Build It. They'll Come.

Kim McKay doesn’t really consider herself an entrepreneur. But that’s exactly what she is, having built not 1, but 2, impressive “empires”. The non-science trained marketing guru is transforming the Aust Museum – yes, the one Sydney-siders all remember going to on school excursions, a natural history museum and Australia’s oldest museum – from being somewhat faded-around-the-edges to now bringing it firmly into the 21st century digital age, as a world-class cultural institution. How is she doing it? By cajoling politicians who control the pursestrings, inspiring scientists to continue their research and engaging supporters and the public alike to take a fresh look at the Museum’s newly refurbed spaces, including the new glittering glass box entrance. Kim reveals how she twists arms! And already she’s increased attendance numbers several-fold.  Perhaps less known is the 1st “empire” Kim McKay helped build into a global not-for-profit phenomenon – the Clean Up Australia & Clean Up the World community campaigns. That event started in 1989 from a tiny idea solo yachtsman & pal Ian Kiernan had, to clear waterways of plastic and rubbish. With the support, hard work and passion of his co-founder Kim McKay, the pair first launched Clean Up Sydney Harbour, which turned out to be a dazzling success on the 1st weekend it was held. So just how did they build that up into the successful & substantial Clean Up Australia campaign -- a volunteer, community-based event that in its first year alone involved over 200 cities and towns across Australia? Well, when Kim managed to get the United Nations involved, Kiernan and McKay took their “Clean Up” to the world!  The Clean Up movement became one of Australia’s most successful public action campaigns ever. And that campaign helped transformed community awareness about the damage from ocean pollution.  Enjoy the dynamo that is Kim McKay!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Managing the rapid scale-up of fast-growing Zip Co meantco-founder & CEO Larry Diamond instigated a culture of Building and Flyingat the exact same time; find out how such a high-wire act meant Diamond and histeam often came close to falling over, thinking they might have to close theirdoors. In the early days, surprisingly they had no retail expert on their team.Yet by putting 1 foot in front of the other, taking 1 step at a time, they grewfrom signing on 1 small suburban bike shop to accept their Buy Now Pay Laterproduct, to signing up tens of thousands of merchants, including big playerslike Wesfarmers’ Bunnings & Kmart, and online retailers like kogan. And thesecret sauce? Diamond says if you have the passion, then the startup life isreally all about endurance. Oh, and taking every Saturday off, switching offall computers and devices, & re-charging one’s own batteries with familyand friends!  Enjoy Part 2 of my chat with Zip’s Larry Diamond.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Part 1 -When Larry Diamond came up with his idea for a new payment method he wanted with a passion to disrupt existing payment systems, particularly credit cards, that had a stranglehold on the online space, but were clunky and un-user friendly in his view. Pitching his idea to would-be investors, they sort of metaphorically patted him on the head and shooed him away, saying, nice idea Larry, but you don’t know what you’re talking about!  Rather than drop his idea for a Buy Now Pay Later digital product, he persevered and found a perfect partner, consumer credit expert Peter Gray, to help realise his vision. That vision was providing small amounts of credit to consumers involving “fees” but would do away with “interest charges” completely. ZipMoney, later becoming Zip Co, was born in 2013 over a number of beers in their local pub! The co-founders landed on a product that gelled with younger consumers, in a big way as it’s turning out, as a kind of cross between a debit card and a credit card. 8 years later, overcoming several mammoth hurdles along the way which you’ll hear about, Zip now boasts 7 million customers worldwide, including 2.5 million Australian customers using their most popular product Zip Pay, at everywhere from Bunnings and Woolies to online e-tailers Kogan and Catch. While another Aussie startup Afterpay began later but has grown much bigger, and there’s also strong competition promised from US giant PayPal and CBA’s part-owned Klarna in the BNPL space, Larry Diamond says bring on competition! Founder Larry Diamond now owns just 10% of Zip, making him very wealthy already. But, he tells me, more important are his expanding global growth plans for Zip, including greater penetration into the lucrative US. Hope you enjoy Part 1 of my interview with Zip co-founder and CEO Larry Diamond.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Richard Sattler’s entrepreneurial journey from Tassy farmer to owner of world-class golf courses was far from straightforward… there were lots of bunkers and bogeys (to go with the golfing metaphor) thrown up in his path. After creating the almost instantly successful Barnbougle links course – attracting golf enthusiasts from the mainland as well as overseas --  how Sattler went on to battle and eventually win a legal stoush with former partners, when he came to build his 2nd links course, Lost Farm, became a painful lesson in perseverance. Then when the Covid19 pandemic hit the island leisure destination in 2020, and Tasmania was shut down for the best part of several months, find out how Richard Sattler and his dedicated team of workers turned that near-disaster to their distinct advantage. He also talks of the true impact family support has been through it all. Enjoy Part 2 of my chat with Richard Sattler.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How non-golf player Richard Sattler saw the potential &seized the opportunity to transform his cattle & potato farm into one ofthe best champion links golf courses in the world. The former shearer, who’dnever played golf before, took a massive risk on backing the idea of developinga top-quality links course amongst the pristine sand dunes of his coastalstretch of North-East Tasmania, and ended up having to underwrite the 2-yearbuilding project of Barnbougle Links course, The Dunes. But he quickly realisedthe concept of building a wilderness experience for golf might mean they couldcreate a whole new market for themselves in remote Tassy, and that’s exactlyhow Barnbougle became not just a local, but a world golf destination. Years of hard slog battling huge hurdles in his businessjourney in the island state of Tasmania – from the devastating Pilots’ strikeof 1989, and the ’91 recession which saw interest rates of 20%  meanalmost crippling debt – equipped Sattler with the experience, tenacity andpassion to go all out on the Barnbougle experiment. But it paid off, andhandsomely. Not only has Sattler expanded his links courses empire, butBarnbougle sits comfortably in the Top 50 golf courses in the world! And itremains one of the few courses in Australasia, where those golf enthusiasts whomake the pilgrimage, rarely come away disappointed!  