Weird Growth

Many students are suffering in mainstream education and looking for ways to path their future. The School Education Act was last reviewed in 1999 and can take up to 5 or more years to see change, it is too slow. Problem: There are plenty of programs for academically talented young people, people who need extra social care and engagement, and people with disabilities but nothing for students who fall outside of this bell curve. Students who show creativity, are neurodiverse or challenge the system. Solution: IDEA create co-designed programs for each student, providing integrated learning and real-world experience. They understand what is going through young people’s heads and how big their career decisions are. Their one big piece of advice: Rebecca: Build your support network first, as a founder you cannot do this alone Nicole: You need to have a level of acceptance of what is to come Bullets: (00:00) - Introduction (00:55) - The business they would start today as ‘caretakers’ (03:00) - The problem that led them to start IDEA (06:49) - Students on the sides of the bell curve (10:40) - Why are young people making their own path more now than before? (13:45) - How IDEA is different from mainstream school. (18:20) - There is a story for each student (20:10) - Feedback they get is not teaspoons it's by the gallon. (23:35) - How they reached their first customers (27:20) - Raising money, the pivotal moment in their success (32:05) - How they are planning to scale IDEA (36:15) - They model how to have the conversation around vulnerability and tolerance (40:20) - Their big pieces of advice. (45:15) - Raising a seed round then changing a nappy (46:40) - Show & tell (48: 35) - The Mark Zuckerberg path (49:58) - An organisation chart for your family Show & tell Google Primer App – https://www.yourprimer.com/?force_layout=True Straight talk - https://open.spotify.com/show/0W3GWublEOW75ufTa8vAGq Outsource people: Have a Cleaner, Nanny, click-n-collect  IDEA - https://ideacademy.com.au/ FLUX - https://www.fluxperth.com/

The average wait time for public dental health care is 2-3 years. Dr Kyle Turner created Pearlii to provide oral care for disadvantaged people. The Pearlii app lets the user take a free photo of their teeth and will give feedback on any signs of dental issues. Pearlii has landed on product hunt multiple times including being number #9 for the product of 2020. Problem: 35% of people rely on the public dental system in Sydney and Melbourne, the appointments are expensive and people are neglecting their dental health. Solution: Pearlii is helping to solve this problem by having an AI algorithm which detects gum/teeth issues for free by taking a photo of your mouth. They are also working towards treatment via a dental treatment van. One big piece of advice: You must have a strong why behind your business and need to do some good with that why. Try to have a purpose-led business. Bullets: (00:00) - Introduction (01:18) - The business Kyle would start today (02:21) - The problem and solution Pearlii is giving (04:50) - Good oral health (05:50) - Reaching Pearlii’s first customers (09:50) - Pearlii got on product hunt (12:20) - The business model didn’t work (15:15) - There are two sides of the coin for Public Health (16:19) - Kyle will be pissed if they don’t get the truck (19:00) - People are more conscious of their health now (19:55) - How to stand out in a busy market (22:18) - The key to success for a product hunt launch (25:40) - The next thing in the future for Pearlii (27:40) - What made Kyle a better founder (30:00) - Kyle's one big piece of advice Show & tell Kyle’s Dog – Brian the Mascot Product Hunt - https://www.producthunt.com/ Pearlii - https://www.pearlii.com/

Morning Startup host and Fastvue co-founder Scott Glew explain why every Australian startup founder should consider moving to the USA.  Fastvue does internet usage reporting that extracts details from your firewall to give you insight into keeping your network productive and safe. Scott’s global business has partnered with The Internet Watch Foundation in the UK who works to stop child sexual abuse online.    The Problem:   Online Firewalls do not have many options when it comes to reporting and gaining insights. Fastvue has helped to solve this issue. Bullets: (00:00) - Introduction (02:35) - Scott's global company (03:17) - The problem Scott is solving    (05:19) - How he found his first customers    (07:12) - The moment he knew his product was going to work    (08:10) - Find the key people to help you get in front of others (10:50) - Do you need to move to the USA to pursue your business?    (13:08) - Having the nice lifestyle   (14:19) - Unicorn Business   (16:30) - Fastvue partnered with The internet watch foundation (19:00) - The beginning of Morning Startup    (21:00) -  Validate your idea    (23:16) - The business Scott would start today from scratch   (25:36) - The new GPT chat function Show & tell Fastvue - https://www.fastvue.co/ Simple note - https://simplenote.com/ Calendly - https://calendly.com/ Slack - https://slack.com/intl/en-in/ Loom - https://www.loom.com/home The Arc Browser - https://thebrowser.company/

Noisy Guts is giving an alternative option for people suffering IBS. There are many people suffering from irritable bowel syndrome who suffer symptoms when eating certain foods. They often require an intense low-fodmap diet which can be hard to stick to. Josephine and Mary wanted to solve this issue and they came up with Noisy Guts, they conduct research on gut health, provide recipes to help your gut health and have their own products including protein balls and shakes. Problem People with irritable bowel syndrome are suffering from symptoms and have a specific diet to minimise these symptoms. Noisy Guts provide food options that don’t cause these symptoms. One big piece of advice From Mary - Know your numbers, your costs, your economics, margins and do your numbers work?” From Josephine - Make sure if you’re a sole founder, you are not stuck inside your head, don’t isolate yourself at home, and don’t listen to the voices in your head. Bullets: (00:00) - Introduction (01:46) - The business they would start today (03:30) - Solving the product market fit (04:30) - The problem being solved – Troublesome guts (05:50) - The wicked problem (07:20) - Symptoms of Irritable bowel syndrome (09:27) - The hangry problems Josephine was facing every day (10:50) - Finding their first customer (14:40) - The confidence to jump off the cliff (17:30) - The benefit of accelerators (20:17) - Hurdles with Med Tech (22:47) - Super Flora and the importance of brand (25:49) - Teach someone how to fish, just don’t feed them (30:03) - Lifetime value customers (33:20) - Tips on pitching from the pitching Queen (38:20) - Investing in the team, not the product (40:00) - Founders are nuts (40:15) - One big piece of advice from the pair (43:10) - A one-sentence pitch Show & tell Mailchimp: https://mailchimp.com/en-au/?currency=AUD Klaviyo: https://www.klaviyo.com/ Stripe: https://stripe.com/en-au Noisy Guts website: https://www.noisyguts.com/

On this episode, we are coming to you live from Perth Podcast Festival. Hear from Megan Del Borrello and Steve Knight on the value  communication can have when it comes to growing your business. These two advise executives, directors, and the next generation of entrepreneurs. There's so much to learn on this episode of Weird Growth. The Problem Female founders are facing challenges when building businesses, Megan provides them with mentoring, programs, and support to overcome these challenges. Executive level professionals struggling at being good at communicating. Steve teaches them to change their mindset from ‘public speaking’ to ‘having conversations.’ Bullets: (00:00) - Introduction (04:40) - The businesses they would start today (05:35) - The problem Megan is solving (06:26) - The problem Steve is solving (08:00) - Finding the first customers (10:00) - Communicating well, now more than ever (11:39) - Uncertainty causes stress (11:50) - The new format of communicating (13:39) - Communication channels (14:10) - The reason why Weird Growth was started (15:30) - What founders can learn about the importance of communication (18:23) - What the best communicators do (20:54) - The future of Behind the Brands (22:03) - What is Steve Knight going to do next? (23:45) - One big piece of advice from the guests One big piece of advice From Megan - Build resilience, if you don’t have resilience, you are not cut out to be a founder From Steve - You have to have such a passion and a hunger for what you want to do Show & tell Behind the brand https://www.behindthebrands.com.au/ The Art of comms: https://artofcomms.com/ Slack: https://slack.com/intl/en-au Trello: https://trello.com/en iPhone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7qPAY9JqE4

From seed capital to hemp growth. Medicann provides science-backed, reliable and affordable cannabis medicines to patients in need. 2016 was a big year for cannabis. And we’re not just talking smoke but the industry in Australia took a massive step forward when medicinal cannabis products finally became legal. This was the opportunity Matt and the Medicann team were looking for. Their first customers consisted of hemp seed and oil products sold through pharmacies and supermarkets. Today, Matt and the team are crowdfunding on Birchall to keep up with demand. Problem 65% of deaths in Australia right now are from painkillers. Improving the quality of life for people in need. Medicann creates products with fewer side effects. One big piece of advice Stick with it. When you have the passion for what you are doing you will find a way. Bullets: (00:33) – Matt introduces himself (01:13) – The business Matt would start today (02:04) – How it all started for Matt (04:14)- We’re still discovering the possibilities of cannabis (05:40) - The problem Medicann solves for patients (07:25) – How Medicann reached their first customers (08:25) - Matt’s first seed capital consisted of $50 and a trip to the casino (10:39) - What it took for Matt to start a medical cannabis business (14:37)- How Medicann Clinics found their first patient (18:44) - How Birchal works to raise capital (20:06)- Matt’s advice for crowdfunding (21:05) - Medicann’s clinical trials in concussion (23:45)- Matt’s one big piece of advice for founders (26:03) – Hemp Brothers products to get you through the day Show & tell: - Checkout Medicann’s crowdfunding campaign  - https://www.birchal.com/company/medicannhealth  - Send Matt and email -  Matt@medicannhealth.com.au  - https://www.medicannhealth.com.au/?utm_source=weirdgrowth&utm_medium=referral

