Scaling Up: Lessons From The World's Best CEOs and Founders

Myles Glashier is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Phocas Software. Most listeners would not have heard of, nor read about Phocas, as this is a story that is largely unknown, but certainly needs to be told.  20 years ago an Aussie backpacker in London, falls into starting a bootstrapped business selling on premises business intelligence software. Fast forward 20 years, and Phocas has carved out a niche to serve manufacturing and retail customers around the globe. Having grown consistently year on year, and now with revenues north of $40m and 180 employees across 3 continents without any significant external capital, this is a scaling up story of boundless hustle, and drive to make every dollar count.  Loved by all customers and employees alike, Phocas is now at an inflection point, with the business on the cusp of securing significant funding that hopefully you will indeed read about, when you do, you can understand and appreciate all the hard work and effort that has been poured in over nearly two decades, and marvel at the lessons leant along the way. 

Paul Bassat makes for a unique 'Scaling Up' episode. As most listeners will know, Paul and his brother Andrew, along with Matt Rockman founded Seek in 1997 and in doing so carved the path in Australia for great technology businesses. This was a time when the internet itself was in its early days, and it is hard to fathom the foresight required to build what is now a $8b company. Paul left Seek in 2011 and has since founded Square Peg, one of South East Asia’s leading venture capital companies, with investments including Canva, Deputy, Airwallex and Bruce Buchanan’s ROKT, who was featured in episode 2 of this podcast. Because of the duration and success of Paul’s career, we traverse time periods in this conversation to extract the key lessons he has learned through the lens of Seek and how he has applied them in years since. There is no one in my mind who has seen the full spectrum of the ecosystems as a founder, a board member and investor, and so being able to compare and contrast all these experiences makes for a fascinating conversation. Paul is a an Australian treasure for so many reasons, and I am hoping after this conversation you can see why. Show notes to come.

Simon Griffiths is the Co-Founder and CEO of Who Gives a Crap. People listening might not, until now, appreciate both the scale of the business and also the deep community impact it has had in the developing world, where Who Gives a Crap donates half of its profits to charity each year. From the humble idea that they could sell toilet paper online and deliver a great customer experience, all the while being at the forefront on consumer driven philanthropy, this is a Australian success story we should all be wonderfully proud of. This crowd funded, bootstrapped business has donated almost $9m to organisations focused on sanitisation and hygiene in the developing world, and it is this mission and purpose that shines right through out this conversation as well as every single decision that Simon and his team make. These are the stories that need to be told, these are stories that inspire me personally the most, and a story I hope I do justice. Beyond the social impact headlines, Simon and his team really have built a wonderful business -  best in class direct-to-consumer metrics, cash flow positive on every new customer from their very first order. To be able to donate half your profit, you need to be  profitable, and at its core, this is a story about the successful scaling of a global online business. WGAC is a largely unknown national treasure we should all be proud of.  Show notes and links WGAC's original crowd funding video https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/who-gives-a-crap-toilet-paper-that-builds-toilets#/ Simon giving the team a week off and why - https://blog.whogivesacrap.org/home/goodnews/wellness-week-update (38.08)

Sankar Narayan, the CEO of SiteMinder is my guest today and the tapestry of his career is equal parts fascinating and inspiring. Born into the India middle class, Sankar has swung from the branches of a variety of roles across the US and Australiatech scene that have enabled him to bring a unique perspective to his current role. Sankar has become one of Australia’s scale up experts, cutting his teeth at Xero as both he CFO and COO, and now as CEO of SiteMinder, a billion dollar, truly global, fast growing Australian technology success story. From managing founder transition and other stakeholders as a business grows, Sankar gives wonderful insight into not only what it takes to scale the soft skills required as a CEO, but also how he thinks about the vertical Saas playbook and how that is currently playing out at SiteMinder. SiteMinder has a massive opportunity ahead of it – already the dominant player worldwide and yet hardly penetrated into its market, Sankar’s expertise in scaling both system and processes and cultures will hold the business in great stead on this next stage of its growth journey. Show notes to come.

