My guest for Ep149 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Phil Morle, Partner of Main Sequence Ventures.

Phil started his career as a Theatre Director, before taking those skills into tech initially as CTO of file-sharing company, Kazaa before going on to Co-found the first tech incubator in Asia-Pacific, Pollenizer.

He is now a Partner at CSIRO’s venture capital fund, Main Sequence Ventures, which has $490M in funds under management to invest in emerging Australian deep-tech and science based startups to solve the world’s biggest problems.

In this interview we discussed:
- Why 50-50 equity splits between co-founders are a bad signal to investors
- Taking leaps and having a high velocity of learning
- The art of Flearning
- The important balance between “soft skills” and Venture science
& much more!

Startup Playbook Podcast - Connecting you to the best entrepreneurs, investors and experts to help you grow your startup/ online business

Ep149 - Phil Morle (Partner - Main Sequence Ventures) on leaps, equity and the art of flearning

My guest for Ep150 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & Partner of Blackbird Ventures, Rick Baker.

Since launching in 2012, Blackbird has raised 4 funds for a combined committed capital of $1.24B with an astonishing net internal rate of return of 46.7% for every dollar invested as of June 30, 2020.

Their portfolio includes some of Australia’s most iconic companies  such as Culture Amp, Safety Culture and Canva where they own 14% ownership stake, which is by far the largest of any external investor.

The overall success of their first fund led them to selling 40% of their fund 1 for $100M, providing a 3x return to all of their LPs.

In this interview we discussed:
- The story behind Blackbird’s first fund
- Why Blackbird has a unique rule in backing in only backing founders who are not looking for exits
- How Blackbird’s internal culture and curiosity led to investments in the future of food, space and autonomous vehicles
- The thinking behind Blackbird’s decision to sell 40% of their first fund for $100M
- When and how to reach out to Blackbird for investment
& much more!

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Ep150 - Rick Baker (Partner - Blackbird VC) on culture, innovation and the rule of no exits

My guest for Ep151 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & Partner of Flying Fox VC, Kylie Frazer.

Kylie started her career as a lawyer before leaving her legal career to first start an innovation lab for professional services and then a health tech business called Scancheck.

After exiting out of Scancheck, Kylie then transitioned over to the other side of the table as an angel investor through her angel syndicate, Eleanor Ventures.

She has now teamed up with Rachael Neumann to become the Co-founder and Partner at Flying Fox Ventures.

Unlike traditional VC funds, Flying Fox has a unique cohort based model, where they will have a rolling $5M fund that will invest in 10 companies per fund. 

Once the capital is deployed, new and existing angel investors are able to buy into the next $5 million fund for the next 10 companies that Flying Fox Ventures will invest in.

In this interview we discussed:
- The difference between the angel investor and VC mindset
- The terms on term sheets that you should pay attention to (and what not to spend time on)
- The importance of founder runway
- The benefits behind Flying Fox Ventures unique rolling fund model
& much more!

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Ep151 - Kylie Frazer (Partner - Flying Fox VC) on term sheets, rolling funds and founder runway

My guest for Ep152 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Alister Coleman, the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Folklore Ventures.

Alister started his career in portfolio management and banking for family offices before going on to become the Co-founder of ShippingEasy in 2011. 5 years later, ShippingEasy was acquired by stamps.com for $80M.

He is now the Co-founder & Managing Partner of Folklore Ventures, which is a $55M pre-seed and seed stage VC fund.

In this interview we discussed:
- Lessons from Al’s journey with ShippingEasy including why selling too early is not a great outcome for founders & investors
- Folklore’s unique investment approach which has led to a portfolio with next to no overlap with other VC funds in Australia
- A look into Folklore’s thorough due diligence process
- Alister and Folklore’s vision and approach in building a multi generation fund
& much more

Ep152 - Alister Coleman (Managing Partner - Folklore VC) on due diligence, focus & multigen funds

This week, The Startup Playbook Podcast hit the special 5 year milestone of the podcast.

To celebrate the milestone, we wanted to do something a little different so I turned the mic around on myself and answered some of the FAQs and audience submitted questions on the lessons, process and journey of the podcast over the last 5 years.

