Perspective X with Pauline Fetaui

Mark Samlal grew up as one of the only Indian families in a small Perth township, went on to co-found a payroll company from a secondhand desk in Singapore with his wife Samantha, and eventually listed it on the ASX as PayGroup. In 2022 Deel acquired the business in an all-cash deal worth $120M at a 143% premium to market. In this conversation Mark talks about the racism he faced growing up, the "4 or out the door" sales mentality that shaped his early career, what it actually feels like to run a public company, and why he's stayed on at Deel almost four years after the acquisition. He also opens up about the guilt of building a business while raising three daughters, and the pull he's feeling to reconnect with his roots in Fiji and India.

00:00 – Cold open: race, accountability, and the "4 or out the door" origin story

01:55 – Younger Mark: born in Fiji, his father's journey from teacher to social worker

09:23 – University, meeting Samantha, and the early grind in real estate

15:56 – Into telecom, then payroll software — learning on the job

21:43 – Meeting mentor Phil Cave and turning around Lendlease Employer Services

32:40 – Racism growing up and being "the only brown person in the room"

37:59 – The move to Singapore and building the Sharks Basketball community

43:13 – Running multiple businesses at once and bootstrapping PayAsia with Samantha

51:25 – Skipping VC/PE, and what it's really like leading a public company

1:05:36 – COVID, 3 acquisitions, and the road to the Deel deal

1:09:52 – The Deel acquisition: $120M all-cash, 143% premium

1:13:34 – Culture shock joining Deel, AI's impact on HR/payroll, and why he's stayed

1:27:03 – Raising 3 daughters, fatherhood, and business regrets

1:38:34 – The Pingyao story, undervaluing Asian entrepreneurs, and where he's headed next

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.

To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new Perspective X episodes and upcoming shows.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Taryn Williams started her first company, Wink Models, at 21 with $30,000 and no roadmap. She didn't stop there. Over the next two decades she built and ran a string of ventures, the talent marketplace The Right Fit (backed by Airtree, scaled to 17,000 talent and 11,000 clients across APAC), The Influencers Agency, the contra-gifting platform #Gifted, the B2B talent business Notable, and Online Model Academy, exiting two of them to international acquirers in 2023. Today she sits across boards, invests as an angel, and advises organisations on AI transformation with Think & Grow.

In this episode Pauline sits down with Taryn for an honest conversation about what it actually costs to build like this: why and how she runs multiple companies at once, why she loves the 0-to-2-year stage and does not want to be the CEO, and the quieter things founders rarely say out loud, the toll on her relationships and health, freezing her eggs at 35 and what she wishes she'd known about fertility, and the mentor question she still works through every day: when is enough, enough? Plus sharp takes on AI, the creator economy, "AI slop", and whether AI will replace human models.

Time Stamps

00:00 - Cold open: "I was 21 when I started Wink"

01:20 - Welcome — meeting Taryn at South Start, and the snapshot of a serial founder

04:08 - Scouted at 15: modelling as an accidental business education

06:21 - Starting Wink Models at 21 — fixing a broken, fragmented industry

09:04 - Building the first tech product (and the trap of gold-plating instead of an MVP)

12:21 - Launching The Right Fit and raising capital from Airtree

17:56 - How big Wink and The Right Fit actually grew

19:34 - Running multiple companies at once — and stepping fully out of Wink

22:13 - #Gifted, Notable and Online Model Academy: "every year, birth a new child"

28:27 - Why it isn't "the Taryn Williams show"

31:37 - The 2023 exits: running a formal process and the transition

38:56 - The real cost: relationships, health and never being fully switched off

43:27 - Fertility, freezing eggs at 35, and what no one tells you early enough

50:15 - From operator to board chair — breaking the habit of being all-in

54:17 - Why every founder should understand governance (the AICD course)

56:28 - In the investor seat: what Taryn backs and the founders she looks for

59:33 - Advising on AI transformation with Think & Grow

64:56 - AI, creators and the "AI slop" problem

69:07 - Will AI models replace human talent in advertising?

