The Startup Playbook Podcast

My guest for Ep209 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Mat Ellis. This episode is a little special. Not only is it Mat’s first-ever podcast interview, but we’ve also been close friends since grade 7. And many years ago, after months of trying, I finally convinced him to join as one of the co-founders of my first startup, StageLabel. But Mat’s not on the show just because we’re friends. He’s genuinely one of the best engineers in the country. He’s the Co-founder and CTO of Kismet Healthcare, a company tackling the deep inefficiencies in healthcare and disability services. Kismet has seen phenomenal growth in just a short period of time, scaling quickly with a small, high-performing team of 30 – including an engineering team of just five. At Playbook Ventures, we were lucky enough to back Kismet from the pre-seed stage and have had a front-row seat to their incredible growth. In this episode, we unpack some of the principles behind that growth, including: Why smaller teams get more done The 2 core values that make hires successful at Kismet The importance of vertical ownership Why every engineer on Matt’s team spends one day a month on customer support calls And much more. Toward the end of the episode, we also get personal and reflect on the growth we’ve both had across all areas of our lives. Mat’s also a member of Cohort #1 of The Komo Club, where we go deep on these exact themes, exploring how to build not just high-performing businesses, but high-performing lives. If you want to find out more, check out TheKomoClub.com Timestamps: 2:29 Mathew’s background and early interest in software 4:36 Discovering startups and autonomy 7:41 StageLabel and lessons in ownership 9:54 The importance of doing something you like 11:54 Lessons from early in his career that he applies now at Kismet 18:33 Transition to Xplor 23:53 Co-founding Kismet 31:09 Scaling with small, high trust teams, why vertical ownership (end-to-end accountability) drives better outcomes 39:32 Hiring for culture fit at Kismet: humility and ownership and what to look for in technical talent 43:54 Why Kismet does its best to scare people off in interviews 49:25 Overcoming challenges of scale and the sacrifice you make when starting a company 55:31 Personal Growth: From work first to a balanced life, how a holistic approach improves work performance 1:02:50 How Mat has stopped being a passenger in his own life 1:05:40 How taking care of himself properly allows him to perform better at work Our partners: A big thank you to Mark Woodland, Harry Travers and Bejoy Machumpurath 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.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 – Details here Mathew’s Links: Kismet Mat on LinkedIn Kismet’s email People mentioned: Mark Woodland James Chin-Moody David Goggins Jocko Willink Jason Fried Companies mentioned: StageLabel Department of Defense Lockheed Martin Xplor Playbook Ventures Sendle 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 Ep209 – Mathew Ellis (Co-founder & CTO – Kismet) on vertical ownership and high performing teams appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep208 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jane Martino. Jane has had an incredibly successful career as a director, investor, advisor and founder of a number of companies that have successfully exited. She’s best known as the Co-founder & Chair of Smiling Mind, one of the worlds leading mindfulness and mental health tools with over 9.3M downloads and 14M young people reached globally. She now helps individuals reach their maximum potential through her coaching business, Kintsugi Way. In this episode, we cover: Lessons from launching, scaling and exiting several businesses The role of good advisors and board members How to deal with co-founder conflicts How to deal with emotions and stress as a founder And much more. PS we go deep into several important topics in this episode and they are just some of the topics we dive into at The Komo Club. The Komo Club is a private program I’ve launched for high-performing founders, operators and executives who want to win not just in business, but across all areas of life—from health and relationships to personal growth and leadership. It’s an 8-week cohort experience that combines world class content, practical systems and frameworks a curated community to help you reach your goals. And I’m incredibly proud to share that Jane will be joining us as one of the featured guest speakers for the upcoming cohort. She’ll be diving deeper into the frameworks and lessons she’s used to lead with purpose, avoid burnout, and create lasting impact; personally and professionally. If this episode resonates with you, I think you’ll love what Jane will be sharing inside The Komo Club as well. Cohort 1 applications are now open. You can learn more at TheKomoClub.com or by reaching out to me directly at rohit@startupplaybook.co. Timestamps: 3:07 Janey’s background 13:49 Founder mental health 18:59 Experience with meditation and practical uses for business 24:27 Communicating with co-founders and colleagues 35:33 How she applied these to the situation at Unlockd 45:40 Thoughts on hustle culture 56:48 How she’s approached being a founder 59:30 Her approach to advisory roles 1:09:58 How she helps co founders decide on the roles they’ll play in the business 1:20:55 The journey with Smiling Mind Our partners: A big thank you to Laura Henshaw and Andrew Duncan 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.