Day One®

Welcome back to the FNDN Series, where we continue our deep dive into startup compensation with industry leaders from across the startup world. In our conversation with Nav, Fractional CTO at Spoony, we explore the often-overlooked topic of burnout among startup employees beyond just founders. Nav shares his personal journey through chronic depression, multiple startup experiences, and the harsh realities of burning out across six different organizations. We unpack what burnout actually is versus simple tiredness, examine the catalysts that drive employees to exhaustion (from bureaucracy to toxic positivity), and discuss both personal and organizational responsibilities in preventing burnout. This conversation gets refreshingly honest about failure, mental health, and the human side of working in high-pressure startup environments. Keep watching to hear Nav's candid insights on recognizing burnout symptoms, the importance of checking your own ambitions, and why startup culture needs to give more attention to the people who aren't founders.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and LinkedIn Connection Story

01:45 Guest Introduction: Nav, Fractional CTO at Spoony

03:30 Defining Burnout: What It Is and What It Isn't

06:15 Physical and Emotional Symptoms of Burnout

08:45 Burnout vs Disengagement: Understanding the Difference

12:20 Matt's Personal Burnout Story: The Law Firm Experience

17:30 Catalysts of Burnout: Bureaucracy and Apathy

21:15 The Exponential Product Story: Law Firm Retention Issues

24:40 High Performance Culture Paradox

28:10 The Problem with "Just Ship It" and Chronic Positivity

31:45 Startup Success Narrative and Failure Stigma

35:20 LinkedIn's Role in Toxic Positivity

38:30 Organizational Culture and Psychological Safety

42:10 Engineering Teams and Burnout Dynamics

46:25 The Brilliant Jerk and Team Burnout

48:50 Personal Responsibility in Preventing Burnout

52:15 Checking Your Own Ambition: Nav's Big Company Experience

55:30 Manager Responsibilities and Human Connection

57:45 Beyond Founder Burnout: Supporting All Startup Employees

Connect with Nav:

Visit: https://spoony.app 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nav-rao/ 

Resources Mentioned:

More FNDN Episodes:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4GeBIeZOKrFxG1oiiPxmiM 

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fndn-series/id1794263484 

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey

Liam Millward is one of Australia’s most watched young founders, but this conversation goes way beyond the headline of raising a record pre-seed at 17. Liam breaks down how Instant is building an AI powered marketing manager for e-commerce brands, why retention marketing is the real lever for growth, and how personalisation at scale changes the economics of marketing teams.

Georgie and Liam unpack what it actually takes to win in B2B SaaS right now, why “nice-to-have dashboards” are getting crushed, and what young founders should do instead of spending their time posing with VCs. Liam also shares the downside of raising big too early, his bet on Google winning the model race, and the one tool he has mandated across Instant’s engineering team.

Plus: why New York (not SF) is the next chapter for Instant, how Australian buying habits can create painful customers, and Liam’s spicy prediction that AI agents will become the majority of internet traffic shockingly soon.

01:35 – Meet Liam Millward and the record-breaking pre-seed story

03:40 – Using AI to hire better and have deeper interviews

07:55 – What Instant actually does and why retention beats acquisition

12:00 – How AI personalization changes loyalty, margins, and growth

16:30 – Is B2B SaaS dead or just getting ruthless?

20:45 – Raising big too early, age bias, and proving people wrong

28:30 – Teenage founders, VC hype, and why starting small still wins

34:15 – New York expansion, Google vs OpenAI, and Claude Code

43:50 – AI agents, Australia’s talent drain, and what comes next

44:38 – Saying no to customers: Australia’s “buy from friends” trap

45:32 – Structure at Instant: obsession, speed, and a tiny leadership team

46:42 – Australia’s talent drain and what could change it

Global hiring and payroll can be a headache. Deel brings HR, IT and payroll together in one platform, helping companies including Shopify, Revolut and ElevenLabs scale internationally.

Ready to expand your business?

Build your global team with Deel at deel.com/dayone.

Weekly Substack: https://georgiehealy.substack.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georginahealy/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georginahealytech/

In The Blink of AI is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

Sign up to get your weekly insights into the up-and-coming AI startups: https://dayone.fm/newsletter

Hiring is still a human process, no matter how much AI gets injected into it. In this episode of Secured, Cole Cornford sits down with Kim Acosta, Managing Director at UCentric and former Amazon talent acquisition leader, to unpack how AI is actually changing recruitment and where it is quietly breaking trust.

