created scarcity when fundraising & much more!

Timestamps

1.51 - Als’ story of starting Simply Wall St. 3.01 - His background as a Naval Architect 4.22 - Launching Simply Wall St. as Ninja Vest at a startup competition weekend 7.10 - The importance of validation and Als’ takeaways from the startup weekend9.35 - How Simply Wall St. was developed following the weekend15.29 - Finding a co-founder and why you need one 23.22 - Advice for founders about listening to customer feedback and making decisions on what is worth pursuing 27.27 - The importance of product market fit 32.48 - Focusing on building a quality team and bringing Mahesh onboard37.34 - Managing a growing team41.28 - How to identify the needs of the organisation when hiring42.57 - How and why Simply Wall St. co-founder Nick stepped back from the company 44.47 - Als’ approach to growth52.39 - Prioritising resource allocation and choosing focus areas 56.46 - Als’ recommended resources for founders 1.02.14 - The challenges of fundraising 1.09.52 - Questions you should be asking investors to ensure alignment 1.13.37 - Where you can find Simply Wall St.

Links Mentioned

Al Bently’s Links

Simply Wall StAl Bentley TwitterAl Bentley About Me

People:

Sam Birmingham Marcus TanBill TaiRick BakerBen HeapToby Heap Nick van den BergMarty Cagan (product expert) Zac BrookesMelanie PerkinsMahesh MuralidharSean EllisAndrew ChenAlex Schultz

Events

West Tech Fest Startup Weekend

Resources

Angel ListCanvaThe Mom Test BookMarty Cagan Product BooksJobs to be done

Past Episodes

Ep139 - Mahesh Muralidhar Ep141 – Alex Zaccaria

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Nick van den Berg and Zac Brookes for their help with research for this interview ? .

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/95Nk6tejbvs

The post Ep142 – Al Bentley (Founder & CEO – Simply Wall St) on building your growth engine appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep141 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Linktree, Alex Zaccaria.

Alex started his career in the music industry. With his brother Anthony, he co-founded Bolster, an agency that specialises in running digital and creative campaigns for music festivals and events.

Through the agency, they identified a problem they kept facing on behalf of their clients, how to effectively share multiple links on social media.

They built a tool to help solve that problem for their clients.

That tool is called Linktree and is now used by over 10M users globally including celebrities such as Selena Gomez and Jamie Oliver and brands like Redbull and HBO

At the end of last year, Linktree announced they had raised their first round of external funding, raising $10.7M in a round led by AirTree and Insight Partners.

In this interview we covered a range of topics including:

The importance of understanding why users are using your productsHow they achieved viral growth to 10M usersHow Alex developed a partnership with Facebook during the early days of BolsterManaging engineering teams as a non-technical founderTheir journey to raising $10M and deciding which investors to raise from& much more!

Show notes:

1.57 - Where Alex’s desire to become an entrepreneur came from 3.48 - The influence Alex’s family and upbringing had on his career journey and what he learned from them5.38 - Launching Bolster with some of the largest festivals in Australia as clients9.45 - How they secured a partnership with Facebook through working around the existing system11.53 - Alex’s approach to learning quickly and continuously13.15 - Why meeting a customers needs is the most important step when building a platform16.36 - How Linktree has changed from the first version and how the idea began19.14 - Welcoming and utilising big name, early customers of Linktree 21.10 - How linktree was started as a side hustle and what it would be today if it was started differently24.45 - The importance of listening to consumers and having conversations to determine their needs26.32 - Building vitality for a ready to market product30.35 - Why Linktree prioritises simplicity in product design 33.38 - Utilising product managers as a non-technical founder to prioritise features36.39 - Intuitive decision making and having the right people around you39.40 - Working with a technical lead and development team effectively 43.01 - The challenges of scale 46.04 - The process to raising $10M 49.09 - How to pick the right VC partner when raising 52.29 - What Alex would do differently when raising capital again54.51 - The importance of developing a product naturally and authentically57.51 - Staying ahead of the competition as a market leader 58.49 - Maintaining culture whilst growing team size

Links mentioned:

Alex’s businesses:

LinktreeBolster

People mentioned:

Nick HumphreysMike Bywaters John HendersonMel and Cliff from Canva

Previous episodes mentioned:

Creating a winning culture with Mahesh Muralidhar (Ep139)

VC partners:

InsightAirtree

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Nick Humphreys, Mike Bywaters and John Henderson for their help with research for this interview ? .

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/5FAi2QtFU54

The post Ep141 – Alex Zaccaria (Co-founder & CEO – Linktree) on viral growth, customer focus and intuition appeared first on

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My guest for Ep140 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder of Atto and Indie Labs, Kate Kendall.

Kate is one of the pioneers of the Indie movement, supporting alternative approaches to building companies focused on profits rather than fundraising.

She is the Founder of Atto, an accelerator and micro fund for female founders that champions the no-code movement and also runs IndieConf, an alternative conference built for those building profitable tech startups

Prior to this, she founded The Fetch, a curated reading list and discovery platform for professional events for several years before shutting the community down to focus on her next startup, CloudPeeps which continues to operate today.

We discussed a range of topics in this interview including:

5.52 - How to leverage power dynamics to building effective communities19.23 - Kate’s decision to walk away from a Series A funding round to focus on building the Indie way34.08 - How to build global community movement through decentralised community models53.20 - How to set up advisory boards and advisory board agreements& much more!

Links mentioned

Kate’s Businesses

The FetchCloudPeepsAtto Indie LabsIndie Conf

Community Management Systems

Circle.soMighty NetworksReddit

Centralised/Decentralised communities

Ted TedX

People

Jason LemkinCasey Fenton - CouchsurfingCasey Fenton (Founder of Couchsurfing) Podcast - Ep097 on Hacking your ego Mike Cannon-Brookes - Atlassian

Advisors

Joel Gascoigne - Buffer Ligaya Tichy - Yelp & Airbnb David Bill - CoTweet Maren Kate Donovan - Zirtual

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Kat Loughrey for her help with research for this interview ?

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/tE7Dg2adiXM

The post Ep140 – Kate Kendall (Founder – Atto & Indie Labs) on power dynamics, advisors & community appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep139 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Mahesh Muralidhar.

Mahesh is one of the leading people & culture operators in the region.

In 2015, he joined Canva as employee number 25 as their Head of People Operations, helping to turn Canva into one of the best rated places to work. Her then went on to join Airtasker as their VP of People Operations.

In 2020 he joined Simply Wall St. as a contracted COO, helping to setup their leadership team as they grew from 12 to 32 team members.

He is now a mentor and investor at Startmate and is the CEO of NZ Scaleup, a not for profit that is focused on accelerating NZ and Australian startups and scaleups.

We dived into all things people and culture in this episode including:

How founders can attract and retain the best talent with limited resourcesHow to scale 1:1 relationshipsThe importance of creating a winning cultureHow to provide effective feedback& much more!

Show notes:

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Al Bentley and Tristan Martin for their help with research for this interview! ?

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/0rciDNrq2Sk

The post Ep139 – Mahesh Muralidhar (CEO – NZ ScaleUp) on creating a winning culture appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep138 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the Founder of Sked Social and Galileo Ventures, Hugh Stephens.

Hugh founded Sked Social as a solo founder in 2013. The product is now used by over 10,000 companies worldwide and generates millions of dollars in revenue each year, all without taking any external capital.

Alongside Sked Social, he is also the Founder & General Partner at Galileo Ventures, a $10M venture capital firm and growth accelerator program that alongside investing $200,000 in early stage startups, also provides 12 months of practical support, 1:1 coaching and much more.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

Using constraints to your advantageA deep dive on pricing strategiesHow to decide whether to bootstrap or raise capital for your startup Lifting the lid on the challenges in raising a fund& much more!

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to James Alexander and Nathan Murphy for their help with research for this interview!

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/WJedO1Q2Vww

The post Ep138 – Hugh Stephens (Founder – Galileo VC) on constraints, pricing dynamics & fundraising appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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I’m delighted to be kicking off 2021 by bringing back one of our most popular guests to date, Matt Allen for Ep137 of The Startup Playbook Podcast.

Matt Allen is one of Australia’s most active and successful angel investors, being amongst the first checks in leading Australian startups such as Buildkite and Practice Ignition, both of which have featured on this podcast previously!

He is now the CEO of Tractor Ventures, which is a revenue based investment fund, providing alternative sources and options to founders looking to access capital to unlock growth or create their own safety net through secondary offerings.

We dived in deep on this interview and covered a range of topics including:

His approach to building a portfolioWhen founders should consider “hitting save” by offering secondariesWhy selling equity can be extremely costly for foundersHow to balance having too much or too little egoWhy founders need confidence capital& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

How to attract technical co-founders with Matt Allen (Startup Playbook Ep028)Niki ScevakGlenn GillenSilver bullets and culture with Glenn Gillen (Startup Playbook Ep047)Noelle Smit (Co-founder @ Teamgage)Scott Thomas (Co-founder @ Creatively Squared)Keith Pitt (Co-founder @ Buildkite)Lachlan Donald (Co-founder @ Buildkite)Equity over ego with Lachlan Donald (Startup Playbook Ep127)BuildkiteTiming, feedback and bootstrapping with DHH (Startup Playbook Ep119)Tractor VenturesMatt Allen (Twitter)

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Noelle Smit, Scott Thomas and Keith Pitt for their help with research for this interview! ?

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/9OEhK5L-8OI

The post Ep137 – Matt Allen (CEO – Tractor Ventures) on believers, secondaries & confidence capital appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep136 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder & CEO of HealthMatch, Manuri Gunawardena.

Manuri launched HealthMatch in 2017 after witnessing first hand the challenges of patients looking to gain access to clinical trials.

In her final years of medical school, she worked in neuro-oncology research particularly focussed on Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) tumours, an incurable and aggressive form of brain cancer.

Through her experience she saw first hand how difficult it was for researchers to find appropriate patients and how reliant patients were on their doctors to have the knowledge for cures.

That’s where HealthMatch was born from - a passion to empower patients to not only understand their treatment options, but to gain access too.

Since launching in 2017 the business has gone through incredible growth, particularly this year where they have grown from a team of 5 to 20 and from 8,000 users at the end of May to over 80,000 users by the end of the year.

As Manuri also announced on this podcast, HealthMatch raised $18M in Series B funding led by Square Peg Capital, taking their total funding to date to $25M.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

Importance of building credibility through domain expertise, particularly for non-tech foundersThe importance of having a clear north star missionWhy and how Manuri looks for “horsepower” during the hiring processHow to get buy-in from enterprises and investors through effective storytelling& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

HealthMatchHealthMatch Pitch at Startup Battlefield Australia (2017)TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Australia (2017)Zero to one: Notes on startups, or how to build the future - Peter Thiel (book)The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a business when there are no easy answers - Ben Horowitz (book)Julia WellsMarisa WarrenMelanie Perkins Anton BorzovAndreesen HorowitzAlister ColemanTempus PartnersPaul BassatPaul Bassat Podcast (Startup Playbook Ep024)Square Peg Capital Simon Griffiths Podcast (Startup Playbook Ep120)Why we sleep: Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams - Matthew Walker (book)Kaushik Sen Kaushik Sen Podcast (Startup Playbook Ep020) Tony HoltLucy TurnbullRoche AustraliaHealthMatch careers page

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Paul Bassat and Alister Coleman for their help with research for this interview!

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/22ChN2P9pto

The post Ep136 – Manuri Gunawardena (Founder & CEO – HealthMatch) on setting your North Star appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep135 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Gabby Leibovich, Co-founder of The Catch Group.

Gabby and his brother Hezi are two of Australia’s leading e-commerce entrepreneurs.

In October 2006, they launched Catch of the Day, a website that provided an exclusive deal on it’s platform everyday. By 2010 it had become Australia’s most visited online shopping site. In August 2019, Catch was sold to Wesfarmers for $230M.

Alongside Catch, they also launched Scoopon in 2010 which was acquired by the Lux Group in 2017 and after launching EatNow in 2012 and merging with Menulog in early 2015, they were then acquired by Uk based Just Eat for a whopping $855M just a few short months later.

Many of the stories and lessons behind these businesses was documented in Gabby and Hezi’s new book Catch of the decade…This book been one of my favourite reads this year!

In this interview we discussed some of the themes mentioned in the book including :

Building culture that attracts and retains talentThe story behind Scoopon’s decision to offer $1M in refunds after an airline went bankruptBalancing trade-offs when making key decisions as a leaderHow 1+1=3 with the right partners(and my personal favourite) chatting about all things Liverpool FC and how you can stop “kissing frogs” by having great leadership& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

Catch of the decade (book)Hezi Leibovich (Co-founder of The Catch Group)catch.com.auWesfarmers acquisition of CatchScooponGrocery RunMumgoLuxury EscapesEatNow and Menulog mergerJust Eat acquisition of MenulogYoutube video of Gabby’s weddingAdir ShiffmanAdir Shiffman Podcast ( Startup Playbook Ep012)Vijay Bala (First hire at Catch)Ferry Satio (First programmer at Catch)AirAustralia collapseDavid Shein Podcast (Startup Playboo Ep133)Nick Molnar (Co-founder & Co-CEO at Afterpay)Anthony Eisen (Co-founder & Co-CEO at Afterpay)VinomofoJustin Dry Podcast (Startup Playbook Ep003)Pumpkin Patch acquisition by Catch GroupAdam Schwab (Co-founder of Luxury Escapes)Jeremy Same (Co-founder of Luxury Escapes)Paul Greenberg (Co-founder of Deals Direct)Ruslan Kogan (Founder & CEO of Kogan)

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Adir Shiffman and Guy Polak for their help with research for this interview ? .

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with Manuri Gunawardena, the Founder & CEO of HealthMatch.Date: 8th December 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep136Manuri

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/FD42tjzhS9o

The post Ep135 – Gabby Leibovich (Co-founder – The Catch Group) on culture, leadership & kissing frogs appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep134 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & Co-CEO of Open and Huddle Insurance, Jason Wilby.

In 2016, Jason and his Co-founder, Jonathan Buck, launched Huddle, Open's Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) brand which is now Australia's most popular tech-driven Insurance company.

The tech developed through Huddle is now the foundation for Open's B2B solution, an AI powered platform that makes financial services open, less costly and more reliable for consumers.

To date, Open has raised $24M including a $3.1M Series A extension round led by AirTree.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

Balancing and managing risk when growing startupsHow to find and assess the right partners and investors for your businessBuilding and implementing company culture based on shared valuesOpen’s journey to raising $24M in funding& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

Jonathan Buck (Co-founder @ Open)Auxilio VenturesLouisa Mackay (Director @ Auxilio Ventures)Hollard InsuranceOpen BankingJames Cameron (Partner @ AirTree Ventures)AirTreeLachlan Brown (Growth & Comms @ Open & Huddle)Huddle InsuranceJason Wilby (Twitter)Jason Wilby (LinkedIn)

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to James Cameron, Louisa Mackay and Jonathan Buck for their help with research for this interview ? .

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/MiEj4bN3Doo

The post Ep134 – Jason Wilby (Co-founder & Co-CEO – Open) on risk, purpose and shared values appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep133 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & General Partner of Our Innovation Fund, David Shein.

In 1986, David launched Com Tech, just 9 months after moving to Australia from South Africa.

Fast forward 14 years and the company grew to 1,400 staff across Australia and revenues of $700M before eventually being acquired by Dimension Data for $1B.

Since then, David has transitioned into becoming an investor and mentor to a number of startups, many of which have been successfully exited. These include Zipmoney, CalReply, Latam Autos, Pocketbook, Centric Wealth, BlueFire, BizCover, MacromatiX and Holly Connects.

He is currently the Co-founder & General Partner of Our Innovation Fund, a $125M early stage venture capital fund that invests in exciting Australian startups.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

Building and scaling a company culture through trust, respect and storytellingCom Tech’s infamous approach of legendary customer service that helped beat out it’s competitorsWhat David looks for as an investor& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

Nathan CherNo Rules Rules (book) - Reed Hastings & Erin MeyerSteve NolaArianna Huffington - “No more brilliant jerks”Holly ConnectsLance BerksBare CremationsClear DynamicsSteve Vamosa16z Podcast: Designing a Culture of Reinvention with Ben Horowitz & Reed HastingsThe Hard thing about Hard things (book) - Ben HorowitzJohn Chambers (Cisco)VoiceGenie TechnologiesRangeMeNicky Jackson

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Ross Cochrane, Nathan Cher, Steve Nola and Lance Berks who helped with research for this interview ? .

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with the Co-founder & Co-CEO of Open AI & Huddle, Jason WilbyDate: 24th November 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/ep134Open

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/LOK9H4wFY6g

The post Ep133 – David Shein (GP – Our Innovation Fund) on legendary customer service appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep132 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder & CEO of Practice Ignition, Guy Pearson.

Guy has helped to transform the accounting industry, initially with Interactive Accounting which launched in 2009 as one of Australia’s first cloud-based accounting firms.

He went on to launch 5 businesses between the ages of 25 and 28, the last one being Practice Ignition.

Practice Ignition has become one of the leading companies in it's space with over 120 staff around the world and to date having raised $35M including a $26M Series B round of funding led by Tiger Global Management.

Alongside his role at Practice Ignition, Guy is also an active angel investor and has been invested in over 20 startups since 2013.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

Building for customers of the futureThe key aspects of effective storytelling for foundersHow Practice Ignition and Interactive Accounting grew through ecosystem partnershipsWhy Practice Ignition went global from day 1, by expanding to 4 countries and 4 offices with just 7 staff!Guy’s fundraising experience in raising $35M and what he looks for when he angel invests& much more!

Show notes:

4 Pines beerNicholas Muldoon (Co-CEO @ EasyAgile)Gareth Bryant (Director @ Interactive Accounting)Interactive AccountingPractice IgnitionXeroSelf managed super fundsMatt Allen Podcast (Startup Playbook Ep028)Matt Allen (Angel Investor @ Practice Ignition)David New (Head of APAC @ Practice Ignition)Receipt BankAirbnb deckLinkedIn Series B pitch deckMichael Wood (Founder @ Receipt Bank)Mikkel Svane (Co-founder & CEO @ Zendesk)Holly Cardew Podcast (Startup Playbook Ep128)Craig Winkler (Co-founder @ MYOB)Adrian Di Marco (Founder of TechnologyOne)

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to David New and Gareth Bryant for their help with research for this interview. Also a big thank you to Matt Allen for the intro to help make this interview happen!

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with David Shein, the Co-founder & General Partner of Our Innovation Fund.Date: 10th November 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/ep133DavidShein

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/CsqF2J4NuKs

The post Ep132 – Guy Pearson (Founder & CEO – Practice Ignition) on vision, storytelling & ecosystems appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep131 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Fast, Domm Holland.

Domm was previously the Founder & CEO of on-demand towing platform, Tow that processed more than $50M in transactions. During his tenure there, Domm was awarded the top spot on the Deloitte Tech Fast 50 and recognized as the Brisbane Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

He is now the Co-founder & CEO of Fast, the world’s fastest online login and checkout platform.

Despite only being founded 18 months ago, Fast has grown rapidly, growing from a team of 2 to over 65 and raising $22.5M in funding led by Stripe with further participation from Index Ventures and Susa ventures.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

The importance of building organic relationshipsWhy Fast prescribes to “building out loud”Why Fast ignored all inbound leads to focus on building their outbound sales strategyThe key traits you should look for when making your first hire in a new business segment& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

Product HuntFastESTA visaAllison Barr Allen (Co-founder & COO @ Fast)Allison's frictionless finance thesisJan Hammer (Investor @ Index Ventures)Brian Sugar (Founder @ Pop sugar)Nick Molnar (Co-founder & CEO @ Afterpay)StripeTim Doyle podcast interview (Startup Playbook Ep123)bigcommerce.com/DM/fastfast.cotwitter.com/fasttwitter.com/Domm

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with Guy Pearson, the Founder & CEO of Practice Ignition.Date: 27th October 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep132Guy

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/Gx02Z1HEpO0

The post Ep131 – Domm Holland (Co-founder & CEO – Fast) on networks, transparency & focus appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep130 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was returning guest and Founder of Working Theory Angels, Rachael Neumann.

I first interviewed Rachael for Ep057 of the podcast back in July 2017 when we discussed her background as the former General Manager of Eventbrite in Australia and her views on investing in founders and the ecosystem at large.

Over the last 3 years, Rachael has continued to double down on this space as a startup advisor and angel investor, board member of StartupAus and sitting on two federal program committees, the Entrepreneurs’ Programme Committee (EPC) and Boosting Female Founders Initiative (BFFI).

She was also recently the Head of Startups at AWS where I had the pleasure of working with Rachael before she transitioned to the AWS Leadership team.

Alongside all of these committments, she has also Founded and launched Working Theory Angels, a new angel network designed to mobilise more investment into early stage startups and attract new investors to the space.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

The importance of building trusted relationships between founders, advisors and investorsHow to attract world class talentThe golden metrics and magic moments that unlock growthHow Rachael builds conviction when investing in startups& much more!

Full interview below!

Show Notes:

Working Theory AngelsRachael Neumann podcast (Startup Playbook Ep057)AWSBoosting Female Founders Initiative (BFFI)StartmateStartupAusEventbritePaul NapthaliPortfolio theoryDeliciouChatterizeJeremiah (Co-founder & CEO - Muso)Megan Elizabeth (Founder & CEO - Bellish)Kylie FrazerEleanor VenturesKapicheTixelMicroba

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Paul Napthali, Kylie Frazer, Bessi Graham, Megan Elizabeth and Jeremiah Siemianow for their help with research for this interview.

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with Jason Wilby, the Co-founder & Co-CEO of Huddle and Open.Date: 6th October 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep131Open

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/_EHD6MnTFPc

The post Ep130 – Rachael Neumann (Founder – Working Theory Angels) on trust, talent & golden metrics appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep129 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Sendle, James Chin Moody.

James has previously held roles as Executive Director, Development at the CSIRO, Australian National Commissioner for UNESCO, member of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology Advisory Board and Trustee for the Australian Museum.

He was also Chief Systems Engineer for the Australian Satellite FedSat, the first Australian satellite to be launched in 30 years.

James is now the Co-Founder & CEO of Sendle, Australia's first 100% carbon neutral courier service.

Since launching in Australia in 2014, the company has launched in the US, partnered with significant eCommerce players such as Shopify and eBay, grown to over half a million account holders and raised $50M in funding.

In this interview we discussed a range of topics including:

The benefits of systems based thinkingThe 5 H’s of Sendle’s company cultureThe Hell Yeah decision frameworkHow to build reputation with investors& much more!

Full interview below!

Show Notes:

FedSatCSIROSendleAustralian Space Research InstituteUnited Nations Youth Climate CouncilBCorpCraig Davis (Co-founder of Sendle)Adam Milgrom podcast (Startup Playbook Ep125)Giant Leap FundXero QuickbooksSilfreshSean Geoghegan (Co-founder of Sendle)

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Adam Milgrom (Venture Partner at Giant Leap Fund) who helped with research for this interview.

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with Rachael Neumann, the Founder of Working Theory AngelsDate: 29th September 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/ep130Rachael

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/O0BcE4WeGaE

The post Ep129 – James Chin Moody (Co-founder & CEO – Sendle) on systems, reputation & hell yeahs! appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 128 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder of Pixc and Co-founder of Vop, Holly Cardew.

In 2014, Holly launched Pixc, a product that provides a quick, efficient and easy way for store owners to have retail-ready photos.

Pixc was selected to join the first batch of Telstra’s MuruD accelerator and batch 13 of the 500 Startups accelerator programs.

She launched, grew and has continued to scale the business as a solo, non-technical founder.

Through her background in building ecommerce brands and success with Pixc, in 2016, Holly was listed as a Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia emerging entrepreneur to watch in the eCommerce and retail space.

If that wasn’t enough, Earlier this year she co-founded and launched her latest business Vop, which creates shoppable experiences from your TikTok videos.

In this interview we discussed:

Launching, growing and scaling tech startups a solo non-tech founderA deep dive on utilising channel partners as a growth strategyThe viral opportunities with TikTok and working with content content creators& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

Appliances OnlineOrangeUpworkPixcIntercomBrett FoxMuruD500 StartupsShopifyLachlan Donald podcast (Startup Playbook Ep127)DHH podcast (Startup Playbook Ep119)MagentoBigcommerceWoocommerceJames Clear “Atomic Habits”Mike Angell - Co-founder at VopCulture KingsFastSandy Lin (Tiktok - @smallbusinesstips_)TikTok creator marketplaceAngelist

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Brett Fox and Mike Angell who helped with research for this interview.

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with James Chin Moody, the Co-founder & CEO of SendleDate: 22nd September 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep129Sendle

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/2xziTIXijXE

The post Ep128 – Holly Cardew (Founder – Pixc & Vop) on TikTok, vision and channel partnerships appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 127 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Buildkite, Lachlan Donald.

Lachlan has been a technologist for over 20 years. In addition to building companies, he is drawn to building products that change how people think and work.