In this episode we covered topics such as:
- The end-to-end podcast process I follow for each episode
- Key lessons learnt from 150+ episodes
- The most fulfilling (and embarrassing) moments of the show
- How I was able to land guests like Malcolm Turnbull, Cal Henderson (Co-founder of Slack), DHH and many others
- & much more!

Also a big thank you to all of our previous podcast guests and listeners of the show for your continued support over the last 5 years!

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Ep153 - Rohit Bhargava AMA on 5 years of The Startup Playbook Podcast

My guest for Ep154 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder and CEO of ChartMogul, Nick Franklin.

ChartMogul is the world's leading subscription analytics platform for SaaS companies and Nick has had a unique approach to building the company.

He launched ChartMogul in 2014 as a solo founder, has grown a globally distributed team of 57 across 3 head quarters in Toronto, Berlin and Seoul and despite having spent over $20M in building their platform and company, he has not raised external funding over the last 4 years.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:
- A deep dive into Key SaaS metrics for startups
- Why Nick has decided to “fundstrap” the business
- Why he operates as both the CEO and Head of Product
- Why ChartMogul introduced a free pricing tier for companies earning less than $10K MRR
& much more!

Full show notes available at startupplaygook.co

Ep154 - Nick Franklin (Founder & CEO - ChartMogul) on pricing, metrics and fundstrapping

My guest for Ep155 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder &amp; CEO of Tablo, Ash Davies

Tablo is one of the world’s leading book publishing platforms which allows over 100,000 authors to publish and distribute printed books at the touch of a button.

But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing!

In this interview, Ash Shares for the first time how a failed acquisition offer from Apple, led to a pivot and evolution into building the business that Tablo is today.

Outside of Tablo, Ash also runs two highly successful side hustles, name Nonsense Inc, which creates parody car air freshners such as Elon's Musk and last year he launched Melbourne Mask Company, which has become Australia's largest distributor of reusable face masks.

In this interview we also discussed:
- How he’s taken a data-driven approach that has allowed him to grow the business 40-50% YoY despite only raising $400K in funding 7 years ago.
- How 2 successful side-hustles have helped him to focus and create a better business at Tablo
- Early mistakes Ash made when trying to grow Tablo
- The importance of self awareness as a founder
- How a failed acquisition by Apple led to a pivot and evolution into creating the business that Tablo is today
& much more

Ep155 - Ash Davies (Founder & CEO - Tablo) on pivots, side hustles and self awareness

My guest for Ep156 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Matt Browne, the Co-founder & Managing Partner of Black Nova Ventures.

Prior to becoming a VC, Matt was the Co-founder and CEO of DoneSafe, a cloud based safety platform that grew to over 1.5M paying users before being acquired by HSI in 2020.

He also Co-founded Whispli, a Y-Combinator alumni SaaS startup which clients including Qantas, Westpac and Oxfam.

Now, alongside being one of the founding members of Upflowy, Matt is also the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Black Nova Ventures. A $20M early-stage VC fund built for B2B technology startups.

Despite only recently announcing the launch their fund, they have already made 23 investments to date.

In this interview we discussed a range of topics including:
- Matt’s journey in launching, scaling and eventually exiting DoneSafe
- Dealing with co-founder breakups
- How to build investor conviction for pre-revenue or pre-product startups
- The rise of the Founder VCs 
- & much more!

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Ep156 - Matt Browne (Co-founder & Managing Partner - Black Nova VC) on the rise of the Founder VCs

I'm delighted to be welcoming back David Shein, the Co-founder and General Partner of Our Innovation Fund, as my guest for Episode 157 of The Startup Playbook Podcast.

We last spoke on the podcast a year ago, where David shared his lessons and journey as the Founder of Com Tech, a business that over 14 years he grew to 1,400 staff before being acquired by Dimension Data for $1B.

We also spoke about David’s role as the Co-founder &amp; General Partner at our Innovation Fund, an early stage VC fund that has just closed it’s 3rd fund worth over $100M to invest in exciting Australian startups.

David is coming back on the podcast to discuss his recently published a book titled; “The Dumbest Guy at the Table: How I founded Australia’s first unicorn” to uncover many of the lessons he picked up from his time as a founder &amp; investor.

