Life After Launch with Megan Luttrell & Geo George

Jess co-founded Neighbourlytics in 2017, taking the placemaking work she'd done as CEO of CoDesign Studio and turning it into a data product that measures what people actually do in a neighbourhood. It grew to cover more than twenty thousand neighbourhoods across twelve countries, raised about five million dollars across five rounds, and was acquired by REA Group in late 2025.

She walks through the quarter the business was growing four hundred per cent a year and still only had fifty logins against $600,000 of revenue, why she sat her team down on a Friday lunchtime and told them she might have to give them four weeks notice, and the phishing scam that drained the bank account while she was at a wedding in the UK.

She finishes with three life lessons: why it's always harder than you think and you can't believe your own bullshit, why the hard work of people and culture matters more than the four per cent of running a business that is raising investment, and why her identity was never the business - it was having a team.

Find Jess

Jess on LinkedIn

Neighbourlytics

Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship

Books mentioned

Crossing the Chasm

The Mom Test

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Explore sponsorship and partnership opportunities

Life After Launch is an Aussie Founders Club podcast.

Aussie Founders Club is a community for Founders, operators and investors navigating the Australian startup ecosystem. What started as an events-first, in-person community has grown into a network of thousands, connecting people building startups with the people who've done it before. Join the conversation and the community

Connect with Megan Luttrell on LinkedIn

Connect with Geo George on LinkedIn

Kairos Recruitment is a recruitment company supporting startups and scale-ups across Australia, helping Founders find the right people to grow their teams. Led by Megan Luttrell.

Mayfly Ventures is an Australian AI venture studio building industry-focused AI and software ventures. We work with industry leaders to validate, build and scale AI ventures, starting with the strategy and commercial foundations most teams skip.

Chad Stephens and three mates couldn't get a rental in Brighton. After filling out the same two-page paper application for property after property, Chad and his best mate Chris Koch went looking for an online version. There wasn't one, so they built it. That became 1Form, which ended up used across most of the Australian rental industry and was bought by REA Group in 2014. Everyone they pitched told them it was just a form.

Chad walks through funding it with maxed-out credit cards, a bank loan for a car they never bought and the sale of the cars they already had, then moving back home. He explains how they won over one of Melbourne's most respected property managers by building everything she asked for, how lunch in an empty fine dining restaurant led to $250,000 from the people behind Carsales, and the $5 save button that finally made the business money. Then comes the sale. REA had once told them it would build the idea itself, and eight years later it bought the company, cutting the agreed price from $17 million to $15 million a week before signing.

He also covers Fillr, which burned $300,000 a month, pivoted to mobile checkout for buy now, pay later apps, and sold to Rakuten after COVID derailed a Series B in March 2020, with his wife running the legals while he walked the pram. He finishes with his next venture, Formlytics, and three life lessons: why friends and family loving your idea is a warning sign, why a blocked road is just a stop sign, and why knowing your weaknesses tells you who to partner with.

Find Chad

Chad on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadstephens1/

Fillr: https://www.fillr.com/

Join the Aussie Founders Club

The Slack community, the newsletter and everything else live here: https://www.aussiefoundersclub.com

Want to partner with Life After Launch?

Explore sponsorship and partnership opportunities at https://lifeafterlaunchpod.com/partner-with-us

Life After Launch is an Aussie Founders Club podcast.

Aussie Founders Club is a community for Founders, operators and investors navigating the Australian startup ecosystem. What started as an events-first, in-person community has grown into a network of thousands, connecting people building startups with the people who've done it before. Join the conversation and the community at https://aussiefoundersclub.com/

Connect with Megan Luttrell on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganluttrell/

Connect with Geo George on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/contactgeo/

Kairos Recruitment is a recruitment company supporting startups and scale-ups across Australia, helping Founders find the right people to grow their teams. Led by Megan Luttrell. Learn more at https://www.kairosrecruitment.com.au/