Before Buildkite, he was the founding CTO of 99designs, the world’s largest online graphic design marketplace. 99Designs connects businesses looking for design work with more than 220,000 graphic designers from 192 countries around the world.

Lachlan is now the Co-founder and CEO of Buildkite, the fastest way to reliably test and build software at any scale.

Buildkite is one of Australia's best keep secrets. They raised AUD$200,000 in seed funding when the company was first founded in 2013 and over the last 7 years have turned away investor interest to focus on profitability of the business.

However, Buildkite recently announced an AUD$28M Series A funding round led by Openview, providing a 42x return to it's early investors.

In this interview we discussed:

Being intentional with focusThe craftsmanship behind enduring productsBuildkite’s unique approach to sharing CEO roles between the foundersThe importance of equity over egoBuildkite’s fundraising process for it’s $28M Series A funding round after 7 years of bootstrapping& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

Buildkite99DesignsTim Lucas (Co-founder at Buildkite)Keith Pitt (Co-founder at Buildkite)Patrick Llewellyn (Startup Playbook Podcast - Ep085) Paul Annesley (99Designs)Mark Harbottle (Co-founder of Sitepoint, 99Designs and Flippa)Matt Mickiewicz (Co-founder of 99Designs and Hired)SitepointAccelJohn Barton (CTO of Amber Electric)GitHubHerokuREAEnvatoMYOBDHH (Founder & CTO of Basecamp and HEY)BasecampDHH (Startup Playbook Podcast - Ep119)Doug English (Co-founder & CTO of Culture Amp)Culture AmpDidier Elzinga (Co-founder & CEO of Culture Amp)Didier Elzinga (Startup Playbook Podcast - Ep101)Matt Allen (Co-founder & GP of Pick and Shovel)Matt Allen (Startup Playbook Podcast - Ep028)Openview PartnersGeneral CatalystESOPsThe deal Jeff Bezos got on Basecamp (blog)Ashley Smith (Openview)Trevor Oelschig (General Catalyst)Foreign Investment Review Board

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to John Barton, Doug English and Matt Allen who helped with research for this interview.

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with Holly Cardew, the Founder of Pixc and Co-founder of Vop.Date: 8th September 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep128Holly

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/4_QEE3UHS1U

The post Ep127 – Lachlan Donald (Co-founder & CEO – Buildkite) on equity over ego appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 126 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was, returning guest, the Co-founder & CEO of Zeller, Ben Pfisterer.

I first interviewed Ben in 2018 when he was the Australian Country Manager and Head of APAC at Square.

Prior to this he was part of the team that launched Jetstar in Australia and during his time at NAB he ran one of world’s first Mobile Payments / NFC Pilots.

Ben was also the Head of Innovation and Emerging Products at Visa where he led the innovation strategy and emerging product implementation across new payment solutions and channels, including the growth of Visa payWave in Australia to become one of the world’s largest Contactless markets.

Ben came back on the podcast to discuss his latest startup, Zeller, which recently came out of stealth mode to announce its $6.3M seed funding round led by Square Peg Capital to reimagine business banking.

In this interview we discussed:

The inputs of cultureThe complexity behind creating simple productsThe key traits he looks for when hiringThe theory of horizonsHow Zeller raised $6.3M without a name, product or team& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

JetstarNABVisaSquareZellerDominic Yap (Co-founder @ Zeller)David Conn (Head of Engineer @ Zeller)Ben Hensman (Senior Associate @ Square Peg Capital)Square Peg CapitalPaul Bassat (Co-founder @ Square Peg Capital)Paul Bassat Interview - Startup Playbook Podcast Ep024Jack Dorsey (Co-founder @ Twitter & Square)Sarah Friar (Former CFO @ Square and now CEO @ Nextdoor)Apex CapitalZeller job openings

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Ben Hensman who helped with the research for this interview!

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with Lachlan Donald, the Co-founder & CEO of Buildkite!Date: 1st September 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep127Buildkite

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/sDIHZBUJo84

The post Ep126 – Ben Pfisterer (Co-founder & CEO – Zeller) on the theory of horizons appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 125 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Venture Partner at Giant Leap Fund, Adam Milgrom.

Alongside his role at the Giant Leap Fund, Adam is also an angel investor, advisor and director for a number of Australian and international startups.

Giant Leap Fund is Australia's first venture capital fund that is 100% dedicated to investing in impact startups - rapidly scalable businesses that blend financial returns with real and measurable social and environmental benefits.

Through Giant Leap fund and from his own angel investments, Adam has made investments in over 20 startups including Applied, Mindset and Amber Electric and sits on the board of two of his investments; FutureSuper and YourGrocer

In this interview we discussed:

Why you should treat fundraising as a sales processHow to leverage investors for growthBuilding your decision-making muscleHow VCs approach building their portfolioThings that make startups irresistible to investors& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

Hype DCGiant Leap FundZapposDanny AlmagorImpact Investment GroupWill Richardson (Managing Partner - Giant Leap Fund)Will Richardson (Startup Playbook Ep073)Rachel Yang (Investment Manager - Giant Leap Fund)Charlie McDonald (Analyst - Giant Leap Fund)Venture Deals by Brad Feld (book)AirTree Ventures - Seed stage term sheetAdam Milgrom (Twitter)Leapfrog InvestmentsApplied

Special Thanks:

Special thanks to Will Richardson, Charlie McDonald and Morgan Ranieri who helped with the research for this interview!

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with Ben Pfisterer, Co-founder & CEO of Zeller.Date: 25th August 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep126Zeller

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/X2EDwZVu4YE

The post Ep125 – Adam Milgrom (Venture Partner – Giant Leap Fund) on building your decision-making muscle appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 124 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Tim Fung, the Co-founder & CEO of Airtasker.

Tim was previously a founding team member and investor in Australia's first low cost mobile provider, Amaysim and is also the founder and director of several web startups.

However, he is best known as the Co-founder & CEO of Airtasker, a trusted community marketplace that connects people who need work done with people who want to work.

Since launching in 2012, Airtasker has grown to support more than 3.6 million members across Australia, with 30,000 monthly active Taskers and recently announced its expansion into the UK.

In this interview we discussed:

The Principles of leadershipBuilding trust into your product and customersHow Airtasker approaches customer retention with their modelThe value in the longtail of services businesses Finding Product-Market Fit for marketplaces& much more

Full interview below!

Show notes:

Macquarie BankChic Model ManagementUrsula Hufnagl (Managing Director - Chic Management)Jane Weston (GM - Chic Management)Peter O’Connell (CEO & Managing Director - AmaysimAmaysimJonathan Lui (Co-founder - Airtasker)Airtasker

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with Adam Milgrom, Angel Investor & Venture Partner at Giant Leap FundDate: 18th August 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: http://tinyurl.com/ep125Adam

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player.

https://youtu.be/mh6rJacvUFE

The post Ep124 – Tim Fung (Co-founder & CEO – Airtasker) on value, trust & the longtail appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep123 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder of Eucalyptus, Tim Doyle.

Tim is one of the most renowned marketers in Australia.

He was previously the Head of Marketing for Direct to Consumer (DTC) mattress brand, Koala, taking the business from $500,000 in revenue a month to a business turning over $100M a year.

He is now the Founder of Eucalyptus, a brand engine that builds and runs digital consumer companies. They currently have two products currently in market, Pilot and Kin which are brands that focus on mens health and women’s fertility respectively.

During this interview, Tim also announced that Eucalyptus is a few short weeks away from launching their 3rd product, a skin care brand called software.skin.

To date, Eucalyptus has raised over $8M in funding from the likes of Blackbird Ventures and W23, Woolworths Corporate Venture Capital arm.

We covered a wide variety of topics in this interview including:

Insights and lessons from running digital campaigns for the Labor party in the 2016 electionHow to build high performing growth teamsBuilding traction and finding your first few customers on a budgetHow to find white space opportunities and channels for growthFundraising process for DTC and other “off trend” startups& much more

Full interview below!

Show notes:

Koala MattressEucalyptusPilotKin FertilitySoftware.skin (watch this space!)Dany Milham (Co-founder @ Koala)Steve SmithVinomofoJustin Dry (Co-founder & CEO of Vinomofo) on Startup Playbook Ep003Shoes of PreyJodie Fox (Co-founder of Shoes of Prey) on Startup Playbook Ep018Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)Cost Per Mille (CPM)Blackbird VenturesSam Wong (Partner @ Blackbird)Nick Crocker (General Partner @ Blackbird)Niki Scevak (Co-founder & Partner @ Blackbird)Charlie Gearside (Founder @ Eucalyptus)UnileverProctor & GambleLMVHMike HalliganScratchPetCirclechewy.comShoe Dog, by Phil Knight (book)Casper MattressNura headphonesTimeChi (crowdfunding campaign)Sean Greenhalgh (Co-founder & CEO - TimeChi)DeliciouKjetil Hansen (Founder & CEO - Deliciou)Fast.coDomm Holland (Co-founder & CEO - Fast)

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with Tim Fung, the Co-Founder & CEO of AirtaskerDate: 11th August 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep124Airtasker

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/ad9yPrQu-0o

The post Ep123 – Tim Doyle (Founder – Eucalyptus) on Discipline, Differentiation and Data appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep122 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, was the Founder & CEO of Everledger, Leanne Kemp.

Leanne is a serial entrepreneur with multiple successful exits over 20+ years in tech.

Her company, Everledger, uses Blockchain technology to track high-value assets such as diamonds, art and wine with the aim of increasing transparency and trust with technology.

To date Everledger has raised $40M in funding from leading global funds including Fidelity, Future Fund and Tencent.

In 2018, her entrepreneurial success saw her appointed as the Queensland Chief Entrepreneur in Australia, to develop the state’s startup ecosystem, attract investment and support job creation.

In this interview we covered a range of topics including

Why you should think about Coevolving rather than disrupting industriesSeparating technology trends vs lasting changeUnderstanding the right timing for your solution in the marketHow founders should think about and prepare for exits& much more

Full interview below!

Show notes:

RFIDEverledgerSatoshi Nakamoto white paperCryptocurrencyBlockchainWorld Wide Web Consortium (W3C)Tim Berners-LeeUnkempt podcastAnthony Finkelstein

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with Tim Doyle, the Founder of EucalyptusDate: 4th August 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep123Tim

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/NWhHKmRVPCE

The post Ep122 – Leanne Kemp (Founder & CEO – Everledger) on exits, trust and coevolution appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep121 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Robert Bell, the CEO of 86 400.

Rob has extensive leadership experience in financial services across Australia and Asia Pacific, withseveral senior leadership roles at ANZ including CEO positions at both ANZ Japan and ANZ Fiji.

He is now the CEO of 86 400, Australia’s first smartbank, building a smarter alternative to the Big Four banks.

Since launching a year ago, 86 400 now has more than 225,000 accounts on its platform, has more than $300m in customer deposits and has processed more than $1B in transactions.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

86 400's unique approach to crowdsourced product roadmapsHow to stay close to your customers as you continue to scaleTheir approach to Innovation in digital bankingUsing retention tactics as viral customer acquisition strategies& much more

Full interview below!

Show notes:

John McFarlane (Group CEO at ANZ & Group Chairman of Barclays)CuscalDugald Christie- Johnston (barefoot coach)NPS ScoresAskNicely

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with Leanne Kemp, the Founder & CEO of Everledger and Queensland's Chief EntrepreneurDate: 28th July 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/ep122Everledger

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/DF29NOmdNYw

The post Ep121 – Robert Bell (CEO – 86 400) on balance, feedback and smarter banking appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 120 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Who Gives a Crap, Simon Griffiths.

Who Gives A Crap is a subscription-based toilet paper, tissue and paper towel brand that donates 50% of its profits to help build toilets in the developing world.

Simon launched Who Gives A Crap with a crowdfunding campaign in 2012, where he sat on a toilet for over 50 hours with a live web feed until he had pre-sold the first $50,000 of toilet rolls.

The business has come a substantially long way since then. Who Gives a Crap recently announced that this year they have donated $5.85M to WaterAid making it the largest donation they have received this year and the third largest donation globally in the last 2 years behind Pepsi and HSBC.

We covered a variety of topics in this interview including:

How they build innovation around a toilet paper companyHow they strategically approach virality across their marketing campaignsHow they balance investment into growth of the business vs short term profitabilityHow Who Gives A Crap managed balancing serving existing customers vs 500,000 new customers on their waitlist during the initial COVID hysteria& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

Ethos water acquired by StarbucksTOMSWarby ParkerWarby Parker fundraiseIDEO.ORGJehan Ratnatunga (Co-founder)Danny Alexander (Co-founder)Convertible DebtSimon Griffiths (Twitter)Simon Griffiths (LinkedIn)

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with Robert Bell, CEO of 86 400, Australia's first smart bankDate: 21st July 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: http://tinyurl.com/Ep121Rob

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/q67T7eqDn1s

The post Ep120 – Simon Griffiths (Co-founder & CEO of Who Gives A Crap) on Virality, Profitability & Impact appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 119 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the Co-founder & CTO of Basecamp, David Heinemeier Hansson (aka DHH).

Basecamp launched in 1999, initially as a web design company before shifting focus in mid-2004 to web application development. Its first commercial application was Basecamp, followed by Backpack, Campfire, Highrise and HEY.

David is also the creator of Ruby on Rails, an open source web application framework. David created Ruby on Rails as an internal Basecamp tool before releasing it to the public in 2004.

Hundreds of thousands of programmers around the world have built amazing applications using Rails. Some of the more famous include Github, Shopify, Airbnb, Square, Kickstarter, Artsy, Zendesk, and Goodreads.

If that isn't enough, David is also a bestselling author of books such as "Remote", "Rework" and "It doesn't have to be crazy at work". He has also raced in the FIA World Endurance Championship for the past seven years. In 2014, he won his class in the 82nd running of the 24 hours of Le Mans – the world's biggest endurance race, while also winning the WEC championship in the GTE-Am category that year.

In June 2020, Basecamp launched it's latest product - HEY, a premium email service to compete with the likes of Gmail.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

Considerations when you take external fundingHow to make the most of remote workThe importance of timingHow to develop and create original thought around your product design and developmentHow to balance the signal and noise of customer feedbackLessons from the launch of HEY!& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

BasecampRuby on RailsHEY“It Doesn’t have to be crazy at work” - Book (DHH & Jason Fried)“Remote: Office not required” - Book (DHH & Jason Fried)“Rework”- Book (DHH & Jason Fried)Jason Fried - Co-founder at Basecamp37 Signals“The building of Basecamp”basecamp.com/booksSignal vs Noise - blog signalvnoise.com/reconsiderDuck Duck GoJason Calacanis interview (Startup Playbook Ep086)Jason Calacanis x DHH 2010 interviewTiny SeedIndie VCEarnest CapitalFlow - Book (Mihaly Csikszentmihaly)A Guide to The Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (William Irvine)The Manual: A Philosophers Guide to Life (Epictetus) To have or to be? The nature of psyche (Erich Fromm)The Sane society (Erich Fromm)Escape from freedom (Erich Fromm)The Stranger (Albert Camus)Nausea (John-Paul Sartre)"The books I read" - DHH 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with Simon Griffiths, the Co-founder & CEO of Who Gives A CrapDate: 14th July 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep120Simon

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/HsXIdM-Isbw

The post Ep119 – DHH (Co-founder & CTO – Basecamp) on timing, feedback and bootstrapping appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 118 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CTO of Slack, Cal Henderson.

Cal has co-founded two successful startups, with his co-founder Stewart Butterfield, from the ashes of failed video games.

Initially, he co-founded photo sharing application Flickr which was acquired by Yahoo! Today he's Co-founder and CTO of Slack and looks after the technology behind the growing platform.

Slack is a team collaboration and communication tool that publicly listed on NYSE in 2019 and has a market cap of $18B (as of June 2020).

In this interview we discussed:

Managing failure and pivotsThe challenges and opportunities of building out new categoriesDealing with competitors like MicrosoftResponsibility of products like Slack in how their products are usedWhat the future of work may look like in a post COVID world& much more

Full interview below!

Show notes:

FlickrFlickr acquisitionSlackGlitchCal Henderson & Stewart Butterflied (Web 2.0 - 2010)RdioSlack Connect

Next interview:

Join our next live podcast interview with DHH, the Co-founder & CTO at BasecampDate: 7th July 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep119DHH

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/TpVIeP3BIVY

The post Ep118 – Cal Henderson (Co-founder & CTO – Slack) on pivots, product & the future appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep117 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder of Finder, Fred Schebesta.

Finder is a global personal finance comparison website, which attracts over 10 million visitors each month, has grown to over 400 staff across six offices, and can be found in over 80 countries.

Fred spearheaded the group’s venture capital arm, Finder Venture where he thrives in the startup phase of building new business ideas. He led the launch of cryptocurrency brokerage HiveEx.com in 2018, which traded over $100 million in its first year.

For the past 2 years, Fred has been leading the group’s latest project, the Finder App, which combines personal finance management with comparison. The app launched in March 2020 and has already received over 37K downloads!

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

Balancing data driven decisions with gut feelHiring for cultural fit and valuesStructuring growth strategiesBuilding phoenix companies & much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

Frank Restuccia (Co-founder at Finder)Topgrading (How to Hire, Coach and Keep A players) by Brad & Geoff SmartFinder AppFred Schebesta (LinkedIn)

Join our next live podcast interview with Cal Henderson, the Co-founder & CTO at SlackDate: 30th June 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep118Slack

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/mY4bYS31QY4

The post Ep117 – Fred Schebesta (Co-founder – Finder) on building phoenix companies appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep116 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Mina Radhakrishnan, the co-founder of :Different.

Mina started here career at Goldman Sachs, before transitioning into the Associate Product Management (APM) Program at Google.

From there she jumped into startups, initially joining ModCloth as it's first Product Manager, before moving to a small 20 person startup (at the time) Uber.

She was the first product manager at Uber and later ran the company's product team for three years, leading initiatives such as new driver onboarding and the addition of other types of car services. She is also one of five inventors who jointly hold Uber's 2013 patent on surge pricing.

After leaving Uber, she served as an entrepreneur in residence at startup investment firm Redpoint Ventures, and as special adviser to Cowboy Ventures.

In 2017, Mina Co-founded :Different, a full-service property management platform, for just $100 a month. :Different is already managing over $1B worth of residential properties across Australia, has grown to over 50 staff and has recently closed a $7.1M series A funding round, backed by PieLAB, AirTree, Spring Capital and Warburton Group.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

Her experience as Ubers first Product ManagerFrameworks for decision makingHow to find and hire great Product ManagersHow to build relationships with investors& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

Google APM programModclothTravis Kalanick Redpoint VenturesCowboy VenturesMarissa MayerLarry PageSergey BrinInklingCraig BlairCraig Blair podcast interview (Episode 81)AirTreeVenture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson (book)Elicia McDonald podcast interview (Ep 113)

Join our next live podcast interview with Fred Schebesta, the Co-founder of Finder.comDate: 23rd June 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep117Finder

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/zpXkguj0IsA

The post Ep116 – Mina Radhakrishnan (Co-founder – Different) on frameworks for decision making appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 115 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Sam Wood, the Founder of fitness app "28 by Sam Wood"

Sam shot to fame as the star of season 3 of "The Bachelor Australia" tv series in 2015, but prior to this he had a successful 20+ year career as a fitness entrepreneur.

He started Australia’s first children's fitness centre, Gecko kids, with operations across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

Now alongside his gym, the Woodshed, he is the founder of fitness app 28 by Sam Wood.

The business originally launched as a desktop version in 2016 before relaunching in 2018 as an iOS and Android app and since then has gone on to become Australia’s #1 at home fitness app with over 350,000 customers around the world.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

Balancing persistence with pivoting your businessHow to find the right tech partner as a non-technical founderHow to identify your target customerGrowth strategies and how to balance a mix of different channelsThe value of bootstrappingFinding work-life balance & much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

The Bachelor Australia28 by Sam WoodUniversity of TasmaniaGecko SportsThe WoodshedKayla ItsinesSweat (app)Michelle BridgesSnezana WoodTwo BullsAndrew Chin

Join our next live podcast interview with Mina Radhakrishnan, the Co-founder of :DifferentDate: 16th June 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/ep116Mina

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/iKO-Wz6VbSc

The post Ep115 – Sam Wood (Founder – 28) on finding the right tech partners, bootstrapping and global growth appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 114 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Former Prime Minister of Australia and investor, Malcolm Turnbull.

Malcolm is best known for his career in politics, particularly through his role as the 29th Prime Minister of Australia.

However, prior to his career in politics and after a successful early career in journalism and law, Malcolm shifted his focus to business in 1987 where he has since been responsible for the establishment and success of many Australian businesses as both an entrepreneur and investor.

Malcolm was an early investor into tech businesses in Australia, which included a $500,000 investment into OzEmail that resulted in a $57M exit.

Since leaving politics, Malcolm has gone back into business as an investor, backing exciting Australian tech companies such as; Myriota, Advanced Navigation and Safety Culture.

He has also recently released his autobiography, A Bigger Picture, which tells the remarkable story of his life so far covering his experience in business, politics and more!

In this interview, we pulled on some of the many common threads in his career and life to date. We discussed a range of topics including:

The importance of timing in successful venturesHow to retain convictionHow to build long term trust and credibility with key stakeholdersThe importance of mental healthThe future of Australian tech& much more!

Full interview below!

Show notes:

Lucy TurnbullA Bigger Picture (autobiography)OzEmailSean Howard (OzEmail founder)Trevor Kennedy DoubleClickSam ChisholmRupert MurdochLiz MurdochKerry PackerACP Magazines (Formerly Australian Consolidated Press)R U OkMyriotaAdvanced NavigationSafety CultureNational Innovation and Science Agenda (NISA)Early Stage Venture Capital Limited Partnership (ESVCLP)Main Sequence VenturesCSIRO

Join our next live podcast interview with Sam Wood, the Founder of Australia's #1 at home fitness app, 28 by Sam Wood.Date: 9th June 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep115SamWood

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/I2ggzr-X7cU

The post Ep114 – Malcolm Turnbull (Former Prime Minister of Australia) on timing, conviction and trust appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 113 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Elicia McDonald, the Investment Principal at AirTree Ventures.

Elicia started her career in investment banking at Credit Suisse, but her passion for the technology sector and drive to get more hands on operational experience made her take the plunge and immerse herself in sales and growth roles at a B2B SaaS startup in Sydney and in enterprise sales at LinkedIn.

She then joined AirTree Ventures in 2016. AirTree is an early and growth stage venture capital fund managing over half a billion dollars of funds under management. AirTree backs technology entrepreneurs who are solving some of the world's most ambitious problems and their investments have clustered around sectors such as machine learning, energy, fintech, healthcare, and enterprise software.

Elicia played a pivotal role in many of AirTree's early investments into successful startups including Huddle Insurance, :Different, Pet Circle, Expert360 and Drone Deploy. She also led investments into Flurosat and served on the board of TidyMe, seeing it through a successful exit in 2018.

In 2019, Elicia was promoted to her current role as the Investment Principal at AirTree Ventures.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

How to do due diligence on potential investorsWhen and how to nail your first meeting with an investorCharacteristics of investible founding teamsA deep dive into AirTree’s due diligence and investment processWhat metrics you should focus on& much more!

Show notes:

Diligencing your investor - a checklist for foundersOpen Source VCAirTree's Investor listAirTreeQwilrEp112: Mark Tanner (Co-founder of Qwilr) podcast interviewPoint Nine CapitalAndrew Donald (Head of Talent at AirTree)Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson (book)Elicia McDonald (email)

Join our next live podcast interview with the Former Prime Minister of Australia and Investor, Malcolm Turnbull!Date: 2nd June 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep114MalcolmTurnbull

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/l5qrIhcyOy0

The post Ep113 – Elicia McDonald (Investment Principal – AirTree) on diligence, investment & speed appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 112 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Mark Tanner, the Co-founder & COO of Qwilr.

Mark began his career working at an ebook startup during the early days of the Kindle and the iPhone, before joining Google to help forge many of the publisher partnerships that led to Google Play Books and ebooks on Android.

During his time at Google, he got a first-hand look at how global communication tools were changing, and the potential future of documentations and presentations.

After moving back to Australia in 2013, Mark along with his high school friend Dylan, co-founded Qwilr to reinvent the way businesses communicate through documents.

As co-founder and COO, Mark manages Qwilr’s sales and operations, and has helped build a totally remote, globally distributed sales team.

Since raising $1.5M in 2017, Qwilr has grown from 15-40 people, expanded into the US and Europe and seen revenue double year-on-year.

Qwilr recently raised a $10.8M Series A round led by AirTree, Skip Capital and Typeform co-founder, Robert Munoz.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

finding product-market fitgetting focused on your product roadmapwhen you need to shut off viral growthhow and when to hire your first sales rephow to structure the sales team and compensation packages as you scale& much more!