Kate brought her spark to this episode of Weird Growth. Lover of creating and driven by people and purpose. You’ll often find her in glitter, coding or hooping outside of She Codes. Why do She Codes exist? Simple. To inspire 100,000 women by 2025. Their programs involve teaching technical skills, connecting women to career pathways, and working with fantastic partners. Their flagship program, She Codes Plus, is a six-month program that is designed to supercharge the tech career of its participants – ideal for women looking to enter, or advance in, the tech industry. They also offer one-day workshops and tutorials. Kate packed a lot of brilliant advice in this episode so strap in. Problem We need another million people in tech in Australia by 2025. She Codes solves both the hiring and diversity problems of the tech scene.  One big piece of advice. It never hurts to ask. Everyone is so nice. What is the worst that can happen? An ignored email? And listen to your customers. Don’t be afraid to ask them what they want. Bullets: (00:00) – Introduction  (01:37) – The business Kate would start today (06:00) – How She Codes reached their first customers (07:14) – Why Kate took the leap (09:16) – Their first partnership with BHP (11:55) – What next-level customer validation looks like (12:52) – The Cupcake Effect  (14:07) – What we can learn from the cupcake effect (18:18) – Spacecubed turned 10 – Here are some of Kate’s highlights (20:44) – Kate’s advice for encouraging STEM (23:46) – What’s next for Kate and She Codes (24:46) – How East Coast states differ from Perth (27:20) – Be helpful first (28:17) – How Kate asks customers for feedback Show & tell:  - Code tutorials - code.org - https://code.org/ - She Codes Website - https://shecodes.com.au/ - Slack - https://slack.com/ - HubSpot - https://www.hubspot.com/ - Kate on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-kirwin

From a shipping container to a brew pub in the heart of Perth’s trendy suburb – Subiaco. Golden West has grown from door-to-door delivery to producing thousands of litres a week. What gives someone the confidence to launch a brewery in the middle of COVID? Customers, Community and a Trusted Brand. Founders often forget that when building a company your product (in this case beer) still needs to taste good. Creating tight feedback loops with your customers and community keeps you on the pulse of your taste. We’ve packed this episode with lots of growth flavour and nutrients. Enjoy watching or listening with a glass of your favourite beverage. Bullets: (00:00) – Introduction (01:50) – The business Dan would start today (03:16) – The catalyst to starting the brewery (06:17) – Tight feedback loops (07:32) – Golden West’s milk run deal (08:40) – The Brand and its background story (12:00) – Dan’s growth journey (16:50) - What it takes to run a hospitality venue in Perth (18:53) – The Tech & brewery world colliding (24:15) – The future for Golden West! (26:12) - Dan’s one big piece of advice (27:32) – Show & Tell: Working in bursts thanks to his personal alarm – A one-year-old child (29:00) – Look for organic growth One big piece of advice for Founders: Seek as much advice as possible, not just from highly successful people, talk to people who failed too. You will know what’s relevant, cherry-pick it. Show & Tell: - Golden West – https://www.goldenwest.beer/ - Jeff Bezos - The electricity metaphor for the web's future - https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_bezos_the_electricity_metaphor_for_the_web_s_future - Bars that stock golden west – Cottesloe Beach Hotel, Dilly Dally, Standford Barbers, Lalla Rookh

Mihailo a.k.a “Michael Christmas” Bozic, CEO & Founder of Envited joined us for this episode of Weird Growth. Envited helps you create events for any social media in under 2 minutes. What we like most about Envited so far is it is so lightweight and easy to use. Mihailo shares the non-scalable tactics he used to grow his meme page “Just Jedi Things” and now Envited which launched across the globe this week. Mihailo & Jordan Saddik raised a Seed Round with Galileo Ventures and now looking for their next round of funding to keep up with growth. Problem Only 2% of teens use Facebook. Therefore, Facebook Events cannot be a sustainable solution to social media events in the future. What will that platform look like? Envited is on the journey to find out. One big piece of advice for Founders Talk to customers. Super simple. Don’t overcomplicate it. If you have their phone number just call them. It’s so important as a founder to be close to your users. You need to know what users are frustrated with and what they love. Bullets: (00:00) - Introduction (00:47) - Meet Michael Christmas (02:09) - The business Mihailo would start today (04:11) - How Envited built a prototype at TechStars startup weekend (05:32) - Growing a meme page – Just Jedi Things (07:30) - Why memes grow so fast (07:51) - A brief history of memes (08:23) - Harambe’s death was a turning point for memes & culture (10:31) - What running a meme page taught Mihailo Bozic about growth? (13:50) - Find early customers who will use your product when its crap (14:26) - Building in public (16:33) - What’s the biggest challenge for Envited right now? (19:19) – Raising 350K Seed over Zoom (23:14) – How Envited found their first team members (28:22) – Creativity is the most underrated skill to hire for (29:20) – What’s next for Envited? (30:07) – Mihailo’s one big piece of advice for founders (31:04) – The one thing Mihailo can’t live without – Dual Monitors Show & Tell: - Envited - https://www.envited.io/ - Galileo Ventures - https://galileo.ventures/ - Earlywork - https://www.earlywork.co/ - Startmate - https://www.startmate.com/ - MSI Monitors - https://www.msi.com/Monitor/Optix-MAG274QRF-QD - Envited Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/envited.io/

Steve Grace, CEO & Founder of Nudge Group joined us for this episode of Weird Growth. Since 2019, they’ve experienced some rapid growth. Nudge is now a global recruitment business for startups. Steve also has his own show “Give it a Nudge” and a high traffic content site for business owners, “Balance the grind”. Steve and his team know what it takes to build content, community and a talent network for the Startup Ecosystem. Steve shares top advice for Founders at all stages and how to come up with an attractive offering for the modern workforce. Problem Nudge Group help fast growing start-ups and scale-ups find talent, offering a bespoke and flexible pricing model to suit the needs of the company. One big piece of advice for Founders Everyone needs to slow down a bit. There’s too much growth for growth’s sake. Don’t grow at all costs. I’d like to see more purposeful growth from Founders. Bullets: (00:00) - Introduction (01:26) - What is Nudge? (03:14) - The business Steve would start today (04:06) - Scaling a service business vs a product business (06:17) - The Problem Nudge is solving (11:20) - How Nudge reached its first customers (13:08) - How content marketing helped Nudge (18:35) - Nudge’s key tactic to building an audience (19:31) - Be everywhere, be a part of the community. (24:17) - What Steve calls “The Karma circle” (27:01) - A massive push towards gamification (28:35) - Finding the right people for a start-up (30:25) - What founders can do to reach the best people (37:00) - What is next in the future? (39:19) - Steve’s One big piece of advice (41:48) - The difference between start-up and scale-up (42:38) - Apple watches & Soda Stream Show & tell: - Nudge Group – https://thenudgegroup.com/ - Balance The Grind -  https://balancethegrind.co/ - Apple Watch - https://www.apple.com/au/watch/ - Soda Stream -  https://sodastream.com.au/

Carl shares his top 5 no-code tools on this episode of Weird Growth. No-code development is a type of development that allows non-programmers and programmers to create software using a graphical user interface, instead of writing code. We covered DeFi, Accelerators, his startup journey and The Xrossing, an Indi-film he co-produced and released. Stick around to the backend of this episode to learn more about the powerful prototypes you can create with no-code and even what you can make with a shovel. Problem The no-code movement rests upon the fundamental belief that technology should enable and facilitate creation, not be a barrier to entry. Carl and Next Revolution help Founders and Teams ride the no-code wave. One big piece of advice for Founders Have the right attitude to be curious and to learn. Don't expect to be perfect. The success founders incrementally improve. You'll find success if you stick at it long enough.  Bullets: (00:00) - Introduction (01:28) - Early career in financial services and property (02:22) – Carl’s first startup BuyerUp (02:44) - Carl’s experience with Perth’s Plus Eight Accelerator (03:27) – The problem Buyerup was solving (06:39) - The business he would start today (07:58) - Decentralised Finance (DeFi) (11:31) - Why he’s building with Next Revolution (12:30) - How businesses can use no-code tools to unlock growth (14:48) – Anyone who has an idea can build a version of it with no-code (15:30) – How Next Revolution is helping people navigate no-code (17:24) – The sweet spot for no-code tools (22:51) - Raising money for an Indi-Film (26:00) - The Xrossing release (30:37) – What’s the next wave for no-code? (34:08) - Carl’s Top 5 no-code tools to get started (40:25) - Carl’s one big piece of advice (41:10) - The Shovel Guitar Show & tell: - Next Revolution https://www.nextrevolution.io/ - The Xrossing - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9598834/ - Carl’s Top 5 No-Code Tools - https://www.airtable.com/, https://www.jotform.com/, https://www.umso.com/, https://tilda.cc/, https://zapier.com/ - No-code Toolbox - https://nextrevolutiontoolbox.softr.app/

