At The Top with Ben Andrews

Most founders think they need to have it all figured out. The truth is, the best leaders are just making it up as they go… and learning to be okay with that.

Rhiannon Haart is a leadership consultant who has worked inside some of Australia's fastest-growing companies, including Canva and Atlassian. She's seen what happens when founders scale too fast, hold on too long, and struggle with the gap between what they project and what they're really feeling. In this conversation, she shares what actually separates high-performing businesses from the rest: the obsession, the transparency, the willingness to let go, and the hard calls that founders delay far too long.

She explains:

• Why the gap between internal reality and external projection is where imposter syndrome takes root
• What Melanie Perkins at Canva obsessed over that most founders overlook
• The behaviors that serve founders early on but quietly sabotage them as the business grows
• How to know when someone on your leadership team isn't right for the role anymore, and why delaying that conversation damages more than just performance
• Why saying yes to every good idea is often what kills momentum, not what creates it
• The simple diagnostic framework she uses to uncover what's actually broken in a business
• How to decide who should be in the room when you're setting strategy, and what makes a strategic planning day actually useful

If you're leading a growing business and starting to feel the weight of decisions you're not sure how to make, this episode is a reminder that you don't need to have all the answers. You just need to get better at the fundamentals.

Timestamps:

• 00:00:00 Introduction
• 00:01:34 The Gap Between External Projection and Internal Reality
• 00:04:18 Dealing with Imposter Syndrome as a Leader
• 00:06:29 What Top Leaders Do Differently: Obsession and Transparency
• 00:12:15 Balancing Obsession with Sustainable Culture
• 00:14:42 When Founder Behaviors Stop Working: The Delegation Problem
• 00:16:42 The Hardest Conversation: Moving On Early Employees
• 00:21:38 Leadership Identity Shifts: Navigating Business Growth
• 00:24:02 The Founder Bottleneck: When You're the Problem
• 00:31:26 Building the Foundation: Strategy, Structure, and Strategic Planning

We're just getting started! Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and their advisers.

Follow Rhiannon Haart:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhiannonhaart/
Foundry Consulting - https://www.foundryconsulting.com.au

At The Top

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@atthetopwithben
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atthetopwithben/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/at-the-top-with-ben/
Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/show/1GTjCXqdQzQtZ33idMpQgo?si=C5gNvXDZSkWdxBz-mW13AA
Apple Podcasts: http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-the-top/id1893782299

Show Notes

Jeff Bezos: 'You Have Enough Ideas to Destroy Amazon' - https://youtu.be/x698t2pKgT0?si=zfWwfLAUId_VoMcm&t=145

Mike Cannon-Brooks ‘TEDx Imposter Syndrome’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNBmHXS3A6I

Cliftons Strengths / Myers Briggs - https://personality.co/strengths-finder-test

Marlee - https://getmarlee.com/

Chris Athanassios walked away from a top-tier firm at the age of 25 to start his own… they told him it was career suicide.

Chris is Managing Principal at MillerPrince, a multi-partner law firm he co-founded at an age when most lawyers are still grinding toward their first promotion. In this conversation, he shares what it actually takes to build a firm from scratch: the survival mode, the self-doubt, the moments when credibility mattered more than capability, and the lessons he wishes someone had told him before he signed that first lease.

He explains:

• Why he knew within six weeks of joining a top-tier firm that he wouldn't stay
• How starting young with nothing to lose became his biggest advantage
• The six to nine months he went without a salary just to keep the lights on
• How publishing a book at 24 helped him overcome age bias and build credibility fast
• What happened when one of the founding partners left, and how they stayed friends
• How AI is changing the role of junior lawyers and what business owners should use it for
• The one question anyone thinking about starting a law firm today needs to answer first

If you've ever wondered whether it's too late to start your own firm, or whether now is actually the best time, this episode will challenge how you think about risk, timing, and what it really means to build something of your own.

Timestamps:

• 00:00:00 Introduction
• 00:01:16 Realizing Big Law Wasn't the Path: Six Weeks to Clarity
• 00:03:35 The Decision to Start a Firm: From Rejection to Reality
• 00:04:27 Nothing to Lose: The Young Entrepreneur's Advantage
• 00:06:02 Overcoming Age Bias: Building Credibility at 25
• 00:06:24 Starting with One Client: The Hospital Bed Launch
• 00:08:42 Survival Mode: Six to Nine Months Without Salary
• 00:15:55 Growing Into Capability: Taking on Work Before You're Ready
• 00:18:02 Business Divorce Done Right: When a Founder Leaves
• 00:20:02 Strategic Alignment: Leading a Multi-Partner Firm
• 00:21:28 AI and the Future of Legal Services: What Can't Technology Do?
• 00:26:49 Should You Start a Law Firm Today? The Key Question Nobody Asks

We're just getting started! Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and their advisers.