Mike Frizell and James Edwards, Co-Founders of Pet Circle, are the quiet achievers of the Australian consumer business scene. Their story is largely untold and unknown. Whenever newspapers publish lists of Australia’s largest e-commerce players, Pet Circle is always a surprise omission to those in the know. Having grown at an astronomical rate over the last decade to now over $300m in revenue, Mike and James have built a business second only in size and scale to Kogan – the undisputed pure play online retail king in the country. This has been done without press releases, and public acknowledgement, but certainly with the deliberate decision making that  enables durable long term growth. Many start a business and then adapt to patch the holes as they go. This is far from the Pet Circle scaling story – from day one both ensured the boat was water tight – from back end technology processes, to the front end consumer experience. I loved uncovering their magic to what is certainly one of Australia’s finest examples of growing an online business. This series is set against the backdrop of Covid 19 and both Australia and the rest of the world on the precipice of the biggest economic slowdown since the great Depression. Millions of people are now working from home, and never has there been larger catalyst for structural changes to how we all live our lives. But it is also a time that has seen a huge divergence in outcomes for many businesses – some have exponentially grown due to these structural shifts, some have sadly put up the shutters, never to return. Pet Circle certainly falls into the category of the former, but super growth set against this backdrop has its own challenges as well, and it was great to get some perspectives of how Mike and James have thought about this real time. This scaling up story  really is a masterclass in how to grow a online business in the digital age. For those interested in further insights and commentary, TDM Growth Partners has been posting to their new medium publication – TDM tidbits – which can be found at medium.com/tdmtidbits, or it might be easier to follow @tdm_growth on twitter and get all the news and views there. You can always find me on twitter @eddiecowan.

Luke Anear, CEO and Founder of SafetyCulture, is undoubtedly one of Australia's finest modern entrepreneurs. A boy from Townsville in Northern Queensland starts a software company from his garage with no technical expertise. SafetyCulture is now a pin up of the Australian technology scene – a billion dollar valuation, revenue growth at break neck speed, tens of thousands of customers across 85 countries, and some of the world's largest companies relying on SafetyCulture software to provide their safety and inspection. It is a story that is boundless in Luke’s ambition and desire to do something significant. It is a story engrained in a mission to build an enduring company that shapes the world. The lessons Luke has gained from this journey is both inspiring but also deeply important for any entrepreneur to hear first hand. Luke has a wonderful disposition, a knock about fella, who is just warming up when it comes to fulfilling what he set out to do. Brief show notes/ links mentioned in the episode The New Hustle - an anthem to entrepreneurship -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN0NlchcUS8 Steve Jobs story of the 'rock tumbler' as a metaphor for great teams https://vimeo.com/195796089 SafetyCulture customer conference  -https://safetyculture.com/summit-2020/ "From thriving to surviving" --- For those interested in further insights and commentary, TDM Growth Partners has been posting to their new medium publication – TDM Tidbits – including a written series on what frameworks we use to assess great CEOs, CFO and non executive directors. Easiest to it follow @tdm_growth on Twitter and get all the news and views there. You can always find me on Twitter @eddiecowan.

Rick Stollmeyer co-founded Mindbody in 2001 and is still the CEO 20 years later. This is his story as much it is Mindbody’s story; from his learnings as a nuclear submarine engineer, to selling CD ROM software from his garage with his co-founder Blake Beltram, to now scaling a multinational software company.  Rick is one of the most passionate and deeply mission-driven CEOs you could ever have the pleasure of meeting. A high performer in every sense, motivated by solving complex problems through the power of collaboration - I think this could be my favourite interview of the entire podcast project. We talk about the Mindbody journey and its bootstrapped founding story, its growth to a venture capital-backed start-up and then a public company, right through to being taken private in 2018 by Vista Partners for Us$1.9 billion. This journey has had its ups and downs, triumphs, and challenges, all met with the same hunger he possesses today. Sit back and enjoy the reflections of one of the world's finest entrepreneurs  This episode was recorded in the first week of March, well before the full impacts of Covid-19 in the US could have been imagined. The messages though are timeless.  For those interested in further insights and commentary, follow @tdm_growth on twitter and get all the news and views there. You can always find me on twitter @eddiecowan.