73:32 - Dating, connection and AI: why we've lost the resilience for friction

80:45 - Tying self-worth to success — the question she still works through

85:16 - One thing she knows to be true that the world hasn't caught up on yet

87:36 - Close

Links

Wink Models — https://www.winkmodels.com.au

Airtree Ventures — https://www.airtree.vc

Think & Grow — https://www.thinkandgrow.com

Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) — https://www.aicd.com.au

Perspective X is produced by Day One — the podcast network for founders, operators and investors — https://www.dayone.fm

Mentioned in this episode:

Deel x PX_Script 2

Deel x PX_Script 1

Day One sting

She raised $4 million just before Christmas, moved out of her marital home inside sixty days, and came back from a two-week break to find an interim CEO appointed and the doors of her own company closed to her. In Part 2 of her Perspective X conversation with Pauline Fetaui, Yas Grigaliunas tells the part founders almost never say out loud: nine months locked out of World's Biggest Garage Sale, watching the brand she built be steered somewhere she would never have taken it.

Yas walks through the pattern that ran underneath the whole journey — high highs and low lows landing on top of each other. The Lord Mayor's award the same week her mum died. The $4 million raise the same month as her divorce. And then "prove your value, Yas" — sell to customers from home, no access to the product, no hand in the brand, while a million dollars of the raise went on things she would never have signed off.

She is unsparing but never vengeful about the board and advisers who did it. Two truths can be true at once, she says: they believed they were giving her space to manage a hard year; what it actually was, was a displacement. It took a founder friend shoving a lawyer's number at her in a bar to get her back inside the company she still majority-owned.

The numbers tell the rest. A $200,000 Ignite Ideas grant ten days before liquidation. A $20-odd million large global retailer partnership ready to sign. A $6,000 bank balance the month after half a million in revenue. Yas unpacks the over-engineered structure, the siloed executives, the curated board papers, and the moment the safe-harbour report from BDO finally backed what she had been saying all along.

What she does with the ending is the lesson. She rang every investor by phone before the liquidation notice went public. She traded through so staff got their final pay. She stayed thirty days after the liquidator was appointed to hand back a spotless warehouse — because, as her liquidator put it, the best stay and the worst disappear.

There is also the human spine of it: building a team around neurodiverse people and "the cracks you can't see", the scars she is not ashamed of, and her daughters watching her lose everything and land — without, in their eyes, any effort — back at Videopro, the company she helped build twenty years ago. "I lost my company," she says, "but I didn't lose myself."

Yas Grigaliunas is the founder of World's Biggest Garage Sale and Circonomy, a pioneer of Australia's circular economy who raised $4 million and partnered with a large domestic retailer before the company went into liquidation in 2024. She is now part of the leadership team at Videopro.

Links:

- Day One: https://dayone.fm

- Join the Day One newsletter: https://dayone.fm/newsletter

- Videopro: https://www.videopro.com.au

- Deel (sponsor): https://www.deel.com/dayone

If it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't. This is Perspective X.

Deel: Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, and get visas handled fast, so you stay focused on scaling. Deel takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits, and compliance, so your team can grow without borders. It's why more than 40,000 fast-growing companies trust Deel to move fast. Visit https://www.deel.com/dayone

Episode Summary

Part 2 of Yas Grigaliunas on Perspective X is the harder chapter: the $4 million raise, the divorce, and nine months locked out of the company she founded. She walks through the liquidation of World's Biggest Garage Sale — the large global retailer deal, the grant, the $6,000 bank balance — and how she led the ending with integrity, then landed back at Videopro. She lost the company. She did not lose herself.

Time Stamps

00:00 - The part no one tells

00:51 - Building a team around neurodiversity

08:49 - Leading the narrative into liquidation

10:43 - High highs, low lows: the pattern

12:03 - Raised $4M, then locked out

14:10 - "Prove your value": nine months outside

19:43 - When founders take the fall in silence

21:19 - Two truths about the board

28:13 - The large global retailer deal and the $6,000 call

38:29 - Closing the company with integrity

47:40 - Lessons for founders raising capital

55:21 - Landing back at Videopro

66:53 - What the world hasn't caught up on

About the host

Pauline Fetaui hosts Perspective X, drawing out the founder stories that usually stay hidden — the cost, the conviction, and the decisions made under real pressure.