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 – Details & Cohort #1 applications available here Janey’s links: Jane on LinkedIn Kintsugi Way Smiling Mind People mentioned: Rachael Neumann Robin Sharma James Tutton Laura Henshaw Companies mentioned: Unlockd AWS CSIRO Aussie Founders Club Boost Mobile Tesco Mobile Google Kic DiSC profile Headspace Calm 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://youtu.be/JZ9chMylhxA The post Ep208 – Jane Martino (Co-founder & Chair – Smiling Mind) on founder mental health, mindfulness & multiple exits appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep207 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Vice President and General Manager for Asia-Pacific & Japan at Monday.com, Dean Swan. Dean spent 11 years at Microsoft before becoming the Country Manager for Australia & New Zealand at Dropbox. He’s now the Vice President and General Manager of APJ at Monday.com. When Dean joined Monday.com as the first hire in the region, he set an audacious goal: to grow his part of the business to $100 million in 5 years – an ambitious target considering the entire company was valued at $120 million at the time. Fast forward to today, he’s grown the team to 140 people and is just $2 million shy of that $100 million target – months ahead of schedule. In 2021, Monday.com went public and now boasts a market cap of $15.97 billion. In this episode we covered a variety of topics including:  How to effectively expand into new markets and territories How to hire and attract the best talent How Dean grew the business from zero to $100M in the APJ region The steps he takes to perform at his best, which led to him losing 20kg+ And much more! Timestamps: 3:38 Dean’s background 5:19 Early career experiences as a chef 9:12 Transitioning into technology 11:02 Learnings from 11 years at Microsoft 16:04 How to build culture in a company 21:35 His experience expanding Dropbox and monday.com into other markets 30:58 His own entrepreneurial journey prior to Dropbox & monday.com 38:22 Balancing vision with daily focus 42:18 Why he left Dropbox to help build out monday.com in APJ, early challenges 46:23 How he looks for and attracts talent 52.47 His initial growth plans for monday.com 59:33 Thoughts on AI and how he’s using it personally and at monday.com 1:06:56 The catalyst that made him prioritise his health and lose 20kg Our partners: A big thank you to Greg Walsom help his 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.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 – Details & Cohort #1 applications available here Dean’s Links: Dean on LinkedIn monday.com People mentioned: Bill Gates Steve Balmer Satya Nadella Roy Mann Eran Zinman Greg Walsom Adam Schwab David Shein Companies mentioned: Microsoft Dropbox Google Hum Technologies Amazon G2 Luxury Escapes Tourism Australia Canva OpenAI 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 Ep207 – Dean Swan (VP for APJ at Monday.com) on growing Monday.com zero to $100M+ in APJ appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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.

George Hartley, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Bluethumb, shares his journey from music to tech and the growth of Australia's leading art marketplace. He discusses the three-year wait for their seed funding and the continued focus on bootstrapping. George emphasizes the importance of risk-taking and experimenting in business, as well as the unique challenges of scaling a consumer marketplace. He also reflects on effective hiring strategies and the impact of his journey on work-life balance as they look to expand into the US market.

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.

Josh Ball, Co-founder of Farmers Pick, shares his journey in transforming food waste into a thriving business. He discusses the importance of a strong mission and the challenges of scaling a startup that rescues imperfect produce. Josh sheds light on their successful shift to equity crowdfunding to foster growth without traditional VC pressures. He also highlights the role of storytelling and social media in building brand loyalty, along with the intricacies of managing a rapidly expanding team while maintaining company values.

Cheryl Mack, Co-founder & CEO of Aussie Angels, shares her journey from launching Australia’s largest startup conference to leading a platform that democratizes angel investing. They delve into the essentials of brand marketing and storytelling for startups. Cheryl offers insightful advice for budding angel investors and discusses what to look for in founders and investment opportunities. Discover the benefits of syndicates and the critical elements that define successful investing strategies as Cheryl navigates the evolving startup landscape.

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.