Chris Athanassios:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-athanassios-5023666a/
MillerPrince - https://www.millerprince.com.au/

At The Top

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@atthetopwithben
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atthetopwithben/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/at-the-top-with-ben/
Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/show/1GTjCXqdQzQtZ33idMpQgo?si=C5gNvXDZSkWdxBz-mW13AA
Apple Podcasts: http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-the-top/id1893782299

AI is changing how legal work gets done. But most law firms are watching from the sidelines. Alex Solo saw it coming and made a choice: disrupt his own business before someone else did.

Alex is co-founder and CEO of Sprint Law, an award-winning law firm that launched Taylor AI, the world's first voice-enabled AI lawyer for small businesses. In 2022, while his firm was winning awards and scaling fast, he and his co-founder asked a dangerous question: what if we could disrupt ourselves?

The result? A complete strategic pivot that doubled revenue with half the team. In this conversation, Alex shares what that journey looked like from the inside, the fears, the framing, the execution, and the lessons learned from betting on technology while everyone else hesitated.

He explains:

• Why a successful, award-winning law firm decided to disrupt itself in 2022
• How Sprint Law doubled revenue while shrinking the team from 60 to 31 people
• What business owners should stop paying lawyers for in the age of AI
• The risk matrix framework for deciding when to use AI versus when to hire a lawyer
• How to frame major strategic pivots to your team without creating panic
• Whether it's too late for small law firms to adopt AI and compete

If you're thinking about how AI might reshape your industry, or wondering whether to disrupt your own business model before someone else does, this episode offers a rare look at what that decision looks like in practice, from someone who's living it.

Timestamps:

• 00:00:00 Introduction
• 00:01:14 The Decision to Disrupt Ourselves
• 00:03:25 The Sprint Philosophy: Constant Innovation
• 00:04:54 The AI Awakening: ChatGPT Changes Everything
• 00:06:44 Big Law vs. Small Firms: Who Will Survive AI?
• 00:10:53 Introducing Taylor AI: The Voice-Enabled Lawyer
• 00:16:50 What Business Owners Should Stop Paying Lawyers For
• 00:18:41 Shrinking the Team, Doubling Revenue
• 00:22:24 Announcing the Pivot: Managing Team Fear and Excitement
• 00:26:43 Is It Too Late for Small Law Firms?
• 00:36:38 The Secret Sauce: Operations Over Legal Tech
• 00:39:11 AI Tips and Closing Thoughts

We're just getting started! Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and their advisers.

Alex Solo:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/asolo/

Sprint Law:
Web - https://sprintlaw.com.au/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/sprintlaw/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sprintlaw/

At The Top

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@atthetopwithben
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atthetopwithben/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/at-the-top-with-ben/
Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/show/1GTjCXqdQzQtZ33idMpQgo?
Apple Podcasts: http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-the-top/id1893782299

Raising capital can speed up business growth. It can also speed up bad decisions. Tom Blinksell shares what founders only learn after the money lands.

Tom is a venture-backed founder and CEO building in healthcare, with experience raising capital, managing investors, scaling teams, and learning the real trade-offs that come with growth. In this conversation, he shares the lessons that only become obvious after you’ve been through the meetings, the pressure, the shareholder dynamics, and the mistakes.

He explains: 

• How to get warm introductions to investors without existing connections
• how to prepare for investor meetings with more than just a pitch deck
• the red flags that can signal a tire-kicker, a bad-fit investor, or someone who will create headaches after the deal is done
• how excess capital can both speed up, and slow down, execution of your business goals;
• what founders should look for in advisors, mentors, and coaches when the pressure mounts up

Whether you're considering raising capital for the first time or you're several rounds in, this episode offers honest insights into the realities of venture backed growth that go far beyond the glossy success stories

Timestamps:

• 00:00:00 Introduction
• 00:03:10 First Investor Meetings: Learning the Hard Way
• 00:04:06 What Investors Actually Want to See
• 00:06:00 Tire Kickers vs Real Investors: Reading the Room
• 00:08:37 Getting in Front of Investors: The Warm Introduction Strategy
• 00:11:00 Choosing the Right Investor
• 00:12:13 Jeffersonian Dinners: Building Strategic Networks
• 00:15:03 The Dark Side of Capital: When Money Makes Things Worse
• 00:17:30 Managing Investor Expectations and Misalignment
• 00:20:14 Bad Investment Decisions: Red Flags and Lessons
• 00:21:59 Finding the Right Advisors: The Power of Coaching
• 00:26:04 CEO Coaching: Managing Energy, Strategy, and Capital
• 00:25:07 Dealing with Loss: When Your Advisor Passes Away
• 00:29:12 Government Relations: Worrying About the Wrong Things
• 00:31:04 Closing Thoughts: Lessons for Venture-Backed Founders

We’re just getting started! Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, and their advisers.

Tom Blinksell:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomblinksell/ 

At The Top

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@atthetopwithben
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atthetopwithben/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/at-the-top-with-ben/