About Day One Network

Perspective X is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators and investors. To learn more, join our newsletter (https://dayone.fm/newsletter) to be notified of new and upcoming shows. Day One helps founders and startup operators make better business decisions more often.

Follow our socials

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/dayonefm/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dayone.fm/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dayone.fm

Mentioned in this episode:

Deel x PX_Script 1

Day One sting

Deel x PX_Script 2

Yas Grigaliunas turned a backyard charity garage sale into Circonomy, one of Australia's most recognised circular-economy companies — years before "circular economy" was even a phrase. In Part 1 of her Perspective X conversation with Pauline Fetaui, she traces the rise: from selling homemade cupcakes at 5am triathlon training and asking herself "how do you raise money without asking people for money," to $15,000 in a single day, to quitting her job with no plan B, to a $4 million raise in four weeks with Officeworks on the cap table.

It's also a portrait of the engine underneath: a relentlessly data-obsessed, "burn bright, not burn out" founder who walked into rooms she was told she didn't belong in — including a memorable run-in with Steve Baxter at River City Labs — turned "surprise chain" into supply chain for Officeworks the weekend COVID shut the world down, and built a company on the conviction that idle assets, and overlooked people, are worth far more than anyone assumes.

Part 2 is the harder conversation — the cost, and what happened when it all changed.

Episode Summary

Yas Grigaliunas, founder of World's Biggest Garage Sale and Circonomy, joins Pauline Fetaui for Part 1 of a Perspective X conversation about building a circular-economy company in Australia before the term existed. From a charity garage sale that did $15,000 in a day to a $4 million capital raise in four weeks, Yas unpacks the data discipline, the conviction, and the well-timed moments that turned "dormant goods for good" into a national enterprise — and the energy source that, after 30 years of people predicting her burnout, still hasn't run dry.

Time Stamps

00:00 - A garage full of stuff, and one question: how do you raise money without asking for money?

02:10 - Welcome to Perspective X: Pauline's "love letter" introduction to Yas

03:13 - The cancer-charity origin and "dormant goods for good"

05:30 - The first World's Biggest Garage Sale: $15k in a day, 50 volunteers

12:58 - Scaling the events: $15k to $60k to $150k in a single day

18:06 - River City Labs, Steve Baxter, and "I'm not a tech founder, I'm a business builder"

24:55 - 168 hours in a week: time, data, and consistency

31:14 - Confidence, the seesaw, and falling in love with yourself

36:57 - Coining "Circonomy" before circular economy was a buzzword

41:29 - From events to a warehouse: building a real business

48:07 - Officeworks, "surprise chain," and the Retail Rescue the weekend COVID hit

49:54 - The $4 million raise and the "capital raise cave"

51:13 - Raising $4M in four weeks as a female founder

58:55 - Preparation, persistence, and watching who opened the pitch deck

About the host

Pauline Fetaui hosts Perspective X, the Day One Network show that goes beyond the highlight reel to explore the inner worlds, convictions and turning points of founders and leaders.

About Day One Network

Perspective X is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators and investors. Join our newsletter at https://dayone.fm/newsletter to hear about new and upcoming shows.

Perspective X is powered by Deel.

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.

Follow Day One: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/dayonefm/ · Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dayone.fm/ · TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@dayone.fm

Mentioned in this episode:

Deel x PX_Script 2

Deel x PX_Script 1

From policing the streets of Sydney’s King’s Cross to founding one of the world's first enterprise AI companies, Dr. Catriona Wallace has navigated a career arc that defies convention. As one of the few women globally to list an AI company on the ASX, she scaled Flamingo AI to New York and back, all while raising five children and operating on a frontier that barely had a name. But behind the milestone of a $20M capital raise and the adrenaline of the public markets lay a deeper story of personal cost, identity, and the "sacred wounds" that fuel high-performance leadership.

