Matt Jones describes himself as a creative strategist, accidental entrepreneur and serial failure. As his career pinballed between military intelligence, political speechwriting, brand strategy and co-founding Four Pillars Gin, he developed a theory about how people make decisions and why story matters.

Matt, now founder of Think Story Experience, host of the StoryWork podcast and Startup Daily contributor, sat down with Julie and Simon for episode 71 of Startup 360 to explain how working in UK politics gave him an early lesson in human behaviour: people rarely make decisions based purely on facts. Identity, emotion and belonging matter.

That insight shaped how he thinks about brands and building businesses.

Storytelling is just part of the equation. The bigger challenge is creating a narrative - a shared worldview for founders, teams, customers and investors on where a startup is going and why.

As he puts it, the challenge “isn’t about the story you tell. It’s about the story that you make true”.

Four Pillars became a proving ground for those ideas. It wasn’t about MVP - they went “maximal”: exceptional gin, custom bottles, striking labels, and the absolute belief that Australia could make some of the world’s best gin using local flavours.

They also built a deliberate growth story, from a $30,000 crowdfunding campaign, to $35 million in revenue in less than a decade.

And knowing what to hold onto and what to change is, Matt found, one of the hardest parts of growth.

Now, through his Storywork podcast and advisory work, he wants leaders to see story as strategy owned by the CEO, not handed to marketing. It’s not that the strongest businesses tell better stories. The trick is to build something worth talking about.

Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.

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What happens when a teacher, criminologist, sociologist and self-described geek - yes, that’s all one person - turns her attention to one of the biggest threats we all face: scams?

Episode 70 of Startup 360, sees Simon and Julie “TreLLM” sit down with Lively founder Stacey Edmonds, creator of gamified school and business scam education sites  Dodgy or Not, and Phishy or Not, to explore how social engineering, scams and generative AI are changing how we need to think about cyber safety.

Stacey’s early career in teaching, youth work and criminology shaped a different approach to cyber education: replacing the old skool punishment for wrong answers in box ticking exercises with critical-thinking skills and “digital instincts” to recognise online manipulation.

The conversation ranges from industrialised cybercrime and “ransomware-as-a-service” to romance scams, and sextortion, which has its own 170-page How To manual.

Stacey explains why scammers, marketers and behavioural scientists often rely on the same fundamental principles of influence — and how genAI has dramatically lowered the skill and research required to target individuals.

For founders, the message is clear: AI speed cannot replace governance. And shipping a product is not the same as building a sustainable business.

There’s also a remarkably simple defence against increasingly sophisticated scams: pause. Slowing down, questioning the pressure and recognising the tactics being used against us may be one of our most valuable digital skills in the AI era today.

You can also catch Stacey at the Startup Standup comedy night in Sydney on October 14.

Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.

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Merrick Watts is a comedy legend. But he also has a serious side as a startup founder as Ed Stening discovered when he became his cofounder in drink brand Posca.

And it turns out resurrecting a 2000-year-old Roman sports drink is no joke.
Ed is this week’s guest on episode 69 of Startup 360, talking about building a brand in a competitive category, and moving from corporate to founder life.

Posca began when Merrick discovered the vinegar-based hydration drink while researching his wine show. The Romans used it to make questionable water safer, keep soldiers sharp and, presumably, help the plebs recover from a hard night at the Colosseum.

Merrick first pitched the idea to Lion Nathan, where Ed was GM. He ultimately said no, but offered some business advice to the funnyman-turned-founder. Nine months later Merrick called back, having done everything Ed suggested, and asked him to quit his corporate job and become cofounder.

Ed initially said no once again. But now in his mid-40s, he realised the bigger risk was spending the rest of his life wondering what might have happened.

Three years later, he’s in the startup trenches selling what Posca now calls a “hydration soda” — after discovering that consumers struggled to compute a fizzy sports drink in a can.

That “flearning” - learnings from failure - is one of several brutally honest lessons in this week’s Startup 360.

Ed talks about why founders need complementary cofounders, why startups and corporates misunderstand each other, how AI has become the assistant his business can’t afford, making his family part of his startup life, and why good ideas need market tailwinds rather than heroic founders battling a cyclone.

Most of all, he explains the drive behind taking the leap.

“If I don’t make this the best I fucking can,” he says, “then why was I here in the first place?”

Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.
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AI has a cowboy problem. When not bragging on LinkedIn about their work being done while asleep, they’re writing AI cheques they can’t cash - without pausing to ask whose data they’re feeding into the machine, what it’s being used for, or who was duffed along the way.

Episode 68 of Startup 360 talks to Emma Earley, the founder of 1000 Women in AI, a free AI upskilling program and community for women and non-binary people - and a finalist in the GSD category of the Startup Daily Best in Tech awards.

Emma calls herself an AI “de-influencer”. She’s an AI fan, but anti-hype, anti-slop and warns against putting your brain in a jar, leaving the LLM to do the thinking.

Emma earned the right to be wary. Her previous HR tech startup, Hello Canopy, was part of the “SaaS-pocalypse. The founder lesson was brutal but useful: persistence matters, but so does the humility to recognise when the market has moved and the signals are telling you something your ego does not want to hear.

Then, while heavily pregnant, she turned her frustration with a widening gender gap in AI into 1,000 Women in AI. She hoped to attract 1,000 people in 6-12 months. It took two weeks. Now, more than 2,000 have signed up. Oh, and she has an 8-week old baby, her second child.
The free course begins with a question the cowboys tend to skip: should AI be used here at all?

Emma joins Julie and Simon to talk founder failure, responsible AI, why women using the technology are still judged differently to men, and why play curiosity and psychological safety matter more than another corporate transformation program.

