My guest for Ep206 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Adam Schwab. Adam started his career as a lawyer before transitioning to startups and has had a number of successful businesses, but is best known as the Co-founder & CEO of Luxury Escapes. Luxury Escapes is one of the world’s leading travel brands, revolutionising the way people book luxury getaways. Despite their success, it hasn’t always been a straightforward journey for the company, particularly going through periods such as COVID (an extremely difficult time for all travel businesses) and with Adam stepping away from the CEO role for a period of time. However he stepped back in the role with a renewed vision of the company and has seen the business grow from $350M pre-COVID to now doing over $1B in GTV sales annually. In this episode we covered a variety of topics including: Why Adam no longer looks at acquisitions as a growth strategy Why stepping away from Luxury Escapes made him a 10X better CEO The pivot in the business led to them growing from $350 million GTV to $1 billion+ GTV And much more! Timestamps: 3:05 Adam’s background 7:10 Early entrepreneurial journey, inherent traits and developed skills that helped him 9:39 Lessons from first business 13:14 Initial growth strategies at Luxury Escapes 18:50 Getting sued by Gabby & Hessi and then doing JV deals with them 25:23 Pivoting the business model 29:11 Creating culture and hiring at scale 33:45 Barefoot running 35:14 Understanding the needs of the customer and market 37:33 Leaving Luxury Escapes 43:41 Playing offense instead of defence during COVID as a travel company 48:55 the choice to limit outside funding 50:49 Key business metrics he tracks at Luxury Escapes 52:06 Future plans for Luxury Escapes 55:44 The changes he made coming back to Luxury Escapes after leaving 58:25 Taking care of health 1:00:28 How life priorities shift over time Our partners: A big thank you to Jeremy Sane and Shay Hamama for their help with this interview! Also 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 Vanta 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: The Komo Club – Details & Cohort #1 applications available here Adam’s Links: Adam’s LinkedIn The Contrarians with Adam and Adir Luxury Escapes People mentioned: Jeremy Same Evan Spiegel Elon Musk Mark Zuckerberg Warren Buffet Mike Sneesby Steve Jobs Gabby Leibovich Hezi Leibovich Mark Hoenig Joshua Landy Chris McDougall Jensen Huang Shay Hamama Campbell McComb  Hamilton Helmer Jeff Bezos Adir Shiffman Companies mentioned: AirBnB OpenTable Groupon Herbert Smith Freehills Nine Microsoft LivingSocial eBay Scoopon Menulog Wesfarmers Catch.com.au Amazon Expedia Trip Auctus Investment Group 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 Ep206 – Adam Schwab (Co-founder & CEO – Luxury Escapes) on reinventing Luxury Escapes & Scaling to $1B+ GTV appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep205 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Damir Cuca. From tinkering with toys and electronics and immigrating to Australia as a child without knowing the language to building and exiting two successful businesses, Damir’s career has been a masterclass in determination, resilience and growth. He’s best known as the Founder & CEO of Basiq, an Open Banking platform that offers secure access to consumer financial data. Basiq went on to raise several funding rounds from top-tier strategic investors in the space including Salesforce Ventures, NAB Ventures and Westpac’s Reinventure fund before being acquired by payments giant, Cuscal, in 2023.  How to design a company culture that thrives on competitiveness and performance What the process of acquisition looks like and what it meant for him personally How he balances having an ambitious career with being a husband and a father to six children And much more! Timestamps: 1:28 Damir’s background 10:14 Pivoting from a blue collar path to software engineering 17:49 Building a technical and commercial skill set 25:18 Tips on defining problems to focus on in business 29:34 Moving to Serbia to set up Basiq 37:15 Building the culture at Basiq 41:41 Instilling continuous learning mindset 44:17 When to fight and when to let go 48:56 How he approached fundraising and the acquisition process 54:32 The experience of going through the exit 58:45 How he thinks about raising his 6 kids Our partners: A big thank you to Rohen Sood, Jake Osborne, Victor Leung and Elizabeth Cuca for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our 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 Vanta 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: Damir’s links: Damir’s LinkedIn People mentioned: Rohen Sood  Victor Leung Jake Osborne Steve Jobs Companies mentioned: Basiq  Salesforce Ventures NAB Ventures Reinventure Cuscal 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 Ep205 – Damir Cuca (Founder & CEO – Basiq) on building and exiting 2x startups and being a father of six appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep204 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was George Hartley. George is the Co-founder & Co-CEO of Bluethumb, Australia’s largest art marketplace. Since its launch in 2012, Bluethumb has grown into the leading art marketplace platform, connecting over 23,000 artists with buyers and selling more than $100 million worth of artwork. In addition to Bluethumb, George was also the Co-founder and CEO of