Show notes:

Marc AndreesenProduct-User fit comes before Product-Market fit (blog)12 things about Product-Market fit (blog)Dylan Baskind (Co-founder of Qwilr)Garry Visontay (Partner at Right Click Capital)Right Click CapitalSydney Seed FundGoogle WaveMatt Hodges Jobs to be doneAirtableNotionRobert MunozPedro MagricoInfluence: the psychology of persuasion (book)How to win friends and influence people (book)Spin selling (book)New Sales Simplified (book)The challenger sale (book)Predictable revenue (book)Crossing the chasm (book)

Join our next live podcast interview with the Investment Principle at AirTree Ventures, Elicia McDonald!Date: 26th May 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep113AirTree

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/i4CyC5Gw8sE

The post Ep112 – Mark Tanner (Co-founder & COO – Qwilr) on building the future appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 111 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Michael Fox, the Co-founder & CEO of Fable Food Co.

Michael started his career as a lawyer before jumping into tech, launching Shoes of Prey as the Co-founder & CEO in 2009. Fast forward 9 years and the company had grown to over 200 staff, had raised $35M from some of the leading global VCs and had partnerships with David Jones and Nordstrom.

However, despite growing from $2.5M to $12M in revenue and being loved by a niche community of creators, they were not able to break into the mass consumer market and as a result had to shut down the business in mid-2018.

Michael is now back with his 2nd startup, Fable Food Co, which turns mushrooms into delicious meat alternatives and is backed by some of the same investors that joined him on the Shoes of Prey Journey.

We covered a range of topics including:

The ups and downs of the Shoes of Prey journeyOvercoming obstacles with manufacturing and supply chainsWhy you need to go deeper into market researchMaintaining relationships during the tough timesLaunching into new marketsAnd much more!

Show notes:

Clayton UtzSuper Retail GroupShoes of PreyFable Food CoUniversity of QueenslandSuper Cheap AutoRebel SportJodie FoxCrossing the chasm - Geoffrey Moore2019 - the best year of my life (Blog - Michael Fox)The Shoes of Prey journey ends (Blog - Michael Fox)David JonesNordstromBeyond MeatImpossible FoodsBrian Chesky - Airbnb FounderA message from the Co-founder & CEO Brian Chesky (blog)Find Fable in Harris Farm (NSW)Find Fable in Woolworths (from 2nd week of June!)

Join our next live podcast interview with the Co-Founder & COO of Qwilr, Mark Tanner!Date: 19th May 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/Ep112Qwilr

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/_Bt0fhIkvj0

The post Ep111 – Michael Fox (Co-founder & CEO – Fable Food Co) on crossing the chasm appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Ep110 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the Co-founder of Up, Dom Pym.

Up was the first neobank to launch in Australia in October 2018 and within 8 months of launching had reached their first 100,000 customers. Since then they have continued their growth trajectory and as of the time of this interview had reached over 230,000 very happy customers.

Prior to Up, Dom had been involved in software, web and mobile development for over 20 years from start-ups to global enterprises in Australia, the UK, the USA and throughout Asia.

In this episode we covered a range of topics including:

Dom’s hiring process for finding the right team fitUp’s approach to product led growthHow Up utilised and leveraged their community of customers to become their biggest advocatesBalancing feature requests with their product roadmapAnd much more!

Show notes:

FerociaBendigo BankAdelaide BankGrant ThomasDr. Karl BBVAJustin HiggsAnson ParkerTree of Up (roadmap)Xinja86 400The Aggregation of marginal gains - James ClearDaniel WearneStripeVenmoKickstarterTransferWise

Join our next live podcast interview with the Co-Founder & CEO of Fable Food Co, Michael Fox!Date: 12th May 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: http://tinyurl.com/ep111MichaelFox

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/CYoc1s0hVZo

The post Ep110 – Dom Pym (Co-founder – Up) on product, purpose and excellence appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 109 of the Startup Playbook Podcast (and returning back to the show) is the General Partner of Blackbird Ventures, Nick Crocker.

Prior to joining Blackbird, Nick was a successful founder. He was the Co-founder of We Are Hunted (acquired by Twitter) and Sessions (acquired by MyFitnessPal).

After MyFitnessPal was acquired by Under Armour for $475M, he went on to lead their Product Strategy and Operations in San Francisco.

I initially interviewed Nick for Ep39 of The Startup Playbook Podcast in March 2017, shortly after he had moved back to Australia to join Blackbird VC as a Venture Partner for the (at the time) $230M fund.

Since then, Nick has become a General Partner at Blackbird Ventures (now a $500M venture capital firm) that counts companies such as Canva, SafetyCulture, Culture Amp and Zoox as part of its portfolio.

Nick sits on the boards of Culture Amp, Nura, XY Sense, Applied, Bellish, Startmate and Eucalyptus.

In this interview we spoke about a range of topics including:

the importance of performance coachinghow Blackbird refined and defined its cultural valueshow Blackbird looks for conviction when assessing investment dealsthe importance of storytelling to your investors& much more!

Show notes:

Ep039 - Nick Crocker (Venture Partner - Blackbird VC) on people, culture and productsThe Y FilesMyFitnessPal buys Australian coaching app, Sessions (article)Culture AmpDidier ElzingaEp101 - Didier Elzinga (Co-founder & CEO - Culture Amp) on the key traits of successful foundersPropeller AeroRory San MiguelJodie AusterEp066 - Jodie Auster (GM - Uber Eats) on hypothesis driven problem solvingStartmateBen HudsonOptimMichael Batko"The Psychology of Executive Coaching" - Michael BatkoSunrise ConferenceSamantha WongJoel ConnollyNiki ScevakMichael FoxFable FoodsNick Beaumont - Co-founder of HeurosThe Elephants - Nick CrockerEd Cowan"In the firing line - Diary of a season" - Ed CowanA bigger picture: An Autobiography by Malcolm TurnbullSapiens: A brief history of Humankind - Yuval Noah HarariByrne Hobart - SubstackPreston PesekCulture Amp - Insights"When tailwinds vanish" - blog

Join our next live podcast interview with the Co-Founder of Up, Dom Pym!Date: 5th May 2020Time: 8-9am (AEDT)Registration link: http://tinyurl.com/ep110DomPym

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

https://youtu.be/1waxm3KGWug

Watch the video recording from the interview on Youtube!

The post Ep109 – Nick Crocker (General Partner – Blackbird VC) on investing with conviction appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 108 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is one of the Directors of Coghlan Duffy & Co, John Coghlan.

I have had a number of conversations with founders over the years discussing some of the more structural and often internal challenges of running companies such as dealing with co-founder breakups, issues with IP when a team member has left or they have outsourced their development and structural issues that have caused investors to not invest in their companies.

So for this episode, I invited John Coghlan on the show to discuss how founders can think about and safeguard against some of these issues down the line.

John is one of the Director of Coghlan Duffy & Co, a law firm that specialises in working with startups from the early stages to their potential IPO. He has been involved with the legal aspect of startups from all angles, representing founders as they setup and grow their business, investors through the due diligence process as well as helping companies prepare and eventually list on the public markets. He is also someone I have known for over 5 years and he has personally helped me both with personal and business legal matters so I couldn’t think of anyone better to have on this episode!

In this episode we discussed:

Protecting ownership of IP when outsourcing technology overseasHow to split equity fairly between cofoundersMechanisms to protect the company post founder-breakupThe investor due diligence check listHow to fairly value a company when raising capital

Ps – I just launched Playbook Ventures and our first initiative, the “Investor Connect” event where we are bringing together 20 of the best VCs and Angel Investors to meet with 60 selected startups. To find out more:– Read the blog post– Check out our website (playbookventures.com.au)– Apply for the event

Show notes:

SAFEsVesting schedulesConvertible notesCoghlan Duffy & Co website

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

The post Ep108 – John Coghlan (Director – CD+Co) on valuations, due diligence & co-founder breakups appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 107 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the CEO of Flippa, Blake Hutchison.

Blake started his career by moving to San Francisco in 2005 as part of the team at Lonely Planet, before joining NileGuide, a trip planning startup that would go on to raise $13M just weeks before the GFC hit!

Blake then moved back to Australia to launch his own startup which he eventually sold through Flippa, before going on to take senior roles at Xero and Luxury Escapes. Blake joined Flippa as their CEO 9 months ago to help accelerate the businesses expansion across all of their international markets.

With such a varied and interesting background, we covered a range of topics in this interview including:

Lessons from building and growing startups in SV How Blake translates some of his own experiences across the rest of the teamThe process for doing due diligence on companiesDealing with startup failureThe process and structure when selling a companyBuilding market dynamics into marketplaces

Ps - I just launched Playbook Ventures and our first initiative, the "Investor Connect" event where we are bringing together 20 of the best VCs and Angel Investors to meet with 60 selected startups. To find out more:- Read the blog post- Check out our website (playbookventures.com.au)- Apply for the event

Show notes:

Potrero Hill, San FranciscoLonely PlanetNileGuideGOOD44XeroChris Ridd (podcast)Rod Drury (Founder of Xero)Luxury EscapesFlippaMatt Mickiewicz (Co-founder of Flippa)Mark Harbottle (Co-founder of Flippa)EnvatoGoogle Optimise (tool)Blake (LinkedIn)Blake (Twitter)

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

The post Ep107 – Blake Hutchison (CEO – Flippa) on building market dynamics appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 106 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the APAC General Manager for Eventbrite, Phil Silverstone.

After spending 11 successful years at GE, Phil joined as the GM of Eventbrite in Australia and over the last 3 years has grown the company from 5 to 40 people and expanded out into the South East Asian markets of Singapore and Hong Kong.

In this live interview we discussed:

How hiring changes with scaleThe metrics and process to help you identify whether you have Product-Market FitThe benefits and challenges of satellite officesHow to making trade off decisions on where to invest time and resourcesHow to use partnership for growthFinding balance between family and career

The questions from the audience were:

How do you keep yourself in sync as a satellite office with the global HQ?Why Melbourne as the regional hub and are there plans to expand out into more challenging parts of the Asian market?How do you test for key characteristics during the hiring process?How do you track whether PMF has been achieved when expanding to new regions?

Show notes:

GE CapitalNicholas Lembo (TransferWise) podcast interviewSmiling mind appEventbrite websitePhil Silverstone (LinkedIn)

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player and now also available on Spotify.

The post Ep106 – Phil Silverstone (GM – Eventbrite) on identifying Product-Market Fit appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 105 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the Australian Country Manager for TransferWise, Nicholas Lembo.

Nick was previously a Senior Manager at Yelp, where he lead Yelp’s marketing and communications across 8 International markets in the Asia and Pacific region. He also developed and implemented the launch strategy for Yelp in many of its newest APAC markets, including Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Philippines.

Alongside his dual role as the Country Manager for Australia and Lead for Marketing and Communications for TransferWise in the APAC region, Nick is on the board of Fintech Australia.

In this interview we discussed:

How Nick balances his time across his Country Manager and Lead Marketing & Communications rolesHow to effectively transfer company culture into new regions when expanding globallyThe opportunities and challenges for Fintech startupsHow to develop trust with customers& much more!

Don’t miss our LIVE PODCAST with Eventbrite APAC General Manager, Phil Silverstone on the 13th of June. Click here for the registration page and use the code “playbookpodcast” for discounted tickets!

Show notes:

YelpTransferWiseWorld BankViki Forrest podcastNick Crocker's Twitter Thread on VC & Startup growth in AustraliaBanking royal commissionTrustpilotNicholas Lembo (Twitter)Nicholas Lembo (LinkedIn)

Check out the podcast and my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player

The post Ep105 – Nicholas Lembo (Country Manager – TransferWise) on building trust with customers appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 104 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is entrepreneur, podcaster and author, Steve Glaveski.

Steve is the CEO of Collective Campus, a corporate innovation and startup accelerator that was recognised by the AFR as one of the fastest growing companies in Australia in 2018, having worked with organisations such as Village Roadshow, Microsoft, NAB and Sportsbet on corporate innovation programs.

Outside of this role, Steve is also the host of the Future Squared podcast where he interviews some of the leading minds and people in business and corporate innovation from around the world and has published 2 books; Employee to Entrepreneur and the Amazon best seller, The Innovation Managers Handbook vol. 2

In this interview we discussed:

How to build a low cost prototype/MVPsThe Common pitfalls of launching a new startupThe benefits and opportunities from podcastingHow to jump from being an employee to become an entrepreneurSteve’s PEAKCOAT framework to achieve greater productivity in less time!

Don't miss our LIVE PODCAST with Eventbrite APAC General Manager, Phil Silverstone on the 13th of June. Click here for the registration page and use the code "playbookpodcast" for discounted tickets!

Show notes:

SydStart (now known as StartCon)HotDeskNeil Patel's Quick Sprout guideAppsterTim FerrisNPR UrbanSurfMadhouseBeware of Digital agencies doing corporate innovation (blog)Australian Institute of Company DirectorsSteve BlankFuture Squared PodcastThe Pareto principleWileyCollective CampusEmployee to Entrepreneur (book by Steve Galveski)Gary VaynerchukRed Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Republicans and Democrats Collective CampusData Science MeetupThe case for the 6 hour work day (Blog - HBR)employeetoentrepreneur.ioSteveGlaveski.com

Check out previous podcasts and my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player

The post Ep104 – Steve Glaveski (CEO – Collective Campus) on efficiency and serendipity appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 103 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Australian business leader, Viki Forrest.

At the time of this recording, Viki was the CEO of ANZA Technology. Since then, she taken on a new role as the Queensland Trade and Investment Commissioner for North America, to promote and facilitate inward and outward trade and investment between the two regions.

Prior to this role, Viki had joined an early stage technology company helping it expand from 5 to over 100 people and open up it’s presence in the US before the company ultimately shut down.

Since then, Viki has played a vital role in helping Australian startups break into and raise capital from the US market as the CEO of ANZA Technology over the last 14 years.

In this interview we discussed a range of topics including:

Lessons from a failed startup that expanded and grew too quicklyDifferences between operating in a short term and long term marketHow to break into and raise capital in the USHow to effectively build teams when breaking into new markets

Show notes:- ANZA Technology networks- The Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (FWE)- Viki Forrest (LinkedIn)

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player

The post Ep103 – Viki Forrest (CEO – ANZA Technology) on how to successfully launch into new markets appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 102 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Investor and Stanford Professor, Pedram Mokrian.

Pedram started his career as an Engineer and commodities trader before moving into the world of Venture Capital. He joined as the Principal of the Mayfield Fund, a global Venture Capital Fund with $1.8Bn under management, investing in seed through to Series B funding.

He now spends his time working with companies ranging from early-stage startups to Fortune 50 companies and even The World Bank.

He is also the adjunct Professor at Stanford University where he teaches and advises entrepreneurs and global companies on entrepreneurship, business model disruption and technology innovation.

In this interview we discussed:

How to find the right opportunities and skills to acquireUnderstanding your work vs personal risk personalityThe 6 T’s of investmentHow VCs filter through ideasThe future of corporate innovation

Show notes:

Sand Hill RoadMartin Eberhard (Co-founder of Tesla)Marc Tarpenning (Co-founder of Tesla)Navin Chaddha (Mayfield Fund)Mayfield FundEnronZimride

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player

The post Ep102 – Pedram Mokrian (Investor) on the 6 T’s of investment appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 101 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the Co-founder & CEO of Culture Amp, Didier Elzinga.

For those of you unfamiliar with Didier and his story, at the age of 25, he was promoted to the CEO role at Rising Sun Pictures, a Hollywood Post Production Studio that worked on films such as Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings and the Batman and Superman franchises.

During his time as the CEO, the company grew from 30 to 130 employees.

However, after meeting with Atlassian Founders, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar at an event, Didier realised that he wanted to move out of the film industry and into technology.

Since starting Culture Amp in mid-2009, the company has raised over $75M in funding, has over 2,000 clients and has become one of the world’s fastest growing technology companies.

Didier and his team truly are helping build culture first organisations all over the world

In this live podcast interview we spoke about: - How he became the CEO of a Hollywood studio at 25- How to Founders can deal with and overcome adversity- The key trait of successful founders- How to get customers without a product- How to grow from 10 to 2000 customers- Culture Amp's process for raising $75M in funding- The importance of storytelling in amplifying people performance

The questions from our audience were:

What business challenges keeps Didier up at night?As Culture Amp has grown, how does Didier approach building out the leadership teamWhich order does Didier prioritise the key business stakeholders (Employees, Customers & investors) What Didier has applied from his background in Hollywood to building out Culture Amp

This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au.

Show notes:- Mike Cannon-Brookes- Scott Farquhar- Atlassian- Rising Sun Pictures- Tony Clark (Rising Sun Pictures)- Wayne Lewis (Rising Sun Pictures)- Gail Fuller (Rising Sun Pictures)- Rising Sun Research- Cospective- Baraka (Film)- Ron Frike - How Great I Am - 50th anniversary for Anthony Robbins (Youtube video)- The Checklist Manifesto (Atul Gawande)- Jon Williams (Co-founder - Culture Amp)- Jason McPherson (podcast interview)- Eric Yuan (Zoom)- Felicis Ventures - Matt Cohler (Benchmark VC)- Benchmark VC- JD Peterson (Culture Amp)- Jacqueline Purcell (Culture Amp)- Sunrise Conference- Golbie Kamerai (Culture Amp)- The Management Theory of Peter Drucker

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available onSoundcloud & StitcherAudio Player

The post Ep101 – Didier Elzinga (Co-founder & CEO – Culture Amp) on the key traits of successful founders appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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For this milestone episode we mixed things up a bit, with guest host Liz Kaelin interviewing me for the 100th Episode of The Startup Playbook Podcast.

Before we get into this episode, I just wanted to send a big thank you to all of our previous podcast guests for coming on to the show and sharing their experiences and insights and also to all of you for supporting and tuning into the show every week.

This podcast wouldn’t be where it without all of you and your messages of support over the last 2.5 years of the show. I am extremely thankful to all of you for providing 45mins of your time each week to tune in to the Startup Playbook Podcast!

I have had a few messages over the last few years from listeners wanting to hear more about some of my background and how the podcast came about. So to commemorate this milestone episode we have switched things up a bit. Some of you may know Liz Kaelin from her time as the Founder and CEO of Caitre’d which was acquired in 2017.

She is now the head of client experience at Terem Technologies and some time ago she pitched the idea of guest hosting the show and interviewing me for the 100th Episode.

So in this episode I’m on the other side of the microphone and dive into: - my lessons from starting, growing and ultimately deciding to shut down my fashion tech startup, StageLabel- how the Podcast first got started- my process for bringing world class guests on the show- how I try to stay consistent - some of my key takeaways from 100 podcast interviews

This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au.

Show notes:- StageLabel- Liz Kaelin- Terem Technologies- Brett Adam Podcast interview- Nick Crocker Podcast interview- Justin Dry Podcast interview

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & StitcherAudio Player

The post Ep100 – Rohit Bhargava (Host – The Startup Playbook) on the key to consistency appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 99 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is 3 times entrepreneur and investor, Jules Miller.

Jules co-founded and led two legal tech companies: Evolve Law which was acquired by Breaking Media/Above the Law and Hire an Esquire, a venture-backed tech startup providing attorneys on-demand to law firms and in-house legal teams.

She also co-founded Carbonado Group, an environmental sustainability consulting firm that helped companies including EY, Salesforce and Tiffany & Co. to launch and grow new business units around environmental and social responsibility.

Jules now spends her time on the other side of the table. She helped to create the new IBM Blockchain Ventures group, where she now runs the IBM Blockchain Accelerator and is a Partner of IBM Blockchain Ventures. She is also the co-founder and managing partner of Prose Ventures, the first independent VC fund investing in legal and compliance technologies.

We covered a wide range of topics in this interview including:

The benefits of focusing on a nicheThe value add of vertical specific fundsWhat startups should look for in accelerator programs and VCsThe importance of networkingHow to expand and get funding in the US

This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au.

Join us as we celebrate our 100 episode milestone & do a live interview with Culture Amp, Co-founder & CEO, Didier Elzinga. Register here and use the code "playbookpodcast" for discounted tickets!

Show notes:- Prose Ventures- IBM Blockchain accelerator- Hire an Esquire- Evolve Law- Above the Law- Brava Ventures- Nathalie Molina Nino- Howard Buffett- Gugenheim Partners- LunaCap Ventures- Holly Liu (podcast episode)- Kabam- Invest in lines not dots - Mark Suster blog- Ian Gardiner (podcast episode)- Jules Miller (LinkedIn)

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & StitcherAudio Player

The post Ep099 – Jules Miller (Partner – IBM Blockchain Ventures) on the importance of owning a niche appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 98 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the Investment Partner at Jelix Ventures, Ian Gardiner.

Ian is best known for his role at Amazon Web Services as the Head of Business Development for Startups in Australia and New Zealand, but prior to this he was the founder of several startups himself.

Ian was the Founder and Managing Director of “Last Orders”, a UK based startup that raised GBP2.5M but as Ian describes it himself, they built the supply but the expected demand never came through.

Ian then moved to Australia and along with his co-founder Ron Mcullough launched Viocorp, run-in the company for the next 12 years as it’s co-founder and CEO.

He is now an Investment Partner at Jelix Ventures, a fund that he setup with his wife Andrea, after they had both spent spending several years successfully identifying and investing in early-stage high technology companies.

Alongside his role at Jelix, Ian is also the Co-founder of Innovation Bay, a community and networking group for businesses, entrepreneurs and investors and he also hosts the highly successful Open The Pod Bay Doors podcast.

I was really excited to speak with someone who had spent so much of his time and energy in building the ecosystem here as well as seeing first hand a range of successful and unsuccessful companies being built from the ground up across his various ventures. In this interview we spoke about:

Breeding success from implementing cultureHow Amazon approaches hiring “A players”How to stay consistentThe foundations of building successful ecosystems3 key ingredients shared by successful founders

This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au.

Show notes:- Open The Pod Bay Doors Podcast- 2001 Space Odyssey- Innovation Bay- Andrea Gardiner- Viocorp- AWS- Phaedon Stough- Jelix Ventures- Cap Table- Liquidity Preference- Fuckup Nights- Ron McCullough- 14 Leadership Principles (Amazon)- Malcolm Turnbull- Paul Bassat- Daniel Petre- Wyatt Roy- LaunchVic- Square Peg Capital- Blackbird VC- Airtree VC- AVCAL- Startup Muster- Venture Downunder- Postie- StorReduce- Pollenizer- Pure Storage- Stone & Chalk- Alon Greenspan- Whooshkaa- Ian Gardiner (email)

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & StitcherAudio Player

The post Ep098 – Ian Gardiner (Jelix Ventures) on building success through culture appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 97 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the founder of CouchSurfing.com, Casey Fenton.

From growing up in a small town, Caseys love for new experiences and travel led him to founding CouchSurfing.com, a global community of 15million locals and travellers.

Since stepping away as the CEO in 2012, Casey has been involved in a number of startups, most recently as the co-founder and CEO of Upstock, a performance-based equity tool to help startups effectively navigate and leverage their equity options.

Outside of this, Casey is also writing a new book on Ego Hacking which provides tools and framework for individuals to go beyond their ego to become better leaders and generate increased cooperation at scale.

We covered a lot of ground in this interview including:

How Casey built and scaled CouchSurfing without spending money on marketingScaling through distributed decision makingHow to best utilise and split equity fairlyHow to hack your ego

This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au.

Show notes:– Couchsurfing.com- upstock.io- Byron Katie - The Work- Casey (email)

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & StitcherAudio Player

The post Ep097 – Casey Fenton (Founder – Couchsurfing) on hacking your ego appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 96 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Tom Crago, the CEO of game development studio, Tantalus Media.

With an initial passion for athletics, Tom spent a few years at university, holding arts, business and law degrees as a way of buying himself some more time to keep training

After graduating and working at a Law Firm, Tom quickly realised that this wasn’t what he wanted to do long term and left to join a creative agency.

While he was over there, he found Tantalus Media and was deeply impressed with the technology they were building. So naturally as a 25 year old, he arranged a meeting with them, told them they needed help with the business and pitched to become their CEO and own 10% of the business.

Much to his surprise the owners agreed, only for Tom to later find out the company owed over $500,0000 to the Australian Taxation Office.

Giving himself 6 months to turn it around, Tom flew to Japan and sealed a deal to make a game for Gameboy Advance that would be launched by Nintendo.

Since then Tantalus has gone on to develop successful franchises such as Top Gear Rally, Spongebob and Pony Friends as well as in more recent times focusing on console games such as Zelda and Sonic Maniac.

We covered a lot of ground in this interview including:

Building products and hiring tech talent as a non-technical founderBalancing short and long term goals The future of gamingSelling through relationships

This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au.

Show notes:- Tantalus Media- Ratbag Games- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess- Jupiter and Mars- SEGA- Nintendo- Materials - National Gallery of Victoria Triennial Exhibition- Flashbacks from the Flow Zone

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & StitcherAudio Player

The post Ep096 – Tom Crago (CEO – Tantalus Media) on balance and prioritisation appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 95 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is investor turned entrepreneur, Tom Davies.

Unlike the traditional career path of moving from entrepreneurship to investing, Tom started his career as an investor with the Netus Fund in 2007, alongside well known local VC’s Daniel Petre and Craig Blair who has been on the show before.

Alongside operating as a VC fund, Netus was also involved in helping launch successful US based companies into the Australian market.