In this deep-dive episode of Perspective X, Dr. Cat shares her unfiltered story of transition: from the corruption and shadow-side of law enforcement to the high-pressure world of venture capital, and eventually, to the jungles of Peru. We explore the "hard thing about hard things," the brutal reality of having your product commoditised by tech giants, and why she chose to sit with ayahuasca the same day she exited her company.

This isn't just a talk about technology; it’s a masterclass in the human operating system. We dive into why AI poses a 1-in-10 existential risk, the intersection of ancient ritual and modern innovation, and why Dr. Cat believes the next generation of leaders must undergo a "rapid transformation" of consciousness to ensure humanity isn't left behind by the machines we’ve built.

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.

To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new Perspective X episodes and upcoming shows.

Mentioned in this episode:

Deel x PX_Script 1

Deel x PX_Script 2

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

From policing the streets of Sydney’s King’s Cross to founding one of the world's first enterprise AI companies, Dr. Catriona Wallace has navigated a career arc that defies convention. As one of the few women globally to list an AI company on the ASX, she scaled Flamingo AI to New York and back, all while raising five children and operating on a frontier that barely had a name. But behind the milestone of a $20M capital raise and the adrenaline of the public markets lay a deeper story of personal cost, identity, and the "sacred wounds" that fuel high-performance leadership.

In this deep-dive episode of Perspective X, Dr. Cat shares her unfiltered story of transition: from the corruption and shadow-side of law enforcement to the high-pressure world of venture capital, and eventually, to the jungles of Peru. We explore the "hard thing about hard things," the brutal reality of having your product commoditised by tech giants, and why she chose to sit with ayahuasca the same day she exited her company.

This isn't just a talk about technology; it’s a masterclass in the human operating system. We dive into why AI poses a 1-in-10 existential risk, the intersection of ancient ritual and modern innovation, and why Dr. Cat believes the next generation of leaders must undergo a "rapid transformation" of consciousness to ensure humanity isn't left behind by the machines we’ve built.

Mentioned in this episode:

Deel x PX_Script 1

Deel x PX_Script 2

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

From surgeon to psychiatrist, Bitcoin investor to billion-dollar crypto brokerage founder, Dr. Prash Puspanathan has lived one of the most unconventional founder journeys in tech. After co-founding and scaling Caleb & Brown into a global crypto powerhouse, later acquired by SwiftX in 2025, Dr. Prash is now pioneering the future of mental health with Enosis Therapeutics, using VR to transform psychedelic-assisted therapy integration.

In this episode of Perspective X, Dr. Prash shares how a single psilocybin experience completely reshaped his worldview, steering him away from surgery and into psychiatry, entrepreneurship, and eventually, crypto. He reveals the parallels between fiscal freedom in decentralized finance and cognitive freedom in mental health, the scrappy early days of arbitrage trading, and the challenges of scaling a white-glove brokerage to serve high-net-worth clients worldwide.

We also dive into the future of psychedelic medicine, why integration is the “real work,” how technology can lower costs and increase access, and why prevention, not just treatment, will define the next era of mental health. From paradigm-shifting psychedelics to building billion-dollar ventures, this is a conversation about liberation, of thought, finance, and human potential.

00:00 – Intro: Dr. Prash’s unconventional founder journey

02:00 – From surgery to psychiatry: psychedelics as a turning point

06:30 – The transformative psilocybin experience and shifting paradigms

10:30 – Understanding psychedelic therapy and integration work

16:00 – Why psychedelics challenge power structures and cultural norms

22:00 – Fiscal freedom and cognitive freedom: psychedelics and Bitcoin

30:00 – Founding Caleb & Brown and building a billion-dollar brokerage

37:00 – Global scaling, high-net-worth clients, and leadership transitions

42:00 – Preparing for acquisition: the 9-month journey to SwiftX

50:00 – Running a dual life as psychiatrist and founder

55:00 – Enosis Therapeutics: VR-powered integration for psychedelic therapy

01:02:00 – Building tools for patients, therapists, and the future of mental health

01:10:00 – The vision for a psychological digital twin

01:15:00 – Psychedelics in the next 10–50 years: from treatment to prevention

01:20:00 – Translating research into real-world impact and future mission

💰 Caleb & Brown – Global crypto brokerage: https://calebandbrown.com

🩺 Enosis Therapeutics – Tech for psychedelic-assisted therapy: https://www.enosistherapeutics.com/

👤 Dr. Prash on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drprash/

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.