Happy Birthday to Earlywork who turned 1 this week. Earlywork is a community of young people working for and interested in the Startup space. It all started with three co-founders out of UNSW – Marina Wu, Dan Brockwell and Jono Herman. Now, they've grown their community to 2,500+ young people and raised 700K Seed Investment in just a year. Their mission is to give young people access to a network of like-minded professionals and startup gigs so that they progress in their careers and build the local ecosystem. In this episode of Weird Growth, Marina covers how community building is the only real moat left when it comes to your Marketing Strategy. Marina says, “you can copy other tactics and software, but you can't copy your audience.” When you build an authentic community from day one, it acts as great customer research tool, and it allows you to co-create a product with your community. We get into the ‘nitty gritty’ of community building in this episode while chatting about memes, hacker houses, and colourful lights for your room. Join us as we go back to the beginning of Earlywork and how it came to be a pillar for young people in the Australian Startup community. Problem The world of work is still set up to funnel talent into old school jobs. University degrees aren’t teaching the required skills and the classroom/lecture format can encourage habits of passive learning that generally need to be unlearned to be a successful founder or operator. And where is your network? If you take the “safe” option of a grad program you’ve got a built-in group of friends (with the occasional frenemy) but jumping into the new world can mean having to form your own community from scratch. It’s clear that we need a new interface between talent and work. One big piece of advice for Founders Start now. The biggest risk is in your career is inaction. It’s not having a go at your crazy idea that you can’t shake from your mind. The worst that can happen if it fails is that you just go back to your previous job. Do it now before it's too late. Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (2:15) – The business Marina would start today (5:45) – The core problem Earlywork is solving (7:33) – How Earlywork reached their first community members (10:40) – Community as a modern-day growth channel (12:55) – The increasing importance of community in a remote-first world (15:18) – How Earlywork scaled beyond first community members (18:08) – The main types of gigs available through Earlywork: ’The careers of tomorrow’ (19:17) – Marina's advice for Startups looking to hire employees in today’s job market (22:50) - How to use Community as a growth channel and defensive moat (25:30) – Earlywork’s pre-seed investment from Square Peg Capital (29:28) – What's next for Earlywork (31:30) – Earlywork’s launch house (33:11) – Marina's one big piece of advice (35:08) – Marina's favourite tool Show & tell: - www.earlywork.co - www.lifx.com/products/lifx-color-a19

Before he was 17, Kai had already left high school to work in startups, marketing and product. He’s got some wicked skills and he chooses to use them for good. Find out how Kai has built products and grown audiences around them, including a story of a global Product Hunt launch. Learn more about how he does it on this episode of Weird Growth. Company My Funnel https://www.myfunnel.com.au/ Problem To understand what marketing channels, work for your business Customers Startup Founders One big piece of advice Understand why you are working on the idea. Whether you are just starting, or scaling go back to basics personally and for that business. Play to your strengths. There are only so many things we can do as individuals to help. Lean into them. Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (2:05) – How Kai describes working at Ammo (3:37) – What sweaty startup would Kai start today (6:40) – Where the My Funnel idea came from (13:43) – Developing the My Funnel MVP (18:20) – How we got My Funnel ready for scale (23:05) – Testing with first customers (25:55) – The key moments he shared with the audience before launch (30:34) – How we launched My Funnel on Product Hunt (37:44) – What’s Perth-for-Perth? (42:18) – The Ted Talk when he was 14 years old (47:20) – Kai’s lifehack for under $200 (48:47) – Use Luma to create an online space for your community Show & Tell Clearbit – https://clearbit.com/ Leofoto Tripod – https://www.leofoto.com.au/ Luma – https://lu.ma/home Add Kai on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kailovel/ Zipline are hiring - https://zipline.io/

As an engineer, Derick loves to tinker. Not so long ago he found an opportunity to improve workplace safety all over the world with robots. Roborigger uses a wireless load controlling system which uses gyroscopic and inertial forces to accurately rotate and orient crane loads. Company Reducing the cost and improving the safety and efficiency of lifting operations. https://www.roborigger.com.au/ Problem Antiquated lifting methods on construction sites Customers Building companies One big piece of advice Work with a customer as early as you can to develop your product. Early customer feedback is critical to understand priority product features. Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (3:42) – The business Derick would start if he were starting again today: Green energy (5:05) – The beauty of engineering: Solving difficult problems (7:08) – The origins of Roborigger (12:45) – Developing a proof of concept with partners (16:10) – Finding first customers through existing relationships (19:45) – Scaling up from a proof of concept to full logistics automation tool (24:21) – Challenges with adoption of Roborigger on construction sites (27:55) – Roborigger’s investment from Blackbird (34:38) – Why Roborigger chose to build their product in Perth (36:04) – What’s on the horizon for Roborigger (41:23) – Derick’s advice to founders looking to grow (45:46) – The billionaire space race: Space Barons (49:21) – The world’s first fully autonomous crane Show & Tell - https://earth.google.com/web/ - https://www.amazon.com.au/Space-Barons-Bezos-Colonize-Cosmos/dp/1610398297

For Halloween we celebrated with a live episode in the Perth CBD with Tim Brewer (CEO) of Functionly. Functionly was founded in 2018 with Co-Founder, Damian Bramanis and consists of a global team who have worked with companies including Dropbox, Teamline, Auth0, Yammer and HealthEngine. In 2020, the team won a $598K Accelerating Commercialisation grant from the federal government and this year (2021) secured a $3.6m seed round. Functionly's mission, to disrupt the organisational design industry and bring simple to use software for all companies. Company Intelligent organisational design Problem Helping leaders solve their people gaps, cracks, and overlaps Customers Organisations with 25+ people One big piece of advice Know why you’re doing what you’re doing. If you know why, you’ll do it for long enough, and if you do it long enough and listen to your customers hard enough, you’ll eventually work out how to succeed. Bullets 0:00 – Introduction 3:32 – The business Tim would start if he were starting again today: Working with kind and ‘athletic’ people 6:09 – How Tim found his way into the world of technology 8:14 – The Functionly story 10:21 – Tim’s key learnings from working in the United States for Dropbox 12:57 – The three factors that led to Dropbox’s rapid growth 16:10 - The big problem Functionly is solving: Helping leaders fix their gaps, cracks, and overlaps 19:55 – The origin of Functionly 22:41 – How Functionly reached first customers 26:29 – Functionly’s perfect partner company 29:08 – How Functionly scaled their brand after early customer conversations with people like Ty Hayes at Growth Generators 35:03 – Functionly’s interesting SaaStr experience and what’s on the horizon 39:30 – Tim’s advice for founders looking to grow: Know why you’re doing what you’re doing 41:55 – Tim’s favourite product right now: Hubspot Show & Tell https://www.hubspot.com/ https://www.functionly.com/free

From a tech meetup to cofounding one of Perth's fastest growing development houses. Alex and John from Ninja Software have built a great company over the last 5 years. On this episode of Weird Growth we chatted about Synthetic Biology, Agile Software Development vs Fixed Fee, proof of concept apps and building a passionate dev team. They also run Tech Society a great podcast we've linked below in the show notes go and check it out. Company Entrepreneurial software development https://www.ninjasoftware.com.au/ Problem Opaque software development pricing and workflow Customers Start-ups, Government bodies, and businesses Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (3:09) – How Alex & John met: The benefit of expanding your network (4:50) – The business Alex & John would start today if they were starting again: Synthetic Biology (8:28) – The genesis of Ninja Software and ideal customer: Domain experts with a clear understanding of their solution (13:33) – How Ninja assists customers with the commercialisation of products: Sharing the upside (16:16) – Ninja’s software development process: Ideation, full design prototype (Adobe XD), and the benefit of fixed fee versus agile software development (20:32) – What Alex & John wishes clients knew before they came for software development and why off-the-shelf or no-code solutions (Airtable, Bubble, Zapier) aren’t always scalable beyond a proof-of-concept (24:21) – How Ninja establishes trust and builds their brand in the Western Australian tech community: Tech Society, The Game Changer Awards, Internships (27:52) – What Ninja looks for in hires: Proof of capability, curiosity, and a desire to learn (30:44) – Advice Alex & John would give to university students looking to get into the software development industry: Start building and follow your passion through goal-based learning (33:40) – The importance of allocating resources to work on the business, not in the business (35:03) – How Ninja identifies new product opportunities by asking what the future looks like (36:25) – What the future holds for Ninja: Becoming Perth’s Atlassian (38:35) – All companies will be technology companies in the future and Perth’s need to embrace technological innovation (43:36) – How Ninja built an internal tool to improve employee wellbeing and provide a forum for honest feedback Show & Tell The Snoo - Smart sleeper for babies