Mayfly Ventures is an Australian AI venture studio building industry-focused AI and software ventures. We work with industry leaders to validate, build and scale AI ventures, starting with the strategy and commercial foundations most teams skip. Learn more about Mayfly's approach at https://www.mayflyventures.com/

Time Stamps

00:00 Cold open: "You can't make money from a form"

00:43 Welcome to Life After Launch, introducing Chad Stephens

02:24 Growing up in Bayside, tennis dreams and the milk bar plan

04:30 The black sheep of six kids, and running a cafe in Brighton

06:21 VenueHQ, the first idea that didn't work

07:06 Four blokes, one Brighton rental and the application that became 1Form

11:18 Maxed-out credit cards, a car loan with no car, and moving back home

14:19 Winning over property managers with no marketing budget

20:41 Lunch in an empty restaurant and pitching the people behind Carsales

26:12 The GFC, and the $5 button that finally made money

32:03 Hiring, growing and the squiggly signature

36:13 A team of five, 50% margins and testing the US

43:17 Selling 1Form to REA Group: $17 million, then $15 million

47:55 Fillr: burning $300,000 a month and pivoting to mobile checkout

51:57 COVID, the Series B and selling to Rakuten

55:05 Angel investing and building Formlytics

56:30 Life lesson 1: if friends and family love your idea, pivot

58:45 Life lesson 2: a blocked road is just a stop sign

1:00:44 Life lesson 3: know your strengths, and who to partner with

1:03:06 Closing thoughts + outro

Stephen Wools has built creative agencies, toured Jordan Peterson and Theo Von, opened one of Melbourne's most talked-about bars, signed the biggest hospitality lease in the city's history four weeks before lockdown, and lost a house and millions of dollars along the way. His advice on how to survive all of it: be a cockroach.

Stephen walks through how a floppy disk and a hungover all-nighter got him through his one and only year of uni, how a chance meeting at Big Brother auditions turned into a 20-year business partnership with Josh Lefers, and how "everything's for sale" became the concept behind Pawn & Co, right down to the grand piano someone bought off the DJ booth. Then comes the harder part: signing the lease on a 2,500 square metre venue in January 2020, watching the brewing business collapse under COVID, and rebuilding while banks called in their money.

He gets honest about what he'd change, what resilience actually costs, and the three life lessons he's learned the hard way: being ruthless about who you surround yourself with, learning to respect risk instead of running on pure optimism, and knowing when more stops being more.

Find Stephen

Stephen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-j-wools-b5240811/

Ballers Clubhouse: https://www.ballersclubhouse.com.au/

Good Times Tech: https://www.goodtimestech.com.au/

Pawn & Co: https://www.pawnandco.com.au/

Join the Aussie Founders Club

The Slack community, the newsletter and everything else live here: https://www.aussiefoundersclub.com

Want to partner with Life After Launch?

Explore sponsorship and partnership opportunities at https://lifeafterlaunchpod.com/partner-with-us

Time Stamps

00:00 Cold open: the cockroach theory

00:23 Welcome to Life After Launch, introducing Stephen Wools

01:51 Growing up, uni, and the floppy disk story

04:20 From Big Dog Creative to touring Jordan Peterson and Theo Von

05:28 Meeting Josh Lefers and the TV shows that started it all

09:44 Learning to love rejection

13:42 Competitiveness, imposter syndrome, and outworking everyone

20:26 Building Pawn & Co and the story of the $5,000 piano

23:13 Launching East 9th Brewing

24:30 COVID hits: losing the brewing business, a house, and millions

30:28 Signing the Ballers Clubhouse lease weeks before lockdown, and building through it

40:26 Scaling Ballers, launching Good Times Tech, and the plan to go global

53:41 Building systems, working with AI, and staying frictionless for the customer

56:29 Life lesson 1: be careful who you surround yourself with

1:02:59 Life lesson 2: respecting risk instead of running on pure optimism

1:09:01 Life lesson 3: more is more, and knowing when enough is enough

1:22:24 Closing thoughts + outro

Nick Maxwell got cut by the same football club four years running. Cut at 14. Cut at 15. Cut at 16. Cut at 17, three minutes into a trial, with a snapped vertebra. He made the squad on his fifth attempt and still went undrafted.