To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new Perspective X episodes and upcoming shows.

Mentioned in this episode:

Mighty Partners_PX_May 2025

Deel x PX_Script 1

Vanta_PX_May 2025

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

Episode Summary

Yotam Rosenbaum never planned to be a startup founder, let alone one of Australia’s most active investors in Y Combinator companies. He started out as a musician, marketing his own band in Los Angeles, until the frustration of promoting music online became the spark for building Earbits, a platform once described as “Google AdWords for music.” What began on a traffic-jammed freeway turned into a five-year journey through Y Combinator, product-market chaos, and a successful exit.

Since then, Yotam has backed over 400 YC startups, built one of the only Australian-led funds inside the program, and helped founders at home think far beyond local markets. He reflects on what actually matters at the earliest stages, why founder relationships trump early traction, and how to spot the quiet signals of a breakout team. There’s also a reality check for anyone raising capital: most investors won’t give you a clear no, and that’s the real cost.

From Craigslist drum lessons to portfolio unicorns, Yotam’s story is anything but typical. But it’s proof that trusting your sense of direction, without needing the whole map, can still get you somewhere remarkable.

Time Stamps

00:01:17 – Embracing Uncertainty: Yotam’s Philosophy on Direction Without a Map

00:06:41 – From Funk Band to Founder: The Origins of Earbits

00:11:05 – The Aha Moment: Building the Google AdWords for Music

00:14:58 – Joining Y Combinator: Early Traction & Getting In

00:20:04 – Life at YC: Feeling Out of Place, Finding Belonging

00:24:29 – Investing in 400+ YC Startups: How It Started Post-Exit

00:31:19 – Moving to Australia: The Hot DesQ Bet That Paid Off

00:36:35 – Comparing Ecosystems: SF vs Brisbane Startup Mindsets

00:41:09 – The Importance of Community: No Founder Builds Alone

00:45:39 – The 77 Partners Venture Challenge: Who It’s For

00:50:24 – What Investors Look For (It’s Not Just Revenue)

01:03:01 – How Founders Can (And Should) Think About AI

Resources Mentioned

🥇 First Peak Ventures - https://www.linkedin.com/company/first-peak-ventures/

🤝 77 Partners – http://www.77partners.vc/

🙋🏻‍♂️ Yotam Rosenbaum on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/yotamrosenbaum/

👂🏻 Earbits – https://www.earbits.com/

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.

To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new Perspective X episodes and upcoming shows.

Mentioned in this episode:

Vanta_PX_May 2025

Mighty Partners_PX_May 2025

Deel x PX_Script 1

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

Ricky Sevta isn’t afraid of hard truths, or hard problems. As the former Chief Revenue Officer at simPRO, Ricky helped scale the company from $10M to $100M ARR, led a $550M capital raise, and expanded the business into global markets. Now, as CEO of Deep Space and a partner at Venture On, he’s back at the beginning, building again.

In this episode, Ricky shares the behind-the-scenes realities of scaling a company beyond product-market fit, why founders underestimate the cost of growth, and the personal sacrifices that come with chasing unicorn status. He also reveals how Deep Space is tackling fragmented workflows in construction with modern, AI-powered software, and why pricing, timing, and hiring are all about ruthless clarity.

From celebrating too little, to learning how to protect time with family, Ricky unpacks the emotional toll of leadership, how to spot premature market entry, and why customer obsession isn’t optional, it’s survival.