I am thrilled that Anneka Gupta has joined as the guest of this episode. Anneka is one of the rising stars in the US technology scene. She is currently the co-president of LiveRamp, a New York Stock Exchange Listed $2b business with offices around the world. Her own corporate journey is as fascinating as the company itself – a journey that highlights the potential of ‘generalists’ with ambition and passion, who when a new door opens, have the courage to explore it with their full attention and heart. She started as an engineer at Liveramp straight out of college when the business had just 20 employees, and while it was a division of Axiom, she worked her way up to become the Co-CEO and lead over 1,200 people. She gives some great insights as to why, when LiveRamp was acquired by Axiom, she insisted the business ring-fence its highly agile and mission driven culture, and operate as a stand alone business, rather than be subsumed by its owner. As a young leader, she gives invaluable views on the challenges of leading a hyper-growth business in an ever changing world - how she has managed both cultural transformation and innovation, and the lessons she has learned along the way. As a ‘culture carrier’, she is the epitome of a modern-day leader, whose voice will only become more well known around the world in the coming years. For those interested in further insights and commentary, TDM Growth Partners has been posting to their new medium publication – TDM tidbits – which can be found at medium.com/tdmtidbits. If easier, we always post all our content to twitter, so if interested, follow @tdm_growth to and get all the news and views there. You can always find me on twitter @eddiecowan. If you are enjoying what you hear, there are more episodes of 'Scaling Up' coming down the pipe, so make sure you subscribe on your podcast platform of choice and don’t forget reviews and shares always help other find the podcast as well, so please share the love on your own social channels.

Jonathan Corr is my guest on this episode of Scaling Up.  Jonathan is the current CEO of Ellie Mae. This episode is a wonderful deep dive into the world of a highly experienced CEO who has had the benefit of seeing the full spectrum of the growth curve. Ellie listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011, relatively early in its journey. Jonathan oversaw and came through all the common scaling challenges – re-platforming of their technology stack, changes in their business model, and by far the biggest challenge, scaling the people and culture of the business. All the while being a listed public company and facing the volatility that that brings. Jonathan gives great insight into all these challenges and  was incredibly transparent in relation to the take over of Ellie by Thoma Bravo, a leading Private Equity technology company, for US$3.7b.  Ellie Mae sells software to the mortgage industry, streamlining and automating the process of originating and funding new mortgage loans as well as facilitating regulatory compliance. As you can imagine, mortgage brokers and banks love this software, and this is reflected in Ellie’s 35% market share This is an episode for the business purists – a phenomenal growth story, unsurprisingly wrapped up in the importance of great people, all working under a common mission.

Welcome to Season 2 of Scaling Up!  My guest on this episode is Spencer Rascoff.  Spencer looms as a large figure in the US tech scene – twice he has co-founded billion dollar businesses. His first, the travel website HotWire was sold to Expedia, and it was there, he met Rich Barton – the Expedia and Glassdoor founder. Together, with several others, they then set off and co-founded Zillow. Zillow is now all things real estate in the US – for anyone looking to buy, rent, value a house, or obtain a mortgage, you have significant interaction with Zillow. It is now a US$2.7 b revenue, US$11b market capitalisation business (at the time of recording). Spencer was CEO for 9 years, and is now on the board. I often find guests who are no longer in the day to day grind makes for a great interviewees, as they have had time to reflect without bias. There was a temptation to go wide in our conversation, but I felt it could have spread Spencer’s wisdom too thinly. Instead I decided to really focus in on a topic that I know is close to his heart as well as mine – the importance and power of people and culture when scaling businesses.  Spencer is a culture evangelist – he has seen first hand how and why culture is a leading indicator of business performance. Importantly to note,  this was not always his belief and it was great to hear how his views have evolved. I also loved his views on managing cultural merges – Zillow did 16 acquisitions in his time  - as well as why employees who he describes as ‘culture carriers’ can adapt to any job inside an organisation. If you love what you hear – Spencer hosts his own podcasts, among them Office Hours is in my opinion just a mandatory listen. Plenty of people have got in contact with regards to previous episodes, and the TDM team loves getting feedback. It makes this project worthwhile You can always find me on twitter - @eddiecowan, and TDM is constantly keeping the world up to date with great insights and views as well -  @tdm_growth This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.