Four days before Christmas, a phone call changed everything. Nick walks through the voicemail that told him he'd been picked up by Collingwood, the 200-plus games that followed, and how being captain had nothing to do with being the most talented player on the field. It was about the 1%, the tackles, the sprints nobody saw, and showing up for a team that eventually made him captain and led them to a premiership after 20 years without one.

Twenty years in sport later, Nick walked away from a stable, structured career to build something of his own. He's honest that the four years since have been harder than anything football put him through, learning IT infrastructure, managing staff, and figuring out leadership without a scoreboard to tell him if he's winning.

Stick around for his three life lessons: why resilience is the whole story, why he now buys himself time before reacting to anything, and what two decades observing the Melbourne Storm's most successful leaders taught him about chasing the extra 1%.

Find Nick

Nick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-maxwell-060a2922/

Eclat: https://eclat.com/

Want to partner with Life After Launch?

Explore sponsorship and partnership opportunities at https://lifeafterlaunchpod.com/partner-with-us

Life After Launch is an Aussie Founders Club podcast.

🦘 Aussie Founders Club is a community for founders, operators, and investors navigating the Australian startup ecosystem. What started as an events-first, in-person community has grown into a network of thousands, connecting people building startups with the people who've done it before. Join the conversation and the community at https://aussiefoundersclub.com/

Connect with Megan Luttrell on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganluttrell/

Connect with Geo George on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/contactgeo/

🤝 Kairos Recruitment is a recruitment company supporting startups and scale-ups across Australia, helping founders find the right people to grow their teams. Led by Megan Luttrell. Learn more at https://www.kairosrecruitment.com.au/

💵 Mayfly Ventures is a venture studio building industry-focused AI and software ventures. Mayfly is an Australian AI venture studio. We work with industry leaders to validate, build, and scale AI ventures, starting with the strategy and commercial foundations most teams skip. Learn more about Mayfly's approach at https://www.mayflyventures.com/

00:00 Cold open: cut 4 times, then 4 voicemails

01:31 Welcome to Life After Launch, introducing Nick Maxwell

03:07 Manure at 12, KFC at 14, and getting cut from the Falcons 4 times

15:15 The Collingwood voicemails, and playing 200+ games

17:20 Not the most talented player: doing the 1%ers and becoming captain

22:13 Leadership styles, the Melbourne Storm, and the "finished product" trap

33:07 Media, an MBA in 18 months, and deciding to leave sport

35:57 Why Eclat, and building a "life MBA" into a workspace

44:04 Building the team, ownership, and trusting people to do their jobs

54:24 The hardest 4 years of his life: building Eclat from scratch

58:56 Life lesson 1: resilience is the whole story

59:54 Life lesson 2: buy yourself time before you react

1:02:41 Life lesson 3: chasing the extra 1%, with lessons from Craig Bellamy

1:09:35 Closing thoughts + outro

Shane Chanel bet his entire life savings, $20,000, on a four-wheel drive racing app when he was 14. It wasn't his last high-conviction bet. He went on to leave a stockbroking career to build Yondr Money, a digital bank that never became a bank, survived a hostile takeover attempt from his own investor, and is now building Kobble, the infrastructure that lets almost any business launch a financial product in weeks instead of years.

He's honest about where the drive comes from: a chip on his shoulder he can't fully explain, a family that worked hard for everything, and a day in 2012 he's never spoken about publicly before this episode, the day his uncle's family was found dead and he became next of kin for his baby niece. It's the reference point, he says, for everything since. Nothing has ever felt as hard.