Cian gave us a great recap on how he started his business Quantum Contract Solutions and how he scaled through great business metrics. Cian's approach to sales is a great blueprint for service businesses and B2B. If you love sales, you'll love this episode of Weird Growth. More links in the show notes. Company Contractual superpowers for construction subcontractors https://quantumcontractsolutions.com/ Problem Information asymmetry and unequal risk-sharing in the construction industry Customers General Manager or CEO of a construction sub-contractor Big pieces of advice Revel in keeping your overheads low–think of this as the ‘cool’ standard. Stop spending money on things like logos or website design that don’t really matter. Spend money on a business coach who has ‘been-there-done-that’ and can help you avoid all the mistakes you can make. Spend enough such that it feels like too much and too expensive. When you have this feeling, it will drive you to do the work to get better. Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (2:07) – The business Cian would start if he were starting again today (4:14) – A cultural comparison between Australia and Ireland (7:00) – The genesis of Quantum Group: Solving information asymmetry in the construction industry (13:26) – Cian’s first step to starting Quantum Group: Jumping in with two feet and activating the panic mode of no income (15:20) – How a string of unsuccessful side hustles set-up Cian up for future success: Learning by doing (17:40) – How Quantum Group connects with customers: Video brochures, Workshops, LinkedIn, and The 1-page marketing plan (25:36) - How Quantum manages customer relationships (CRM) with Pipedrive and Google Sheets (30:43) – Quantum Group’s dream customer: General Manager or CEO of a construction sub-contractor (31:44) – The importance of thinking time and why Quantum chose Texas for International expansion: The Road Less Stupid and The Ultimate Blueprint by Keith Cunningham (34:42) – The beauty of a business coach: Allan Dib (37:40) – What the future holds for Quantum Group (43:33) – How Quantum Group manages the need to grow with keeping overheads low Show & Tell The Ultimate Blueprint for an Insanely Successful Business The Road Less Stupid: Advice from the Chairman of the Board Google Sheets

We hosted our subscribers for a live episode at terraceloft studio in East Perth with two amazing founders Nick Hudson and Elizabeth Knight. Listen to these two founders share the ups and downs of startup life and how showing up and having a purpose driven venture has been the key to their success. Purposeful helps young people find direction in their lives after school. Elizabeth wants to help people graduates find confidence in their careers in a complex world. She's now participating in Plus Eight's Accelerator program to grow and get The Lost Button to market. Check out The Lost Button in the show notes. Nick founded mental health charity event The Push-Up Challenge after a life changing experience and his own challenges with mental health. Here more about what drives him and all the great work his team has done in the mental health space. The Push-Up Challenge raised around $9 million this year. To date over 241 million push ups have been done as part of the event. Companies Purposeful: Helping students find direction in their life after school https://www.purposeful.org.au/and https://www.thelostbutton.org/ Push-Up Challenge: Helping people push for better mental health https://www.thepushupchallenge.com.au/ One big piece of advice Elizabeth: Just keep showing up. You become successful by showing up every day despite the mistakes that you’re making. The number one rule of being in business is staying in business. Nick: Fail hard and fail early. Make mistakes, learn from them, and move on quickly. Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (3:54) – The companies Nick and Elizabeth would start if they weren’t already founders (5:16) – Nick and Cam’s Start-up weekend experience building Textie and going viral (10:25) – How Elizabeth is tackling the purpose problem and creating her own purposeful career through entrepreneurship (15:54) – How the push-up challenge has captured imaginations, and the important pivot Nick took to make the business what it is today (22:35) – Elizabeth’s experience with the Plus Eight Accelerator and building The Lost Button (29:44) – How the Push-up challenges leverages user-generated content and social sharing to give people a license to have fun (32:37) – Nick’s unexpected major life event that served as a catalyst for the Push-up Challenge and the incredible growth of the company over the last five years (39:48) – What the future holds for Elizabeth: Creating a scalable, sustainable, and purposeful business (42:47) – The advice Nick and Elizabeth would give to first-time founders (51:38) – How Nick & Elizabeth take care of their own mental health while leading companies Show & Tell https://www.airtable.com/- Multifunctional platform with endless business solutions https://www.notion.so/ - All-in-one workspace https://super.so/ - Build simple websites with nothing but Notion https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira- Software development tool used by agile teams

KC Co-Founder of Qalo, built a new category of product from scratch, silicone wedding rings. What started as a way to wear a wedding ring at the gym quickly turned into an online business generating millions in revenue which was up to $125million when he sold it. The tipping point? KC knew he was onto something when a Qalo ring ended up on an NFL player’s finger on a TV showed which aired for millions across the US. Although KC didn’t get results from that initially, what followed was just as amazing. Listen in to hear how you can access great resources, education, knowledge and experience from KC himself.  Company Silicon wedding rings https://qalo.com/ and more on KC’s story at Starter Story Problem Uncomfortable metal wedding rings Customers Firefighters, Athletes, Military Big pieces of advice Validate your solution as soon as you can and lean into who it’s validated with. Find the people that are a ‘hell yes.’ Obsessively focus on your customers. Operate in a way that focuses on profitability. If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business. What gets measured gets managed. You need to tell people you exist because if you don’t no one else will. Believe that you’re capable of learning everything you need to grow your company. You never know what sending your product to someone who might be an end user is going to lead to. Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (1:59) – The business KC would start if he was starting over: Cutting out the noise with Solving Hollow (3:55) – The beginning of Qalo: Solving their own problem (8:20) – How Qalo found their first customers: Identifying use cases with similar pain points (11:50) – Scaling-up through seeding: Providing the product with no expectations and ending up on national television for an NFL show (19:30) – The benefit of sharing your product with no expectations: Awareness is valuable (22:50) – How KC jumped in with two feet to scale-up: You must commit to one thing otherwise it will never fulfil the potential that it has (25:23) – How Qalo leveraged paid media (Facebook) to connect with their dream customers (27:08) – Customers are either proactively searching for a solution to the problem you’re solving, or you need to interrupt their information flow and introduce a new concept to them because they’re unaware a solution exists (31:30) – How Qalo built a competitive moat: Building a brand through storytelling, product innovation, expanding through retail locations to gain a first-mover advantage, and expanding internationally (35:19) – The full-time job of selling your company (38:24) – KC’s advice to founders (42:06) – What drives KC to help other founders through Solving Hollow (44:05) – Tools and frameworks KC recommends for building a company: Story Brand (47:55) – BetterLabs Ventures and RAC Show & Tell https://www.skydio.com/skydio-2- Next generation drone

A girl from the country, Elsa is a strong and successful business mentor. Elsa Mitchell runs digital marketing workshops for business owners in person (she's old-school). She enjoys connecting with people and being her own bossy bitch. Great episode if you are just starting out in digital and looking to grow/get your content to the next level. Her first business was a hair salon which she started during the GFC, grew to solid client base, and sold it. Now, she mentors other business owners, especially in digital marketing, while also raising her family with her husband. You’ll often find them with their blended tribe of 4 kids refining their surf skills at Trigg Beach. Her 2 rules for business - 1) Be consistent and 2) Be a good human. Listen in to her from someone who has been through all the ups and downs of an entrepreneur and just some good of fashion honest advice with no sugar coating. *Language warning* Company Business Mentors https://elsamitchell.com.au/ and https://www.facebook.com/groups/bossyb/ Customers Females in rural communities looking to scale their business One big piece of advice Outsource and delegate as much as you can: you can’t be an expert in everything. Don’t be afraid to pay for quality. Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (3:45) – What Elsa Mitchell is all about (5:50) – The business Elsa would start from scratch today: Property Development (6:50) – How growing up in the country has contributed to Elsa’s business success: The benefit of authentic community (10:31) – Elsa’s business beginnings: Shunning the traditional path to join a hair salon (12:42) – The biggest lesson from building a hair salon: Building authentic relationships with all stakeholders (clients and employees) (14:06) – Elsa’s two rules for business: 1) Be consistent and 2), be a good human (15:07) – The difficult decision of selling her hair salon (19:02) – The death of blogging, Elsa’s transition from a services business to business mentoring, and Komo Digital (25:02) – Elsa’s dream client: Females in rural communities looking to scale their business (26:05) – The paradox of choice: If you try to do everything, you’ll end up doing nothing (27:57) – Overcoming imposter syndrome: The importance of support (29:57) – Why it’s trendy to have a side-business: Accessibility, affordability, and measurability (32:26) - Outsource everything you can: Fiver (36:50) – Instagram Reels: Instagram’s answer to Tik Tok (40:04) – The relationship building platform: Instagram Show & Tell https://zencastr.com/ - Podcasting in studio quality https://omnystudio.com/learn - Powerful solution for enterprise podcasting