They explore how candidates are using AI in applications and technical assessments, why misuse often damages long term employability more than failing an interview, and why recruiters and hiring managers are responding with stricter controls, in person assessments, and AI detection. Kim shares what she is seeing across data, analytics, and AI roles, where demand is growing, and why human judgment, rapport, and credibility still matter far more than perfect answers.

The conversation also covers embedded recruitment and RPO models, why soft skills matter more as teams get smaller, and what the next hiring cycle is likely to look like as big tech contracts while smaller companies continue to grow. For candidates, hiring managers, and founders alike, this episode is a grounded look at why shortcuts rarely pay off and why trust is still the real signal.

00:00 – Intro

01:24 – Meet Kim Acosta and UCentric

02:06 – From Amazon to starting a recruitment consultancy

04:19 – Data engineering demand vs AI hype

05:31 – What data engineering roles actually look like

07:27 – Adapting business models to real market needs

10:04 – Where AI genuinely helps recruiters

11:09 – Custom GPTs and interview preparation

13:43 – One way interviews and candidate slop

15:09 – Technical assessments and AI misuse

17:19 – Trust, failure, and reapplying the right way

18:29 – Spotting AI generated answers in interviews

20:19 – Rapport, eye contact, and human signals

22:19 – Hiring for values and team fit

23:52 – Agency vs internal vs embedded recruiters

27:59 – RPO models and cost tradeoffs

28:47 – Layoffs, market shifts, and salary reality

30:57 – Where hiring is still strong

33:10 – Why hiring and podcasts still need humans

🐙 Secured is grateful to be sponsored and supported by Chainguard.

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. Get hardened, secure, production-ready builds so your team can ship faster, stay compliant, and reduce risk. Download your free CVE Reduction Assessment at https://dayone.fm/chainguard

In this episode of Engineering Success, NTP Talent's Melinda Sietsma sits down with Bret Barton, HunterNet Senior Business Advisor and UoN Defence & Aerospace BD Lead, to pull back the curtain on the booming industrial landscape of Newcastle. A seasoned aeronautical engineer, Bret shares his fascinating journey from the Canadian military, to the frontline of flight testing in Florida, before eventually settling in Australia and working with major firms like Nova Systems.

If you’ve ever wondered what it really takes to break into the high-stakes worlds of defense contracting, Bret provides a reality check on the patience required, and the big payoff that awaits those who survive the long game. In this episode, Bret and Mel discuss the vital ecosystem driving the region’s future, from the AUKUS submarine program and hypersonics, to the transition into new energy. Whether you're an engineer looking to upskill or an entrepreneur trying to navigate equity and mentorship, this episode is a masterclass in how local collaboration and a "dual-use" technology strategy can turn regional challenges into a global competitive advantage.

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey

Is the next AI breakthrough hiding in robotics, not chatbots?

This week on In the Blink of AI, Georgie Healy is joined by cognitive robotics researcher Colm Flanagan for a grounded look at the next phase of artificial intelligence beyond large language models. While tools like ChatGPT live comfortably in the cloud, robots do not have that luxury. A self-driving car, drone, or warehouse bot cannot wait seconds for an answer. Decisions have to happen instantly, on device. Colm explains why this constraint could force a fundamental rethink of how we build AI, pushing models to become smaller, faster, and rooted in real-world experience rather than just trained on internet text.

The conversation explores whether LLM progress is starting to plateau, what a “data ceiling” really means, and why chasing AGI might be the wrong goal altogether. From robots that form memories like humans to the privacy tradeoffs of machines that watch and learn from us, they unpack the technical limits, the hype cycles, and what actually matters for builders today. If you want a clear-eyed take on where AI is genuinely heading, and why the next breakthroughs may be physical rather than digital, this episode connects the dots.

Global hiring and payroll can be a headache. Deel brings HR, IT and payroll together in one platform, helping companies including Shopify, Revolut and ElevenLabs scale internationally.

Ready to expand your business?

Build your global team with Deel at deel.com/dayone.

Weekly Substack: https://georgiehealy.substack.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georginahealy/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georginahealytech/

In The Blink of AI is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

Sign up to get your weekly insights into the up-and-coming AI startups: https://dayone.fm/newsletter

Mentioned in this episode:

Stripe Startups

For early-stage, venture-backed founders – Stripe Startups is where to start. Enrol in the program and receive access to credits on Stripe fees, expert insights, and a focused community of other founders building on Stripe.