Shane walks through the pain points that pushed him from asset management into building a bank from scratch, why he pulled out of the banking licence process, how a chance conversation with former ANZ CEO Mike Smith became one of his best investors, and how a wall covered in Post-it notes from fellow fintech Founders became Kobble.

Stick around for the hardest lesson of all: the hostile takeover attempt from an investor who'd only just come on board, and why Shane now tells every Founder to have the uncomfortable conversations early, before you need them.

Find Shane

Shane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanechanel/

Kobble AI: https://ai.kobble.net/

Kobble: https://kobble.net/

Yondr: https://www.yondr.money/

Join the Aussie Founders Club

The Slack community, the newsletter and everything else live here: https://www.aussiefoundersclub.com

Want to partner with Life After Launch?

Explore sponsorship and partnership opportunities at https://lifeafterlaunchpod.com/partner-with-us

Time Stamps

00:00 Cold open + welcome to Life After Launch, introducing Shane Chanel

02:54 From wanting to be an aeronautical engineer to financial planning and stockbroking

08:35 Identity, the chip on the shoulder, and working twice as hard

16:51 Betting his life savings on a racing app at 14, and the idea for a bank

25:53 Building Yondr, pulling out of the banking licence, and landing Mike Smith as an investor

38:48 The 2012 story: his uncle's family found dead, and the reminder that nothing will ever be this hard

45:27 Acquiring Shouta and building Kobble from a wall of Post-it notes

53:50 Kobble AI: prototyping a financial product in 15 minutes

1:02:09 Life lesson: the hostile takeover attempt, and why you should always do the prenup

1:05:12 Closing thoughts + outro

Darius Monsef has built a colour-palette website that grew to millions of users, sold two companies, raised over $40 million for a paediatric healthcare startup, and shut it all down. Twice. He's brutally honest about why.

Darius walks through how a joke website for rating colour squares became a design resource used by Adobe, how wearing his own branded t-shirt got him into Y Combinator, and how Creative Market sold to Autodesk just 11 months after launch. But the real story is what happened after the money landed: the quiet depression of an exit that wasn't life-changing enough, the $40 million healthcare business that scaled before it had product-market fit, and the moment on a plane, mid-fundraise, when he realised he might be lying to himself and everyone else.

He's honest about what it cost to walk away from Brave Care, why he now tells Founders to be quitters, and why the businesses that fail teach you more than the ones that limp along for nine years pretending to work.

Stick around for his three life lessons: why your health is the input that decides your output, why quitting well matters as much as starting well, and why Founders should set goals they can't reach and still call it a win.

Find Darius

Darius on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dariusmonsef/

What he's building now: https://ozbrain.com

Join the Aussie Founders Club

The Slack community, the newsletter and everything else live here: https://www.aussiefoundersclub.com

Want to partner with Life After Launch?

Explore sponsorship and partnership opportunities at https://lifeafterlaunchpod.com/partner-with-us

Time Stamps

00:00 Cold open + welcome to Life After Launch, introducing Darius Monsef

02:16 Growing up in Hawaii, entrepreneurial parents, and the chip on his shoulder

06:48 Building COLOURlovers, the shirt that got him into Y Combinator, and 11 years to "overnight success"

15:27 Creative Market's fast exit to Autodesk, and why the money wasn't enough

21:29 Sightbox, moving to Hawaii, and the depression after doing "nothing"

29:32 Raising $40M for Brave Care, scaling before product-market fit, and the collapse mid-fundraise

40:53 Shutting down Brave Care, then Genie and Rides, and building Pre

50:03 Life lesson 1: treat your health like an athlete's, not an afterthought

55:16 Life lesson 2: be a quitter

59:55 Life lesson 3: push harder than reasonable, then give yourself grace

1:04:33 Closing thoughts + outro

Kirstin Hunter has co-founded a super fund, run a startup accelerator, and now leads Australia's biggest crowdfunding platform. None of it was the plan.