Between 1999 and 2012 when it was acquired by Fairfax, Netus helped launch companies such as MSN, eBay, Monster and Ticketek into the Australian market.

After a few years with Netus and in the middle of the GFC (Global Financial Crisis), Tom decided to venture out and build his own companies; launching Compare Courses, one of Australia's largest education search websites, reaching over 250,000 potential students every month and Chappelli cycles, the first Australian bike company to retail bicycles direct to consumer online.

Tom now spends his time as the COO of Verso Learning, an online resource for school teachers to increase student engagement and develop critical and creative thinking skills.

In this interview we discussed:

Tom’s lessons from both sides of the table as an entrepreneur and investorThe importance of perseverance and persistenceHow to identify and focus on the right metricsThe challenges of operating in competitive marketsHandling failure and the process of shutting down a company

This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au.

Show notes:- Netus- Daniel Petre- Craig Blair- Craig Blair interview- Craig Blair interview (video)- Alison Deans- Kerry Packer- Chappelli Cycles- Compare Courses- Verso Learning- TechCrunch- VentureBeat- Deep Sea Challenger - James Cameron - Reid cycles- Tom Davies (email)-

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & StitcherAudio Player

The post Ep095 – Tom Davies (COO – Verso Learning) on persistence & perseverance appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 94 of The Startup Playbook is 30 year tech industry veteran and former Managing Director, Australia at Xero, Chris Ridd.

Chris initially spent 15 years at Microsoft before jumping into a (at that time) small 6 person accounting startup called Xero as their Managing Director for Australia.

Over the next 5 years, Chris helped firmly establish Xero as the dominant accounting software in the region before leaving to take on advisory roles and as an angel investor to a number of startups.

One of these startups was myprosperity, a software company that revolutionises how accountants and advisors work with their clients.

At the time of recording this interview in September 2018, Chris was the CEO of myprosperity but since then he has stepped into a board role with the company.

We discussed a range of topics in this interview including:

The upside from throwing yourself into new opportunitiesHow to build effective networksBuilding the right team cultureThe 3 golden rules Chris follows as an Angel Investor and Advisor

This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au

Show notes:– Steve Vamos - Rod Drury- Xero- myprosperity- Pete McCarthy - Stephen Jackel- CarSales- Michael Happell - Craig Winkler- Chris Ridd (LinkedIn)- Chris Ridd (Twitter)

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & StitcherAudio Player

The post Ep094 – Chris Ridd (Ex MD – Xero) on his 3 golden rules for investing appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 93 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Chike Ukaegbu, a 35 year old entrepreneur, educator and now Presidential Candidate for the 2019 Nigerian elections.

Entrepreneurship to me is about solving problems and no one personifies this more than Chike.

Chike moved from Nigeria to New York at the age of 19 to study biomedical engineering at the City College of New York before continuing on his studies at Cornell, UPenn and Stanford studying Leadership, Business and Venture Capital.

After leaving his studies he wanted to combine his passions on empowering disadvantaged people, STEM and tech and as a result started a technology accelerator called Startup52 - which was the first diversity focused accelerator of it’s kind in the world

Chike has translated these experiences and background to his new position as a presidential candidate for the 2019 Nigerian elections, becoming the youngest presidential candidate in the history of the country.

We discussed a range of topics in this interview including:- How to find and pursue your passion- How diversity drives innovation and profitability- Preparing for a future with AI- What made him run for president of Nigeria

This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au

Show notes:- Startup52- Chike on LinkedIn- Chike on Facebook- Chike on Twitter- Chike on Instagram

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher.

The post Ep093 – Chike Ukaegbu (Entrepreneur & Presidential Candidate) on finding your passion appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 92 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Andrew Apostola, the Co-founder and CEO of Portable.

Portable is a digital innovation and design company that uses design and technology to help organisations transform the way in which they deliver services, particularly in the areas of justice, healthcare, education and government.

Prior to Portable, Andrew was based in New York where he co-founded a number of technology startups including co-founding Portable Shops, an e-commerce platform for fashion designers and retailers which was acquired by Big Commerce and Svbscription, a luxury shopping service connecting customers to personal shoppers across fashion, lifestyle and accessories.

Alongside his role at Portable, Andrew is also the Managing Director of Arnsdorf, a modern womenswear retailer redefining online commerce in Australia.

We covered a lot of ground and topics in this interview including:- Surviving through bootstrapping- Developing effective hiring processes- How to sell to government & enterprises- The difference between selling to B2B vs B2C audiences

This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au

Show notes:- Simon Goodrich- Data Driven Design- Hacking the bureaucracy (Report)- Steve Blank- Svbscription- Arnsdorf- Portable Shops- Portable- BigCommerce- Marc Goldenfein- Leni Mayo

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams

Other channels:Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher.

The post Ep092 – Andrew Apostola (CEO – Portable) on hiring effectively appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 91 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Jenn Lim, the CEO and CHO (Chief Happiness Officer) of Delivering Happines, a company she and Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos.com) co-founded to inspire science-based happiness, passion and purpose at work, home and in everyday life.

Jenn has been a consultant with Zappos from its start-up days in 2003 to the several billion-dollar business it is today, including through the $1.2B acquisition of Zappos by Amazon in 2009.

In 2010, Jenn led the launch and management of Tony's first book (Delivering Happiness) which sold over 800,000 copies internationally and hit #1 on numerous bestsellers list (including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today). It was voted one of the best business books by NPR, Inc. Magazine and the Wall Street Journal, remained on the New York Times list for 27 weeks and has been published in 20 languages around the world.

The success of the book led to Jenn and Tony starting Delivering happiness the company, a coaching and consulting business that helps create a happier culture resulting in more profitable businesses.

In this interview we deep dived into company culture discussing topics such as: - how to identify and define company values - how to hire based on your team culture - how to continue to develop and evolve the culture as the company scales

This podcast was produced by the awesome team at Playbook Media. If you would like to launch your own personal or business podcast, say hello to Rohit@playbookmedia.com.au

Show notes:- Zappos- Tony Hsieh- Zappos acquisition- Launch Festival- Delivering Happiness (Twitter)- Jenn Lim (Twitter)- Delivering Happiness (Instagram)- Delivering Happiness (Facebook)- Delivering Happiness (LinkedIn)

Check out my new video series on Youtube!

Feedback/connect/say hello:Rohit@startupplaybook.co@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel

Credits:Music: Joakim Karud - Dreams

Other channels:Don't have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Soundcloud & Stitcher.

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My guest for Episode 90 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the former CEO of Odesk (now known as Upwork) and General Partner of Polaris Partners, Gary Swart.

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My guest for Episode 89 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Anthony Kennada, the CMO of Gainsight.

Anthony started his career in Business Development where he joined Box as employee number 37. He then took on a senior product manager role at Symantec after their acquisition of Live Office before joining Gainsight as employee number 19 to start the marketing team for the business, where he is now the Chief Marketing Officer of the company.

Gainsight is the world’s leading Customer Success Management platform, helping businesses grow faster by reducing churn, increasing upsell, and driving customer advocacy. Gainsight has been recognized by Forbes as one of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world (2016 & 2017) and by Deloitte as #7 on the Technology Fast 500 (2016), among many other accolades.

To date the company has raised over $150M in VC funding from leading funds such as Battery Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Summit Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Cisco Investments and other top-tier Silicon Valley investors.

I had a lot of fun recording this interview and we covered a range of topics across marketing for startups including:

The compounding value of community

Risk taking for B2B marketers

When startups should build brand

The challenges of building out a new category

Marketing from 1st principles

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Show notes:

Box
Nick Mehta
Symantec
"Who's fired Up" - Rap song
Carpool Karaoke - Customer Success edition
Al Ramadan
Play Bigger
Geoffrey Moore
Aaron Levie
Tien Tzuo
Pulse Conference (Sydney)
Anthony Kennada (Twitter)
Anthony Kennada (LinkedIn)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Watch the video on Youtube here.

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep089 – Anthony Kennada (CMO – Gainsight) on marketing from first principles appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 88 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, is Whitney Sales, the General Partner and Head of Global Programming at Acceleprise.

As I mentioned in my last episode, one of the initiatives I am involved with is bringing Acceleprise to Australia.

Acceleprise is a 4 month accelerator program that invests $75,000 for 7.5% equity into the most promising B2B or Enterprise SaaS companies. The core focus of the program is helping startups close sales, drive revenue and build a platform for scalability through providing direct introductions to potential customers, workshops to help you generate and close leads and providing access to world-class mentors who have built successful SaaS businesses or are key decision makers in large scale enterprises.

As part of the our partnership with Acceleprise in the US, our teams will spend the last month of the program in San Francisco where they will get to work alongside the US cohort, get introduced to potential customers in the American market and pitch at the San Francisco demo day.

Applications for cohort 1 are open till the 27th of June with our first intake starting in July 2018. If you are interested in applying head over to the Acceleprise website or if you want to find out more about the program, send me an email at rohit@acceleprise.vc

One of the people heavily involved with the Acceleprise program in the US is Whitney Sales, the General Partner and Head of Global Programming at Acceleprise US.

Whitney has over 10 years of startup sales experience and is the founder of The Sales Method, a consultancy that helps startups identify target markets, build successful sales teams and quickly get products to market.

Prior to Acceleprise, Whitney led four companies to the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies list including LoopNet, Joby, Meltwater and SpringAhead.

This interview was a complete masterclass in B2B sales and we covered topics such as:

The differences between selling software vs physical products

How to get referrals and introductions

When and how to hire the right sales team

How to gauge interest in a potential enterprise sale

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Show notes:

LoopNet
Joby
The Sales Method
Cisco
Salesforce
Quora
Gainsight
Box
Acceleprise.vc
LAUNCH festival
Whitney@acceleprise.vc

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Watch the video on Youtube here.

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep088 – Whitney Sales (GP – Acceleprise) on building effective sales teams appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 87 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Michael Cardamone, the Managing Director of Acceleprise

As some of you may have heard and or seen, one of the initiatives I am involved with is bringing Acceleprise to Australia.

To provide more context on Acceleprise and what it takes to build successful SaaS businesses, my guest for this podcast episode is Michael Cardamone - the Managing Director of Acceleprise.

Prior to Acceleprise, Mike was one of the first 30 employees at Box as one of their Business Development Managers, before becoming the VP of partnerships at AcademixDirect. He then went on to spend some time as a Venture Partner as SaaStr’s $70M VC fund.

Mike has been running the Acceleprise program since June 2014 and to date has invested in over 70 companies, a large proportion of which have gone on to raise subsequent rounds of capital and scale and several of which have gone on to be acquired such as AdHusky, Bridgecrest Medical, Encore Alert and MetaLayer just to name a few!

In this brief interview recorded just before Acceleprise’s recent demo day in San Francisco, we covered a range of topics including:

How culture affects growth trajectory

The ingredients of a strong team

Why the best founders have conviction of the market and market opportunity

Strategy to find effective pricing

What founders should look for in accelerator programs

Using partnerships as a growth strategy

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Show notes:

Box

Acceleprise

Tien Tzuo

Zuora

GainSight

Adir Shiffman

AngelList

Mike (Twitter)

Mike@acceleprise.vc

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Watch the video on Youtube here.

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep087 – Michael Cardamone (Managing Director – Acceleprise) on teams and vision appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 86 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Founder, Author, Podcaster and Angel Investor - Jason Calacanis.

Jason is best known for his highly successful Podcast, This Week in Startups and for his experience as one of the most successful angel investors in the world, having been an early investor in companies such as Uber, Thumbtack, Wealthfront and Robin Hood just to name a few!

Outside of this, Jason is also the author of Angel, where he shares his tips and experience on angel investing, detailing his process of turning $100,000 into $100M, he is the Founder of Founder University and the Founder and Director of the LAUNCH Festival which is coming to Sydney on the 19th and 20th of June.

As you can imagine, there were so many topics that we covered in this interview, including

Why founders need to think in decades

What Jason looks for when angel investing

How angel investors should approach Bankroll management

The importance of reputation

Building your investment funnel

How the best products build virality

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Show notes:

Silicon Alley Reporter
Angel - How to invest in technology startups - timeless advice from an Angel Investor who turned $100,000 into $100,000,000
Podcast: This Week in Startups
Podcast: Angel
Incubator : Launch
Incubator: Founder University
LAUNCH festival
Esquire Magazine
Masayoshi Son
Weblogs inc
Brian Alvey
Mark Cuban
NPR - Startup Stories
Kevin Pollak's Chat Show
Travis Kalanick
Robinhood
Wealthfront
DataStax
Aileen Lee
Mashable
Recode
Techcrunch
Net Promoter Score
LAUNCH Festival (Sydney)
Republic (equity crowd funding)
Launch festival
Twitter @Launch
Twitter @Jason
Mark Pesce
This Week In Startups Australia (podcast)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Watch the video on Youtube here.

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep086 – Jason Calacanis (Founder, Angel Investor, Author) on long-term thinking appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 85 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Patrick Llewellyn, the CEO of 99Designs.

Patrick initially spent a decade in boutique corporate advisory where he primarily worked with Australian technology and new media companies.

He then joined 99Designs in 2009, around 18 months after the business had launched to setup their presence and office in the US.

Fast forward 9 years and 99designs is the world's largest online graphic design marketplace, connecting businesses looking for design work with more than 220,000 graphic designers from 192 countries around the world.

Patrick has been the CEO of 99Designs for the last 7.5 years and alongside the growth of the business, he has overseen raising a $35M Series A round from Accel in 2011 before raising a further $10M in 2015.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

Understanding risk

Their decision to shutting down, Swiftly, a popular spinoff brand created by 99Designs

Aligning personal and team focus

The importance of planning

Developing an evolving culture through hiring

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Show notes:

Mark Harbottle
Matt Mickiewicz
Leni Mayo
99Designs
Sitepoint
Flippa
Learnable
Jason Aiken
TaskRabbit
Accel
Adrian Stone (podcast)
Duncan Anderson (podcast)
Patrick (LinkedIn)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Watch the video on Youtube here.

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep085 – Patrick Llewellyn (CEO – 99Designs) on planning and focus appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 84 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is James Cameron, Partner at Airtree Ventures.

James started his career as a lawyer before jumping into launching startups himself. He used an unsuccessful attempt at raising capital as an opportunity to build relationships which led him to joining Accel. Accel has gone on to raise over $10B of funding to invest in early stage startups with it’s portfolio including the likes of Facebook, Dropbox, MyFitnessPal, Atlassian and Slack to name a few.

Roughly 12 months ago, James moved back to Australia to become a Partner at Airtree Ventures, one of the leading VC funds in the country. Airtree’s 2nd fund of $250M is one of the largest in Australia and they also count some of the best local startups in the portfolio including Canva, Prospa and HyperAnna.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:

The 2 things that the most successful founders obsess over

Why effective leaders are empathetic

The importance of founder’s mental health

Selling through storytelling

The process to hire an effective VP of Sales

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Show notes:

The Twenty Minute VC
Airtree
Bipsync
Accel
Daniel Petre
Craig Blair
Natalie Nguyen
Manish Jain
Anil Sabharwal

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Watch the video on Youtube here.

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep084 – James Cameron (Partner – Airtree VC) on searching for outliers appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 10 of The Startup Playbook: Hustle is Byron Scaf, the CEO of Stile Education.

Stile helps schools to transition from textbooks and handouts to their own interactive, online science curriculum, through providing workbooks, videos, simulations, and assessments combined into a seamless teaching and learning experience.

Stile was initially founded by Alan Finkel, with Byron taking over the role of CEO when Alan was offered the role of Australia’s Chief Scientist role in 2014.

The business has been entirely self funded to date and since pivoting from a platform to a content play, Stile has gone on to take a significant chunk of the local market and is now preparing to launch into new markets overseas.

In this episode we talk about:

Dealing with distraction

When and how to pivot

Breaking and building brand

When and how to expand internationally

Developing a hiring pipeline

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Show notes:

Evan Thornley

Better Place

Alan Finkel

Stile Education

Elizabeth Finkel

Cosmos Magazine

Daniel Pikler

Bett Show - Education Technology conference

Mark Horstman - Managertools.com

Clickview

Tim Power

Laurence Savin

Topgrading - book

Byron Scaf (LinkedIn)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Find the podcast video on Youtube here

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Hustle Ep010: Byron Scaf (CEO – Stile Education) on attracting the best talent appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 83 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Lauren Capelin, the Head of Venture Community at Reinventure Group.

Reinventure is Westpac Bank’s $50M venture fund for Australian entrepreneurs and disruptive technology in the Fintech space. To date, Reinventure has 20 companies in its portfolio including Hyper Anna, Brickx and Assembly Payments.

We have spoken about the importance of community on a number of previous episodes and Reinventure has led the way in both developing the Fintech community in Australia as well as building it's deal flow pipeline and stakeholder management through effective community building and management.

In this episode, Lauren and I deep dive into some the specifics of community where we cover topics such as.

The importance of knowing who you are selling to

How to build a successful community around your goals

The 5 buckets of communities

How to measure the health and success of communities

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Show notes:

Rachel Botsmon

Book - what's mine is yours (Rachel Botsman)

Brian Chesky

John Zimmer

Reinventure

Westpac

Simon Cant

Danny Gilligan

CMX Hub

Salesforce

Blackbird

Startmate

Stone&Chalk

Fintech Australia

Swarm conference

FeverBee

Holly Liu (podcast)

Lauren Capelin (Twitter)

Lauren Capelin (LinkedIn)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Watch the video on Youtube here.

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep083 – Lauren Capelin (Head of Venture Community – Reinventure) on using community for growth appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 82 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is James Mckinnon, an angel investor and founder of Australia's #1 babysitter and nanny app, Sittr.

James has had a unique journey to date. Having worked initially at a boutique advisory firm, James decided to jump into startups and learn more about the space by becoming an angel investor and investing in promising early stage startups

After investing in a number of companies such as Expert360, ResponSight and Airly, James decided to take the plunge into founding startups himself, teaming up with his partner to launch Sittr, an app based marketplace for babysitters and nannies.

Since launching in 2014, the app has gone on to have over 20,000 users and being featured as the number 1 app for it’s category by Apple.

In this interview, we talk about:

The characteristics that investors look for in founders

Managing the supply and demand of marketplaces

Using PR for growth

The importance of customer service

The decision to outsource vs having an in house development team

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Show notes:

Mirren Capital
Expert360
Airly
Sittr
TechCrunch
Startup Daily
VCDundee (Twitter)
James Mckinnon (Email)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Watch the video on Youtube here.

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep082 – James Mckinnon (Angel Investor & Founder – Sittr) on building great products appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 9 of The Startup Playbook Hustle is Patrick Gaskin, the Co-founder of Cardly.

Patrick started his career in his family business in the newsagent retail industry, helping grow the business from 24 to 50 retail stores and increasing revenue growth from $60 to $150M.

He then left the family business, and went on to manage Borders Angus and Robertson e-commerce platform and was the business development manager at Samsung. Patrick then took those experiences and lessons to start Cardly, which allows consumers and businesses to purchase and write in digital greeting cards, which are then printed out and sent to the recipients.

Like most businesses, Cardly has gone through several ups, downs and pivots in their journey where they have seen changes in the make up of the founding team, pivoted their business model from being purely B2C driven to adding a B2B component and recently raising a seed round of funding from a range of funds and angel investors.

In this episode we dived deeper into some of these areas, covering topics such as:

When to pivot business models

The fundraising process for startups

Dealing with co-founder breakups

Balancing startups needs with family commitments

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Show notes:

Samsung

Angus & Robertson

Shark Tank

Tom Clift (Co-founder)

Cardly

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Find the podcast video on Youtube here

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Hustle Ep009 – Patrick Gaskin (Co-founder – Cardly) on family and business appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 81 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Craig Blair, the Co-founder and Managing Partner at Airtree Ventures.

Airtree is one of the leading and largest VC funds in Australia, managing a $250M fund to be deployed in companies from seed to Series C and beyond. Some of the companies in their portfolio include Canva, Prospa, Edrolo and Brosa.

Prior to starting Airtree, Craig had extensive experience in building and growing companies. He was the founder of three software businesses including Travelselect, one of the early online travel companies in the UK, Beamly Australia (formally known as zeebox) and the founding Chairman of PetCircle, Australia's largest online Pet ecommerce player.

After moving back to Australia, Craig started the Netus fund with Daniel Petre, his co-founder at Airtree. Over the 5 years of the Netus fund, Craig and Daniel provided a 4x cash on cash return on investment making it one of the most successful VC funds in Australia.

In this interview, we spoke about:

Learning from positive feedback loops

The importance of timing

What Airtree looks for in investment opportunities

How to attract the right talent

The Airtree investment process

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Show notes:

Daniel Petre

Netus

Travelselect/ Lastminute.com

Expedia

Zeebox/Beamly

Airtree

Airtree's resource docs

Edrolo

Prospa

Craig Blair (Twitter)

Craig Blair (email)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Watch the video on Youtube here.

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep081 – Craig Blair (Managing Partner – Airtree Ventures) on the need for ambition appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 8 of The Startup Playbook Hustle is Matt Jones, the Co-founder of beauty and wellness platform Honee.

Matt started his career at ANZ before leaving to start his own startup. Unfortunately things didn’t go to plan with this idea, but instead of heading back into the corporate space, Matt joined DeliveryHero, which at that time was at an early stage in their penetration into the Australian market, taking them to 4400 restaurants before getting poached by Groupon.

He was then sent to Singapore to lead Quandoo’s expansion into the APAC market, soon overtaking the major local competitors before coming back to Australia to join Zomato after the UrbanSpoon acquisition, where he scaled the business to over 100 people, 7 verticals and over $1M in revenue.

Matt was then able to take all of these experiences and come full circle to launch Honee, a beauty and wellness online platform.

Since launching in early 2016, Honee has signed up over 10,000 venues across Sydney and Melbourne offering more than 200,000 services. They have also recently graduated from the Startmate Accelerator program and closed a $1.8M seed round from Blackbird Ventures as well as a number of Angel Investors.

In this episode we talk about:

The need to fail quickly

How to ask for feedback

Deciding when to pivot

How to train sales teams

Video recording of the Podcast (now on Youtube)

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Show notes

Delivery Hero
Quandoo
Zomato
Zomato's Urbanspoon acquisition
Deepinder Goyal
Pankaj Chaddah
Honee
Sean Qian
Collective Campus
Nick Chang
Nicole So
Startup Victoria
James Cameron
Airtree
Blackbird
Startmate
Nick Crocker
Matt Jones (email)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Hustle Ep008 – Matt Jones (Co-founder – Honee) on selling effectively appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 80 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Ben Pfisterer, the Australian Country Manager for Square.

Prior to joining Square, Ben had extensive experience within the corporate sector. He was part of the team that launched Jetstar in Australia and during his time at NAB he ran one of world’s first Mobile Payments / NFC Pilots.

Ben then left his corporate career to start his own startup before receiving the call to lead Square’s expansion into the Australian market. Founded by Twitter Founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey, Square allows it’s diverse users to simplify acceptance of payments via a combination of hardware and software.

We covered a lot of topics in this interview, some of which include:

How to transition out of a corporate career

Launching into new markets

The future of payments

Transitioning across the stages of scale

Marketing and branding to non-technical users

The 2 things Ben looks for in new hires

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Show notes:

Jetstar airlines
NAB
Visa
Square
Jack Dorsey
Duncan Anderson (Edrolo) podcast interview

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep080 – Ben Pfisterer (Country Manager – Square) on transitions and scale appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 79 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Bill Ketelbey, the CEO and Managing Director of Actinogen Medical.

After deciding to leave his executive career in a large Pharmaceutical company, Bill was searching for a meaningful endeavour to be involved in.

That quest led him to join biotech startup, Actinogen, which has created a novel way to treat Alzheimer’s, the most common form of Dementia, which is the second leading cause of death of Australians contributing to 5.4% of all deaths in males and 10.6% of all deaths in females each year.

Bill is trained a neurosurgeon, and a former medical director of Pfizer Australia and New Zealand, where he ran all medical operations across the Australasian region.

His team of researchers was involved in all phases of human research for most of the Pfizer products that subsequently came to market. Bill has helped launch household drug names such as Viagra, Lipitor and the current market-leading Alzheimer’s drug, Aricept.

Bill is now the CEO and Managing Director of Actinogen, a clinical stage ASX listed Australian biotechnology startup focused on the development of novel treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease and other major age-related neurodegenerative disorders.

In this interview we talk about:

The process in taking a biotech product to market

Investment opportunities in Biotech

Commercialising research in Australia

Preparing for opportunities

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Show notes:

Pfizer

Aricept

Welcome Centre for Cell Biology, Edinburgh University

Viralytics acqusition by Merck ($500M)

Dr. Geoff Brooke

Dr. George Morstyn

Amgen

Dr. Jason Loveridge

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep079 – Bill Ketelbey (CEO & MD – Actinogen Medical) on preparing for opportunities appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 78 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Topaz Conway, the Chair of the Board of Directors at SBE Australia.

Topaz is an entrepreneur, angel investor, Director, and an advocate to the creation of a stronger Australian innovation culture.