02:00 – Ricky’s transition from engineer to CRO and global scale-up leader

05:30 – The messy middle: scaling simPRO from $10M to $100M ARR

08:20 – Building structure into chaos: onboarding, playbooks, and the “Lego” method

11:00 – Why product-market fit is never static—especially across geographies

13:30 – Market trumps team: Ricky’s framework for evaluating expansion risks

16:50 – Don’t skip the customer: 40% of Ricky’s time was spent on the ground

19:00 – What “Chief Revenue Officer” really meant at simPRO

22:00 – The traits Ricky looks for when hiring early-stage startup leaders

24:40 – The emotional cost of startup life: family, friendships, and isolation

28:00 – Why founders often create businesses to fix something in themselves

33:00 – Leaving simPRO: starting again with Deep Space and Venture On

37:00 – Building in public and launching an AI-powered construction OS

43:10 – Why the construction industry isn’t “behind”—it’s been underserved

50:00 – Deep Space’s AI agent “Kai” and the platform’s competitive edge

56:00 – How modern architecture unlocks personalization and speed

01:02:00 – Ricky’s take on AI disruption, job loss, and market overreactions

01:10:00 – Pricing strategy: why Deep Space chose fixed pricing over revenue-based models

01:16:00 – Signs it’s time to enter a new market (hint: it’s not when you are ready)

01:22:00 – Product feedback loops and building a customer-driven roadmap

01:27:00 – Celebrating small wins and creating a culture of recognition

01:30:00 – Ricky on joy, drive, and why he’d do it all again—burnout and all

🔧 Deep Space – AI construction management platform https://www.deepspacegroup.ai/

👤 Ricky Sevta on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickysevta/

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.

To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new Perspective X episodes and upcoming shows.

Mentioned in this episode:

Deel x PX_Script 1

Vanta_PX_May 2025

Mighty Partners_PX_May 2025

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

Paul Stovell, founder and CEO of Octopus Deploy, shares his journey from coding side projects in a Brisbane library to building a $100M+ ARR global business in the competitive world of DevOps. Paul reveals how a relentless focus on product excellence, profitability, and customer value enabled Octopus Deploy to scale without relying on constant investor funding, becoming one of Australia’s most successful software companies.

He delves into the benefits (and pitfalls) of building with transparency, why he rejected Silicon Valley’s growth-at-all-costs mindset, and how he structured Octopus Deploy for sustainable, long-term growth. Paul also unpacks the personal challenges of balancing family, co-founding with his wife, and maintaining passion for building, plus why he’s still at the helm despite the inevitable burnout moments.

If you’re a founder, operator, or investor curious about bootstrapping vs. fundraising, scaling a product-led SaaS, or maintaining healthy relationships while building an empire, this episode is packed with raw insights.

02:20 – Building Octopus Deploy: From Brisbane library to $100M ARR

05:00 – Bootstrapping and turning down a $400K early acquisition offer

08:30 – Co-founding with your spouse: Paul and Sonya’s partnership story

12:10 – Creating a contrarian culture: Remote-first before it was trendy

15:45 – How Australia’s startup ecosystem evolved from 2012 to today

20:30 – Becoming profitable from day one: The mindset behind sustainable growth

26:00 – Facing down Microsoft: Pivoting to survive industry giants

31:10 – Why transparency and building publicly were key growth levers

36:50 – Scaling to 100 employees without losing the original vision

43:00 – Raising $172M from Insight Partners (without needing the money)

50:10 – The realities of taking on investors: How Paul views venture capital

57:00 – Navigating burnout and founder stress while scaling globally

01:04:20 – Hiring mistakes, culture clashes, and leadership lessons learned

01:12:45 – Goal-setting without rigid KPIs: Paul’s unconventional strategy

01:22:00 – Personal life balance: Family, renovating classic cars, and keeping perspective

01:29:30 – What’s next for Octopus Deploy: Staying independent and profitable

🐙 Octopus Deploy – https://octopus.com

📖 Octopus Public Handbook – https://handbook.octopus.com

📊 Octopus Investor Relations – https://ir.octopus.com

👤 Paul Stovell’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulstovell

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.

To learn more, join our newsletter to be notified of new Perspective X episodes and upcoming shows.

Mentioned in this episode:

Deel x PX_Script 1

Mighty Partners_PX_May 2025

Vanta_PX_May 2025