She grew up in Tweed Heads folding junk mail for two cents a letterbox, trained to be a doctor, then pivoted through law and consulting before a friend told her the pro bono work she loved was just "the trinkets" propping up a job that made corporations richer. That conversation pushed her into Future Super, where a pitch her co-founders called "absurd" turned into one of Australia's first fossil-fuel-free super funds.

She's honest about what came next too: the moment she and her co-founders stopped wanting the same thing, and why leaving felt like leaving a marriage. From there she takes you through Techstars Australia, the funding data project that exposed how badly VCs back women and diverse Founders, and how she landed the CEO seat at Birchal, almost by accident.

Stick around for the one Revolut stat that makes the case for democratised funding better than any pitch deck could.

Find Kirstin

Kirstin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirstinhunter/

Birchal: https://www.birchal.com/

Future Super: https://www.futuresuper.com.au/

Join the Aussie Founders Club

The Slack community, the newsletter and everything else live here: https://www.aussiefoundersclub.com

Want to partner with Life After Launch?

Explore sponsorship and partnership opportunities at https://lifeafterlaunchpod.com/partner-with-us

00:00 Cold open + welcome to Life After Launch

01:14 Introducing Kirstin Hunter

02:16 From junk mail in Tweed Heads to running a $20M student union at 23

09:16 Consulting, "the trinkets," and the leap to Future Super

15:48 Becoming a co-founder and building Australia's fossil-fuel-free super fund

20:39 The co-founder breakdown, and why she walked away

24:54 Techstars, the funding gap for diverse founders, and Funding the Balance

42:27 Landing at Birchal, and the case for crowdfunding

48:06 Closing thoughts + outro

If you've ever felt like you're not a "real" Founder because you're not chasing unicorn status, this episode is your permission slip to build differently.

Jodie Imam has done almost everything you can do in the Australian startup ecosystem. She co-founded Occasional Butler and went head to head with Airtasker (who eventually acquired her), opened depo8, one of Melbourne's first coworking spaces, and now runs Tractor Ventures, the revenue-based funding company backing the Founders who don't want to ride the VC rocket. And it all started at age 12 with a business called The Ironing Lady.

You'll hear the moment at Ericsson that convinced Jodie she could never trust a corporation with her future, and the trade she made to escape it: her car space for a job with fashion designer Leona Edmiston, working weeks for free to prove herself. She's honest about what that costs, and why she tells anyone changing direction that you can't expect a corporate wage while you do it.

Then there's the Occasional Butler story, including the very first job posted on the platform (a $5 gig to eat a packet of Doritos, planted by a rival you might have heard of), the Gumtree hack that finally unlocked their flywheel, and the raise-or-sell decision she faced while pregnant with her third child.

Jodie also opens up about the journaling moment that led to Tractor Ventures (she wrote "I want to work with Matt Allen one day" and he messaged her that same day), the EOS framework and visionary-integrator split that transformed how she and Matt run the company, and the spiritual awakening after her divorce that has her exploring goddess rituals and witchcraft alongside running a venture funding business.

Stay to the end to hear why Founders are whole humans, and why you can absolutely manage millions and pull tarot cards in the same week.

Find Jodie

Jodie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodieimam/

Tractor Ventures: https://www.tractorventures.com/

Mentioned in this episode

Rocket Fuel - the book behind the visionary and integrator split Jodie describes

Join the Aussie Founders Club

The Slack community, the newsletter and everything else live here: https://www.aussiefoundersclub.com

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Explore sponsorship and partnership opportunities at https://lifeafterlaunchpod.com/partner-with-us

00:00 Cold open and welcome to Life After Launch

01:05 Megan's disclaimers: buying the gear, timing references, and learning to stop saying "yes"

02:18 Introducing Jodie Imam

03:11 The Ironing Lady at 12: where the independence drive began

04:00 Watching Ericsson make 30-year veterans redundant, and the seed it planted

05:13 Trading a car space for a job: nine years growing Leona Edmiston from 3 people to 100