SmartrMail, an email marketing platform designed to help e-commerce businesses delight their customers and boost sales. SmartrMail’s success led to its acquisition by Relay Commerce in 2022, delivering a 5x return to its seed investors. In this episode, George shares insights into: Why Bluethumb waited three years to raise their seed round and why they’ve stayed bootstrapped since The importance of continuously taking risks and experimenting to drive growth The unique challenges and strategies for scaling consumer marketplaces versus SaaS companies Timestamps: 1:49 George’s background 7:30 His journey from music to tech 11:33 How to know when to stick with something vs pivot 15:45 The early days of Bluethumb 19:52 Staying true to your vision despite external noise 24:18 The fundraising journey for Bluethumb 32:03 The SmarterMail journey 38:02 Identifying and hiring talent 45:34 How he thinks about taking risks and running experiments 52:54 US Expansion Our partners: A big thank you to Freddy Grant and Ed Hartley for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our 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 Vanta 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: George’s links: George on LinkedIn Bluethumb Bluethumb on Instagram Art in my Home Podcast People mentioned: Steve Jobs Richard Branson Edward Hartley Philip Slusarski Bradford D. Smart – Topgrading Freddy Grant Lorenzo Ghiberti Companies mentioned: Costco Apple SoundCloud Luxury Escapes Zappos Startmate SmartrMail LivingSocial EVP Klayvio 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 Ep204 – George Hartley (Co-founder & Co-CEO – Bluethumb) on lessons from building a $100M art marketplace appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep203 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the Co-founder & CEO of Zeller, Ben Pfisterer. Ben is a returning guest on the show. Our last interview was in August 2020 when Ben had left his role as Country Manager for Square to launch his new company, Zeller, which had just come out of stealth mode to announce their $6.3M funding round. Since then Zeller has become the fastest Australian company to a $1B valuation, reaching that milestone in less than 2 years. Zeller has 85,000 customers, 260 staff and to date has raised $180M in funding from leading investors. In this interview we covered a range of topics including: The challenges that come with scale How raising capital changes from Seed to Series B stage How hiring and company culture evolves as you scale the company Why Ben doesn’t do any one-on-ones with any of his direct reports And much more! Timestamps: 2:06: Ben’s background 7:09: How to find your path in career 8:36: The background of Zeller 11:05: The storytelling aspect of raising capital 15:07: The unexpected challenges that came from taking on the big banks 21:05: How transparent should you be with your company and investors? 23:22: Hiring talents and maintaining culture as you scale 39:19: How he thinks about product at Zeller 47:41: How he’s worked with investors as Zeller grows 56:50: How he structures his time 1:01:21: The horizon theory 1:05:07: The mission and objective with Zeller 1:06:17: How he’s found his own balance with work and life Our partners: A big thank you to Josh McNichol for his with this interview! Also a big shout out to our 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 Vanta 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: Ben’s links: Ben’s LinkedIn Zeller Zeller roles People mentioned: Mark Woodland Dominic Yap Josh McNicol Companies mentioned: Square NAB Siemens Hewlett-Packard Square Peg Capital Kismet Apex Capital Partners Headline Spark 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 The post Ep203 – Ben Pfisterer (Co-founder & CEO – Zeller) on becoming the fastest Australian company to achieve unicorn status appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep202 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder of Farmers Pick, Josh Ball. Farmers Pick helps save food waste by rescuing wonky food that is often discarded by supermarkets and making it available to order by consumers. Since launching in 2020, they have saved 7 million kilograms of produce and the company now has 120 employees and generated $16M in revenue last year.  In this interview we covered a range of topics including: The importance of having a strong mission and values to help guide strategic business decisions balancing frugality with 100% YoY growth Why they decided to go down the equity crowdfunding path rather than raising from traditional VC funds Scaling storytelling to both their staff and to their customers And much more! Timestamps: 1:45 Josh’s background 7:12 The origin story of Farmers Pick 12:29 How he validated the initial idea 18:27 The operational complexities of growing a physical goods business 27:52 Finding the balance between focussing on new customers vs expansion of existing customers 29:50 Using social media to grow the brand 31:05 The decision to crowdfund vs raise venture capital 35:29 Negotiation advice 37:41 Making sure the vision/mission stays consistent across whole company as you grow 42:43 Thinking about expansion 48:04 How his role has evolved as the business has grown 54:00 Staying out of the weeds and making strategic decisions 55:40 What’s next for Farmers Pick Our partners: A big thank you to our 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 