Ep219 – Stirling Mortlock (Co-founder – XV Capital) on the journey from Wallabies Captain to Sports-Tech Investor

Aug 28, 2025

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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:

Scendar

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

Vanta

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Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentioned:

The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator

Stirling’s links:

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:

Resources mentioned:

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Credits:

Music: Paycheck

Other channels:

Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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