Earlier in her career, she was a Biotech specialist, at VC firm Pacific Horizon Ventures, and went on to become the CEO of bioengineering company Citopedia, which later sold to Beckton Dickenson and was the founder of wine club, Vine Tales, which was profitable within 2 years and ended up being acquired 2 years and 8 months after launching.

Topaz is now playing an active role in developing a stronger startup ecosystem across Australia. Among other roles, she is a Director at Cicada Innovations Incubator, a Director of StartupAUS and Chair of Board of Directors for SBE Australia, which runs the Springboard Enterprises Accelerator and E3 Programs.

In this interview we talk about:

Starting with problems instead of solutions

The need for generosity

How to network effectively

The importance of being coachable

What to ask yourself before you start fundraising

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

THE E-COMMERCE PLAYBOOK

ACCELEPRISE AUSTRALIA

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

Springboard

Cicada Innovations

Adrian stone

Topaz Conway

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep078 – Topaz Conway (Chair – SBE Australia) on being coachable appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 7 of The Startup Playbook Hustle is Alan Crabbe, the Co-founder of Crowdfunding platforms Pozible and Birchal.

Alan has been one of the pioneers of the Crowdfunding movement in Australia.

What started as a side hustle, turned into one of the first and most successful platforms in Australia. As the Co-founder of Pozible, Alan has helped a number of artists and creatives raise funds for their work.

He has now used his experience through Pozible to launch Birchal, one of Australia's first equity Crowdfunding platforms.

In this interview we talk about:

Building around growth

How to run a successful Crowdfunding campaign

Building champions for your product

How to define your valuation for equity Crowdfunding

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

THE E-COMMERCE PLAYBOOK

ACCELEPRISE AUSTRALIA

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

Rick Chen

Springwise

Birchal

Occulus Rift acquisition

Alan Crabbe (LinkedIn)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Hustle Ep007 – Alan Crabbe (Co-Founder – Pozible & Birchal) on how to run successful Crowdfunding campaigns appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 77 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Trena Blair, the Founder and CEO of FD Global Connections.

Few people would have as varied or as successful of a career as Trena.

After starting her career as a teacher, she moved into the corporate world before being headhunted to help get Optus of the ground in Australia.

Since then, Trena has held several senior roles, including the VP/GM (Aus/NZ) and Regional VP of Marketing (APAC) at American Express.

Trena has since left the corporate world to start her own business, FD Global Connections, which helps startups and businesses expand into the US market.

In this episode we talk about:

How to approach transition and opportunities

The challenges of delivering to your brand message

The benefits of creating structure

How and when to expand internationally

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

THE E-COMMERCE PLAYBOOK

ACCELEPRISE AUSTRALIA

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

Optus

Amex

FD Global Connections

Bob Mansfield

Cable & Wireless

AT&T

Adrian stone podcast

Seinfeld

New York Immersion Program

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep077 – Trena Blair (Founder – FD Global) on the need for authenticity appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 76 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Daniel Gavel, the Director of early-stage investment firm, Black Sheep Capital.

Dan started out in financial advisory, growing his own practice before exiting the industry in 2013 and establishing Black Sheep Capital to invest in early-stage tech companies and other assets. Today, Black Sheep Capital is one of Australia’s most active angel and seed investors, investing in 25 companies over the last 3 years, and has funded a wide range of startups including Airtasker, Sendle and Go1.

In this interview, we talk about:

Understanding risk capacity

Why founders need to be comfortable with change

Black Sheep's investment Due Diligence process

How to prepare for investment

The importance of warm intros

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

THE E-COMMERCE PLAYBOOK

ACCELEPRISE AUSTRALIA

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

Paul Osborne

Black Sheep Capital (LinkedIn)

Black Sheep Capital (Medium)

Black Sheep Capital (Website)

Roshni Dhason

Dan Winter

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep076 – Dan Gavel (Director – Black Sheep Capital) on VC-as-a-Service appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 6 of The Startup Playbook Hustle is Tony Wu, the co-founder and Head of Growth of Weploy.

Weploy is an app which helps businesses with temporary jobs find the right job seekers through online skills matching, cutting out the need for interviews and CV exchanges in the process.

Tony took some of the lessons from his previous startup, Saibu No Akuma, to start Weploy, which in the space of a year has raised $2M in funding and grown the team to over 20 staff.

In this episode we talk about:

Long term thinking

Weploy’s hiring process

Creating the structures of growth

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – 10X your growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

Saibu No Akuma
Nick La
Vinh Luong
Weploy
Tony Wu (Email)
Tony Wu (LinkedIn)

Tony's ask: Spread the word for Weploy

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

Want to be featured on an upcoming episode? Fill out the Application Form: STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

The post Hustle Ep006 – Tony Wu (Co-founder – Weploy) on hiring and culture appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 75 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Ahmed Haider, the co-founder of Zookal and Flirtey.

All founders know how difficult it can be to run a business, but it is infinitely harder to run 2 successful, multi-million dollar companies at the same time!

Someone who makes this look easy is Ahmed Haider. Ahmed dropped out of his University degree to focus full time on Zookal, an online platform that allows students to buy and rent textbooks.

From having just 2 weeks runway remaining, Ahmed and his team have hustled to build Zookal to generating $20M revenue in the last year and having raised over $7.5M in funding

If that wasn’t enough, Ahmed went on to start his second company, drone delivery startup Flirtey, which earlier this year raised a $16M round of funding.

In this interview we talk about:

understanding your risk tolerance

how to attract the right talent

competing with likes of Amazon

the opportunities in South East Asia

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

Zookal

Flirtey

Startmate

Blackbird

Artesian Capital

Vicky Lay (Twitter)

Vicky Lay (podcast interview)

Tia Saunders

Jon Tse

Matt Sweeny

Tom Bass

Peter Huynh (Qualgro VC) Podcast

Tom Ellis (Mai Capital) podcast

Ahmed Haider

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep075 – Ahmed Haider (Co-founder – Zookal & Flirtey) on calculated risk appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guests for Episode 5 of The Startup Playbook Hustle are Heidi Holmes and Lucy Lloyd, the co-founders of Mentorloop.

Heidi and Lucy have been friends for over 20 years, initially meeting at school before initially heading down different career paths.

Prior to Mentorloop, Heidi was the Managing Director of Adage, an online jobs board that was acquired by OneShift in early 2015, whereas Lucy spent several years with tech and development agencies before reconnecting and discussing the initial idea for Mentorloop over a glass of wine.

That idea turned into a Mentorloop, which provides mentoring software that enables businesses to match their people into effective mentorships at any scale.

Mentorloop was recently accepted into and went through the highly competitive Startmate accelerator program and announced a partnership with the Australian Olympic Committee.

The success and growth of Mentorloop has allowed them to raise $1M of funding from a number of investors including Blackbird Ventures, Rampersand and Tempus Partners.

In this episode we talk about:

How to get buy-in from your first few customers

Passing the hurdle test

Finding a technical co-founder vs outsourcing development

A detailed breakdown of Mentorloop’s fundraising process

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – 10X your growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

Adage

KPMG

Common Code

Startmate

Airtree

Airtree investor spreadsheet

Trello

Mark Suster

Invest in Lines not Dots - Both Sides of the Table (blog)

Rampersand

Heidi Holmes

Lucy Lloyd

Heidi's ask: Intro's to HR Managers

Lucy's ask: Talented people to join Mentorloop with a Development or Marketing background

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

Want to be featured on an upcoming episode? Fill out the Application Form: STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

The post Hustle Ep005 – Heidi Holmes & Lucy Lloyd (Mentorloop) on the hurdle test appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 74 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is serial founder, CTO and startup advisor Martin Wells.

Martin is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience as a Founder, CTO, VP Product and VP Engineering focused on building and growing digital products and services and having successfully founded and exited 3 businesses.

Some of the many highlights of Martin’s career include:

Founding Intercom, one of Australia’s first Internet Service Providers,

Managing a team of 45 as Founder & CTO of Dot Communications which was acquired by Clarity in 2007

VP Product of chat service migme, where he helped grow the product to 50 million users

Founder and CTO of Playcraft Labs: a high-performance HTML5 game engine with 15,000 developers which was acquired by MinoGames in February 2013.

At MinoGames, he was the Lead Engineer/CTO on MinoMonsters, an iOS and Android game achieving more than 15 million downloads and #1 grossing rank in 22 countries

He now spends the majority of his time as an Advisor to more than 30 companies, raising over $200m in VC funding and assisting in 10 acquisitions

In this interview we talk about:

The model for growth

Deciding when to sell

The minimum viable customer

How to focus on the right things

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

Intercom

Telstra

Dodo

Mike Arrington

TechCrunch

Mick Liubinskas

Phil Morle

Julia French

Jeff Hammerbacher

Cloudera

Migme

Steven Goh

Playcraft Labs

Mino Games

Founders for Founders

TechCrunch Battlefield

Main Sequence Ventures

Dropbox

Airbnb

Mike Cannon-Brookes

Accel VC

Chris Saad

Airtree

Daniel Petre

Craig Blair

John Henderson

James Cameron

Larry Marshall

Martin Wells (Email)

Martin Wells (LinkedIn)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep074 – Martin Wells (Founder & Advisor) on the minimum viable customer appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for episode 4 of The Startup Playbook Hustle is Morgan Ranieri, the Co-founder of YourGrocer.

Prior to starting YourGrocer, Morgan was one of the co-founders of Thankyou - one of the best known Australian startups in the FMCG industry.

Morgan used his experience at ThankYou to launch YourGrocer, an online grocery delivery platform that connects you to local independent shops in Melbourne and Sydney.

Since launching in 2013, the company now has a network of 150 local businesses and has fulfilled more than 80,000 orders to date. The company has also raised a total of $3M funding from investors such as Giant Leap Fund, Cyan Ta’aed and Tank Stream Ventures

In this episode we talk about:

the 4 pillars of building startups
balancing short term goals vs long term vision
building from first principles
the consequences of growth

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – 10X your growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

Thankyou Group

Coles

Woolworths

Startup Victoria

Webvan

Amazon

YourGrocer

Morgan Ranieri (Twitter)

Morgan’s ask: Help spread the word for YourGrocer. Get in touch with him here

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

Want to be featured on an upcoming episode? Fill out the Application Form: STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

The post Hustle Ep004 – Morgan Ranieri (Co-founder – YourGrocer) on building from first principles appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for episode 73 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Will Richardson, the Head of Venture Capital at the Impact Investment Group and the Managing Partner of Giant Leap Fund

Will spent several years in the private equity space before searching for something more in line with his values and passion.

This search led him to the impact investment industry and through a series of 50 coffees, came across the Impact Investment Group, a leading Australian impact investment funds manager that shifts capital towards investments that blend financial returns with deep social and environmental impact.

Will is now the Head of Venture Capital at the Impact Investment Group and is the Managing Partner of Giant Leap Fund, Australia’s first 100% impact venture capital fund.

Through the $14M fund, Giant Leap Fund has invested in local companies; Sendle, YourGrocer, GlamCorner and Switch.

In this interview we talk about:

The power of introductions

The misconceptions of impact investment

The 3 things that Giant Leap looks for when investing in startups

The benefits of effective storytelling

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

Small Giants

Impact Investment Group

Giant Leap Fund

Pete Cameron

Adam Milgrom

Kylie Charlton

Social Ventures Australia

Jan Owen

Rachel Yang

James Moody

Sendle

Morgan Ranieri

YourGrocer

Thankyou Group

GlamCorner

H&M

TopShop

Wells Fargo

WeWork

Deloitte Millennial survey (2017)

Fergus

Kyle offeran

Will Richardson

Adrian Stone

Dream Factory

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep073 – Will Richardson (Managing Partner – Giant Leap Fund) on impact driven investment appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for episode 3 of The Startup Playbook Hustle is Tashi Dorjee, the Co-founder and Chief Space Officer of TwoSpace.

Prior to starting TwoSpace, Tashi was the Founder and Director of Carbon Conservation, Australia’s first Emissions Trading Platform, aimed at conserving 700,000 hectares of forest in Indonesia.

After meeting with his future co-founder over drinks and dinner, a casual conversation turned into a business that transforms restaurants, cafes and hotels into coworking spaces during the day.

Fast forward to just over 12 months later and TwoSpace has expanded to Melbourne and Sydney and this week announced it’s expansion into Hong Kong and a partnership with Qantas to turn it’s lounges into coworking spaces.

In this episode we talk about:

Building engaged communities
How to make the most of PR
How to develop effective partnerships

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – 10X your growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

Carbon trading

Tom's shoes

Rob Walker (CTO)

City of Sydney Smart Action Plan

Sydney Startups Facebook Group

Nathan Moses

Optus Yes Lab

Nick Bailey

AFR

Channel 7 Sunrise

Tank Stream Labs

Fishburners

Bill Rutten

Bradley Delamare

Ovolo hotels

TwoSpace (Website)

Tashi's ask: Help spread the word for TwoSpace. Get in touch with him here

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

Want to be featured on an upcoming episode? Fill out the Application Form: STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

The post Hustle Ep003: Tashi Dorjee (Co-founder – TwoSpace) on building effective partnerships appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for episode 2 of The Startup Playbook Hustle is Noga Edelstein, the Co-founder and Director of UrbanYou.

Noga spent several years as a legal professional in organisations such as Allens, Foxtel and Yahoo before taking the leap to start UrbanYou, an on-demand cleaning, gardening and handyman platform.

Since launching in 2014, the company has seen rapid growth in the business, completing over 18,000 bookings and with over $3M worth of services being sold.

In October this year, UrbanYou also announced it’s acquisition of HomeHello, opening the door to the Brisbane market.

In this episode we talk about:

Jumping into startups from corporate life
The business of marketplaces
Using acquisition as a growth strategy

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – 10X your growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

Foxtel

Yahoo

IBM

Elke Keeley

UrbanYou

Lean Canvas

Heads over Heels

Springboard

Ernst & Young

Freelancer

Handy

HomeHello

Spreets

Noga's ask: Try UrbanYou with the discount code "startup"

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

Want to be featured on an upcoming episode? Fill out the Application Form: STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

The post Hustle Ep002: Noga Edelstein (Co-founder – UrbanYou) on acquiring growth appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My first guest for the first episode of The Startup Playbook Hustle is Ainslie Williams, the cofounder of Qualie.

Ainslie has spent the last 17 years honing her craft as a qualitative researcher before jumping into her first startup, Qualie, a video-based online qualitative research company. Qualie combines qualitative techniques with quantitative numbers to deliver the “compelling consensus” on any proposition being tested.

Within a year of launching, the startup has signed up some major clients as well as raising $750,000 in funding from former Xero boss Chris Ridd, Unlockd founder Matt Berriman and Catapult Sports Chairman and Playbook Media Director Adir Shiffman.

In this episode we talk about:

How to ask the right questions
The importance of market expertise
Finding the right foundation clients
Advice for fundraising
The benefits of a distributed team

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – 10X your growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

Jira

Atlassian

Rob Marjenberg

Adir Shiffman

Steve Ford

Slack

Adam Stone (Podcast interview)

Qualie.com

hola@qualie.com

Ainslie's Ask: Know an interesting UI designer interested in helping Qualie? Get in touch here

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

Want to be featured on an upcoming episode? Fill out the Application Form: STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

The post Hustle Ep001 – Ainslie Williams (Co-founder – Qualie) on asking the right questions appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 72 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is US based serial entrepreneur, Aaron Patzer.

Aaron started his career at IBM before founding 2 web development and online marketing companies. He then went on to become the technical lead for the San Jose division of Nascentric before deciding to found his own startup.

He attended and won at the very first TechCrunch Battlefield event with a little known personal finance app at that time called mint.com which grew to over 1.5 million users and sold to Intuit within 2 years for $170M.

He then founded Fountain, an on demand answers app that again sold within 2 years to Porch for an undisclosed fee. He is now on to his 3rd company, Vital Software which is an AI software that is a mobile check-in for patients, and automatically creates electronic medical records designed for doctors and nurses, with the aim being to cut ER wait times in half.

In this interview we talk about:

Building startups as a solo founder

The Value of equity

Solving big problems

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Techboard's Startup Community Award

Show notes:

Mint.com

Intuit

Quickbooks

Turbotax

Fountain

Vital Software

Hyperloop

Quicken

Josh Kopelman

First Round Capital

Aaron Patzer (LinkedIn)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep072 – Aaron Patzer (Founder – Mint.com) on the value of equity appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 71 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Chris Saad, Former Head of Product at Uber's Developer Platform.

Chris is has spent the last 10 years in Silicon Valley as a Serial Entrepreneur and Strategic Advisor. He was the Co-founder of the DataPortability Project and is the Co-Author of Backplane Protocal and APML.

Most recently, he was the Head of Product at Uber's Developer Platform, while the company grew from 3,000 to 17,000 employees.

In this interview we talk about:

The importance of showing up

Building networks by adding value

Building products that scale

Paying it forward

How hiring changes as companies scale

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

LIVE PODCAST WITH WILL RICHARDSON (GIANT LEAP FUND) - 22nd November

STARTUP PLAYBOOK HUSTLE APPLICATION

Show notes:

TechCrunch Battlefield Australia

Martin Wells

Julia Wells

Mick Liubinskas

Dean McEvoy

Michael Arrington

ReadWriteWeb

TechCrunch

Digg

RSS

Chris Saad (Website)

Chris Saad (Twitter)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep071 – Chris Saad (Former Head of Developer Product – Uber) on the abundance mindset appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 70 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Jason McPherson, Chief Scientist at Culture Amp.

Prior to Culture Amp, Jason was a lecturer, researcher and consultant at the University of Adelaide, where he also completed his PhD with his thesis titled: Development and Assessment of Computer-Game-Like Tests of Human Cognitive Abilities

After seeing school kids hating cognitive assessments, even the computerised versions, I developed computer-game software prototypes and demonstrated their ability to predict performance on commonly used and validated cognitive tests. combining computer programming with his main area of research in psychology.

After his PhD, Jason had several corporate roles before applying his experience and expertise in the startup space, joining Culture Amp in August 2011 as it’s very first employee.

Culture Amp has since grown to close to 150 staff, with offices across Melbourne, SF, New York and London and earlier this year, Culture Amp closed a $20M series C round of funding.

In this interview we talk about:

How to measure company culture
Hiring from an early employee perspective
The transition and lessons going from 1 to 150 people
How to approach getting the first customer for your SaaS product

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

Show notes:

Culture Amp
Didier Elzinga
Make A Wish (Australia)
Pinterest
Airbnb
Jason McPherson (email)
Jason McPherson (Twitter)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep070 – Jason McPherson (Chief Scientist – Culture Amp) on the science of culture appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 69 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Michael Cameron, the Co-founder & CEO of global travel startup, Rome2rio.

Prior to Rome2rio, Michael spent several years at Microsoft as their Senior Software Development Lead as part of the Bing Search Team. He had also completed a PhD in Genomic Search Algorithms and used this experience to start Rome2rio, a comprehensive global trip planner that helps you get from A to B worldwide.

Rome2rio allows you to enter any town, address or landmark as your destination and the platform will instantly display flight, train, bus, ferry and driving options with estimated travel times and fares. The travel search engine contains route information from over 4,800 transport operators in over 158 countries.

In this interview we discuss; how to prioritise between different product features, thinking globally from day 1, hiring by testing and the cockroach startup.

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

Show notes:

Bernhard Tschirren
Rome2Rio
Microsoft
Bing
Redbubble
Envato
99Designs
Rod Cuthbert
KP (Kirsteene Phelan)
Inspire9
RetailMeNot
Atlassian
Guy King
Bevan Clark
Rome2Rio Careers

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep069 – Michael Cameron (Co-founder & CEO – Rome2rio) on going global appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 68 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Frank Arrigo, the Evangelism and Ecosystem Engagement Lead at Telstra’s CTO.

Prior to Telstra, Frank had been with Microsoft for over 20 years across the US and Australia in a number of senior roles including Microsoft’s Developer & Platform Evangelism team and being the first CTO of the ninemsn joint venture in Australia. driving Windows Media business development in Asia Pacific, and managing the early technology trials of Microsoft’s Interactive TV in Seattle.

Along with his role at Telstra, Frank actively mentors and advises a number of startups through Telstra’s muru-D accelerator program and CSIRO’s ON innovation program.

In this interview we discuss; the limitation of goal setting, finding early adopters for new technologies, building tribes, atoms vs bits and the importance of flearning.

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

Show notes:

Microsoft
Bill Gates
Telstra
Mosaic
MSN
AOL
James Packer
Java
.Net
Kazaa
Mick Liubinskas
Phil Morle
York Butter Factory
Imagine Cup
Charlotte Yarkoni
muru-D
Seth Godin - The tribes we lead
Annie Parker
Envato
Redbubble
Culture Amp
CSIRO
CSIRO's ON Program
Frank Arrigo (Twitter)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep068 – Frank Arrigo (Evangelism and Ecosystem Engagement – Telstra) on Atoms vs Bits appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 67 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Marisa Warren, the Founder, Executive Director and Chair of the ELEVACAO Foundation.

Marisa is a global tech advisor, social entrepreneur and speaker, who is incredibly passionate about elevating women to higher levels and building a collaborative tech ecosystem. As an entrepreneur, Marisa has built three global businesses from idea stage to high growth phase, and worked in Australia and New York for companies such as SAP, Microsoft and Workday.

Whilst living in New York, Marisa founded the ELEVACAO Foundation – a global not for profit empowering women entrepreneurs to build and launch successful tech businesses. Since ELEVACAO’s launch in mid-2015, they have helped over 65 women get pitch ready across New York, Sydney and Melbourne.

Marisa has also been instrumental in bringing the TechCrunch Battlefield event to Australia, which will take place later this year.

In this interview we discuss; why you need to have chemistry with your mentors, the importance of market testing your ideas, setting goals and how to get your pitch investor ready.

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

Show notes:

ELEVACAO
SAP
Microsoft
Lean In - Sheryl Sandberg
Karen Jacobsen - Siri
Simon Sinek
Inside Quest - Simon Sinek interview with Tom Bileu
Holly Liu podcast - Startup Playbook Podcast
Sam Wong
Blackbird VC
TechCrunch Battlefield Australia
Julia Wells
Ned Desmond

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep067 – Marisa Warren (Founder & CEO – ELEVACAO) on the ingredients of an effective pitch appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 66 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Jodie Auster, the GM of UberEATS Melbourne.

Jodie started her career as an emergency doctor, before going to Business school. She then joined Scoopon as an early hire and as the General Manager of Operations, oversaw the growth of the company from 50 to 110 employees, enabling a doubling of the number of deals offered per week and generating 50% increase in weekly gross profit.

She then moved to San Fran to join Thumbtack originally as the Director of Customer Operations before becoming the Vice President for people at the organisation, overseeing 4 funding rounds (totalling $267M in funding), 10x in revenue growth and 15x growth in people.

In late 2016, she moved back to Australia and took over as the GM of UberEATS Melbourne, one of the first cities in the world to launch Uber’s new product.

In this interview we discuss; hiring ahead of your needs, the importance of understanding the unit economics of your business, customer experience debt and hypothesis driven problem solving.

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

BLOG - The 3 Pillars of Growth

Show notes:

*EDIT: The Thumbtack competitor Jodie was referring to was Homejoy

Bain & Company
Catch of the Day
Scoopon
Thumbtack
Adir Shiffman
Playbook Media
UberEATS
Sortd
Jodie Auster (LinkedIn)
Jodie Auster (Twitter)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep066 – Jodie Auster (GM – UberEATS) on hypothesis driven decision making appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for episode 65 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Jason Lim, the General Manager of York Butter Factory (YBF) and Director of National Innovation Precint, Hoist.

Jason joined Melbourne based Venture Capital Fund, Adventure Capital over 5 years ago, providing funding and resources for startups to scale and grow.

Since then, Jason has been at the centre of the Victorian startup ecosystem through his role at the York Butter Factory, helping to drive the local community and fostering connections and collaborations between startups and corporates.

Along with his role at YBF and Adventure Capital, he is also the Director of Hoist, a new innovation precinct at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney which is a partnership between YBF and Mirvac. The partnership will bring together various communities, corporate partners, incubators and accelerators at the Locomotive Workshop in the ATP, providing a collaborative workspace.

In this interview we cover a range of topics including; overcoming a culture of risk aversion, building diversity from the grassroots, playing to your strengths, building effective teams and the importance of having role models.

PLAYBOOK MEDIA – Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

Show notes:

York Butter Factory
Stuart Richardson
Darcy Naunton
Stuart & Darcy Podcast interview
Blackbird Ventures
SquarePeg Capital
Bailador
Hyper Anna
Sequoia Capital
90Seconds
Sheryl Sandberg
George Catlett Marshall
The 5 love languages test
Startup Bootcamp
Pantree
Leigh Sherman
Kate Morris podcast interview
Hoist
Mirvac
Australian Technology Park
Atlassian
Cisco
Cicada Innovations
Level 39
Canary Wharf
TechCrunch Battlefield
Startcon
Sunrise
Jason Lim (Email)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep065 – Jason Lim (GM – YBF & Director – Hoist) on learning from role models appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for episode 64 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Kate Morris, the Founder and CEO of Adore Beauty, Australia's first e-commerce beauty store.