Not only is the book full of fantastic insights and lessons, the book is supporting a great cause as well with 100% of the proceeds from this book going to The Black Dog Institute to raise money for mental health research.

In this episode we discussed a wide range of topics including:
- The importance of keeping A players and how to deal with bad hires
- What David looks for in early stage investments
- Lessons from having legendary sports starts such as Bob Dwyer and Ian Chappel on the Com Tech Board
- Why founders should focus on simplicity
& much more

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Ep157 - David Shein (GP - Our Innovation Fund) on lessons from building Australia's first unicorn

My guest for Ep158 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Bellroy, Andy Fallshaw.

Andy, his brother (Matt) and sister-in-law (Lina) decided to get into business together and instead of launching 1 business, they ended up launching 9 businesses over the span of 2-3 years.

One of those companies was Bellroy, which launched in 2010 with their first product, the slim sleeve wallet.

Fast forward to today and Bellroy is the world’s leader in the carry category, having expanded out into multiple product ranges such as iPhone cases, AirPods cases and travel bags.

Despite having built a large global brand and experienced incredible 600-700% YoY growth over the last 11 years, they only took on external capital for the first time, 2 years ago.

In this episode we discussed a wide range of topics including:
- Why Andy's business philosophy is built on taking the stairs rather than the elevator
- How Bellroy applies agile development techniques when launching new products
- Why founders should build for resilience
- The deliberate and strategic evolution of Bellroy’s product range from a "hidden" wallet brand to products across a range of categories
- How to create the right environment and structure to get feedback
- & much more

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Ep158 - Andy Fallshaw (Co-founder & CEO - Bellroy) on taking the stairs vs the elevator

In episode 5 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Paul Naphtali, the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Rampersand Venture Capital.

Prior to starting Rampersand, Paul was involved in the PR and Marketing teams at several successful startups such as Snaptu (acquired by Facebook) and TokBox (acquired by Telefonica).

Rampersand Venture Capital has recently closed a $50 Million fund, to invest in early stage technology startups. Since launching their first fund in 2013, Rampersand has built a strong track record in finding and backing successful early stage startups.

In this episode, Paul shares when and how to contact VC’s, the common ingredient that he sees in successful founders, the Rampersand investment process and what the biggest turnoffs are for investors.

Show notes:
http://startupplaybook.co/2016/07/podcast-ep005/

Credits:
Intro music by Bensound.

Ep005 - Paul Naphtali (Rampersand VC) on how to contact investors

In episode 16 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Sam Wong, Head of Operations at Blackbird Ventures and Partner at the Startmate accelerator program.

In this episode, Sam shares her insights on the pros/ cons of accelerator programs, the challenges of growth stage startups and why it’s important to think globally from day 1.

Ep016 - Sam Wong (Head of Operations - Blackbird VC) on going global from day 1

In this episode of the Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Paul Bennetts and Kaushik Sen, two of the co-founders behind one of the most exciting Australian startups to launch this year - Spaceship.

In the interview, Paul and Kaushik share how to build a rockstar team, how to get buy in from industry influencers and building from 1st principles

Ep020 - Paul Bennetts & Kaushik Sen (Spaceship) on building from 1st principles

In this episode, I interview Paul Bassatt, the co-founder of Seek, one of Australia’s most successful companies to date with a market cap of close to $5B. Paul is also the co-founder of Square Peg capital, one of the premiere Venture Capital firms in Australia.

Along with these roles, Paul is also a non-executive director at Wesfarmers, Director of Innovation Australia and on the AFL Commission.

In the interview Paul shares his insights on the team dynamics that he looks for, why good businesses focus on solving problems and the importance of attracting high quality talent.

Ep024 - Paul Bassat (Co-founder - Square Peg Capital) on solving important problems

In episode 30, I sit down with Adam Jacobs, Co-founder and Managing Director of The Iconic, Australia's online destination for fashion and footwear. In the episode Adam shares a range of thoughts on topics such as the key factors to long term growth, the importance of customer experience, why you should hire for values vs skills, why retention should be your first focus and overcoming customer fears.

