The Startup Playbook Podcast

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 partners A 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: 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.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 Daniel’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)/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/Ep180_-_Daniel_Petre.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 Ep180 – Daniel Petre (Co-founder – Start Giving) on family, philanthropy and truth seeking appeared first on Startup Playbook.

Ben Thompson, Co-founder & CEO of Employment Hero, shares insights on building a $2B business, a public dispute with HostPlus, and navigating funding challenges. Discussions cover professional background, founding Employment Hero, international expansion during COVID-19, and ethical advertising in the superannuation industry.

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 partners A 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: 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.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 Tobi’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)/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/Ep178_-_Tobi_Skovron.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 Ep178 – Tobi Skovron (Co-founder & CEO – Creative Cubes) on the curse of ambition appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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 partners A 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: 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.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 Sam’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 https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep177_-_Sam_Kothari.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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.

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 partners A 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: 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.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 Luke’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 https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep176_-_Luke_Anear.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 Ep176 – Luke Anear (Founder & CEO – SafetyCulture) on lessons from building a $2.7B company appeared first on Startup Playbook.

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep175 – Ed Hooper (Co-founder & CEO – GXE) on frameworks, exits and investing March 14, 2024 rohitbhargava Uncategorized 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 partners A 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: 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.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 Ed’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 https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep175_-_Ed_Hooper.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 Ep175 – Ed Hooper (Co-founder & CEO – GXE) on frameworks, exits and investing appeared first on Startup Playbook.

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 partners A big thank you to Matt de Boer for helping make this episode happen! Also 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.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 Alex’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 https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep174_-_final.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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.

Mark Woodland, the Co-founder and CEO of Kismet, shares insights from his unique journey from military service to tech entrepreneurship. He discusses the motivations behind creating Kismet to enhance access to disability and healthcare services. Mark reflects on overcoming childhood challenges, the importance of nurturing gratitude, and effective leadership principles. He dives into navigating venture capital, stressing the significance of education over metrics, while also addressing team dynamics in healthcare innovation and the balance between ambition and team wellbeing.

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 partners A big thank you to Emily Casey for her help with research for this interview as well as to our partners for this 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.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 Ben’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 https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep172_-_Ben_Grabiner.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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.

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 partners 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.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 https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep171_-_Micha_Kaufman_Co-founder__CEO_-_Fiverr_on_risk_virality_and_frameworks.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem 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 Ep171 – Micha Kaufman (Co-founder & CEO – Fiverr) on risk, virality and frameworks appeared first on Startup Playbook.