With a lot of today’s media attention on the startup industry being focused around raising large funding rounds and successful exits, the challenges, struggle and shear resilience required to even get to that point can often be overlooked.

Someone who epitomises the real journey to success is my guest for today’s episode, Kate Morris, the Founder and CEO of Adore Beauty.

Today the company is a huge success, it has over 190 brands on board, 13,000 products available online and an annual turnover $28M.

But the company wasn’t always a roaring success. Kate founded the company in 1999 as a 21 year old with just $12,000 to cover all operating costs and She struggled to get buy in from the industry with only 2 little known brands joining Adore Beauty at launch.

It took Kate several years to get major brands on board and it wasn’t until 10 years into the business that she saw substantial growth in the company.

In this interview we talk about the importance of resilience, why you should focus on customer loyalty, the importance of building relationships and how writing a letter to her future self changed Kate's outlook on the business.

PLAYBOOK MEDIA - Growth through Data-Driven Storytelling

Show notes:

Adore Beauty
Simon Sinek
Start with Why - Simon Sinek
Adore beauty buys back shares from Woolworths
The New Hustle - movie
Justin Dry
Vinomofo
Catch Group
Adore Beauty (Instagram)
Kate Morris (Instagram)
Kate Morris (Twitter)

A big thank you to the team at the York Butter Factory for hosting us at this event!

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep064 – Kate Morris (Founder & CEO – Adore Beauty) on the importance of resilience appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for episode 63 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Glen Rabie, the Co-founder and CEO of Yellowfin.

Yellow Fin is a business intelligence platform that helps connect businesses with their data. Since launching in 2003, Yellow Fin has gone on to dominate the market counting large companies such as Coca-Cola, Honda, Xerox and Vodaphone as it’s clients. Yellow Fin now has customers in over 70 countries and a distributed network of company executives based in offices in the US, UK, Japan and Australia.

In this interview we talk about starting a tech business as a non-tech founder, the transition from a corporate career to starting a startup, the value of bootstrapping, why you should be being willing to lose a customer and the need for focus.

PLAYBOOK MEDIA

LIVE PODCAST WITH KATE MORRIS (ADORE BEAUTY)

Show notes:

Pete Cameron
Yellowfin (website)
Glen Rabie (LinkedIn)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep063 – Glen Rabie (Co-founder & CEO – Yellowfin) on the need for focus appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for episode 62 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Robert Wickham, Regional Vice President, Innovation and Digital Transformation at Salesforce.

Robert has had an interesting career to date - he studied Aeronautical engineering at MIT, before taking up a role within Management consulting at the Boston Consulting Group. He then left that that line of work to take up an audacious project of launching a Low cost European airline within 6 months, this project was called Go Fly which was later sold in 2001 for $400M.

He has since taken on senior roles at organisations such as Oracle before taking on his current role as the Regional Vice President for Innovation and Digital Transformation at Salesforce.

In this interview we talk about the ingredients of good storytelling, how to hire for resilience, creating a culture of innovation and the need to have an ecosystem strategy.

PLAYBOOK MEDIA

LIVE PODCAST WITH KATE MORRIS (ADORE BEAUTY)

Show notes:

Go Fly

Salesforce

Brian Lara

MIT

Winston Churchill

George Orwell

British Airways

MAP

Mark Benioff

Robert Wickham (Twitter)

Robert Wickham (Email)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep062 – Robert Wickham (Regional Vice President – Salesforce) on ecosystem strategy appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guests for episode 61 of The Startup Playbook Podcast are Samantha Stein and Anthony Ha from TechCrunch.

In case you missed the announcement, TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield is coming down under! As you may be aware, TechCrunch is one of the world’s leading technology media companies and they also host Startup Battlefield which brings the world’s top early stage startups together on one stage to compete for the coveted Disrupt Cup, a $50,000 prize, and the attention of media and investors.

On November 16, TechCrunch will hold it’s first Startup Battlefield in Sydney at the Australian Technology Park and will see 15 early stage start-ups compete for a $25,000 non-equity funding prize and an all-expenses paid trip to compete at TechCrunch's flagship San Francisco Battlefield event in 2018.

My guests for today’s episode are two members of the Techcrunch team in the Director of Special Projects and Battlefield Director, Samantha Stein and Senior Writer at TechCrunch, Anthony Ha

In this episode we talk about: what journalists at techCrunch look for in featured stories, the importance of having the right team, the key ingredients of a good pitch and the importance of understanding your audience.

PLAYBOOK MEDIA

Show notes:

Startup Battlefield

Ned Desmond

Elevacao

Startup Battlefield Africa

Marisa Warren

Startup Battlefield (Applications)

Battlefield Contact Email

Pitch to TechCrunch

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep061 – Samantha Stein and Anthony Ha (TechCrunch) on pitching & PR appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 60 is Holly Liu, the co-founder of mobile gaming studio, Kabam, which recently sold for $1B.

Holly has seen the company go through multiple pivots over the formative years of the company, moving from a corporate social networking platform to a Facebook gaming company before finally pivoting to a Mobile Gaming Studio.

Kabam built some of the most successful mobile games in history including Star Wars: Uprising, Marvel: Contest of Champions, Transformers and Kingdoms of Camelot.

As a founding member of the company, Holly saw the organisation grow from a team of 4 co-founders to having over 1,500 staff across all of it’s international offices.

In her first ever podcast interview, we talk about the multiple pivots that Holly and her co-founders went through, the importance of going to where the users are, playing to your strengths, the need for alignment, using culture as a competitive advantage and the value of diversity.

PLAYBOOK MEDIA

Show notes:

Adrian Stone

Gillian Dirckze

Kabam

Sequoia Capital

The Founders Dilemma - Noam Wasserman

Sheryl Thai

League of Extraordinary Women

Hon. Minister Philip Dalidakis

Panel Pledge

Sarah Moran

Girl Geek Academy

Holly Liu (Twitter)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep060 – Holly Liu (Co-founder – Kabam) on the billion dollar exit appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 59 is Scott Handsaker, the CEO of Cyrise, Asia-Pacific's first Cyber Security Accelerator program.

Scott has been at the forefront of the Victorian Startup ecosystem over the last decade. He has cofounded 2 startups, has been a mentor at accelerator programs such as AngelCube and is the cofounder and board member at Startup Victoria, a non-profit organisation focused on helping Melbourne become a world class startup ecosystem.

Scott has recently taken on a new role as the the CEO of CyRise, a venture accelerator backed by Deakin University and Dimension Data, focused squarely on early stage cyber security startups.

In this episode we talk about the challenges of hiring, what the best accelerator programs should provide, the importance of mentor networks and the characteristics of the best founders.

JOIN OUR BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS

Show notes:

Cyrise

Lean Startup Melbourne

Startup Victoria

Leni Mayo

Brad Feld's Boulder Thesis

Vinomofo

PayPal Mafia

AngelCube

Phil Bosua

Startmate

Techstars

Dimension Data

Deakin University

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep059 – Scott Handsaker (CEO – Cyrise) on accelerators, hiring & building ecosystems appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 58 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Ivan Lim, the Co-founder and CEO of Brosa, Ivan Lim.

Ivan's first startup, Vinspi, was an online men's tailored clothing store which went through the AngelCube accelerator program. Ivan then moved on from running his own startup to joining Elto (then known as Tweaky) as their "Founder's Apprentice" before going on to become the Head of Marketing at Elto, which was later acquired by GoDaddy.

He then used his experience to become the Co-founder and CEO of Brosa, an e-commerce business delivering designer furniture and homewares direct to customers.

In 2015, just 18 months after launching, Brosa raised $2M in Series A funding from Airtree Ventures, one of the leading VC funds in Australia and have since gone on to continue scaling their growth with a team of over 70 people with multiple offices in Melbourne, China and India.

In this episode we talk about seeking rejection, the importance of being intentional with culture, the future of e-commerce and the fundraising process for early stage startups.

Show notes:

Elto

Ned Dwyer

Brosa

AngelCube

Vinspi

Andrew Birt

Muru-D

Angela Duckworth - Grit (book)

Richard Li

Warby Parker

Bonobos

Casper

Dollar Shave Club

Airtree Ventures

Craig Blair

Sitepoint

Ivan Lim (Twitter)

Ivan Lim (LinkedIn)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep058 – Ivan Lim (Co-founder & CEO – Brosa) on the future of e-commerce appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 57 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, is Rachael Neumann, the new Venture Partner and Head of Australia at 500 Startups.

If you are connected to the startup ecosystem, I am sure you have read the accounts of the sexual harassment scandal sweeping the startup world over the last few months, thanks to some courageous women sharing their story and shining a light on this issue.

These accounts led Uber’s Founder and CEO Travis Kalancik to resign and one of the bigger pieces to come out recently was a New York Times article that named several influential VC’s such as Chris Sacca from Lowercase Capital and Dave McClure from 500 Startups. Following subsequent revelations of sexual harassment by Dave against a 500 Startups entrepreneur, he has since resigned his post as general partner. All of this was against the backdrop of Dave McClure being in Melbourne just a few weeks ago to officially launch the 500 Startups Melbourne program which was part funded by the Victorian State government’s $60M ecosystem development fund - LaunchVic.

Caught in the middle of this firestorm was Rachael Neumann, the new Venture Partner and Head of 500 Startups in Australia who I had arranged a podcast interview with on the 29th of June, the day before the New York Times article was published

As a result, this podcast is split into 2 parts; the first one covering Rachael’s background as the former Head of Eventbrite in Australia where we talk about her experiences and insights into launching into new markets, the importance of having a mindset of abundance and why you shouldn’t build with a focus on being acquired.

The second part of the interview was recorded a few days ago over Skype, so please excuse the audio quality). In this part of the interview we cover what’s happened since the New York Times article was published, how much was shared internally at 500 Startups before the revelations came out, the KPI’s for the future program and Rachael and 500 Startups’s plan and next steps in building a safer and more inclusive ecosystem.

If you want to jump to part 2 of the interview, skip to the 47:51 mark.

Show notes:

Eventbrite
Startmate
500 Startups
LaunchVic
Minister Philip Dalidakis
Kate Cornick
Dave Scheine (podcast interview)
500melbourne.co
Rachael Neumann (Twitter)
Rachael Neumann (Email)
New York Times Post
Program update from LaunchVic
Event at One Roof
Eloise Watson
Vanessa Hutchinson
Paul Naphtali
Rampersand VC
Vicky Lay (podcast interview)
Drew Corby's Pathways Podcast

LIVE PODCAST WITH KATE MORRIS (FOUNDER - ADORE BEAUTY)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep057 – Rachael Neumann (Head of Australia – 500 Startups) on rebuilding trust and listening to the ecosystem appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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For Episode 56 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I did a live podcast interview with Vicky Lay, the Managing Director of Artesian Venture Partners.

At just 22, Vicky quit her degree and co-founded zookal.com - a Silicon Valley venture-backed e-learning and textbook rental company that turned over $20M in revenue last year. As their Chief Operations Officer, Vicky successfully scaled the business 10x year on year.

She is now the Managing Director at Artesian Venture Partners (an early-stage venture capital business with offices in Australia, Singapore, Shanghai, New York and London). In her role at Artesian, she is actively building startup ecosystems across Australia and ASEAN, decoding the DNA of entrepreneurial success and helping more entrepreneurs secure funding. She also founded and serves on the boards of non-profit organisations fostering youth empowerment and entrepreneurship including Young Achievement Australia and JA Australia. Vicky Lay was also recognised as a Forbes 30 under 30 recipient in April 2017.

In this live podcast we spoke about how to hire and retain the right talent, Vicky’s learnings from being on both sides of the table, what she looks for in early stage startups as an investor and empowering diversity in the startup ecosystem.

Show notes:

Artesian Venture Partners
Zookal
Startup of You - Reid Hoffman
Reid Hoffmann
Ahmed Haider
Sarah Lacy
Pando Daily
What to include in your investor pitch deck - Vicky Lay blog
Young Achievement Australia (YAA)
Drew Corby's Pathways Podcast
Dustin Elliott's Why2 Podcast
Vicky Lay (Twitter)

Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 1)

Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 2)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep056 – Vicky Lay (Managing Director – Artesian Venture Partners) on unlocking human potential appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for episode 55 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Aris Allegos, the Co-founder and CEO of Moula.

Aris first left his corporate career in the 90’s to launch his first venture ToyBox, Australia’s first online toy retailer, which he sold just 9 months after launching. He then spent the next 15 years in the world of corporate finance. He is now the Co-founder and CEO of Moula, an online platform that streamlines the process of getting loans between $5,000 and $250,000.

Moula raised a series A funding round of $30M and was one of the first startups to lead the rise of the Fintech vertical in Australia.

In the episode we talk about building the right team, the value of bootstrapping, how to approach risk, how to stay ahead in a competitive market and the challenges of scaling a company.

LIVE PODCAST WITH VICKY LAY (MANAGING DIRECTOR – ARTESIAN VENTURE PARTNERS)

Show notes:

Arthur Anderson
Big Short (Movie)
Piers Moller
Andrew Watt
Fuckup Nights
AFR article
Bill Gross Ted Talk
Paul Naphtali
Paul Napthali blog post
Aris Allegos (Twitter)
Moula (LinkedIn)
Moula (website)
Aris Allegos (LinkedIn)

Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 1)

Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 2)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep055 – Aris Allegos (Co-founder & CEO – Moula) on how to approach risk appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 54 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Corporate Venture Capitalist, Alfred Lo.

Alfred has been one of the pioneers of the Corporate Venture Capital industry in Australia. Along with one of our former guests Peter Huynh, he co-founded and led Singtel’s investment activities through Optus-Innov8 in Australia. Most recently he was the Head of AMP New Ventures where he led AMP’s local and international corporate venture capital program.

In the interview we talk about the learnings Alfred picked up from running his own startups, what he looks for in investment opportunities, the role that corporate venture capital should play in a startups funding strategy and how corporates should approach their engagement with startups.

LIVE PODCAST WITH VICKY LAY (MANAGING DIRECTOR – ARTESIAN VENTURE PARTNERS)

Show notes:

AMP
Optus Innov8
Drew Corby's Pathways Podcast
Peter Huynh
Peter's podcast interview
Sunrise conference
Mark Pesce
This Week in Startups Australia Podcast
Mick Liubinskas
Eric Reis
Broadsheet
Salesforce ventures
Intel ventures
Alfred Lo (Twitter)
Alfred Lo (LinkedIn)

Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 1)

Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 2)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep054 – Alfred Lo (Investor) on Corporate Venture Capital appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In Episode 53 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Pete Cooper, the Founder of SydStart, StartSoc and iCentralCo.

Pete has been one of the pillars in growing the Australian startup ecosystem, particularly in his hometown of Sydney.

He is probably best known for founding the SydStart Conference (now known as StartCon), the first tech conference of it’s kind in the country and he actively mentors, invests and is helping to develop an ecosystem to provide the best chances for startups to succeed.

In the episode we talk about a range of topics including his transition from a corporate career path to being heavily involved with startups, how to find mentors, how to build communities and how to get started in the startup ecosystem.

LIVE PODCAST WITH VICKY LAY (MANAGING DIRECTOR - ARTESIAN VENTURE PARTNERS)

Show notes:

SydStart
Sunrise conference
Elias Bizaanes
Mick Liubinskas
Cicada Innovations
Startcon
Freelancer
Spark Festival
Maxine Sherrin
Niki Scevak
iCentral
Lana Hopkins
Mon Purse
Jodie Fox
Jane Lu
Michael Biercuk
Sydney School of Entrepreneurship
Startup Genome
Newcastle Slingshot Program
Eighteen04
Tyro
Fishburners
StartupAus
StartSociety
Sydney Angel Group
Founder Institute
Ben Chong
Springboard enterprise
500 Startups
Lean Canvas
Silicon Beach Melbourne
Athula Bogoda
Atlassian
Canva
Envato
Tom Ellis
Paul Napthali
Startup Playbook 50th episode
Airtree Ventures
Blackbird Ventures
Blue Sky Venture Capital
Square Peg Venture Capital
Pete Cooper (Twitter)

Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 1)

Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 2)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Other channels:

Don't have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud

The post Ep053 – Pete Cooper (Founder – SydStart) on the old and new economy appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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For episode 52, I did a live podcast interview with Don Peppers, best selling author, keynote speaker and global customer experience expert.

Along with his co-Author Martha Rogers, Don has often been credited with having launched the CRM revolution with their very first book, The One to One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time

Don is an American marketing futurist, best-selling business author, keynote speaker, and one of the world's authoritative experts on customer experience. He has spoken on customer experience in more than 60 countries on 6 continents, and his books have been translated into 18 languages.

He was inducted into the Direct Marketing Association Hall of Fame, along with Seth Godin and Martha Rogers, and in 2015 SatMetrix ranked him as the world's most authoritative expert on customer experience. The Times of London has listed Peppers among their “Top 50 Business Brains,” and Accenture has included him in its global list of the “Top 50 Business Intellectuals.”

In the episode we talk about what a good customer experience journey looks like, how to identify points of friction of customers, understanding when to automate and when to add a human connection and how to create a culture of putting your customers first.

A big thank you to Jason Lim and the awesome team at the York Butter Factory for setting up the event and interview!

Show notes:

Martha Rogers
The One to One Future: Building Relationships One Customer At A Time
Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers At The Centre Of Your Business
Amazon coming to Australia
Swurveys
PayActiv
Michael Mclaughlin
Brett Savill
Grant Greentree
Darcy Naunton
Safwan Shah
CXspeakers.com
York Butter Factory

Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 1)

Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 2)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep052 – Don Peppers (Author) on the One to One Future appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for Episode 50 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Adam Stone, the Founder and CEO of Speedlancer.

At just 22 years of age, Adam has already had several successes under his belt. He started his first company at the age of 12 (selling BB guns online) before founding his second company in the Telecommunications space at the age of 14 providing mobile phone unlocking which scaled to 120,000 paying customers from around the world.

His latest company, Speedlancer, which provides the fastest way to hire freelancer and get projects done (within 4 hours!) went through the highly competitive 500 Startups Accelerator program in the US. Adam was also recently named as one of Forbes' 30 Under 30 Asia for Consumer Technology.

In the episode we chat about the basics of SEO, how to network effectively, bootstrapping vs fundraising, how to get the most out of outsourcing and how to built an effective distributed team.

Show notes:

Speedlancer
Dave McClure
500 startups
Wil Schroter
startups.co
Adam Stone
Adam's Twitter
Adam's Medium

Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 1)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep051 – Adam Stone (Founder & CEO – Speedlancer) on teams and trust appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In Episode 50 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I did followup interviews with 6 previous guests on the show to checkin on their progress and learnings over the last 10 months.

The first guest is Tom Ellis, the Investment Director of Mai Capital, a VC fund that invests in opportunities looking to expand into the Chinese market. I first interviewed Tom in episode 17 where we spoke about his experience from both sides of the table and what he looks for in investment opportunities. In this follow up interview we talk about; finding your strengths, the need to ask for help and the importance of listening

The 2nd returning guest is Matt Allen. I interviewed Matt in episode 28 where we spoke about his experience as a tech recruiter and his advice on how to find and attract tech cofounders. Matt has recently taken on a new role as the Startup Business Development Manager at AWS and in this follow up, we chat about the startup ecosystem, building networks and being authentic.

The 3rd of our follow up interviews is with Adir Shiffman. In episode 12 I spoke with Adir about his change in career path from medicine to business, his experience in starting and selling multiple business and his role as the Chairman of Catapult Sports which he took to an IPO in 2014. In this follow up interview, we discuss Adir’s new model for startup structuring and some of the common pitfalls and the fallout from founder breakups.

Next up we have Paul Naphtali. Paul is the Cofounder and Managing Partner at Rampersand, a $50M venture capital fund for early stage technology startups. Paul was one of the earliest guests on the show and in episode 5 we spoke about the investment process at Rampersand and the common ingredients of successful startup founders. In this interview we talk about the things that attract and turnoff investors.

Our 5th guest is Justin Dry the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Vinomofo. In episode 3 Justin shared his and Andre's journey of 4 pivots over 4 years before turning to the current model. When we last spoke with Justin, they had recently closed their $25M investment round and were about to start expanding globally. In this interview we checkin with Vinomofo's global expansion, their learnings over the last year and the need to discuss failure.

Our 6th and final guest is Tim Mundy. Tim is the Cofounder and Director of Digital Affair, an HR branding company that has gone through incredible growth since launching 3 years ago. In this follow up, we talk about retention, over delivering to customers and getting by giving.

SHOW NOTES:

Tom Ellis: (1:17 - 19:04)

Episode 17 w/ Tom Ellis on opportunities in China
Dave McClure
Mai capital website
Mai capital Twitter

Matt Allen: (19:05 - 33:20)

Episode 28 w/ Matt Allen on how to attract tech cofounders
Nick Crocker
Nick Crocker Podcast interview (Ep39) on people, culture and values
Kyall Walker (Audience question)
Matt Allen Twitter
Matt email

Adir Shiffman: (33:21 - 41:11)

Episode 12 w/ Adir Shiffman on the challenges of scale and the characteristics of fast growing startups
Michael Dodge
Arnold Bloch Leibler
Catapult Sports

Paul Naphtali: (41:12 - 58:48)

Episode 5 w/ Paul Napthali on how to contact VC's, ingredients of successful founders & the Rampersand investment process
Patrick Poke (Audience question)
Simon Sinek
Star with Why
Rampersand

Justin Dry: (58:49 - 1:18:41)

Episode 3 w/ Justin Dry on building communities, deciding when to pivot and choosing between multiple options
F'Up Nights
Pathways Podcast
Jesse Wilson (Audience question)
Justin Dry (Twitter)
Justin Dry (Facebook)
Justin Dry (Instagram)

Tim Mundy: (1:18:42 - 1:37:49)

Episode 1 w/ Tim Mundy on how to get clients,

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In Episode 49 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, my guest is Duncan Anderson, the Co-founder and Director of Edrolo.

Duncan left a career with Goldmann Sachs and Google to found Edrolo, which provides Curriculum focused video lessons, exam practice, and study planning tools for year 12 students, teachers and schools.

He and his co-founders went through the Startmate program in 2013 and since then have seen a large growth in the company working with over 100 schools across Australia and more than doubling their team to over 60 staff over the last year.

In the episode we talk about finding product market fit, growth through retention and the cycles of learning.

Send your questions for Episode 50 to – rohit@startupplaybook.co

Show notes:

Edrolo
Startmate
Goldmann Sachs
Ben Sze
Jeremy Cox
Sam Altman
Thomas Edison
Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos open letter
How to Start a Startup - Sam Altman
Duncan Anderson

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep049: Duncan Anderson (Co-Founder – Edrolo) on the cycles of learning appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In Episode 48 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, my guest is Dave Scheine, an angel investor, startup advisor and global expansion expert.

Dave can be considered one of the leading experts when it comes to global expansion. He helped expand Google’s offices and launch products such as G Suite in countries like India, Ireland and Poland, before moving on to join Yelp as their first International hire and helped them expand into 30 different countries during his role there as the Director of European Operations and the Director for the Asia Pacific region.

He’s now based in Melbourne where he advises and sits on the board of several startups, angel invests in the companies and is actively helping to grow the Australian startup ecosystem.

In the episode we chat about the metrics Dave looked at when deciding where and how to expand, what makes a good mentor/ mentee relationship and why teams are the most important things that investors look for.

Send your questions for Episode 50 to - rohit@startupplaybook.co

Show notes:

Harvard
Standford
G Suite
Yelp
Jeremy Stoppelman
Rhonda Kallman
ANZ
Telstra
Sheryl Sandberg
Startmate
Daimler Chrysler
Honee
Matt Jones
Zomato
UrbanSpoon
Dave Scheine

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep048 – Dave Scheine (Angel Investor) on winning globally appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In Episode 47 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, my guest is Glenn Gillen, a mentor and investor at Pick & Shovel.

Glenn was an early hire at Heroku and led their Add-ons Marketplace business unit where he helped define go to market strategies for over 100 developer facing startups, several of them now well known billion dollar companies.

He is now back in Australia, spending most of his time as an active angel investor and helping to develop and shape the Victorian startup community.

In the episode we chat about how he got his job at Heroku from an email to the founder, scaling company culture, the advantages of the Australian startup ecosystem and his process when making investment decisions.

Show notes:

Heroku
James Lindenbaum
Pick & Shovel
Andrew Hyde
500 Startups
Techstars
Matt Allen
Lachlan Donald
Glenn Gillen (email)
Glenn Gillen (website)
Glenn Gillen (Twitter)

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep047 – Glenn Gillen (Investor – Pick & Shovel) on silver bullets and culture appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In Episode 46 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, my guest is Simon Julian, the General Manager and Head of Monetisation at Sitepoint.

Sitepoint is one of the world’s large online communities for Web Developers. It has been a pillar of the Victorian startup ecosystem since launching in 1999 with numerous successful spinoffs such as 99Designs and Flippa coming out of the business.