Ep030 - Adam Jacobs (Co-founder and MD of The Iconic) on the importance of customer experience

In this episode, I interview Chris Bartlett. Chris started life studying theology and as a social worker, before moving into the tech space developing websites. He is now the founder and General Manager of Seed Digital, a boutique product development, creative services, technology consulting and software development firm.

In the interview, Chris shares his experiences in learning from failure, the importance on meeting your promises to customers, how to get your first few clients and how to start as a non tech founder.

Show notes:
Startupplaybook.co

Intro music credit to Bensound

Ep034 - Chris Bartlett (GM - Seed Digital) on meeting your promise to customers

My guest for this podcast episode is Vicky Lay. At just 22 Vicky quit her degree and co-founded zookal.com - a Silicon Valley venture-backed e-learning and textbook rental company that turned over $20M in revenue last year. As their Chief Operations Officer, Vicky successfully scaled the business 10x year on year. 

She is now the Managing Director at Artesian Venture Partners (an early-stage venture capital business with offices in Australia, Singapore, Shanghai, New York and London). Vicky Lay was also recognised as a Forbes 30 under 30 recipient in April 2017.

In this live podcast we spoke about how to hire and retain the right talent, Vicky’s learnings from being on both sides of the table, what she looks for in early stage startups as an investor and empowering diversity in the startup ecosystem.

Ep056 - Vicky Lay (Managing Director - Artesian Venture Partners) on unlocking human potential

My guest for Episode 71 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Chris Saad, Former Head of Product at Uber's Developer Platform.

Chris is has spent the last 10 years in Silicon Valley as a Serial Entrepreneur and Strategic Advisor. He was the Co-founder of the DataPortability Project and is the Co-Author of Backplane Protocal and APML.

Most recently, he was the Head of Product at Uber's Developer Platform, overseeing the company growth from 3,000 to 17,000 employees.

In this interview we talk about; The importance of showing up, Building networks by adding value, Building products that scale, Paying it forward and How hiring changes as companies scale

Ep071 - Chris Saad (Head of Product - Uber) on the abundance mindset

My guest for Episode 95 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is investor turned entrepreneur, Tom Davies.

Unlike the traditional career path of moving from entrepreneurship to investing, Tom started his career as an investor with the Netus Fund in 2007, alongside well known local VC’s Daniel Petre and Craig Blair who has been on the show before.

Alongside operating as a VC fund, Netus was also involved in helping launch successful US based companies into the Australian market.

Between 1999 and 2012 when it was acquired by Fairfax, Netus helped launch companies such as MSN, eBay, Monster and Ticketek into the Australian market.

After a few years with Netus and in the middle of the GFC (Global Financial Crisis), Tom decided to venture out and build his own companies; launching Compare Courses, one of Australia's largest education search websites, reaching over 250,000 potential students every month and Chappelli cycles, the first Australian bike company to retail bicycles direct to consumer online.

Tom now spends his time as the COO of Verso Learning, an online resource for school teachers to increase student engagement and develop critical and creative thinking skills.

In this interview we discussed:
- Tom’s lessons from both sides of the table as an entrepreneur and investor
- The importance of perseverance and persistence
- How to identify and focus on the right metrics
- The challenges of operating in competitive markets
- Handling failure and the process of shutting down a company

Full interview and show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Ep095 - Tom Davies (COO - Verso Learning) on persistence & perseverance

My guest for Episode 101 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is the Co-founder & CEO of Culture Amp, Didier Elzinga.

For those of you unfamiliar with Didier and his story, at the age of 25, he was promoted to the CEO role at Rising Sun Pictures, a Hollywood Post Production Studio that worked on films such as Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings and the Batman and Superman franchises.

During his time as the CEO, the company grew from 30 to 130 employees.

However, after meeting with Atlassian Founders, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar at an event, Didier realised that he wanted to move out of the film industry and into technology.

Since starting Culture Amp in mid-2009, the company has raised over $75M in funding, has over 2,000 clients and has become one of the world’s fastest growing technology companies.

