In Good Company

It's our birthday! One year ago today the first episode of In Good Company went live, so we're doing something we're famously bad at: stopping to look back. We go from footy-club acquaintances to a 37-day LinkedIn reply to naming a business 24 hours after one coffee (RIP "Sauced").

Then it gets real - the money worry that nearly stopped one of us before we'd even started, what happens when two business partners are in completely different seasons of life, and why the hard conversations are the ones that actually hold a partnership together.

Plus the honest numbers: 44 episodes, more pivots than we'd like to admit, events that didn't land the way we expected, and no, we're not at break-even yet. If you've ever wondered whether you're "doing business right", pull up a chair. You're in good company.

Connect with IGC: https://linktr.ee/youreingoodcompany/

Christina Zigouras has been a bank teller, an English teacher in Japan, a bookkeeper in her family’s concrete business, a building designer, a TAFE teacher, a board director, and she is now running as an independent candidate in the Victorian state election. She will tell you she simply changed her mind a lot. What she actually did was build a career out of going and learning whatever she did not know yet.

In this episode she talks about the family business she knew she could not stay in, the co-op she started with two other women when they were all sick of working from home, why the industry she trained people for still cannot register them, and what churches taught her about getting a room full of people to agree on something. There is also a high school t-shirt story you will want to be sitting down for.

Worth a listen if your own path looks messy from the outside.

Tom Robertson joined us fresh from Commonwealth Games Australia headquarters in Glasgow, just hours after wrapping up his contract as their social media lead - but his path there has been anything but straightforward.

What started with a weekend shooting content at a Melbourne athletics meet quickly turned into a call from Puma, and before long, V1 Studios - with two staff within eight weeks and clients like Kathmandu, Golf Australia and Strong Pilates. Tom is incredibly open about what came next too: becoming a dad, a business partnership ending days later, experiencing psychosis and being admitted to hospital, before ultimately deciding to close the business and put his health first.

It’s a conversation about ambition, identity, mental health, starting again and all the practical stuff nobody warns you about when you work for yourself. Including tax.

Content Warning:

This episode discusses mental health experiences - including psychosis, being admitted to hospital, and episodes of mania. Listen with care, or skip this episode if it’s not for you.

Referenced in this episode

• Chris Williamson - the "make it until you believe it" reframe of fake it til you make it
• Grace Beverley - on why the same advice lands differently depending on who says it
• Jordan Dawson - Most Courageous Player acceptance speech, Australian Football Awards
• "It ain't weak to speak" - the mental health message Tom returns to as his tagline
  

Connect with Tom

• https://www.instagram.com/tomcrobertson/
  

Connect with IGC

• ⁠https://linktr.ee/youreingoodcompany/⁠
  

Lifeline

Phone: 13 11 14 (24/7 crisis support and suicide prevention)

Text: 0477 13 11 14 (6 PM – midnight AEST)

Website: https://www.lifeline.org.au/

Beyond Blue

Phone: 1300 22 4636 (24/7 mental health counseling and support)

Website: https://www.beyondblue.org.au/

Immediate Emergency

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call Triple Zero (000).

This week, we sit down with Sionainn Hayes, founder of SHE HR - a boutique HR firm built around a simple philosophy: people matter. Five years into running a business she once swore she’d never start, Sionainn gets refreshingly honest about what she’s learned along the way - from delegating before she felt she could “afford” to, to realising that being great at your job doesn’t automatically make you great at leading others. We talk hiring out of desperation versus hiring with intention, radical candour, answering emails while in labour (would not recommend), and learning to measure success by more than how much you can personally carry. At the heart of it all is a pretty simple reminder: take care of your people and they’ll take care of your business. And yes, that includes you.

Connect with Sionainn & SHE HR Consulting

Website: https://shehrconsulting.com

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

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sionainnhayes/

References

Radical Candor by Kim Scott - https://www.radicalcandor.com

Connect with IGC - https://linktr.ee/youreingoodcompany/

This week we're joined by Broden Kelly - actor, comedian, and member of Aunty Donna, the sketch group that turned a YouTube channel with no network behind it into a Netflix series, a production company and their own streaming platform, Grouse House.

Broden takes us back to the unpaid years, the two-star review that nearly finished them, and the slow build to a sold-out Netflix deal - plus the parts nobody sees: burnout from an old "say yes to everything" mindset, and why he still feels like he's making half of it up as he goes.

We also unpack "perceived success”, how one big overseas win can grow your local audience more than the numbers ever could.

A genuinely honest look at what building something with business partners actually feels like.

References mentioned

●  Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun — Netflix, 2020

●  Grouse House — Aunty Donna's Australian comedy streaming platform, launched March 2026

●  Sam Campbell — referenced as an example of finding the right context to be seen

Connect with Broden & Aunty Donna

@thefootywithbrodenkelly

@theauntydonnagallery

https://auntydonna.com

Connect with In Good Company

linktr.ee/youreingoodcompany

This week, host Emily sits down with the person she's been wanting on the podcast since day one - her mum, Debbie Hill.