09:17 The owner's mentality: why Jodie told her bosses "I have to feel like it's my business"

10:26 Babies as the catalyst: leaving to start Occasional Butler with her husband

12:39 Selling the house, moving to Melbourne, and going all in on two businesses with two babies

14:47 The first job ever posted: a $5 Doritos prank from a familiar rival

16:00 The Gumtree hack that finally kicked the flywheel

18:23 Building too much before testing, and why launching feels like standing on stage naked

20:09 The exit story: the capital-raising mistake that cost months, and the board move that worked

23:16 Selling to Airtasker while pregnant with baby number three

24:51 Setting up Innovation Bay in Melbourne

27:02 COVID kills depo8 overnight, and Tractor Ventures is born from a lockdown living room

33:06 The journal entry and the WhatsApp message: how Jodie and Matt Allen teamed up

34:23 How Tractor actually works: the first $2 million, revenue-based finance, and the funding stack

37:26 Why Tractor only hires senior people

39:54 Rocket Fuel, EOS, and the visionary vs integrator dynamic (plus seagull management)

44:01 Life after exit and divorce: spiritual awakening, goddess rituals, and witchcraft

47:41 Quickfire: what's inspiring Jodie and the ecosystem shoutout

49:16 Outro

If you've ever talked yourself out of reaching out to someone because they're "too successful to reply", this episode will change how you send your next message.

Dom Pym co-founded Up, one of Australia's fastest growing digital banks, and has personally invested $85 million into the Australian startup ecosystem. But he started with nothing. Dom tells Megan and Geo about growing up in a family that lost everything, and the "golden purse" his mum kept that somehow always had just enough in it, a lesson in abundance he's carried into every company since.

You'll hear the full story of how Dom and his co-founder walked into Bendigo Bank asking for money and walked out bidding to rebuild their entire banking system, with a team of two and zero banking experience. You'll learn why he treats confidence and honesty as two separate skills you need at the same time, the exact cold outreach tactics that have actually worked on him (including one that involves sticky-taping a $1 coin to a letter), and why he believes chasing busy, successful people a hundred times is a feature, not a flaw.

Dom also shares the two policy ideas he's pushing right now, free universal childcare and a dollar-for-dollar rebuild of the R&D tax incentive, that he reckons could make Australia a world superpower.

Stay to the end for the quickfire round, where Dom reveals the plane crash he survived in 1999 and the one interview question that lets him see straight into a Founder's soul.

Find Dom

Dom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dompym/

Up: https://up.com.au/

Euphemia: https://euphemia.com/

Join the Aussie Founders Club

The Slack community, the newsletter and everything else live here: https://www.aussiefoundersclub.com

Want to partner with Life After Launch?

Explore sponsorship and partnership opportunities at https://lifeafterlaunchpod.com/partner-with-us

Time Stamps

00:00 Cold open and welcome to Life After Launch

01:17 Introducing Dom Pym

02:33 The childhood moments that shaped Dom: footy, family, and sliding doors

06:09 The golden purse: building an abundance mindset from nothing

08:20 The three people who taught Dom how money really works

11:03 Why you should chase successful people a hundred times (the Marty Howell story)

14:15 The most creative cold outreach Dom has ever received

16:07 The $1 coin letter and why positive affirmation actually works

19:19 The Bendigo Bank story: two people, supreme confidence, and a live demo that broke the rules

26:26 Confidence vs honesty: crossing ThoughtWorks off the whiteboard

29:13 Up's world firsts: Afterpay, Apple Pay instant issuance, and Google Cloud

31:05 Comparing your bank to Instagram: the activity feed that banks worldwide copied

32:48 Fixing Australia: free universal childcare and rebuilding the R&D tax incentive

37:38 1.4 million customers and the countdown to overtaking the big banks

40:30 Quickfire: the 1999 Qantas crash, the ecosystem stars you should know, and the question that reveals a Founder's soul

46:56 Outro

Watch this space.