Hope you enjoy Part 1 of my chat, on the roller coasterbusiness ride of golfing entrepreneur and empire builder Richard Sattler.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Liz Ann Macgregor was lured from the UK to take on the job of turning around & re-building the moribund Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in 1999, she knew it would be a massive financial challenge. As a kid growing up in remote Orkney Islands in northern Scotland she had experience on the margins, so she figured how hard could a museum be, at the other ends of the earth in Sydney, despite seeing newspaper headlines emblazoned “Gallery no-one goes to” and “Money for Wankers”. But on arrival downunder and learning not only was the MCA so close to bankruptcy, but a fight with some of her board members within her first 48 hours, meant she almost turned on her heels and fled. Lucky for the MCA, Sydney and Australia that she didn’t, and for the next few years Liz Ann and her small team knuckled down, kept a tight rein on cash flow, persuaded politicians (sweetly , of course!), and enticed both audiences from all parts of the community and more donors. Over the past 2 decades, Liz Ann took the business of contemporary art, often seen as elitist and inaccessible to audiences, and turned it on its head. How Liz Ann Macgregor marshalled all resources she could lay her hands on to re-build the harbourside museum, visitor by visitor, supporter by supporter, blockbuster exhibition by blockbuster exhibition and transform it into one of Australia’s most visited and loved cultural institutions is a masterclass in entrepreneurialism, innovation and true engagement with customers. Does she think of herself in those terms? Well, take a listen to this chat with the indefatigable Liz Ann Macgregor OBE and find out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tony Nash’s school & uni life didn’t work out the way he had planned. While he knew he wasn’t studious, didn’t concentrate, he equally understood he had enormous stores of passion, energy and enthusiasm when it came to a project he wanted to pursue. When it came to creating e-commerce bookselling site, Booktopia, initially from a tiny office in suburban Sydney, Tony’s unbridled energy and enthusiasm helped he and his co-founders to build it into one of Australia’s truly homegrown digital success stories. But it was, well, a medical diagnosis that came only in more recent years that finally gave him clarity and helped him improve his business as well as personal life. Hope you enjoy Part 2 of my chat with maverick entrepreneur Tony Nash.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Despite dropping out of university, having no publishing experience and not even being a book lover, Tony Nash decided he could take a punt on the commercial possibilities he saw in online book-selling, in the internet’s infancy. Shrugging off the risks of going up against the already dominant player in that same market – Amazon – Tony convinced a few family members to support his vision, and started Booktopia, an entirely Aussie home-grown online book seller. What began as a small hustle on the side – Tony’s brother gave him a budget of $10 a day to create Booktopia, & he had to continue doing his day job at the same time – was built over the next 15 years into an e-commerce success story. Booktopia is set to achieve almost $220 million in revenue this financial year, employing 250 people, with a healthy chunk of all online book sales. But along that journey to success for Booktopia, exactly what impact did Jessica Seinfeld’s best-selling memoir have? And was there ever a single lightbulb moment for Tony Nash? Well, listen and you’ll find out. Hope you enjoy Part 1 of Tony Nash’s unorthodox entrepreneurial storySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After 17 years building up their Aconex software platform into a globally renowned game-changer for construction & infrastructure process & document management, founders Leigh Jasper & Rob Phillpot knew they needed access to more capital to continue growing worldwide. But when they took Aconex public in 2014, life as a publicly-listed company dealt them plenty of downside, along with the advantages! So how did they deal with short sellers, share price roller-coaster rides and more? And what really drove the decision to sell out completely, to US giant Oracle – was it just the massive pile of money offered?  Well in Part 2 of my chat with co-founder leigh Jasper he reveals some home truths on the entrepreneur’s journey in public company land, and why he is now trying to support & guide other startups based on amazing ideas through the maze of potential pitfalls. Enjoy!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Leigh Jasper was helping out in his dad’s car business, as a kid in north-eastern Victoria, he of course couldn’t foresee that he would create and build one of Australia’s great innovation success stories of recent years. But that’s exactly what Jasper, with co-founder and long-time mate Rob Phillpot, did when the pair came up with the idea that the project management part of what they saw as the messy, uncoordinated and document-heavy construction sector needed streamlining, to help the industry itself become more efficient. They created Aconex in 2001 as a web-based platform where all documents relating to a project build could be stored and accessed on one digital platform, by every participant in the project, from the owner and builder right through to all sub-contractors. Aconex suddenly offered better transparency, improved cost controls for all participants in a building project, thereby reducing risks of cost overruns and delays or disagreements. Within 2 decades Aconex grew to become an ASX 200 listed public company, offering their SaaS (software as a service) product to massive engineering, construction and infrastructure projects across global markets. Projects like the large 3rd lock expansion to the Panama Canal, and the Marina Bay Sands complex of buildings dominating the Singapore skyline. Before selling out eventually in 2018 to US giant Oracle, which valued Aconex at over $1billion, company revenue hit almost $200million. So how did they do it? Well like many great success stories, it started with a lightbulb moment. Enjoy Part 1 of my chat with Leigh Jasper.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.