Prior to Sitepoint, Simon was Head of B2B partnerships at Lonely Planet and spent several years in the agency space as Managing Partner of Areeba and GM of Reactive.

In the interview we cover a wide range of topics including how to develop effective partnerships with large organisations, how to create an internal structure for growth, testing for cultural fit in new hires and content creation and distribution strategies.

Show Notes:

Lonely Planet
Hunter.io
Prospect
Trello
Areeba
Reactive
Mike Ebinum
Seed Digital
Sitepoint
Versioning (Sitepoint newsletter)
Finance and Coffee (Facebook Group)
Finance and Coffee (Website)
Simon Julian (Email)
Simon (LinkedIn)
Simon on Sitepoint

Startup Playbook TV: Ep10 Feat Oliver Garside, Co-founder and COO of Rounded. Rounded provides accounting software specifically for freelancers. In the episode we talk about growth tactics/ channels, community building and using data to form content marketing strategies.

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep046 – Simon Julian (GM – Sitepoint) on content and communities appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In Episode 45 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, my guest is Andrew Walton, the Co-Founder and CEO of InteractSport.

InteractSport provides software for sports at the national, state, association and club level. They work with organisations such as Cricket Australia, Netball Australia, Australian Rugby Union and The ECB in the UK. Their software collects information and records from 4 million participants who come from more than 20,000 organisations. There have been more than 5 million matches recorded on their platforms.

Aside from Interact Sports, Andrew is also a Director at Australian Sports Technology Network, Director at Vicsport and Director at Bowls Australia.

In this episode we talk about, the importance of relationships in sales, selling into traditional industries, the importance of listening to your customers and scaling through culture.

Show notes:

David Macaulay
Peter Macaulay
TimeOut
Interact Sport
Cricket Australia
David Hussey
Ted Hussey
James Sutherland
Big Bash
Womens AFL
ECB
Slack
Zendesk
Andrew Walton Email
Andrew Walton Twitter
Interact Sport Twitter
Interact Sport Instagram

Startup Playbook TV: Ep09 Feat Kumar Moluguri, the founder of Volstreet. Volstreet is a collaborative marketplace which offers dynamic pricing for products based on volume. In the episode we talk about doing the unscalable, engaging with investors and building successful marketplaces.

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep045 – Andrew Walton (Co-Founder & CEO – InteractSport) on listening to customers appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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My guest for episode 44 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Terry Gold, the Managing Director of Techstars Adelaide.

Prior to joining Techstars, Terry was the co-founder and CEO of Gold Systems, a company he ran for 23 years, the first 9 years of which were bootstrapped before taking $10M in VC investment from Mobius (then named Softbank) in 2000.

The company was a pioneer in IVR, CTI, Speech Recognition applications and the Unified Communications space with 11 of the Fortune 20 companies using Gold Systems software.

He was also a mentor in the first ever batch of Techstars and is now based in Australia and is now the Managing Director for the Techstars Adelaide Accelerator program, where he helps founders build successful startups.

In this episode we spoke about bootstrapping vs raising capital, how to hire and retain great staff, what Techstars looks for in startups, the ingredients of a good team and the importance of saying yes.

Apply to Techstars (Applications close on 23rd April)

Show notes:

Techstars

Jana Matthews

Leading at the Speed of Growth: Journey from an Entrepreneur to CEO - Jana Matthews

Built to last - Jim Collins

Bell Labs

Gold Systems

Moneyball - Michael Lewis

Startup Communities - Brad Feld

Christopher Chang

Startup Week

Startup Weekend

Startmate

500 Startups

Duncan Anderson (Edrolo)

Andrew Hyde

This Book Is About Travel

Podcast Interview with Andrew Hyde

Terry Gold (Email)

Startup Playbook TV: Ep8 Feat William Nguyen. In this episode we discuss how to limit the chances of your startup failing, how to get the right feedback from customers and choosing between a career path in corporates vs startups

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep044 – Terry Gold (MD – Techstars Adelaide) on values, hiring & saying yes appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 43 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I sat down with Jon Baer, a successful founder, investor and author.

Jon was the Founder and CEO of two venture backed companies, eBoomerang, an enterprise software company which was sold in 2006 and Artificial Muscle, Inc., a spinout from Stanford Research Institute (SRI).

He then stepped into the Venture Capital world and was a General Partner at Oscco Ventures, a Sand Hill Road early-stage venture capital firm which was one of the pioneering firms in Silicon Valley where he invested in a range of companies including Landec, Peerless Systems, and Coinstar.

More recently as the principal and founder of Threshold Ventures, Jon works with companies from over 30 countries around the world, serving as an advisor/mentor, working on specific projects and when appropriate, taking on interim operating roles.

He has also co-authored a new book - Decoding Silicon Valley, which is a guide for founders looking to setup, raise funds or build connections within Silicon Valley.

In the interview we talk about how to negotiate with investors, finding the right valuation, how to get the right mentors and advisors and the misconceptions of Silicon Valley.

Show notes:

Landing pad

York Butter Factory

Decoding Silicon Valley

Startup Playbook TV: Ep7 Feat Chris Garbacz & Yuang Wang, the co-founders of Studio Ninja, a software to help photographers manage and grow their business . In this episode we discuss how to get PR/ media exposure on a budget, developing effective partnerships and when and how to expand.

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep043 – Jon Baer (Founder, Investor, Author) on Decoding Silicon Valley appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In Episode 42 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I sat down with Al and Lucas Ramadan from Play Bigger.

Al was one of the pioneers in the global movement of bringing analytics to sports. In the early 90’s he applied data science to the Americas Cup creating a new category of sports performance analytics. In the late 90’s he applied this vision to the Internet creating a new category of digital sports media. His company, Quokka Sports, revolutionised the way people experienced sport. That legacy runs deep in most sports coverage we experience today.

He now runs Play Bigger, a category design advisory firm that works with the companies in the portfolios of leading VC firms such as Sequoia and Accel to help them define, develop and dominate markets.

Lucas is a data analyst at San Francisco based startup Enjoy Technologies and led a lot of the research and analysis for Al’s new book - Play Bigger.

In the interview we talk about assessing market potential, why the best founders have a unique market insight, the importance of defining your problem and the need to have courage of conviction.

Show Notes:

Quokka Sports
MacroMedia
Adobe
Play Bigger (Company)
Enjoy Technologies
BHP
John Bertrand
America's Cup
Play Bigger (book)
Sequoia Capital
Accel
Steve Vassalo
Zoox
Jeff Bezos
Amazon
Paul Martino
Tribe
Ann Miura-ko
ClearMetal
Mike Maples
Steve Jobs
Starbucks
Howard Schultz

Startup Playbook TV: Ep6 Feat Liam Hanel from Lyra (AI personal assistant to track your carbon impact). In this episode we discuss traction channels on a budget, customer retention strategies and product strategy for B2B vs B2C

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep042 – Al and Lucas Ramadan (Play Bigger) On creating category kings appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 41 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Kate Talbot, an author, marketer and entrepreneur.

Kate has worked with companies and startups such as Virgin America, Kiva and Soldsie on growth marketing. She has also written for publications such as Kissmetrics and Social Media examiner, where she was one of the first people writing about how businesses could engage with customers on snapchat.

She then turned her blogs into a book called Oh Snap, you can use snapchat for business as a guide to helping startups and businesses get the most out of the Snapchat platform.

In the interview we talk about how to craft your own story on social media, how to build an audience on Snapchat and how to use the platform for B2B or premium products.

Show notes:

Kiva
Virgin America
Oh Snap: You can use snapchat for business (book)
NPR
Airbnb
Soldsie
SAASTR
Social Media Examiner
Kissmetrics
Stanford
Onset Ventures
Medium
Upwork
Canva
InDesign
InVision
Kate Talbot (Twitter)
Kate Talbot (Instagram)
Kate Talbot (LinkedIn)
Kate Talbot (Website)

Startup Playbook TV is now on Youtube!!!

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep041 – Kate Talbot (Author, Marketer, Entrepreneur) on using snapchat for business appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 40 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I sat down with Stuart Richardson and Darcy Naunton, the co-founders of York Butter Factory and Partners of Adventure Capital.

Stuart and Darcy have played a major role in helping shape the Victoria startup ecosystem through the York Butter factory co-working space in the CBD and the Adventure Capital fund. They have helped launch over 80 successful startups from their unique model, creating more jobs and opportunities for members of Melbourne's startup community.

We cover a lot of topics in this interview including; the need to have a mindset about abundance, the collaboration opportunities between startups and corporates, managing the different stages of growth and the structures that startups need.

Show notes:

Equiem
York Butter Factory
Silicon Beach
Silicon Beach (Melbourne)
HackForGood
Fintech Melbourne
Peak15 Health Tech
Envato
RedBubble
Kogan
Sitepoint
Carsales.com.au
REA
Computer share
Microsoft
AWS
Zendesk
Optus Innov8
Coles
ANZ Bank
Ernst & Young
Qantas
Dentsu Aegis
Mike Smith
Rialto
Gabrielle McMillan
Clover
Harry Chemay
Atlassian
YBF team
Stuart Richardson
Darcy Naunton

Startup Playbook TV is now on Youtube!!!

Australian Podcast Awards – Voting

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep040 – Stuart Richardson & Darcy Naunton (Partners – Adventure Capital) on startups and corporates appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 39 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, we did a live podcast interview with Nick Crocker, the Melbourne Venture Partner of Blackbird Ventures.

Nick was the founder of We are Hunted, a digital music chart which sold to Twitter in 2012. He then co-founded Sessions, a digital health coaching program, which sold to MyFitnessPal 2 years later. After MyFitnessPal was acquired by Under Armour for $475M, he went on to lead their Product Strategy and Operations in San Francisco.

Nick is now back in Australia and is the Melbourne Partner at Blackbird Ventures, a $230M Venture Capital firm that counts companies such as Canva, Red Bubble, Shoes of Prey, Culture Amp and Edrolo as part of it's portfolio and runs the Startmate Accelerator program.

In this interview we talk about the importance of proving your business on a small scale, what the best companies focus on, what to do when you first meet with an investor and the importance of culture and values in building a successful company.

Audience questions:

What does a company like Blackbird look for in startups?
What are some of the biggest mistakes that people make when they are pitching?
Do we miss founders who don't match the typical startup founder profile?
What does Startmate bring to Melbourne?
How important are valuations when making investment decisions?

Show notes:

Musicadium

The 9 ways to ride the digital music age

We are Hunted

Boxee

Zach Klein

Vimeo

College Humour

CabinPorn authored by Zach Klein Steven Leckart

Spark Capital

Union Square Ventures

Sessions

MyFitnessPal

Under Armour

Blackbird Ventures

Startmate

Niki Scevak

Rick Baker

Rock Health

Ben Hartney

Albert Lee

Mike Lee

Culture Amp

Shoes of Prey

What Blackbird is Looking for in 2017

Mike Cannon Brookes

Safety Culture

Michael Fox

Zoox

Andrew Denver

Didier Elzinga

Atlassian

Melanie Perkins

Cliff Obrecht

Canva

Matta (Matt Allen)

Startup Playbook TV is now on Youtube!!!

Australian Podcast Awards – Voting

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

A big thank you to Matt Allen and the team at Teamsquare for hosting The Startup Playbook Live session.

The post Ep039 – Nick Crocker (Venture Partner – Blackbird Ventures) on people, culture and products appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In Episode 38 of The Startup Playbook Podcast I sat down with Simon Holland, the Co-Founder and Design & Strategy Director at Papercloud.

Papercloud is a digital product development studio that works with founders to bring products to market and scale growth through it’s Papercloud services and Papercloud ventures model.

Papercloud has worked with several successful startups, most notably Vivi and HotDoc which raised $2.2M in funding from Airtree Ventures in 2015.

In the interview we talk about how to turn an idea into a business, how to hire the right co-founders or team, getting the right feedback and how to win in a competitive market

Show notes:

Tomas Spacek
Papercloud
Hotdoc
Vivi
Xero
Startup Playbook TV (launching this week!)
Airtree Ventures
Papercloud Ventures
Simon Holland (email)

Live Podcast Interview with Nick Crocker (Blackbird Ventures)

Startup Playbook TV Launching this week! Check here for details

Australian Podcast Awards – Voting

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep038 – Simon Holland (Co-founder – Papercloud) on turning ideas into businesses appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 37 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Gavin Appel, the co-founder of Onestack, which partners with amazing entrepreneurs to accelerate growth through experience and connectivity.

Gavin has over 20 years of experience in the startup, corporate and venture capital industries.

He was the General Manager of Sinewave Interactive, Australasia's first Search Engine Optimization company, before becoming the Senior Vice President and CTO for Hitwise and being responsible for managing the global product development team.

He then joined Square Peg Capital as a Partner. Square Peg is one of the leading VC firms in Australia, counting companies such as Uber, Fiverr, Stripe and Canva in it’s portfolio. Gavin is now the co-founder of OneStack, which partners with scale stage companies to help them grow their business.

In the interview, Gavin shares what startups should look for in investors, the key criteria to scale effectively, the importance of hiring the right talent and when to start fundraising.

Show notes:

Webcrawler

Lycos

Excite

Looksmart

Hitwise

Square Peg Capital

Onestack

Blackbird Ventures

Zoom

Unlockd

Stripe

Onestack (Twitter)

Gavin (Snapchat)

Live Podcast Interview with Nick Crocker (Blackbird Ventures)

Australian Podcast Awards – Voting

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep037 – Gavin Appel (Co-Founder – Onestack) on the challenges of scaling startups appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In Episode 36 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I sat down with Luke Marshall who is the Head of Growth at Kiwi startup 90 Seconds, which recently raised $10M funding from Sequioa Capital and Airtree Ventures.

Prior to 90 Seconds, Luke was at Google and Facebook and had consulted to startups such as Pozible and YourGrocer.

In the interview, Luke shares the common mistakes in digital marketing, the metrics you should focus on and how to develop an effective sales funnel.

Show notes:

Pozible
YourGrocer
CHE Proximity
90 Seconds
Infusionsoft
Salesforce
Drip
Customer.io
Hubspot
LukeMarshall (LinkedIn)
Neil Patel
Traction (book)

Australian Podcast Awards – Voting

Feedback/ connect/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

The post Ep036 – Luke Marshall (Growth at 90 Seconds) on tracking the right metrics appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 35 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I sat down with Andrew Hyde, an expert in building effective and engaged startup communities and ecosystems around the world.

Andrew was the Founder of Startup Weekend, a movement that went from 70 people attending a hackathon to a large global community of startup enthusiasts which now operates in over 150 countries and has close to 200,000 alumni members.

He was also the first employee at Techstars, one of the leading Accelerator and venture funds in the world counting companies such as Classpass and Digital Ocean in it's portfolio. Andrew is also known as one of the major building blocks behind the startup community in Boulder, Colorado, recognised as one of the top startup ecosystems globally.

In the interview, Andrew shares, the key components of an effective community, overcoming barriers, the drawbacks of fundraising and the advantages of starting a startup in Australia.

Show notes:

Trident Booksellers and Cafe
LaunchVic
Techstars
Startup Weekend
Sarah Moran
Girl Geek Academy
This book is about Travel
Craig Hebert (Crowdfunding Hacks)
Andrew Hyde's email
Andrew Hyde's Blog
Andrew Hyde's Twitter

Australian Podcast Awards - Voting

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Intro music credit to Bensound

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In Episode 34, I interview Chris Bartlett, the Founder and General Manager of Seed Digital.

Chris started life studying theology and as a social worker, before moving into the tech space developing websites. He is now the founder and General Manager of Seed Digital, a boutique product development, creative services, technology consulting and software development firm.

In the interview, Chris shares his experiences in learning from failure, the importance on meeting your promises to customers, how to get your first few clients and how to start as a non tech founder.

Show notes:

Seed Digital
Email Hunter
Traction (book) by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares
Lynda.com
Chris Bartlett (email)

Feedback/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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In episode 33 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I sat down with Simon Walker, Partner Marketing Manager at IFTTT (If This Then That).

Aside from his role at IFTTT, Simon is also the co-founder of Gone Social, a community of 2,500+ social media, marketing and PR enthusiasts in Silicon Valley sharing best practices, tools and ideas.

Prior to his role with IFTTT, Simon was the Head of Marketing at LIFX , an Australian startup that raised $1.3M inside a week on Kickstarter and went on to raise $12M from Sequioa Capital.

In the interview, Simon shares how to market innovative products, the importance of value driven marketing and how startups can develop partnerships with large organisations.

Show notes:

LIFX
LIFX Kickstarter campaign
Startup Daily
Mat Beeche
Taylor Ventures
Eric Toda
Fidget cube
IFTTT
Aware
Gone Social
Lauren Michaels
Gone social (Twitter)
Inspire9
Simon Walker (Twitter)

Feedback/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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In Episode 32 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Evan Thornley, Co-founder of Looksmart.

Evan has spent most of the last 20 years pioneering the startup scene in Australia. He was the cofounder of Looksmart which was Australia’s first NASDAQ-listed high tech company, which listed with an initial market cap of $1.2B, with a peak market cap of $14B. He was also the CEO of Better Place Australia, an audacious project that sought to provide the charging infrastructure to enable the mass adoption of electric cars around the world. It raised over $900m in venture capital from top-tier investors including GE, HSBC, Israel Corporation and Vantage Point Venture Partners

In the interview Evan shares how to assess risk and identify the right opportunities, the best way to fund your business and the importance of being authentic.

Show notes:

Looksmart
GetUp
Better Place
TedX Melbourne - Evan Thornley (Building a beautiful organisation to do something insanely great)
Seek
Atlassian
Martin Hosking
Redbubble
Shai Agassi
Dan Cohen
Antony Cohen
Alison Terry
Elon Musk
Evan Thornley (email)

Feedback/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – personal)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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In Episode 31 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, we interview Anthony Johnston, The Founder and Head of Ogilvy Ventures.

Ogilvy Ventures is a subset of the Ogilvy group that focuses on the commercialisation of ideas and direct investment in business ventures.

Prior to this role, Anthony was the Marketing Director at Foxtel, before leaving to start his own businesses.

In this episode, Anthony shares a range of thoughts on topics such as the characteristics of good founders, the different types of corporate innovation and how startups and corporates can work closer together

Show notes:

Ogilvy Ventures

Padlokt

Anthony Johnston (LinkedIn)

Feedback/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – personal)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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In Episode 30 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, we interview Adam Jacobs, The Co-founder and Managing Director of The Iconic.

Since launching in 2011, The Iconic has become one of the premiere Australian online destinations for fashion and footwear.

Adam left a successful career at Boston Consulting Group to co-found the Iconic, which now has several millions of visitors each month on it's platform and stocks over 700 brands and 50,000 items with over 200 items being launched each day.

In the interview, Adam shares a range of thoughts on topics such as the key factors to long term growth, the importance of customer experience, why you should hire for values vs skills, why retention should be your first focus and overcoming customer fears.

Show notes:

Ben Keighran

Chomp

The Iconic (LinkedIn)

The Iconic (Facebook)

The Iconic (Instagram)

Adam Jacobs (LinkedIn)

Feedback/ say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co

@playbookstartup (Twitter)

@rohitbhargava7 (Twitter - personal)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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In episode 29 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, we sat down with Simon Cant, the Co-founder and Managing Director of Reinventure Group, Westpac Bank's VC fund which has $100M under management (2nd fund of $50M).

Along with his role at Reinventure, Simon is also the President of Fintech Australia, Australia's national Fintech industry association.

Prior to these roles, Simon was an innovation specialist where he advised clients such as NAB, Tennis Australia, Suncorp and Fairfax.

In the episode Simon shares his thoughts on the relationship between startups and corporates, sustaining vs disruptive innovation and why investors value referrals.

Show notes:

Reinventure

The Innovators Dilemma - Clayton Christensen

Stone & Chalk

Fintech Australia

Simon Cant (Twitter)

Discovery Driven Growth - Rita McGrath

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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In episode 28 of the Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Matt Allen. Matt is a mentor, advisor and investor in early stage startups.

Over the last 20 years, Matt has built a wealth of knowledge in early stage startups, having founded a number of startups himself and assisting others as the Director of the Melbourne chapter of the Founder Institute program.

Matt is now an active angel investor, a Director of technical recruitment agency Lookahead search and co-founder his new project Pick & Shovel, which helps enable technology companies through funding and resources.

In the episode Matt shares how to get a developer for your startup, why competition is validation and when you should look to get investors on board.

Show notes:

Steve Gilles

Blackbird Ventures

Ego is the enemy

Radical Candor

Pick and Shovel

Glenn Gillen

Lachlan Donald

99 Designs

Sitepoint

Taggd

Matt Allen

Matt Allen (Twitter)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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The post Ep028 – Matt Allen (Angel Investor) on how to attract technical cofounders appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 27 of The StartupPlaybook Podcast we did a live podcast interview with Brett Adam, the Managing Director Australia & New Zealand and VP of Engineering at Zendesk.

Brett has had more than 25 years experience in the software industry, with a background that includes CEO and CTO level positions in both public and private companies, software architecture and engineering, product management, marketing, sales and corporate development.

He has a wealth of experience in growing and running large organisations and in his current role he is responsible for the Zendesk Melbourne office, with a mission to strengthen Zendesk's presence in the region and support the local team in all things.

In the interview Brett shares why startups should look to bootstrap their business, getting validation from the mainstream market, the importance of investing in relationships and Navigating the different stages of growth.

Show Notes:

Zendesk (website)

Crossing the chasm - Geoffrey Moore (book)

Finding great developers - Joel Spolsky (blog)

Purple Lion (Not for profit)

Brett Adam (Twitter)

Brett Adam (LinkedIn)

Brett Adam (Email)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Click here to listen on iTunes

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The post Ep027 – Brett Adam (Managing Director – Zendesk) on creating pills vs vitamins appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 26 of The Startup Playbook Podcast we sit down with Nathan Chan, the Founder and Editor-in-Chief at Foundr Magazine.

Foundr Magazine is an online publication dedicated to young and aspiring entrepreneurs and now through it’s blog, podcast and workshops, has become one of the pre-eminent resources for young entrepreneurs looking to educate themselves on how to build successful businesses.

Nathan has built one of the largest online communities of entrepreneurs in the world, with the magazine being consumed by over 1 million people each month and a following of over 919,000 on Instagram alone.

In the interview Nathan shares, how to set goals, staying ahead of competition and how to build a network of influencers.

Show notes:

Foundr V1.0 (Book)

Foundr (website)

Nathan Chan (email)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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The post Ep026 – Nathan Chan (Founder & Editor in Chief – Foundr Magazine) on the building blocks of success appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 25 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, we sit down with Alan Jones an angel investor and startup evangelist.

Alan is the Startup Evangelist at Blue Chilli, an angel investor and a founding investor in Startmate and Blackbird Ventures.

Prior to these roles, Alan was Yahoo!'s second employee in Australia, and a founding member of the local management team. He worked with Yahoo! to localise US online consumer products for Australian & NZ audience as well as planning product strategy and managing the product development

In the interview Alan shares his insights on understanding customer intent, the ingredients of a good startup team and the need to hack diversity,

Show notes:

Mick Liubinskas

Nick Crocker

Holly Cardew

Macropod

Bugherd

Startmate

BlueChilli

She Starts

Sam Wong

Sam Wong podcast interview

Alan Jones (Twitter)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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In episode 24 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Paul Bassat, the Co-founder of Seek and Co-founder of Square Peg Capital.

Seek is one of Australia’s most successful companies to date with a market cap of close to $5B and Square Peg capital, is one of the premiere Venture Capital firms in Australia, counting companies such as Uber, Stripe, Canva and Fiverr as part of it's portfolio.

Along with these roles, Paul is also a non-executive director at Wesfarmers, Director of Innovation Australia and on the AFL Commission.

In the interview Paul shares his insights on the team dynamics that he looks for when deciding whether to invest, why good businesses focus on solving problems and the importance of attracting high quality talent.

Show Notes:

Seek

Square Peg Capital

Andrew Bassat

Tony Holt

Justin Liberman

Barry Brott

Wesfarmers

Innovation Australia

Evan Thornley

Tracy Ellery

Matt Rockman

Envato

Freelancer

Atlassian

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Click here to listen on iTunes

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The post Ep024 – Paul Bassat (Co-founder – Square Peg Capital) on solving important problems appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 23 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Adrian Stone, one of Australia's most active Angel Investors.

Adrian is one of the most well known and respected angel investors in the Australian startup ecosystem. After a successful career at IBM, Adrian became a serial entrepreneur who had multiple exits across the USA, Australia and NZ.

Adrian is the founder and CEO of AngelCube, Melbourne’s first venture accelerator, which provides seed funding and mentoring for technology startups. AngelCube’s mission is to invest in and graduate 40 technology startups over the next 4 years. They also recently won StartupSmart magazine’s “Best Startup Investor” award. Adrian is also the Co-founder of Investors Org, which helps high net worth individuals invest in technology startups.

In the interview Adrian shares, what he looks for in founders when deciding to invest, the opportunities for Australian startups and the importance of understanding finance and metrics.