Dan has been on both sides of the investment table for startups. Now he is leading one of Australia's fastest growing Fintechs, WeMoney. WeMoney helps Young Australians take control of their finances giving them a 360 view of their money. Through education and a brilliant mobile app, WeMoney is on track to be a success. How did they get to this point? Listen and you'll find out along with some great growth marketing, money and startup tips. Company Financial wellness app https://www.wemoney.com.au/ Problem Having a complete picture of your money Customers Jasmine the jaded, Harry the hopeful, and Paula the perfectionist (Hint: skip to 59:26) One big piece of advice Speak to people—especially other founders who are on the same journey. You don’t know where or when amazing feedback or ideas will come, and it often comes from a conversation. Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (2:15) – The business Dan would start today: Food sustainability (4:04) – What drew Dan to finance in the beginning of his career (6:35) – Dan’s motivation for starting Switch My Loan (now Pioneer Credit) (11:20) – Finding first customers for Switch My Loan (14:05) – How Switch My Loan scaled their mortgage origination process and doing things that don’t scale (17:32) – Using unconventional press relations tactics to fuel growth (20:25) – The difficulty of executing a successful PR campaign: Understanding your customers intimately (23:00) – YouTubeis the new TV: How traditional media has become fractured (24:20) – The sale of Switch My Loan (27:32) – Dan’s consulting journey and the learnings from being on the other side of the fence at a family office (30:19) – The X-Factor when investing in founders: Resilience and ambition to win (34:02) – The benefit of being a serial entrepreneur when fundraising (36:17) – The importance of having a mentor and how to find one (39:16) – The catalyst for starting WeMoney: Helping people live their best financial lives (44:23) – The new paradigm of money resulting from the global financial crisis (48:30) – How WeMoney launched in stealth mode and found their first customers (51:46) – The core channels WeMoney uses to reach customers: PR, paid advertising, and referrals (55:29) – The tactics WeMoney uses to land effective (Hint: Source Bottle) PR campaigns and importance of making it easy for journalists (59:26) – WeMoney’s perfect customers and building effective customer persona’s (Jasmine the jaded, Harry the hopeful, Paula the perfectionist) (1:02:32) – What’s on the horizon for WeMoney Show & Tell Sony XM4’s – Noise-cancelling headphones

David has lived all over the world and spent years between San Francisco and Australia. His current day-to-day as the CMO for Nuheara is exciting but it's taken 7 years to become and overnight success. As we know hardware is hard. However, David and the team have made it work packing a lot of software and complex technology into their award winning earbuds and now a partnership with HP. Hear more about their journey on this episode of Weird Growth.  Company Creating personalised hearing solutions that are multifunctional, accessible, and affordable to an underserviced global market https://www.nuheara.com/usa/ Problem 1 in 6 people have some degree of hearing loss, with 80% in the mild to moderate category—this market has been underserviced until now. Customers Those with hearing loss or impediments Big pieces of advice Stay focused on your customer. Learn as much as you can about your customer and why they buy your product. Be as efficient as possible with your capital. You can be competitive building a business in Perth. Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (2:09) – The business David Cannington would start if he was starting again: One where he could have enduring purpose and continue to impact people like Mark Anthony (5:32) – David’s experience in San Francisco during the early 1990’s and 2000’s (7:59) – The differences between San Francisco and Australia (9:42) – How David and Justin met, and how Nuheara was born (12:11) – The massive problem Nuheara is solving and how they’re doing it (17:00) – The challenges of building a hardware business (17:49) – How Nuheara found their first customers through Indiegogo and the snowball effect a successful crowdfunding campaign can have (20:15) – Nuheara’s perfect customers and how they’re reaching them (22:48) – How Nuheara uses customer personas to effectively target customers using digital marketing (Facebook and Google) (27:00) – The lesson from Nuheara’s partnership with Wanderlust: Try and build as much control as you possibly can - you need to control the relationship with your customers. If you can sell direct to your customers, do it. (27:53) – What’s on the horizon for Nuheara (29:20) – Lessons from Nuheara’s partnership with Hewlett Packard: How do you approach a technology giant? (31:01) – Approaching the inevitable ups and downs of being a founder: Staying balanced and measured (31:59) – David’s cautionary tale on capital efficiency and why Perth has hidden advantages over Silicon Valley Show & Tell https://www.nuheara.com/

What started with a tweet, quickly become a voice for social media users of Perth. So Perth shares stories, questions and local conversations. It is Australia’s fastest growing new media publishers with over 460,000 followers, average 5,300,000 impressions on Facebook per month and 1,400,000 website views per month. Now the So Media Group is raising capital to expand their community driven media. So, we thought it would be a great time to bring Co-Founder Adam Barrell on the show to tell us all about his journey and the weird growth of the community so far.  Company Trending news in Perth https://soperth.com.au/ Problem Accessing timely local media Customers 25–39-year-olds in Perth Two big pieces of advice Focus on audience and community.  Be prepared to undergo trial and error and figure things out for yourself. Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (1:20) – The business Adam would start today if he was starting again (3:08) – How a broken-down train allowed Adam to experience the power of social media: Tweet Perth’s origins (7:27) – Adam’s dual-experience working at a media agency and building a side-project (10:30) – The evolution of Tweet Perth to So Perth, and the benefit of owning your own media platform (13:59) – So Perth’s core demographic: Providing the local news fix (15:39) – The value proposition for brands wanting to reach customers through So Perth (16:53) – Using chatbots (Autopilot) to grow an email list (19:05) – So Media’sperfect customer (20:33) – Crowdfunding with Birchal and near-term roadmap (26:39) – The pillars to building a strong community: Be close to your customers and make sure your content is highly relevant Show & Tell https://buzzsumo.com/ - Find the content that works best for your website https://superhuman.com/- Email client for efficiency

From a Startup Weekend came Ardea Waste. Ardea provides online waste management to businesses across Australia. On this episode of Weird Growth, we discuss the War on Waste, Commercial Waste, The Blue Chilli Accelerator and why it's important just to start and back yourself. Company Sustainable waste management https://www.ardeawaste.com/ Problem Making sustainable waste management easy for business Customers All businesses Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (3:26) – The War on Waste: Galvanising the nation to address the massive waste problem (7:17) - How Ardea Waste is reassuring businesses of their waste disposal compliance and applying a sustainability filter to waste disposal facilities (8:53) – The catalyst that drove Hayley to start Ardea Waste: Making it easier for people to comply with regulations (9:55) – The beginnings of Ardea Waste at Start-up weekend and The Blue Chilli Accelerator, and finding a co-founder along the way (12:43) – What drove Hayley to join Start-up weekend: Validating her problem (15:00) – Ardea’s accelerator journey and building a viable business (17:15) – Building a sales pipeline for Ardea: Targeting SME manufacturers (21:24) – How Ardea can educate customers to understand the need for their solution: Content marketing and lead magnets (27:14) – Using remarketing to encourage customers to take the first step: The rule of 7-time repetition (29:17) – How Ardea goes above and beyond to add value to customers (32:36) – Ardea’s plan for scaling: Using Perth as a pilot to test the model Show & Tell https://slack.com/intl/en-au/- The Digital HQ for teams

On this episode of Weird Growth Jamie talks about the evolution of Carbon Group and how he and his co-founder Nathan Hood combined their bookkeeping and tax advisory businesses to create a one stop shop for core business needs. The group now has 180 people across Australia in multiple business advisory disciplines. Carbon provides accounting and business advisory services for business nationally. During 2020 Carbon Group continued to thrive. Cam and Jamie discuss all things culture, startups, professional services and Angel Investing. Jamie's advice for founders if you are not making mistakes you are not running fast enough. Company Financial services for businesses in Australia Customers Small to medium Australian Businesses Big pieces of advice Surround yourself with good people. They don’t have to be the best technically, but you need to be surrounded by positive people that give you good energy. A supportive partner can make a huge difference. If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not running fast enough. Personal brands and your life outside of work is important. People are attracted to others with interesting lives. Have fun. Business is a game. If you’re so interested in just winning, you’re not going to have fun. Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (1:40) – The Carbon Group differentiation: Attracting the best people by having an ambitious vision (2:50) – What culture means to Jamie and how to maintain culture while scaling (4:50) – The unique ownership structure of Carbon Group and how it builds agency within the organisation (7:38) – How Carbon Group found first customers: A 4-month character building journey (9:37) – Scaling customer acquisition and the benefit of finding a complimentary business partner (12:17) – How Carbon Group have grown their customer base through acquisition and the key part of due diligence during a transaction (16:00) – Jamie’s role with Perth Angels and investments in Rhinohide & Vital Trace (18:45) – What Jamie looks for in a Start-up founder: Passion, conviction, and domain expertise. As Jason Calacanis says, “They need to be delusional, but with the ability to execute” (20:16) – Jamie’s confidence in the transition out of COVID-19 (21:47) – What Jamie would tell a first-time founder (25:45) – Jamie’s investment style: Hands-on and informal (27:00) – Cake Equity’s rapid growth: Employee share plans, track unlisted shares, and manage capital raisings (29:36) – Carbon’s brand refresh process (31:02) – How Carbon communicates its multi-service offering to clients (32:00) – Perth’s developing Start-up scene and how to get involved Show & Tell https://www.sanebox.com/ - Email management software