Debbie didn't set out to build a business from scratch; she came up through the ranks of her father's gas company, Supagas, starting on the phones and chasing invoices before eventually running the whole thing as CEO. She opens up about proving herself in a male-dominated family business, the gutting year they sold Supagas in 2016, and the leadership lessons - thank you, Craig Bellamy - that took her decades to actually learn, including the art of hiring people for their strengths and then getting out of their way.

It's an honest, funny and occasionally raw conversation about identity, control, starting versus scaling, and why the best plans are the crooked ones. A must-listen for anyone building something that feels tangled up with who they are.

Connect with Debbie:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-hill-258a0040

Speed Gas: https://speedgas.com.au/

Gas Guyz: https://gasguyz.com.au/

Connect with IGC: https://linktr.ee/youreingoodcompany/

This week on the podcast, we're joined by Jo Marshall, founder of Culturise and Chair of Gymnastics South Australia, for a conversation about what it really *feels* like to build a career, a business and a life.

It starts with elite gymnastics and building a career around workplace culture. But it quickly becomes a conversation about the stories we tell ourselves. Jo reflects on leaving the Australian Institute of Sport at just 15, building a decade-long consulting business while quietly carrying imposter syndrome, and the moment she realised she was, in her own words, "in an abusive relationship" with her own self-talk.If you've ever looked around and wondered whether everyone else has it figured out except you, this one's worth a listen.

References mentioned

• Jim Collins' Good to Great — the “right people on the bus” concept

• Breakthrough Mental Health Research Foundation 

Connect with Jo

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jo-marshall-culturise/ 

• Culturise - https://www.culturise.com.au/

• Gymnastics South Australia — Jo serves as Chair

Connect with IGC

https://linktr.ee/youreingoodcompany/

This week on the podcast, we sit down with Stephen Deeble, founder of Adelaide production house Visualism, who stumbled into a TV newsroom job at seventeen (his school's ultimatum, not his idea) and has spent twenty-five-plus years since chasing the same feeling: kid in a toy shop, not a job.

Steve gets honest about the moment he realised a nine-to-five, even a fun one with agency perks, wasn't for him, and the deliberate call to build Visualism as something bigger than his own name from day one.

He talks through the “duck on water” stress of running a creative business, why he sees AI as a breath of fresh air rather than a threat, and how noticing years of wasted footage sitting on hard drives sparked his newest venture, Visy.

The takeaway: imposter syndrome never fully disappears - you just get better at swimming through it.

References mentioned:

●  Hotel Mumbai — the feature film Steve cut his teeth on early in his production career.

●  Frame.io — the existing cloud asset-management tool Steve name-checked as the starting point for building Visy.

●  Visualism — Steve's Adelaide-based production company, nine years running.

●  Visy — Steve's newest venture, a white-labelled, AI-powered visual asset portal for high-content organisations.

Connect with Stephen Deeble:

●  Visualism — for production, direction and editing work.

https://www.visualizm.com.au/

●  Visy — for the AI-powered media portal, now live in market.

https://vizy.com.au/#plans

Connect with IGC:

https://linktr.ee/youreingoodcompany/

This week we're talking to Ashlea Caygill, a graphic designer turned in-house AFL photographer turned now-freelance music and festival photographer who's about to jump on a plane for European festival season. Ashlea walks us through leaving a secure job at Richmond during Covid, the terrifying stretch between quitting and actually knowing the money would come in, and the studio shoot that fell apart in the first five minutes (power surge and all) that taught her confidence isn't something you need before you start - it's something you build by doing the thing anyway. We also get into pricing when your industry has no rate card, the "fake Karen account" every solo operator eventually needs for chasing invoices, and the unexpected shot of two ballerinas at a DJ set that became one of her all-time favourites.

References: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz.

Connect with Ashlea: https://www.instagram.com/ashleacaygill/

www.ashleacaygill.com

Connect with IGC: https://linktr.ee/youreingoodcompany/

Steve Tabone hypes up 70,000 people at the footy for a living — and he told us sitting across from two people with a microphone was scarier. That's the whole vibe of this one. Steve built Active Beats from the ground up, scaled it with a team of subcontractors so his business doesn't fall over every time he says no to a gig, and somehow still makes it home for tennis with his kids most nights.

We get into the real stuff too - chasing unpaid invoices, setting cancellation fees without losing clients, and why he ditched his morning coffee. The takeaway that'll stick with you: being yourself isn't just nice advice, it's the entire business model. If you're passionate, people buy the connection, not the pitch.

Connect with Steve - https://www.instagram.com/stevetabone.activebeats/

Connect with IGC - https://linktr.ee/youreingoodcompany