Didier and his team truly are helping build culture first organisations all over the world

In this live podcast interview we spoke about: 
– How he became the CEO of a Hollywood studio at 25
– How to Founders can deal with and overcome adversity
– The key trait of successful founders
– How to get customers without a product
– How to grow from 10 to 2000 customers
– Culture Amp’s process for raising $75M in funding
– The importance of storytelling in amplifying people performance

Full show notes: http://startupplaybook.co/2019/05/ep101-didier-elzinga-co-founder-ceo-culture-amp-on-the-key-traits-of-successful-founders/

Find the podcast on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMaccqk-6dT9pBOKJ05GbYQ

Ep101 - Didier Elzinga (Co-Founder & CEO - Culture Amp) on the key trait of successful founders

My guest for Episode 111 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Michael Fox, the Co-founder & CEO of Fable Food Co.

Michael started his career as a lawyer before jumping into tech, launching Shoes of Prey as the Co-founder & CEO in 2009. Fast forward 9 years later and the company had grown to over 200 staff, had raised $35M from some of the leading global VCs and had partnerships with David Jones and Nordstrom. 

However, despite growing from $2.5M to $12M in revenue and being loved by a niche community of creators, they were not able to break into the mass consumer market and as a result had to shut down the business in mid-2018.

Michael is now back with his 2nd startup, Fable Food Co, which turns mushrooms into delicious meat alternatives and is backed by some of the same investors that joined him on the Shoes of Prey Journey.

We covered a range of topics including:
- The ups and downs of the Shoes of Prey journey
- Overcoming obstacles
- Why you need to go deeper into market research
- The importance of maintaining relationships during the tough times
& much more!

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Ep111 - Michael Fox (Co-Founder & CEO - Fable Food Co) on crossing the chasm

My guest for Episode 119 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CTO at Basecamp, David Heinemeier Hansson (aka DHH).

Basecamp launched in 1999, initially as a web design company before shifting focus in mid-2004 to web application development. Its first commercial application was Basecamp, followed by Backpack, Campfire, Highrise and HEY.

David is also the creator of Ruby on Rails, an open source web application framework. David created Ruby on Rails as an internal Basecamp tool before releasing it to the public in 2004.

Hundreds of thousands of programmers around the world have built amazing applications using Rails. Some of the more famous include Github, Shopify, Airbnb, Square, Kickstarter, Artsy, Zendesk, and Goodreads.

If that isn't enough, David is also a bestselling author of books such as "Remote", "Rework" and "It doesn't have to be crazy at work". He has also raced in the FIA World Endurance Championship for the past seven years. In 2014, he won his class in the 82nd running of the 24 hours of Le Mans – the world's biggest endurance race, while also winning the WEC championship in the GTE-Am category that year.

In June 2020, Basecamp launched it's latest product - HEY, a premium email service.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:
- Considerations when you take external funding
- How to make the most of remote work
- The importance of timing
- How to develop and create original thought around your product design and development
- How to balance the signal and noise of customer feedback
& much more!

Ep119 - DHH (Co-founder & CTO - Basecamp) on timing, feedback and bootstrapping

My guest for Ep123 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder of Eucalyptus, Tim Doyle.

Tim is one of the most renowned marketers in Australia.

He was previously the Head of Marketing for Direct to Consumer (DTC) mattress brand, Koala, taking the business from $500,000 in revenue a month to a business turning over $100M a year.

He is now the Founder of Eucalyptus, a brand engine that builds and runs digital consumer companies. They currently have two products currently in market, Pilot and Kin which are brands that focus on mens  health and women’s fertility respectively.

During this interview, Tim also announced that Eucalyptus is a few short weeks away from launching their 3rd product, a skin care brand called software.skin.

To date, Eucalyptus has raised over $8M in funding from the likes of Blackbird Ventures and W23, Woolworths Corporate Venture Capital arm.

We covered a wide variety of topics in this interview including:
- Insights and lessons from running digital campaigns for the Labor party in the 2016 election
- How to build high performing growth teams
- Building traction and finding your first few customers on a budget
- How to find white space opportunities and channels for growth
- Fundraising process for DTC and other “off trend” startups
& much more

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Ep123 - Tim Doyle (Founder - Eucalyptus) on Discipline, Differentiation and Data

My guest for Episode 125 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Venture Partner at Giant Leap Fund, Adam Milgrom.