Matt Pound from Varsity Group shares his journey with Varsity Bar, Boat Parties, Consulting, Accelerators, Tech Gnomies, Burgers and Long-Machs in this episode. Matt's mix helped him create a unique hospitality experience and a cult following for American food & culture that has seen them open 6 restaurants in five years. Learn how he did it in this episode of Weird Growth. Company Varsity Bar – American college style food & culture Customers University/College students One big piece of advice Be intensely focused on your customers and giving them what they want. If people have a bad experience with your product or service, make sure you do everything in your power to turn it around. Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (3:00) – How Matt got involved in the hospitality sector (4:34) - What Matt learnt from his early experience hosting events (including boat parties on the Swan River) (6:43) – The background and beginnings of the flagship Varsity Bar in Nedlands (10:55) - The important learnings from the second Varsity store in Northbridge (13:11) - Matt’s Tech Gnomies Side Project and key learnings: Persevering with your ideas (16:52) – The media cycle flywheel: How early press relations can drive virality for a product (18:28) – Differentiating Varsity burgers through careful media and high-quality products (21:35) – Scaling-up and maintaining a culture that people love (23:50) – Creating Fenway for sports lovers and an older demographic (25:27) – The common thread among successful founders: Customer focus (26:16) – #LMTU - Long Mac Topped Up – What is it and why is it important to Perth? (32:00) – Varsity’s role in the local West Australian Burger movement Show & Tell https://www.shaktimats.com.au/pages/yoga- Shatki Meditation Mats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts- Alan Watts

Constructive Software makes it much more enjoyable to build a house. When you build with Constructive you'll be able to stay up to date with build progress, select finishes, and visualise a tailored view of your home design in 3D. The builder has control over the options for the homeowner making the process from start to finish more transparent and enjoyable for everyone involved. Founder James Salt originally from the UK, shares what it was like growing up in a family in the construction industry and why one summer they had a whole kitchen in their garage. Listen to how he bootstrapped his business from consulting to product and learn from the constructive advice he has to offer. Company Improving the customer experience for housebuilders https://www.constructivesoftware.com.au/ Problem A lack of transparency into costs for housebuilders Customers Building companies One big piece of advice Leverage your network and industry experience. Don’t be afraid to ask people for their time if your interests are aligned. Bullets (0:00) – Introduction (1:08) – Constructive Software: Making the house building process more enjoyable (3:30) – Why Building companies value Constructive Software: Providing better assurances to clients (5:30) – The size of the market opportunity for new houses in Australia and Internationally (9:20) – How COVID-19 has contributed to Constructive Software’s growth (11:04) – James’ journey to starting Constructive Software and early Minimum Viable Product: The benefit of pre-validating your idea through direct experience (14:27) - James’ advice to early-stage founders with an idea and problem they want to solve (16:02) – How Constructive Software have scaled their marketing efforts: Building the courage to sell (20:27) – Digital marketing channels that have worked for Constructive Software (26:50) – Balancing product feature requests with company goals (27:49) – What James would have done differently if he was starting again: External investment and delegation (31:00) – The strangest way Constructive received a lead Show & Tell A physical notepad to-do list https://gettingthingsdone.com/- Getting ideas out of your mind

Ex - Revolut and British Airways, Growth Marketer Lucas Calleja joined us in the studio while he was back home in Perth. He shared some fantastic growth lessons from experience working with companies big and small. After years of experience in funds, corporate and fintech Lucas now focuses his energy on building strong unit economics for companies. The key to growth according to him - feedback and testing. Listen to this great chat to learn how you can apply these world leading marketing techniques in your business. And we have our first addition of "Ask us anything" in this episode, where we answer any questions you have about marketing with some of the best founders and marketers in the world. Company Helping businesses drive strong unit economics https://www.compositis.com/ Customers Small to large businesses Two big pieces of advice Never underestimate the power of feedback from partners and clients. You need to understand what your product does well, what your clients would like it to do, and who your clients look towards when your product isn’t getting the job done. You learn more about your competitors from people who use your competitors. When it comes to growth, understand whether to drive quality or quantity. In the beginning, the focus should be quality until you can build a scalable process. Bullets (1:09) – Lucas’ early career in emerging markets and transition to London (3:05) – Lucas’ role at British Airways: Generating innovative marketing campaigns to drive foreign currency sales (5:36) – Pop quiz: The business Lucas would start if he were to start one today (in the middle of COVID) (7:42) – Lucas’ journey to joining Revolut and how Revolut made a 10x improvement to consumer finance (12:19) – The archaic business banking processes of legacy banks (15:20) – How Revolut built a sales pipeline to onboard new business customers: The importance of understanding your value proposition and communicating that value proposition clearly (17:52) – Building a measurable funnel to maximise return on marketing spend: Cost of customer acquisition and lifetime value (21:55) – The importance of understanding what a vanity metric is (23:26) – The best tracking tools: Google Analytics (24:45) – Compositis: Helping businesses drive strong unit economics (27:29) – Compositis’ future: Retainer-led work and micro-credential courses (29:25) – Lucas’ advice for founders (34:44) – The power of G-Suite (37:49) – How to get the most out of your email marketing: Personalisation and experimentation (41:40) – The differences with marketing pre-and-post COVID-19: The erosion of physical events and need for cash flow optimisation Show & Tell G-Suite– Collaboration for teams

Jesse Emia has been around the block a few times when it comes to getting a company off the ground. Since 2016 Keepspace has been automating eCommerce fulfilment for online businesses. Now they process thousands of orders a day. The secret to his success, his wife. Listen to all the ups and downs of Jesse's journey to growth, how he went from getting married to selling wedding dresses and why focusing on the gaps in your industry will pay off.  Company eCommerce fulfilment https://www.keepspace.com.au/ Problem Fulfilment and logistics for small business Customers Solopreneurs and small businesses in fashion, fitness & equipment One big piece of advice Stay humble. Be overproductive and conservative in your approach. Don’t go for the glamour. Some progress is better than no progress: what makes all the difference, in the end, is the motivation to keep going. Bullets (2:25) – Keepspace’s core customers: Solopreneurs and small businesses in fashion and fitness (5:35) – The new world of eCommerce driven by COVID-19 (9:02) – Keepspace’s starting point and first pivot: Shark Tank and Dragon’s Den (14:24) – Becoming laser-focused on a core group of customers (17:55) – How Keepspace finds customers and builds trust: Organic content and transparency (23:49) – How Keepspace used events and localised communities to grow their customer base and earn trust (30:04) – The secret to Keepspace’s retention: not the answer you’d expect (32:14) – What’s in store for the future at Keepspace: SaaS products (38:35) – The advice Jesse would give to first-time entrepreneurs (40:50) – How Keepspace maximises productivity with SaaS tools Show & Tell https://asana.com/ - Task management for teams https://slack.com/intl/en-au/- Digital HQ for your company https://airmailapp.com/- Lightning-fast mail client https://pinpayments.com/- Accept card payments securely

It was a pleasure to have Plus Eight's Program Manager Isabelle Goldfarb on the show. She touched on her diverse startup experience, moving to Australia from Brazil and the importance of keeping it simple. When it comes to building community Isabelle says 1-on-1s are a must. If you want to build insights and truly understand your customers needs 1-on-1s can be a great source. This comes back to the common sentiment of doing things in the beginning that don't scale, so that when you do grow you grow with a product that people actually want. Company Plus Eight Accelerator – Perth’s leading accelerator Companies Isabelle is involved with: https://spacecubed.com/ https://pluseight.spacecubed.com/ https://shecodes.com.au/ https://www.meshpoints.com/ https://www.olabi.org.br/ Two big pieces of advice Resilience. You’re going to have a lot of ups and downs, and there are no overnight successes. It takes 10 years to build an overnight success. Listen to your customers so you can make the right decisions. Bullets (1:58) – Isabelle’s first start-up experience in Brazil: No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. You can do all the strategizing in the world, but until you put something in the hands of customers, you won’t know how it will perform. (3:27) – Finding first customers for a social app (5:40) – Isabelle’s critical commitment decision and the importance of being all-in, work life balance, and time management (10:04) – Isabelle’s experience in financial and management consulting (11:05) - Who makes the better founder and why? The university drop out whiz kid versus the experienced corporate employee (13:17) – Why Isabelle started Olabi Makerspace (15:50) – How Olabi launched through sponsorships, foundations, and corporates (19:07) – The key to building supportive communities: Genuine care, openness, vulnerability, and shared stories (22:53) - How start-up founders can apply lessons from building community to growing their customer base: Understanding customer needs and leveraging 1-on-1 conversations (27:27) - How to scale customer understanding and community to ensure ongoing impact (31:54) – What founders that are resilient have in common Show & Tell https://www.hubspot.com/ - CRM platform https://houseparty.com/ - face to face social network

