ScaleHQ Podcast

This is a story of persistence, of passion, of pivoting until the sweet spot was found. Nihal Advani, Founder and CEO of Qualsights (formerly Georama) has had an incredible ride and has built in 10 years America’s #1 fastest growing market research company (Inc 5000). With 65 FTE and growing, he’s disrupting the traditional qualitative research market by generating deep and authentic insights for companies from their consumers in a fascinating and unique way.

You’ll love hearing from Nihal Advani, Founder and CEO of Qualsights about his biggest mistakes, how he funded growth, the dial changers that accelerated his growth and his vision for the future of qualitative insights and the understanding of consumer mindsets and preferences. His willingness to learn, commitment, adaptation and willingness to evolve his business model to find a sweet spot with the right kinds of customers has seen him catapault Qualsights trajectory in the last 4 years.

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Is the goal I’m going after, worth the price I’m going to have to pay to achieve it? What’s really driving my motivation, head or heart? Is the essence of the culture I’ve developed and the impact of my product or service such that it will create positive ripples if we scale? Or will we be scaling something unhealthy?

You’ll love learning from Maryanne Mooney from the Worthy Leader who has incredible perspective on the human side of scaling and success. After building two market leading consulting firms, she transitioned to leadership coaching and has worked with over 10,000 leaders and their teams. She’s a recently published author, Facilitator for YPO (world’s largest CEO network) and President of the Board for the Senhoa Foundation.

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Think about it for a minute.  Accounting is not boring.  Far from it.  The Accountants get to see all the juicy stuff! The fails.  The partnership blow ups.  The cash issues.  The incorrectly structured businesses that end up paying too much tax.  The list goes on.   

What they’ve seen go wrong and the resulting lessons learned can be incredibly instructive for Founders seeking to scale up.   

Bradley Conn (Head of Accounting at businessDEPOT) isn’t your typical accountant, he’s far too interesting to wear that hat.  Evidenced by the yellow surfboard on the wall in the background.  

And this week in less than 50 minutes he imparts his wisdom with you on the key things he sees Founders get wrong, with the benefit of decades of experience and hindsight. 

Fantastic insights and stories from Brad that will have you thinking deeply about whether you’ve had the right conversations with your business partner, your accountant, and yourself to avoid all the future pain you possibly can.

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Imagine starting a company that has nothing to do with your area of expertise.  And, as a first time Founder, then taking that to 35m in revenue in just 5 short years.  

That’s precisely what Owen Franklin did starting in 2016 with his ecommerce business Blue Summit Supplies.  Now Amazon's top third-party supplier of office supplies.

You’ll love listening to the mind of Owen …. he’s so down to earth yet so razor sharp.  E-commerce office supplies may not sound exciting but you’ll love hearing how he’s built enduring and inspirational value for his ecosystem of customers, partners and team members.  

Here’s What We Cover….

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What do you think it would take to scale your company beyond 100m in revenue? Some pretty significant smarts, blood, sweat and tears.  Now imagine doing it three times in 30 years! Incredible.  

In this episode, we speak with John Katzman, the Founder and CEO of three companies that have sailed past $100m in revenue and still going; Princeton Review, 2U and Noodle.  An unbelievable achievement! I know you’ll love hearing his insights into the value of spectacular CFOs, approaches to funding and how to bring great people together to achieve something worthwhile.  Don’t miss it.

Here’s What We Cover….

01:59 - Overview of John’s Three Edtech Companies

04:17 - The Genesis of the Princeton Review

07:13 – Unpacking Funding for the Businesses

12:52 – Philosophies Around Raising Capital 

16:02 – The Value of Spectacular CFOs

19:21 – Strategies that Changed Growth Trajectory

21:51 – The Genesis of the Noodle Brand

22:32 – What Lights John Up in Business

26:12 - Learning from the Biggest Mistakes

29:50 – Most Challenging Time

33:57 - Is there something that you would do differently?

37:47 - What the business will look like in three years?

41:05 - John’s “Above All Else’s”

45:58 - How to follow John and Noodle

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2. Register to be the first to know when new episodes drop and free tools are published at www.scaleupspodcast.com, or

3. Drop us a question about scaling using Speakpipe on the website, or email [email protected].

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ScaleUps Podcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scaleupspodcast 

Watch the full episode at ScaleUps Podcast on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLlvcqAuqJMYBVUBoiixChQ 

You can connect with John via:

LinkedIn for John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkatzman

LinkedIn for Noodle: https://www.linkedin.com/company/noodleeducation/ 

Website: https://www.noodle.com/ 

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

Website: www.seansteele.com.au

Like to learn the secrets of selling that have helped mid-market companies on 3 continents add multi-million dollar deals they didn’t think they could win? Over the last 20 years Peter Strohkorb has discovered what has changed with buyers and how organisations need to adapt.  

You’ll love hearing in this episode Peter’s views on the problems with the current sales funnel, what “Smarketing” is and why it matters and what to do when someone asks you to “send them a proposal”.  And that’s just the starting point.  

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Can you imagine growing your business to 50m in 15 years? What about scaling your 28m business to 50m in just 3 years? 

That’s precisely what Owen Firth did between 2007 and 2021 with his education brands within the Gradability group; Performance Education and ReadyGrad.

Here’s What We Cover….

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How can you 4x-5x your business in 5 years? How can you think more strategically about your category and where you can redefine it?

In this episode with Anneke van den Broek, Founder and CEO of Rufus & Coco I guarantee you’ll come away inspired.  She’s taken some huge risks.  From starting the business pregnant with her first child, to putting her house on the line, to backing an international expansion strategy (and ultimately succeeding but not without challenges), she and her team have achieved a huge amount.

From humble beginnings in 2008, Rufus & Coco is now a trusted household brand, available in ten countries, selling an average of 4,500 products per day. It is currently the no.1 Australian brand in the pet accessories grocery category.

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How do I accelerate my growth trajectory? Should I take on a capital partner? If so, who would I choose and why? How can they help me? Do they take full control of my business? Help!

Learn all about what a growth-equity investor does in this illuminating episode with Mark Bryan from Pemba Capital.  For those who’ve not been exposed to a strategic capital partner you’ll find it a super insightful look into one the ways you can seek some external help to speed up your potential exit be that a trade sale, IPO or alternative without losing control of your business.

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ASX listed hipages gives homeowners a fast and smart way of connecting with local tradies who can get their jobs done right and gives tradies the technology they need to manage their workflow, record-keeping and more.

CEO of hipages, Roby Sharon-Zipser truly embodies a learning and growth mindset. He’s innovating in their category, has successfully led the company through transformative organisational and technological change and has built a purpose and values-led culture and ethos.

What was the outcome of their efforts? It made them the number two best place to work in all of Australia and grew revenues from 25M to 55M in a span of 5 years. Remarkable growth.

You’re going to love this episode, where Roby shares how he and his hipages team soul-searched during troubled times, doubled-down on solving more problems for a narrower set of customers, transitioned from a transactional to relational model and changed their operating model to better align teams with strategic goals and initiatives.  A great team who’ve achieved great things!

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