Stripe Ad_Nov 2025_02

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey

In this episode of Pick My Brain, Alan Jones is joined by Dan Borthwick, founder of NiceGit, a startup rethinking source control for the reality of modern product teams. Dan pitches NiceGit as a single button way to use Git, keeping the power of version control while stripping away the terminal commands, scary UI, and workflow friction that locks non engineers out of making changes.

Alan and Dan unpack why Git has become a productivity bottleneck as more of the world builds software, especially now that over half of GitHub’s users are not programmers. They explore the hidden cost of routing every small change through developers, from UX tweaks to copy updates, and why “good enough” often wins simply because teams cannot afford the delays.

They also go deep on go to market strategy for technical products, including why engineers resist traditional marketing, how Atlassian used meetups and peer conversations to grow early, and how to think about whether you are selling a headache pill or a vitamin pill. Dan shares why game studios may be the ideal beachhead, how inbound interest is already forming through LinkedIn, and why team leads are often the real buyer even when end users feel the pain.

Along the way, Alan offers practical guidance on positioning, taglines, multivariate testing messaging, and how to equip champions inside an organisation with the right “cheat sheet” to win internal buy in. They finish with sharp, Australia specific advice on fundraising timing, investor targeting, and why warm coffee conversations beat sending a deck too early.

If you are building B2B SaaS, developer tools, or selling into teams with multiple stakeholders, this episode is packed with practical insight you can use immediately.

Deel: Global hiring and payroll can be a headache. Deel brings HR, IT and payroll together in one platform, helping companies including Shopify, Revolut and ElevenLabs scale internationally.

Ready to expand your business?

Build your global team with Deel at deel.com/dayone.

___

Galah Cyber offers Application Security Assessment Get a clear, ten-minute snapshot of your AppSec maturity across the five core principles. Fast, practical insights you can act on straight away at https://www.galahcyber.com.au/assess

To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new and upcoming shows. The only content we create is content that will help Australian founders.

Mentioned in this episode:

Deel x PX_Script 1

Description:

Welcome back to the FNDN Series, where we continue our deep dive into startup

compensation with industry leaders from across the startup world. In our conversation with Shelley Johnson, Founder of Boldside and former HR leader, we explore how to build effective leadership capabilities from the ground up - both for developing yourself as a leader and creating systems to develop others.

We dive deep into why most HR issues are actually upstream leadership problems, the importance of leadership onboarding processes, and practical frameworks for having difficult conversations including pay discussions.

Shelley shares her three-pillar approach to building influence as an HR professional and reveals why leadership development doesn't need to be overcomplicated. Keep watching to discover actionable strategies for transforming leadership capability in your organization.

Chapters:

Connect with Shelley

Visit: boldside.com.au 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelley-johnson/?originalSubdomain=au 

Resources Mentioned:

Leadership Development Concepts:

Workplace Practices:

More FNDN Episodes:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4GeBIeZOKrFxG1oiiPxmiM 

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fndn-series/id1794263484 

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey

Josh Vinson works at the edge where AI meets the human brain. With a background in psychology and machine learning, he is part of a growing group of engineers exploring neural decoding, the emerging field focused on translating brain signals into meaningful insights about thought, intent, and experience. While the idea of “reading thoughts” still sounds like science fiction, Josh explains why parts of it are already real, and why recent advances in large language models have quietly accelerated progress in this space.

In this episode of In The Blink of AI, Georgie Healy sits down with Josh to unpack how brain computer interfaces actually work, what separates invasive implants like Neuralink from noninvasive approaches such as EEG, and why the hardest challenges are not ethical or philosophical but technical. They explore the twin problems of noisy hardware and radically different brains, and what it would take for neural decoding to become reliable enough for clinical and everyday use.

The conversation stretches beyond medicine into the future of communication itself. From experience transfer and lucid dreaming headsets to brain wearables that could track attention, presence, and mental fatigue, Josh shares a clear-eyed view of what might be possible and what should give us pause. If you’re curious about where human cognition and artificial intelligence truly begin to blur, this episode offers a grounded look at what’s coming and why it matters.

Global hiring and payroll can be a headache. Deel brings HR, IT and payroll together in one platform, helping companies including Shopify, Revolut and ElevenLabs scale internationally.

Ready to expand your business?