Alongside his role at the Giant Leap Fund, Adam is also an angel investor, advisor and director for a number of Australian and International startups.

Giant Leap Fund is Australia's first venture capital fund that is 100% dedicated to investing in impact startups - rapidly scalable businesses that blend financial returns with real and measurable social and environmental benefits.

Through Giant Leap fund and from his own Angel Investments, Adam has made investments in over 20 startups including Applied, Mindset and Amber Electric and sits on the board of two of his investments; FutureSuper and YourGrocer

In this interview we discussed:
- Treating fundraising as a sales process
- How to leverage investors for growth
- Building your decision-making muscle
- How VCs approach building their portfolio
- Things that make startups irresistible to investors
& much more!

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Ep125 - Adam Milgrom (Venture Partner - Giant Leap Fund) on building your decision-making muscle

My guest for Episode 126 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Zeller, Ben Pfisterer.

I first interviewed Ben in 2018 when he was the Australian Country Manager and Head of APAC at Square. Prior to this he was part of the founding team at Jetstar, launched one of the first mobile payment pilots at NAB and was the Head of Innovation and Emerging Products at Visa.

Ben came back on the show to discuss his new startup, Zeller, which recently came out of stealth mode to announce a $6.3M seed funding round led by Square Peg Capital.

In this interview we discussed:
- The inputs of culture
- The complexity behind creating simple products
- The key traits he looks for when hiring
- The theory of horizons
- How Zeller raised $6.3M without a name, product or team
& much more!

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Ep126 - Ben Pfisterer (Co-founder & CEO - Zeller) on the theory of horizons

My guest for Ep129 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Sendle, James Chin Moody.

James has previously held roles as Executive Director, Development at the CSIRO, Australian National Commissioner for UNESCO, member of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology Advisory Board and Trustee for the Australian Museum.

He was also Chief Systems Engineer for the Australian Satellite FedSat, the first Australian satellite to be launched in 30 years.

James is now the Co-Founder & CEO of Sendle, Australia's first 100% carbon neutral courier service.

Since launching in Australia in 2014, the company has launched in the US, partnered with significant eCommerce players such as Shopify and eBay, and grown to over half a million account holders.

In this interview we discussed a range of topics including:
- The benefits of systems based thinking
- The 5 H’s of Sendle’s company culture
- The Hell Yeah decision framework
- How to build reputation with investors
& much more!

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Ep129 - James Chin Moody (Co-founder & CEO - Sendle) on systems, reputation & hell yeahs!

My guest for Ep138 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder of Sked Social and the Founder & General Partner of Galileo Ventures, Hugh Stephens.

Hugh founded Sked Social as a solo founder in 2013. The product is now used by over 10,000 companies worldwide and generates millions of dollars in revenue each year, all without taking any external capital.

Alongside Sked Social, he is also the Founder & General Partner at Galileo Ventures, a $10M venture capital firm and growth accelerator program that alongside investing $200,000 in early stage startups, also provides 12 months of practical support, 1:1 coaching and much more.

We covered a range of topics in this interview including:
- Using constraints to your advantage
- A deep dive on pricing strategies
- How to decide whether to bootstrap or raise capital for your startup 
- Lifting the lid on the challenges in raising a fund
& much more!

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Ep138 - Hugh Stephens (Founder - Galileo VC) on constraints, pricing dynamics and fundraising

My guest for Ep139 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Mahesh Muralidhar.

Mahesh is one of the leading people & culture operators in the region.

In 2015, he joined Canva as employee number 25 as their Head of People Operations, helping to turn Canva into one of the best rated places to work. He then went on to join Airtasker as their VP of People Operations.

In 2020 he joined Simply Wall St. as a contracted COO, helping to setup their leadership team as they grew from 12 to 32 team members.

He is now a mentor and investor at Startmate and is the CEO of NZ Scaleup, a not for profit that is focused on accelerating NZ and Australian startups and scaleups.

We dived into all things people and culture in this episode including:
- How founders can attract and retain the best talent with limited resources
- How to scale 1:1 relationships
- The importance of creating a winning culture
- How to provide effective feedback
- & much more!

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Popular tracks by The Startup Playbook