Show notes:

How to structure a good investor updated - Nathan Sampimon

Inspire9

General Assembly

Investors Org

Jonathan Teo

TopACar

Beepi

Why hiring employees starts with a beer and a bbq

Adrian Stone (Twitter)

Office Hours with Adrian Stone

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound.

A special thank you to General Assembly Melbourne for hosting the event and First Press Coffee for the delicious Espresso Martinis!

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In episode 22 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Leigh Jasper, Co-founder and CEO of Aconex.

Aconex provides cloud collaboration solutions for the global construction industry. Leigh started Aconex in the year 2000 with his co-founder Rob Phillpot. Together they have grown the business phenomenally since then, with Aconex successfully completing their IPO in 2014. Aconex now serves projects worth over USD 800 billion from its 41 offices worldwide and has a market cap of over $1 Billion

In the interview Leigh shares his insights on why you need to have domain expertise to succeed, the ingredients of a compelling pitch, why good founders learn to let go and his approach on when and how to expand internationally.

Show notes:

Rob Phillpot

Aconex

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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The post Ep022 – Leigh Jasper (Co-Founder & CEO – Aconex) on building a billion dollar business appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 21 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Ben Sand, the Co-Founder and former Co-CEO of Meta, an augmented reality headset startup Meta.

Ben took Meta through the highly competitive Y-Combinator Accelerator program, with the company raising over A$100M to date. Ben is now the Entrepreneur In Residence at Telstra's Muru-D accelerator program.

In the interview Ben shares the importance of intensity, what you need to do before building products, how to attract the best talent, using vulnerability to build company culture and how to reverse engineer story telling.

From Startup Playbook:

Podcast Live session with Adrian Stone

Twitter

Snapchat: startupplaybook

Show Notes:

Soren Harner

Jayse Hansen

Alan Beltran

Planet Labs

Terry Pratchett - Discworld (author)

Y-combinator

Muru-D website

Ben Sand website

Ben Sand Twitter

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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The post Ep021 – Ben Sand (Co-founder – Meta) on empathy and storytelling appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 20 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Paul Bennetts and Kaushik Sen, two of the co-founders behind Spaceship, a mobile only superannuation fund that has technology as a core focus of it's investment mandate.

With little more than "an idea on a sheet of paper" the Spaceship team have received backing from some of the biggest industry heavyweights and influencers, having raised a $1.6M seed round as they prepare to launch later this year.

In the interview, Paul and Kaushik share the story behind Spaceship and how they turned a concept on a napkin to a funded idea and share their insights on building rockstar teams, getting buy in from industry influencers and building from 1st principles

Show notes:

Mike Cannon-Brookes

Leigh Jasper

Jane Lu

Andrew Rothwell

Spaceship Twitter

Spaceship Facebook

Spaceship website

Spaceship email

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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In episode 19 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I sit down with Ben Dunphy, Investment Director at Blue Sky Venture Capital

Blue Sky VC is a late stage fund that has a portfolio that includes companies such as Shoes of Prey, Vinomofo and aCommerce.

In the interview, Ben covers a range of topics including what a good board looks like, why it's important to create long term value, the metrics that VC's look for, choosing between multiple options and finding the right valuation for companies.

Show Notes:

Ben Dunphy (LinkedIn)

Ben Dunphy (Twitter)

Blue Sky Venture Capital

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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The post Ep019 – Ben Dunphy (Investment Director – Blue Sky VC) on creating long term value appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In this episode, I interview Jodie Fox. Jodie is the Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Shoes Of Prey, which allows women from around the world to design and create their own shoes.

To date, Shoes of Prey has raised US$24.6M, had over 6 million pairs of shoes designed on their site and have opened offline stores with David Jones (Australia) and Nordstrom (US).

In the interview Jodie shares her insight on how to prioritise product features, building teams, working with influencers, the power of offline marketing and following Seth Godin’s Purple Cow philosophy.

Show notes:

Jodie Fox (Youtube)

Jodie Fox (Instagram)

Shoes of Prey (Website)

Shoes of Prey (Instagram)

Poorly Made in China (book)

Purple Cow - Seth Godin

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Click here to listen on iTunes

Click here to listen on Stitcher

The post Ep018 – Jodie Fox (Co-founder – Shoes of Prey) on the value of offline marketing appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In Episode 17 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Tom Ellis, Investment Director of Mai Capital, a $20M VC fund that assists startups looking to expand into the Chinese market.

Prior to his role with Mai Capital, Tom was the Director of Business Relations at Crosstivity and spent a number of years in corporate banking, including co-managing over $1BN before he was 21

In the interview Tom shares, the importance of being coachable, the importance of solving problems, what he looks for in investment opportunities and the opportunities for startups in the Chinese market.

Show Notes:

Crosstivity

Joel Inteman

Vincent Brendel

BugHerd

Alan Downie

Sam Richardson

Michael Mai

Xero

China International Marine Containers Group

Atlassian

Slack

StartupAUS

Tom Ellis LinkedIn

Tom Ellis Twitter

Mai Capital

info@maicapital.com

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

Click here to listen on iTunes

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The post Ep017 – Tom Ellis (Investment Director – Mai Capital) on opportunities in China appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 16 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Sam Wong, Head of Operations at Blackbird Ventures and Partner at the Startmate accelerator program.

Sam started her career as a lawyer, before joining Surf Stitch as the Global Product Manager, growing the company from 40 to 300+ employees. She then founded CapacityHQ, a marketplace for legal consultants that helped firms and corporates deal with surge capacity requirements. CapacityHQ went through the Startmate program before exiting the company just 14 months after launching.

In this episode, Sam shares her insights on the pros/ cons of accelerator programs, the challenges of growth stage startups and why it’s important to think globally from day 1.

Show notes:

SurfStitch

CapacityHQ

Blackbird Ventures

Startmate

Sam Wong Email

Sam Wong Twitter

Mike Cannon- Brookes

Ned Dwyer

Holly Cardew

Alan Downie

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound

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In episode 15 of the Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Ash Maurya, the man who literally wrote the book on applying lean methodology to startups.

Ash is the Founder of LeanStack and WiredReach, author of Running Lean and Scaling Lean and the creator of the Lean Canvas

In this episode, Ash Talks about, the value of timeboxing, countering the innovator bias, how to ask the right questions and applying lean methodology to a scaling business.

Show notes:

Running Lean

Scaling Lean

LeanStack

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound.

To enter social media competition:

Twitter

Instagram

Snapchat: startupplaybook

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The post Ep015 – Ash Maurya (Creator – Lean Canvas) on applying Lean Methodology to scaling businesses appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 14 of the Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Ben Chan, Executive GM of Envato, the world's leading marketplace and community for creative assets and creative people.

Envato owns and operates several successful marketplaces on the "Envato Market" such as themeforest, audiojungle and videohive. To date they have paid out over $400M to users of their platform.

In this episode, Ben shares what startups can learn from corporates, how startups change during different stages of growth, hiring and leadership in fast growing teams, the importance of having mentors and how to launch a successful marketplace.

Show Notes:

Envato

Collis Ta'eed

Ben Chan on LinkedIn

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound.

Click here to listen on iTunes

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The post Ep014 – Ben Chan (Executive GM – Envato) on building successful marketplaces appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 13 of the Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Peter Huynh, Co-Founder and Partner of US$50M fund Qualgro which invests in technology startups in SE Asia, India, Australia and New Zealand.

Since launching a year ago, the fund has made 11 investments in its’ first year, in tech startups based in Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Myanmar and Australia.

Prior to Qualgro, Peter was a Co-Founder of Optus-Innov8, a Corporate VC investing in early-stage Australian technology startups, and part of Singtel Innov8, Singtel Group’s $250M corporate VC fund. He has also led Technology M&A transactions for SingTel Group Digital Life. He has over 15 years experience in several Asian countries, Europe and in Australia.

Peter was previously at Hutchison 3G, where he undertook business development, corporate development/investment and product development roles, based in Sydney and London, and prior to that in digital agencies under the WPP Group. Peter is also an Investor/Mentor at Startmate, regarded as Australia’s most successful accelerator program.

In this interview, Peter shares how corporates can get involved with startups, the challenges of doing business in SE Asia, the differences between seed stage vs series A investment, the key metrics investors look for in investment opportunities. Why good investors focus on long term vs short term aligned interests, why referrals and reputation are so important to investors and why self awareness is important in growing a successful startups and in investment decisions.

Show notes:

Qualgro

OpenAgent

Optus Innov8

Telstra MuruD

NAB Ventures

Loopspace

TechinAsia Conference

InnovFest

Rise Conference

Echelon Conference

Peter Huynh (LinkedIn)

Peter Huynh (Twitter)

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound.

Click here to listen on iTunes

Click here to listen on Stitcher

The post Ep013 – Peter Huynh (Partner – Qualgro VC) on the challenges and opportunities in Asia appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 12 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Adir Shiffman, Chairman of Catapult Sports - the world leader in wearable athlete analytics for elite sport.

Adir has had an incredible career. Initially qualifying in medicine and practising as an MD, Adir made the switch across to becoming a startup founder and over a period of a decade launched, built and sold 3 high-growth Australian companies, including HelpMeChoose.com.au to Mortgage Choice.

Adir is now the Chairman of Catapult Sports - the world leader in wearable athlete analytics for elite sport. Catapult Sports provides their hardware and software to the elite teams in the AFL, EPL, NFL and NBA. Catapult Sports IPO’ed in December 2014 and since then has gone on to acquire 3 different companies, cementing their position as the world leader in the industry.

In this interview, Adir covers a range of topics including transitioning from MD to startups, how to find your strengths, the 3 skill that every startup needs, the challenges of scaling, why having a point of difference is important, how and when to acquire companies, the pros and cons of an IPO and getting investment from Mark Cuban.

Show notes:

Adir Shiffman on LinkedIn

Adir Shiffman on Twitter

Catapult Sports on Twitter

Catapult Sports website

Accounting for dummies

The Lean Startup

The breakthrough company

Neutrino Hunters

Einstein's Dreams

Credits:

A special thank you to Gravity Co-working space for hosting The Startup Playbook Podcast for this episode. If you are looking for a co-working space to work out of in Sydney or Melbourne, make sure you check out Gravity!

Intro music credit to Bensound.

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The post Ep012 – Adir Shiffman (Chairman – Catapult Sports) on the challenges of scaling and the characteristics of fast growing startups appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In Episode 11 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Tristan Pollock, named by Forbes as one of their 30 Under 30 for 2015, Tristan is currently the Entrepreneur in Residence and Venture Partner at 500 Startups.

Tristan exited his first company, Social Earth, and is now the Co-founder of Storefront, which has raised funding from celebrities and influencers such as Gary Vaynerchuk and Nas, with Storefront counting other influencers like Kanye West as clients of their platform.

He is also the Entrepreneur-In-Residence and Venture Partner at 500 Startups, a leading global venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator. 500 Startups manages $200M in assets and has invested in 1300+ technology start-ups.

In the interview, Tristan shares his insights on building marketplaces, getting celebrity and influencer investors, what companies looking to raise funding in the US need to do and his thoughts on opportunities in verticals such as Vice Tech.

Show Notes

Australia, the startup capital of brunch, surfing and frontier tech

How Sex Drugs and Rock'n'roll are creating the next big tech companies

500 startups Mountain View application

Tristan Pollock Website

Tristan Pollock Twitter

Credits

Intro music credit to Bensound.

Click here to listen on iTunes

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The post Ep011 – Tristan Pollock (EIR & Venture Partner – 500 Startups) on funding, marketplaces and sex, drugs & rock’n’roll of Silicon Valley appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 10, I interview Sujan Patel, a data-driven marketer and entrepreneur, who currently runs 3 different businesses, is a regular contributor to Forbes & The Wall Street Journal as well as being the author of 100 Days of Growth (Special code for a free copy is inside).

Sujan is the co-founder of WebProfits US, a growth marketing agency & software companies, Narrow.io & ContentMarketer.io, tools to help marketers build their Twitter following and scale content marketing efforts.

He is also an avid writer and a regular contributor to publications such as Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Inc and Entrepreneur Magazine.

And if that isn’t enough, he has also written a book titled 100 Days of Growth which has sold over 30,000 copies last year alone.

In this episode, Sujan shares how he built his personal brand, his process for creating daily long form content, how to create shareable content and how to distribute your content as wide as possible.

Show Notes

WebProfits US

Narrow.io

ContentMarketer.io

How to write for major publications (video)

How to sell the first 10,000 copies of your ebook

Sujan Patel Twitter

Sujan Patel Website

Free copy of 100 Days of Growth

Link to Book

Discount code: thestartupplaybookpodcast

Credits

Intro music credit to Bensound.

Click here to listen on iTunes

Click here to listen on Stitcher

The post Ep010 – Sujan Patel (Founder, Author, Writer) on creating scalable and shareable content appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 9, I interview Angus McColluch, a marketing and growth expert, who has a particular expertise in building and growing large followings on Instagram for businesses. To date, he has amassed a following of over 1.6M across 5 different Instagram accounts.

His experience in building large followings has allowed him to help companies such as The Fifth Watches succeed as a business based primarily of their Instagram strategy.

In this episode, we dive deep into Instagram and take a look at particular strategies that can help businesses grow through this social media platform. In the interview, Alex gives his insights into the Instagram Algorithm, How to use engagement spikes to get your account trending, how to use the psychology of Instagram users to decide what posts to put up, why you should upload multiple posts at once and where Instagram should sit in your sales funnel.

Show notes:

Extreme Daily (Instagram)

Adrenaline Daily (Instagram)

Tactical Daily (Instagram)

Alpha Daily (Instagram)

Finest Daily (Instagram)

Unbelievable Daily (Instagram)

Angus Mcculloch (Instagram)

Angus Mcculloch (Email)

Credits

Intro music credit to Bensound.

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In this episode I interview James Cattermole, a serial enterprise software entrepreneur who has 2 successful exits under his belt and is now on to his 3rd business as well as being an active Angel investor in early stage enterprise startups.

His first business, VNH Systems was a DVD rental software which sold to Blockbuster in 2007, immediately after selling his first business, he founded JadeLynx which was then acquired in 2013. He is now the Co-founder and CEO of Hexigo, an enterprise prioritization system, that is helping large organisations better manage and utilise their emails.

During the interview, James shared a complete playbook in how to launch and grow enterprise software companies, covering topics including: How to transition from corporate life to startups, how to find and spot good ideas, how to action feedback into pivots, the one question you need to be able to answer clients, the challenges of expanding overseas, what startups should look for in investors and the one caveat where giving your software away for free makes sense.

Show notes:

James Cattermole on LinkedIn

James Cattermole on Twitter

Telstra

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound.

Click here to listen on iTunes

Click here to listen on Stitcher

The post Ep008 – James Cattermole (Founder | Investor) on moving from corporate life to startup, building and selling enterprise software startups and how to find and spot good ideas appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 7 of the Startup Playbook podcast, I continue my conversation with Matthew Snowden and James Nguyen from M5859 Apps

In this episode, we get a little bit deeper and dive into specific strategies on: How to build marketplaces, why you shouldn't use surveys for product validation, The key feature in building virality into your product, understanding the addictive loops of Tinder and Snapchat and a breakdown of their strategy that James and Matt used to get their app to rank number 1 in 22 countries and over half a million downloads globally.

If you haven't already listened to episode 6, I strongly recommend listening to that first before moving on to episode 7.

Show notes:

Crossy Road

Talking Tom

Flappy Bird

UsabilityHub - Capture design feedback quickly and easily

Andrew Chen - blogs on growth and virality

The viral coefficient and the K-factor

David Skoks - Blog

Reinforcement in behavioural psychology

Paul Graham - do things that don't scale

M5859 Apps

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound.

Click here to listen on iTunes

Click here to listen on Stitcher

The post Ep007 – (part 2) Matt Snowden and James Nguyen (m5859 Apps) on Creating virality, getting 500,000 downloads and building marketplaces appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In Episode 6 of The Startup Playbook Podcast I interview Matthew Snowden and James Nguyen from M5859 Apps.

M5859 Apps have a strong track record of building successful and scaleable apps. Their app “walking with dinosaurs” was named as the app of the year for 2012, went number 1 in 22 countries and had over 500,000 downloads. This interview was so broad and packed full of content that we had to split it up into 2 parts.

In part 1, Matt and James talk about how to find if someone is the right co-founder for your business, how giving away value can bring long term revenue and how to get companies such as Apple to buy into your product as partners and how to find and connect with A-list celebrities like Taylor Swift.

Show Notes:

The Making of Star Wars: The definitive guide

Walking with Dinosaurs App

Celebrity Contact Database

Matthew Snowden on LinkedIn

James Nguyen on LinkedIn

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound.

Other episodes you might like:

Ep001: Tim Mundy (Digital Affair) on partnerships, getting your first paying client and building teams

Ep002: Shelli Trung (Angel Investor) on what she looks for, red flags in investment opportunities and why startup founders should hear no

Ep003: Justin Dry (Vinomofo) on getting through the "lean years", building a community and deciding when to pivot

Ep004: Alex McBride (The Fifth Watches) on turning a passion into a business, influencer marketing and building products

Ep005: Paul Naphtali (Rampersand Venture Capital) on how to approach investors, ingredients of a good startup founder and the biggest turnoffs for investors

You can play Part 1 of my interview with James and Matt below. Part 2 will be released on Tuesday 26th July.

The post Ep006 – (part 1) Matt Snowden and James Nguyen (M5859 Apps) on finding the right co-founder, giving away value and contacting Taylor Swift appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 5 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Paul Naphtali, the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Rampersand Venture Capital.

Prior to starting Rampersand, Paul was involved in the PR and Marketing teams at several successful startups such as Snaptu (acquired by Facebook) and TokBox (acquired by Telefonica).

Rampersand Venture Capital has recently closed a $50 Million fund, to invest in early stage technology startups. Since launching their first fund in 2013, Rampersand has built a strong track record in finding and backing successful early stage startups.

In this episode, Paul shares when and how to contact VC’s, the common ingredient that he sees in successful founders, the Rampersand investment process and what the biggest turnoffs are for investors.

Show notes:

Mark Suster - Invest in lines not dots

Ramersand Venture Capital website

Paul Naphtali on LinkedIn

Credits:

Intro music by Bensound.

Other episodes you might like:

Ep001: Tim Mundy (Digital Affair) on partnerships, getting your first paying client and building teams

Ep002: Shelli Trung (Angel Investor) on what she looks for, red flags in investment opportunities and why startup founders should hear no

Ep003: Justin Dry (Vinomofo) on getting through the "lean years", building a community and deciding when to pivot

Ep004: Alex McBride (The Fifth Watches) on turning a passion into a business, influencer marketing and building products

Ep006: (Part 1) Matthew Snowden & James Nguyen (M5859 Apps) on finding the right co-founders, partnering with Apple and contacting A-list celebrities

You can listen to the full interview with Paul Naphtali below

The post Ep005 – Paul Naphtali (Rampersand Venture Capital) on how to contact VC’s, the common ingredients in successful founders, the Rampersand investment process and the biggest turnoffs for investors. appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 4 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Alex McBride, the Founder and CEO of The Fifth Watches.

The Fifth Watches is a watch brand with a unique business model selling products for only 5 days on the 5th of each month. Since launching 18 months ago, The Fifth Watches brand has dominated social media, with over 500,000 followers across their social media channels.

In this interview, Founder and CEO of The Fifth Watches, Alex McBride shares how he turned a passion for design and blogging into a successful business, how to turn your strength into a weakness and how to leverage the power of influencers to grow your business.

Show notes:

The Fifth Watches Website

The Fifth Watches Instagram

The 5th.co Instagram

The 5th Bags Instagram

Li-Chi Pan Instagram Influencer

Credits:

Intro music by Bensound.

Other episodes you might like:

Ep001: Tim Mundy (Digital Affair) on partnerships, getting your first paying client and building teams

Ep002: Shelli Trung (Angel Investor) on what she looks for, red flags in investment opportunities and why startup founders should hear no

Ep003: Justin Dry (Vinomofo) on getting through the "lean years", building a community and deciding when to pivot

Ep005: Paul Naphtali (Rampersand Venture Capital) on how to approach investors, ingredients of a good startup founder and the biggest turnoffs for investors

Ep006: (Part 1) Matthew Snowden & James Nguyen (M5859 Apps) on finding the right co-founders, partnering with Apple and contacting A-list celebrities

You can hear the full interview with Alex McBride below.

The post Ep004 – Alex Mcbride (Founder – The Fifth Watches) on building a business from a blog, turning weaknesses intro strengths and how to grow a social media following appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In episode 3 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Just Dry who is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Vinomofo.

Vinomofo is a group buying, daily deal site for premium wine. Vinomofo recently raised $25 million in funding from Blue Sky Venture Capital and is recognised as one of the biggest success stories in the Australian startup scene.

Although Vinomofo is viewed as a big success now, Justin and his Co-founder Andre Eikmeier went through plenty of struggles, pivoting 4 times over 4 years before finding the right business model.

In this interview, Justin shares the story behind Vinomofo and how they got through their “lean years”, the importance of building a community, deciding when to pivot and how to choose between multiple options on the table.

Show Notes:

Qwoff

Road to Vino

The Great South Australian Wine Adventure

Vinomofo

Justin Dry on Twitter

Credits:

Intro music by Bensound.

Other episodes you might like:

Ep001: Tim Mundy (Digital Affair) on partnerships, getting your first paying client and building teams

Ep002: Shelli Trung (Angel Investor) on what she looks for, red flags in investment opportunities and why startup founders should hear no

Ep004: Alex McBride (The Fifth Watches) on turning a passion into a business, influencer marketing and building products

Ep005: Paul Naphtali (Rampersand Venture Capital) on how to approach investors, ingredients of a good startup founder and the biggest turnoffs for investors

Ep006: (Part 1) Matthew Snowden & James Nguyen (M5859 Apps) on finding the right co-founders, partnering with Apple and contacting A-list celebrities

You can listen to the full interview with Justin Dry below.

The post Ep003 – Justin Dry (Co-CEO – Vinomofo) on the importance of building a community, deciding when to pivot and how to choose between multiple options on the table. appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In the 2nd episode of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Shelli Trung, who is an active angel investor in Fintech, Real Estate Tech and Impact focused startups.

Recognised as one of the "Top 100 Investors to follow on Twitter", Shelli Trung has a remarkable story, starting life as a refugee, becoming a successful founder and then using her experience to become an angel investor.

In this episode, Shelli shares the right way to approach investors, what she looks for in investment opportunities, what some of her investment red flags are and why it’s important for startup founders to hear no.

Show notes:

FForward

Founder's House

Techfugees

Shelli's online courses on creating pitch decks

Shelli on Twitter

Shelli on LinkedIn

Credits:

Intro music credit to Bensound.

Other episodes you might like:

Ep001: Tim Mundy (Digital Affair) on partnerships, getting your first paying client and building teams

Ep003: Justin Dry (Vinomofo) on getting through the "lean years", building a community and deciding when to pivot

Ep004: Alex McBride (The Fifth Watches) on turning a passion into a business, influencer marketing and building products

Ep005: Paul Naphtali (Rampersand Venture Capital) on how to approach investors, ingredients of a good startup founder and the biggest turnoffs for investors

Ep006: (Part 1) Matthew Snowden & James Nguyen (M5859 Apps) on finding the right co-founders, partnering with Apple and contacting A-list celebrities

You can play the full interview with Shelli Trung below.

The post Ep002 – Shelli Trung (Angel Investor) on how to approach investors and what gets investors interested appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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In the first ever episode of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Tim Mundy who is the founder and Director of Digital Affair.

Digital Affair is a HR branding agency that had an astonishing amount of success since launching less than 2 years ago. On the day of their launch, they had already established a partnership with LinkedIn. Since launching, they have already amassed a client base of some of the biggest companies in Australia including Motorola, Coles, Lion and Bunnings Warehouse

In this interview, Tim shares how they developed a partnership with LinkedIn before launching, the strategies he used to bring on his first few clients, his hiring process and much more!

Show notes:

Digital Affair

Collective Campus

Prof. Mark Ritson - Social Media is about people not brands

Tim Mundy on LinkedIn

Credits:

Intro music by Bensound.

Other episodes you might like:

Ep002: Shelli Trung (Angel Investor) on what she looks for, red flags in investment opportunities and why startup founders should hear no

Ep003: Justin Dry (Vinomofo) on getting through the "lean years", building a community and deciding when to pivot

Ep004: Alex McBride (The Fifth Watches) on turning a passion into a business, influencer marketing and building products

Ep005: Paul Naphtali (Rampersand Venture Capital) on how to approach investors, ingredients of a good startup founder and the biggest turnoffs for investors

Ep006: (Part 1) Matthew Snowden & James Nguyen (M5859 Apps) on finding the right co-founders, partnering with Apple and contacting A-list celebrities

You can play the full interview with Tim Mundy below.

The post Ep001 – Tim Mundy (Director – Digital Affair) on how to get clients, foster partnerships and build teams appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook Podcast: Recent Episodes

Rohit Bhargava - Entrepreneur | Blogger | Podcaster. I help launch, grow and fund startups and online businesses