Build your global team with Deel at deel.com/dayone.

Weekly Substack: https://georgiehealy.substack.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georginahealy/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georginahealytech/

In The Blink of AI is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.

Sign up to get your weekly insights into the up-and-coming AI startups: https://dayone.fm/newsletter

Mentioned in this episode:

Stripe Startups

For early-stage, venture-backed founders – Stripe Startups is where to start. Enrol in the program and receive access to credits on Stripe fees, expert insights, and a focused community of other founders building on Stripe.

Stripe Ad_Nov 2025_02

Vanta Ad_BAI Jul25

Vanta Ad_BAI Jul25

Vanta Ad_BAI Jul25

The Protective Security Policy Framework is meant to guide how government manages security risk, but constant updates make it harder to implement than to understand. In this episode of Secured, Cole Cornford is joined by Toby Amodio, Practice Lead at Fujitsu Cybersecurity Services and former senior cybersecurity leader across Australian government, to break down what actually changed in the latest PSPF update and why it matters in practice.

They examine the growing focus on personnel security and foreign interference risk, the inclusion of AI guidance that adds little beyond basic risk assessment, and the long overdue recognition of Secure Service Edge and SASE as compliant gateways. The conversation also explores why deny lists and centralised risk sharing sound sensible on paper but are far harder to enforce in reality, and why most security failures still come down to behaviour, accountability, and how technology is actually used rather than what policy says.

00:00 – Intro

01:18 – What the PSPF is and why it exists

02:49 – Annual updates, directives, and policy advisories

04:19 – What actually changed in the 2025 PSPF update

05:36 – AI in the PSPF and why it adds little value

08:14 – Tool hype vs implementation risk

10:32 – The AI policy advisory and trusted vendors

14:25 – Directive 3 and clearance disclosure risks

17:21 – Personnel security and enforcement reality

19:41 – Secure Service Edge and SASE recognition

23:39 – Commonwealth Technology Management directive

25:28 – Deny lists, transparency, and security through obscurity

28:05 – Centralised risk sharing and assessment overload

29:52 – Policy wonk or policy gronk

31:12 – Final takeaways and closing

🐙 Secured is grateful to be sponsored and supported by Chainguard.

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. Get hardened, secure, production-ready builds so your team can ship faster, stay compliant, and reduce risk. Download your free CVE Reduction Assessment at https://dayone.fm/chainguard

Mentioned in this episode:

Download your free CVE Reduction Assessment

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. Get hardened, secure, production-ready builds so your team can ship faster, stay compliant, and reduce risk.

December 2025 - Chainguard

Call for Feedback

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey

In this episode of Pick My Brain, Alan Jones speaks with Clement Baissat, founder of mental wellbeing startup Hope Stage, about a journey that doesn’t follow the usual startup narrative. It begins with ambition and company building, then runs into depression, bankruptcy, and a bipolar diagnosis that arrives with clarity, but no instructions.

Clement shares growing up in France, knowing early that he wanted to build things on his own terms, and then spending years moving through startups, jobs, and burnout without understanding the patterns behind his highs and lows. A walk through a Paris park, a phone call to his mother, and two psychiatrists later, everything finally had a name. What remained unanswered was how to live with it.

That question became the foundation of Hope Stage. Not as a breakthrough moment, but as a practical attempt to understand bipolar disorder, build stability, and keep functioning. The conversation covers community, acceptance, routine, and the everyday systems that make progress possible, from sleep and structure to professional support. It also touches on why conditions like bipolar disorder and ADHD appear so often among founders.

As always, the discussion stays grounded and conversational. Alan brings curiosity and humour as they talk through business models, pricing, NGOs versus startups, and what it means to build something meaningful with limited resources.

This episode is about working with reality rather than fighting it, about replacing guesswork with systems, and about turning personal experience into something that may help others.

Deel: Global hiring and payroll can be a headache. Deel brings HR, IT and payroll together in one platform, helping companies including Shopify, Revolut and ElevenLabs scale internationally.

Ready to expand your business?

Build your global team with Deel at deel.com/dayone.

___

Galah Cyber offers Application Security Assessment Get a clear, ten-minute snapshot of your AppSec maturity across the five core principles. Fast, practical insights you can act on straight away at https://www.galahcyber.com.au/assess

To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new and upcoming shows. The only content we create is content that will help Australian founders.

Mentioned in this episode:

Deel x PX_Script 1