Vanta 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: Josh’s links: Josh’s LinkedIn Farmers Pick People mentioned: Joshua Brooks-Duncan Simon Griffiths Adrian Osman Companies mentioned: PromisePay Xero Misfits Market Who Gives A Crap MILKRUN Playbook Ventures me&u 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 Ep202 – Josh Ball (Co-founder – Farmers Pick) on using tech to save 7 million kg of food waste appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep201 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Cheryl Mack. Cheryl started her journey launching and growing Startcon, which was Australia’s largest startup conference at the time. She’s now involved with a number of different projects including The Pillars, 361 Angel Club and the First Cheque Podcast but she is best known as the Co-founder & CEO of Aussie Angels. Aussie Angels is a platform that manages the backend infrastructure of investments, allowing angel investors to invest in startups via syndicates. To date, over 1,700 angels have invested $23M through their platform. In this interview we covered a range of topics including: The importance of brand, marketing and storytelling How to get started with angel investing What founders should look for when adding angel investors to their cap table What investors really mean when they say they look for “good” founders, markets and investment opportunities & much more! Timestamps: 1:43 Cheryl’s background 3:54 Growing up in Canada and moving to Australia 8:25 Building StartCon, Australia’s biggest startup conference in Australia at the time 14:31 Choosing themes/sectors as an Angel Investor 20:49 What Cheryl looks for when personally investing in companies 29:26 Learnings from early mistakes as a new Angel Investor 35:41 Advice for new Angel Investors 38:00 Benefits of joining a syndicate 47:43 How founders should think about taking money from angel investors 54:06 Signals investors should look for when deciding whether to invest 1:00:44 Challenges and benefits of working with your partner, balancing family life 1:10:13 Redistributing wasted toys Our partners: A big thank you to Tom Worden and Alexandra Lewis for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our 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 Vanta 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: Cheryl’s links: Cheryl’s LinkedIn Aussie Angels The Pillars 361 Angel Club First Cheque Podcast People mentioned: Mike Cannon-Brookes Matt Barrie Rod Drury James Harrisson Thomas Worden Adrian Osman Cliff Obrecht Melanie Perkins Alexandra Lewis Companies mentioned: StartCon The Startup Network (formally Startup Victoria) Freelancer Xero Airtree Blackbird Playbook Ventures AWS Cut Through Venture me&u (formally Mr Yum) 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 Ep201 – Cheryl Mack (Co-founder & CEO – Aussie Angels) on how to get started as an angel investor appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep200 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jason Wyatt, the Co-founder & CEO of Marketplacer. Jason’s journey started with a bike marketplace called BikeExchange, the global success of this marketplace led to others wanting to create and launch their own versions of marketplaces. These opportunities led to him launching 8 Joint Ventures in different verticals. Despite some success with this model, Jason saw a much bigger opportunity for this solution as a “platform” play that could scale and grow globally. As a result, he ended up wrapping up the JVs to go all in Marketplacer. Marketplacer is a marketplace platform that allows enterprise companies to scale and grow their ecommerce operations, counting companies such as Qantas, Tesco and Optus as customers. Marketplacer has quickly become a global leader in marketplace technology, powering over 100 marketplaces worldwide and facilitating billions of dollars in transactions. To date, they have raised over $85M from leading investors around the world. In this episode we covered a range of topics including: Why Jason decided to shut down eight different companies to go all in on Marketplacer Lessons from launching, growing, and hiring globally The importance of having strategic investors like Salesforce Ventures and much more! Timestamps: 2:22 Jason’s background 4:46 Business and sport experiences as a teenager 10:58 Starting BikeExchange 17:23 Where the conviction for BikeExchange came from 23:35 Trying to launch into other verticals with The Exchange Group and how that led to Marketplacer 27:31 Getting their first enterprise customers 30:23 The decision to switch off 30% of revenue to focus on the bigger opportunity 32:38 Having a productive board relationship 37:05 Pulling yourself out of the day to day to see the bigger picture in business 40:40 Finding and recruiting talent 45:27 Expanding Globally 51:54 Finding strategic investors 55:43 Balancing business with family 1:02:50 Getting through tough times, dealing with the loss of his father and brother Our partners: A big thank you to Bob Schwartz, Richard Hankin and Sam Salter for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our 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 Vanta 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: Jason’s links: Jason’s LinkedIn Marketplacer People mentioned: Sam Salter Mark Philippousas Greg Roebuck Lance Armstrong Michael Jordan Gerry Harvey Peter Bartels Bob