Miles Burke joined us to share the growth journey of 6Q which was indeed weird. They built the first version in a day and had over 1000 users to deal with in the morning. Listen in to hear how 6Q went from a side-project to improving company culture for organisations of all sizes globally. Company Meaningful employee surveys in minutes https://www.6q.io/ Problem Employee disengagement and turnover Customers SaaS business owners and Human Resources Directors One big piece of advice Spend time finding the ideal customer and understanding if your product can solve a problem for them. Once you’ve understood that you can solve a problem, make sure it’s a problem people are willing to pay to have solved. It’s better to have spent a few days talking to customers than developing something and figuring out that no one wants it. Bullets (3:06) – 6Q: Improving employee engagement and increasing company culture (5:54) – 6Q’s perfect customer: SaaS business owners and Human Resources Directors (7:16) – Building 6Q’s MVP in a day and early growth (9:32) – What draws customers to 6Q’s product: Obsessive focus on simplicity (11:03) – How to decide on the product features to prioritise (13:40) – The benefits of personal outreach: Interacting with your customers personally (Physical mail, calls, emails, etc.) (15:39) – Building a scalable marketing program through content: Providing useful content for your target audience as a magnet (20:20) – 6Q’s status and key measures of success (Churn, customer satisfaction) (23:45) – Future plans for 6Q (25:14) – Miles’ current side-projects: Software Guide and Guest Blog Posts (28:12) – SEO’s current importance in the landscape of a huge diversity of digital marketing channels: One of many tools in the tool kit (30:30) – Perth’s early hip hop scene (37:20) – The importance and benefits of meditation Show & Tell https://insighttimer.com/ - #1 free app for sleep, anxiety, and stress

Weird Growth's first live episode with special guest hosts Dave Newman and Scott Glew from Morning Startup Perth. Hear the fascinating story behind Uno Group's early days back when they were "tinder for food" right through to their recently announced partnership with the world’s largest market research company Nielsen. Tyler also touches on how Uno Group has adapted in the new landscape bought about due to COVID-19. Company Market intelligence platform https://theugroup.co/ Problem Gathering useful information on consumer trends Customers Consumers and market research companies One big piece of advice Timing and team. Make sure the market is ready for your product. Make sure you have the right people around you to support you. Bullets (2:55) – What drove Tyler in the beginning: A clean start (3:18) – Tyler’s first steps in Western Australia, exploration of Jim Rohn, and key influences early on (5:18) – Tyler’s first experience with cold sales and selling his commercial cleaning business, Econ Cleaning (9:35) – Tyler’s experience with Founders Institute, key learnings, and CSIRO’s ON Prime program (11:55) – The core problem Feedme solved: it’s hard to find food you want to eat (13:55) – Feedme’s experience in the Plus Eight Accelerator (15:22) – The Jobs-to-be-done framework (16:10) – How Feedme connected with users through the app, promotions, Facebook messenger, and email (19:05) – The launch of Unocart as a grocery delivery service (21:12) – The pivot to data collection: low volume, high value, and long sales cycles (25:25) – How Tyler stays energized and motivated to continue iterating (29:02) – Uno Group’s partnership with the world’s largest market research company, Nielsen (30:05) – The future of Uno Group: Doubling down on the core value proposition (31:30) – The start-up Tyler would create right now if he was starting again: Solving the COVID-19 induced unemployment problem (36:30) – The one thing Tyler would recommend to anybody growing a SaaS solution: Intercom – The ultimate customer support tool (39:10) – How Tyler found Co-founders (40:28) – Tyler’s Motto: There is only a Plan A, no plan B (41:12) – Where Tyler found good software developers: The importance of understanding enough to judge developers (42:11) – The cure-all for pitching to investors: Growth solves all problems. “If you have traction and revenue, you won’t need to find investors, they’ll find you.” (43:10) - The most effective thing Tyler did to grow his business: Deliver groceries himself (43:38) – What Tyler advises small business during COVID-19: Double down on the most valuable thing you’re providing customers Show & Tell https://redash.io/ - make sense of your data https://music.youtube.com/- The recommendation engine

While Iain was on his last visit to Western Australia we managed to catch him for an episode to give us an update on Humm.  Humm is a neurotechnology hardware startup that has gone from a few university graduates in Perth to a VC funded Silicon Valley startup in a few short years.  Company Enhancing working memory Problem Learning new skills and information faster Customers White collar professionals above the age of 25 and those in the 40- to 70-year-old age bracket who are starting to realise lower brain functionality Big pieces of advice Be vulnerable. Be coachable. Be a hustler. Constantly seek mentors and people smarter than yourself. You are a product of the five people you spend the most time with. Unless you are chatting to the people who know enough to help you through the problems of tomorrow, you’re not going to be ready for the problems of tomorrow. Push yourself to learn as fast as possible. It takes thousands of hours of learning to get anywhere. The best way to do that is by talking to people who have done it before. Bullets (3:00) – What it feels like to take on a moon-shot problem and how Iain channels his motivation (4:34) – The humble beginnings of Humm (8:22) – Iain’s involvement with Electronic Music Appreciation Society at University of Western Australia (9:55) – The recurring theme of side-projects for entrepreneurs: learning by doing (12:29) – The first steps of building Humm: Hacking together a minimum viable product and sharing the word (13:43) – The impact of Spacecubed and Start-up weekend (16:33) – Bloom: A community of change makers challenging the problems of the world. The importance of learning by making mistakes and trying things (18:06) – Humm’s Plus Eight Accelerator experiences: Closed-loop brain computer interfaces (20:00) - Humm’s first customers and the benefit of being your own first customer (24:40) – The importance of having skin in the game: Investors have greater confidence in your commitment and mentors take you more seriously (31:39) – How Humm pivoted and found their ideal customer using prototypes and customer interviews: Asking people to buy is a different level of commitment than asking them to trial (37:40) – How to get customers to purchase your product (39:25) – The difficulty of hardware products: slower iteration processes requiring forward commitments (42:36) – How Iain responds to the persistent question of whether Humm’s product is a scam: Education, lowering the barrier to entry, and social proof (46:03) – Humm’s ideal use case: Enhancing working memory by up to 20% (49:25) – Dr. Vivienne Ming’s body of research on enhancing working memory and its implications: What a 20% increase in working memory looks like (51:03) – Humm’s future: Taking the slow path intentionally to educate and enhance usability (58:20) – Why Iain is famous in Japan (59:36) – Perth’s exciting start-up future Show & Tell https://www.noom.com/ - Psychological principles for weight loss

We recently caught up with Chloë Constantinides to discuss her interesting portfolio career as an Innovation Consultant that spans across Startups, Apps, SAAS products and eCommerce. She’s taken over conferences, manufactured ethically sourced makeup brushes and worked with companies big and small on Innovation. Her biggest lesson experiment, experiment, experiment and she goes into why this is so important as a founder or anyone in business in this episode of Weird Growth. Chloe – Innovation Consultant Chloe works as a creative technologist and product manager with government, start-up, and corporate clients to design clever strategies, build better products, engage with emerging technology and to prepare for the future of work. Chloe’s personal website: https://www.chloecon.com/ Current and past projects - Curtin Ignition - https://engage.curtin.edu.au/entrepreneurs/ - UWA IQ Academy - https://www.innovation.uwa.edu.au/iq-academy - Functionly - https://www.functionly.com/ - Kisanii - https://kisanii.co/password - Rateit - https://rateitapp.com/ Problem First-time builders and innovators often have specific skills but lack the overall strategy needed to direct their innovation towards commercialisation Customers Governments, Start-ups, and Corporate Clients One big piece of advice Experiment with the knowledge that some things will work, and some things won’t, but you learn something important every time. The more things you throw out there, the more likely something is going to stick. Record, record, record (take in as much data as you can). Bullets (3:23) – What Chloe loves about Innovation Consulting (4:37) – Where Chloe’s passion for innovation and technology began (6:43) – The usefulness of having basic digital skills to enable yourself to build a Minimum Viable Product without outside assistance (8:27) – Chloe’s early involvement with Dapper Apps and wearing multiple hats (9:44) – Chloe’s key learnings from Dapper Apps (the importance of validating ideas before building a full product (MVP, talking to customers, sprints) - Don’t build without testing the idea - Conduct customer interviews early to receive feedback - Test what you can, if you can build it in an excel spreadsheet, do it - Work in iterations (fortnightly sprints) (12:17) – Kisanii – Chloe’s personal experiment to learn marketing: The benefit of learning through practical experience (15:22) – Functionly – Helping CEOs scale without breaking the organisation (20:37) – Rateit – Customer experience optimisation for SaaS businesses (23:45) – The importance of tailoring questions to the culture you’re operating in to ensure transparent feedback (27:00) – Chloe’s future plans: The Kaleidoscopic Career Show & Tell https://www.ableton.com/en/ - Music production course

In this episode, we caught up with Aaron McDonald, Founder and Director at Pragma Lawyers, who grew a law firm from scratch to over 30 employees in just 6 years. How did he do it? Simple. Provide a better service in an old inefficient profession. Something that people seeking legal advice were crying out for.  We also touched on Aaron's new online arbitration service, Judicate. Learn more about the two companies here: Pragma and Judicate Company Dispute resolution lawyers (Pragma) Problem Resolving disputes quickly and cost effectively to allow clients to move on with their lives Customers Organisations and individuals One big piece of advice Back your instincts and work extremely hard. If you think you’ve got a good idea, it’s worth getting a mentor who has been there done that to guide you through the process Bullets (2:56) – The Anti-Law Firm (4:26) – Purpose before profit: Solving an important problem and backing yourself in The most successful entrepreneurs are those who set out to solve a real problem they’re extremely passionate about, not to just start a business In Aaron’s case, he felt strongly about the need to provide dispute clients with more value than they were currently receiving. He took a leap of faith going out on his own with no initial customers lined up, but the problem was important enough to him and he had enough self-belief, that he was able to stay the course over the tough beginning months (6:02) – How Pragma adjusted their business model from the traditional ‘6-minute’ increment law model to a model that provides more value (6:49) – How Pragma grew their customer base: Word of mouth (WOM) referrals are one of the most powerful assets for growing a business. Building trust with your customers/clients is the key enabler and driver of WOM referrals (9:07) – How Pragma leveraged Press Relations (PR) and Radio to grow their customer base Journalists need regular content and so offering to comment on a news story or write a guest article is a great way to get free PR Building trust and staying visible through regular content (in Pragma’s case radio and PR) is critical to being front of mind when customers/clients decide they need your solution (expert advice in Pragma’s case) (11:31) – How Pragma have built brand awareness and trust: The importance of providing value before asking for anything from customers (See: Gary Vaynerchuck speaks about this concept in his book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook Pragma also provided sponsorship to community sporting teams, e-books (lead generation), and focused on re-marketing to build brand awareness (15:30) – Aaron’s contribution to the community and the importance of pro-bono legal advice (17:02) – What Aaron wishes he did differently in his career: It’s better to be hard on the problem and not the person, than hard on the person and not the problem (18:44) – Judicate – changing the dispute process to online, fast, and fair dispute resolution Show & Tell The 5-minute journal – 3 things to be grateful for and 3 daily priorities

In this episode, we caught up with David Beros, Head of Product at DigitalX, a blockchain technology consultancy and development company based in Perth. We discussed the current blockchain scene, where it is heading and how DigitalX uses this technology to improve business process. Company Blockchain technology consultancy and development company Problem Education and capacity building for blockchain technology (what is the technology, where is it valuable, and how it works) and then using design thinking techniques to uncover areas within business that are amenable to blockchain technology Customers Innovation leads and Chief Financial Officers of ASX-listed corporates One big piece of advice Jumping in with both feet to a start-up is a necessity if you’re going to make it work. Having ‘skin in the game’ or something to lose (such as money you’ve personally invested in building something) gives you the grit and determination that’s needed to make your start-up a success. Bullets (1:50) – Speculative bubbles (Tulip Mania) are human nature (6:58) – DigitalX’s approach to blockchain consultancy and design thinking (9:21) – DigitalX’s focus areas: Consulting, development, and funds management (bringing investment exposure in digital assets to institutional investors) (10:15) – A short history of Bitcoin and its use case as a digital form of gold (12:25) – How DigitalX approaches the challenge of helping traditionally conservative corporations adopt breakthrough technology: The focus is on enhancing existing processes and core competencies (e.g., cost removal) rather than radical transformation. Secondly, DigitalX helps customers understand how blockchain technology might affect their business in 5-10 years’ time (14:20) – Applications of blockchain in resources-focused companies: Using a distributed ledger to achieve cooperation with jointly owned ventures (16:05) – How DigitalX builds relationships with customers: Sales in B2B are relationship driven and have long-lead times (as opposed to consumer-focused businesses where you can leverage digital marketing). Ways DigitalX approach this are: Partnering with EY, running workshops to demonstrate product capabilities, positioning as thought leaders through industry conferences, and posting regular blog content (19:00) – The importance of providing value to potential customers to build trust before making a sale (20:25) – DigitalX’s future: Taking proof of concepts to market (21:10) – Kaleido: Enterprise Blockchain for Modern Business Networks (22:18) – The future of blockchain and importance of Six Sigma in developing emerging technologies (24:57) – David’s experience building SellMyShares Show & Tell Zapier – Connect your apps and automate workflows YouTube – there’s nothing that you can’t learn on YouTube

Ammo Marketing caught up with Trackmysubs & EXTAG founder Gabe Alves. In this podcast, Gabe discussed how he built two customer-centric startups and how to navigate the often silent killer "feature creep". To Learn More on Trackmysubs: https://www.trackmysubs.com/ For EXTAG head here: https://www.extag.com.au/  Company Trackmysubs / Extag Problem Trackmysubs: Tracking recurring payments (subscriptions) to online services is cumbersome and regularly results in overpaying for services you don’t want or need Extag: Digitising previously manual identification processes for engineers in the field Customers Trackmysubs: Small businesses and freelancers (design, software, etc.) Extag: Mining & Oil & Gas Corporations Two big pieces of advice Don’t believe the hype. Set your expectations realistically. Most start-ups are a business like any other and don’t go on to become the next Canva. Most businesses will fail in the first 18 months and if you can get to 5 years, you’re going to be one of the rare ones. If you treat your business like any normal business, then you won’t be disappointed when that doesn’t happen and you’ll plan for the longer-term, rather than short-term. Start your business with a long-term plan in mind to make it sustainable. One thing leads to another thing. You never know what’s going to open the next door, but the one certainty is that if you don’t open the door, you’ll never find out what’s behind it. You build momentum by getting started and not being afraid to go through tough learning curves Bullets (5:20) – Thinking outside the box to build your product: hiring a university student (7:00) – Reaching your first customers through understanding your unique selling proposition, target audience and where you can find them (9:29) – Determine who needs your product the most and focus your messaging on these customers. Trying to be everything to everyone is an ineffective strategy for acquiring customers, particularly in the early stages of a start-up (11:52) – How to prioritise features within your product. Early days the focus is on functionality over design, i.e., creating the required functionality to solve your customer’s problem, but not allowing feature creep to occur (features that are ‘nice to haves’ not ‘must haves’) (17:40) – One big learning for founders of direct-to-consumer businesses: Don’t believe the hype and stay grounded in your expectations (19:12) – The importance of understanding where the ‘aha’ moments are for your customers. Reducing friction and providing value for them as early as possible (23:00) – How Trackmysubs retains users (25:15) – Word of mouth and referral mechanisms (26:15) – The benefit of having a paid product: if you don’t charge for your product, customer expectations can be lowered which in turn makes them less sticky (30:15) – Using an end-user first approach to sell business-to-business (32:35) – Relationship farming: B2B sales requires expanding your network of potential customers and building trust over time Show & Tell Family comes first: building a culture that allows founders and employees to put their family first is critical to long-term success and employee wellbeing

Ammo Marketing caught up with Cordially App founders Ryan & Rob. Cordially is changing rental inspections for the better. In this podcast, we focused on a common occurrence for startups; how to sell a product that doesn't exist yet. Learn more about Cordially here: https://www.cordially.app/ Company Remote rental inspection Problem Low level of transparency in the rental industry between owner and property manager and tenant Customers Property managers (primary), tenants and owners Bullets (8:00) – There is hope for non-technical founders: Airtable and Typeform are two no-code options that can be used to build an early MVP, and there are many others. Makerpad is a fantastic platform for no-and-low-code tutorials (12:10) - Building an early prototype/MVP is critical to validating your assumptions and gaining insight into whether customers will use/buy your product (13:50) - Pirate metrics allow you to map out a customer journey and determine the channels/strategies that can scale your business effectively (18:10) - A core part of B2B SaaS sales is building trust and relationships with potential customers. This makes in person / real world events (e.g., Industry conference) an extremely valuable acquisition method compared to traditional digital channels. This is particularly the case in the beginning of a start-up’s life. Paul Graham wrote a famous essay called Do Things That Don’t Scale where he illustrates famous examples of companies such as Airbnb hustling to their first customers through unscalable tactics like door-to-door sales. (21:50) - Google Ads can provide insight into whether customers are proactively searching for solutions to the problem you’re attempting to solve, and hence can be used to help validate your business or MVP (22:17) - A core principle of the activation step is providing value before you ask the customer to buy your product. Gary Vaynerchuck speaks about this concept in his book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Some ways to do this can include: 1) Providing a free trial of the product 2) Providing a valuable free guide to the customer 3) Providing a free demonstration of the customer (26:29) - The retention phase of the customer journey is focused on guiding the customer towards becoming a paying customer once you’ve received permission to communicate with them (via free trial, email form submission, demo, etc.) Remarketing and content marketing (email marketing) are effective tools for this stage (31:02) - Revenue is concerned with how people start paying you and the tactics you can use to make this as simple as possible (33:02) – Referral feeds the top of your funnel (acquisition) and turns your existing customers into your champions (37:00) – Common mock-up tools: Adobe XD, Figma, and Sketch Show & Tell Marketingexamples.com Shift: The Best Way to Manage All of Your Email and App Accounts