Schwartz Sean van Waes Richard Hankin James Harrisson Jade Wyatt Companies mentioned: BikeExchange KPMG Reuters Morgan Stanley Shopify Magento Carsales Telstra Tesco Qantas Woolworths Providoor BigCommerce Nordstrom SAP IBM Gap Salesforce Ventures Portmans The Just Group 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 Ep200 – Jason Wyatt (Co-founder & CEO – Marketplacer) on shutting down 8 companies to go all in on Marketplacer appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep199 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jaimie Fuller. Jaimie’s journey has been full of highs and lows. He is best known as the former CEO and Executive Chairman of compression apparel company SKINS. SKINS was a global phenomenon with elite athletes and sporting teams all around the world using their products. The business had incredible global growth before ultimately filing for bankruptcy in 2019. Outside of his work with SKINS, Jaimie was also an activist within sports, through #ChooseTheRightTrack tackling doping in sports and #NewFIFANow to call out corruption in football leading to a number of arrests in FIFA in 2015. Jaimie is now back with his latest company, eo, which is helps accelerate human progress through innovative sports technology. In this episode we covered a range of topics including: The ups and downs of the SKINS journey How he personally dealt with the fallout from filing for bankruptcy How SKINS was able to use brand to build a premium offering and compete with the likes of Nike all over the world The vision and mission behind eo and much more! Timestamps: 1:49 Jaimie’s background 3:33 His first printing business 7:25 The challenges of growing at a rapid pace beyond 250 employees 13:49 Doing the right thing in business 26:10 The founding journey of SKINS 32:56 What gave him the conviction to go all in on SKINS 42:53 Importance of brand and storytelling 52:01 Maintaining a challenger brand ethos as you scale 1:05:32 replacing himself as CEO 1:08:01 Filing for bankruptcy 1:21:13 The decision to start again with eo 1:26:15 The mission of eo Our partners: A big thank you to Dean Hawkins and Anthony Gregorio for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our 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 Vanta 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: Jaimie’s links: Jaimie’s LinkedIn Eo Lab’s website Eo Lab’s Instagram People mentioned: Rupert Murdoch Dean Hawkins Bradley Duffy Mike Stone Graham Arnold Cristiano Ronaldo Lionel Messi Anthony Gregorio Steve Waugh Robert Louis-Dreyfus Julia Louis-Dreyfus Companies mentioned: SKINS Essendon Football Club Nike Adidas Puma Eatbigfish NSWIS UBS Amazon International Athletics Federation Sport 2000 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 Ep199 – Jaimie Fuller (Former CEO & Chairman – SKINS) on building SKINS and bouncing back from bankruptcy appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep198 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Rohan Workman. Rohan is the Co-founder & CEO of Skalata, a seed stage venture capital firm that was established in 2018 and count a portfolio of over 80 companies across their 2 funds. Prior to this, he was the Director of MAP, Melbourne Uni’s Accelerator program that he built to become the 8th ranked program in the world. Rohan also previously founded RosterCloud, a cloud-based software management tool for events and catering businesses. RosterCloud was acquired by Rision in 2016. In this interview we covered a range of topics including: What his first job out of uni, working in corporate recovery, taught him about business Lessons from his first startup, Roster Cloud Why Skalata evolved from an accelerator program to a more traditional fund structure & much more! Timestamps: 1:43 Rohan’s background 4:02 Importance of health & fitness as a founder 12:08 Tough lessons from his time at McGrathNicol 15:25 Advice for navigating challenging people situations in business 21:24 Balancing speed with discipline 26:50 Mistakes and lessons from RosterCloud 30:36 Time at Melbourne Accelerator Program in the early days 39:45 The genesis for Skalata 46:35 Skalata’s investment thesis and process 57:10 Taking risks and being bold Our partners: A big thank you to Maxine Lee, Laura Williams and Rosemary Workman for their help with this interview! Also a big shout out to our 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 Vanta 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: Rohan’s links: Rohan’s LinkedIn Skalata VC People mentioned: S. N. Goenka John Berry Sam Kothari Leigh Jasper Jocko Willink Darrell Wade Maxine Lee Lisa Paul Daniel Madhavan Sarah Morgan Anthony Glenning Kate Cornick Justin Lipman Connor Hagan Alex Ewart Companies mentioned: KPMG McGrathNicol Melbourne Accelerator Program (MAP) Melbourne University RosterCloud Vipassana Meditation Everlab The Big Group LaunchVic Explorate EVP 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 Ep198 – Rohan Workman (Co-founder & CEO – Skalata) on taking risks & balancing speed with discipline appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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: 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 Vanta 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 The post Ep197 – Paul Stovell (Founder & CEO – Octopus Deploy) on turning a weekend project to a $100M ARR business appeared first on Startup Playbook.