Her plea is straightforward: AI should be a thinking partner, not thinking for us.

Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.
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For episode 67 of Startup 360, Simon and Julie talk with Mark Zmarzly - founder, prolific angel investor and AWS credits-turned-coupons fairy.

Or Z. Not Zed, because that sends things into Pulp Fiction territory.

Among many hats, the Nebraska-born accidental Australian and former startup whisperer is also a late-in-life basketball tragic, as Startup Basketball fans know. This year, he swapped a 5-star big tech gig for life in startuplandia at Morfless, helping startups cut their AWS bills.

Z built and sold his own fintech startup in the 2010s after moving  his wife and three kids to Australia following a chance SXSW conversation and Australian government grant.

The rest is now part of local startup history.

Having learnt so much building fintech Hip Pocket in 2013, he now reminds other founders about the things they keep forgetting.

And the bloke who got a degree in creative writing knows how to tell a story, explaining that you should embrace your quirks because sameness is not a moat.

Neither is vibe coding. Yes you can now spin up a product faster than ever, but as Z reminds us: just because you can build something doesn’t mean you should.

It all boils down to love. The real founder test comes much later, when it’s 2am, you’re alone in the metaphorical basement of Macca’s, and lonely and exhausted, and have to ask whether you still care enough about the problem to keep going.

Z’s someone who can talk about AWS cost optimisation, angel investing, sport, parenting, founder pain and storytelling without it sounding like a LinkedIn B2B sales pitch. He's a three-pointer.

Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.

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Most founders start a business believing they'll build freedom.

Sometimes it can end up imprisoning you.

Every important decision lands on the founder's desk. Every approval, problem, late-night phone call. As Nicholas Thomson, the founder of Iceberg explains it on episode 66 of Startup 360, it’s like carrying a backpack filled with bricks and every day, another brick is added.

Nick left corporate life and started Iceberg to help people challenge one of the deepest assumptions in business: that leaders have to make all the decisions.

Culture isn't created by motivational posters or mission statements, he says. It's created by the systems we build every day.

The conversation explores why so many founders become the bottleneck in their own companies, how hierarchy can unintentionally suppress initiative, and why the people closest to the customer often make the best decisions.

Simon and cohost Julie Trell also tackle one of the trickiest issues for startups – financial transparency. How much should a team really know when every month can feel like life or death? It's a fascinating debate that goes to the heart of trust, ownership and leadership.

Along the way there's plenty of Startup 360 banter, including a spirited discussion about the corporate obsession with "stretch goals", why spending thousands of dollars in meetings to approve a $200 purchase makes no sense, and whether work should ever leave you in tears.

If you've ever found yourself wondering why your business still depends on you for everything, this episode offers a different way of thinking. It won't solve every leadership challenge overnight, but it might just help you take a few bricks out of the backpack.

Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.
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If you've ever looked at a successful founder and wondered how they always seem to know exactly what they're doing, this week's Startup 360 might come as a relief.

Our guest is engineer, entrepreneur and Tech Ready Women program director Renate Crollini, who admits she once assumed all the smart people in the corner office had the answers. It wasn't until she became a founder herself that she realised the truth: nobody has all the answers. We're all "building the plane while we're flying it”, she explains.

Simon’s joined by Julie Trell as cohost for the next few weeks - and the delight for her was finally meeting Renate in person, having been a long-time mentor at Tech Ready Women.

This conversation is a reminder that entrepreneurship isn't about certainty. It's about an idea that won't leave you alone, backing yourself, and learning as you go.

Renate shares the lessons from her own life as a founder, including the difficult decision to walk away from her first startup, why resilience matters just as much as ambition, and the fine line between persistence and knowing when it's time to change direction.

And her advice on launching is blunt: "If you're proud of your MVP, you've waited too long."

The trio also canvas why women too often wait for permission before launching, juggling startups with family life, and why sometimes the most important thing a founder needs isn't another mentor or investor, but someone in their corner saying, "You've got this."

And if you're looking for a mantra to take into the weekend, try Renate’s: "At the end of the day, you have a result or an excuse.”

Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.
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Before Sian Priest was helping deep tech founders tell better stories at Cicada Innovations, one of the games she created as a 2000s gaming founder ended up being played by President Obama at the White House science fair.

This week on episode 64 of Startup 360, Majella’s away, so Simon sits down with Sian to talk about startups, deep tech, Silicon Valley self-belief, and why Australia needs to get better at celebrating founders building something more enduring than the next unicorn pitch deck.

Her startup career has taken her from the UK - Manchester-born, she’s red, not blue -  to San Francisco and since 2016, thanks to Neighbours and a Sydney bloke, Australia.

She remembers what Silicon Valley taught her: people back themselves.
That “don’t wait for permission” mindset is something Australian and British founders can still learn from, especially in a culture where, as Simon jokes, too many people still politely line up for the bus.

Sian also has some blunt advice for founders, especially in deep tech: stop assuming people already understand the problem - it’s rarely just technical. Founders need to get better at explaining why it matters to different audiences so they start to care.

She also makes the case for celebrating different types of founders. Not every startup has to be a 100x VC-backed rocket ship. Some will be strong, enduring, medium-sized companies. Others will bootstrap, generating revenue from the start.

They all matter.

A slow-moving tanker can be just as valuable as a rocket ship, she says. As Simon quips, everyone loves a moonshot, but low Earth orbit still has its place.

And in breaking news: after 5.5 years at Cicada Innovations, Sian’s left left her job, just as the Tech23 cohort were announced, to address the nagging sense that her inner founder wants another shot - she ends the show talking about how she wants to team up with someone tackling a “gnarly problem” so she can help solve it.

Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.
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Startup 360 hit the road for episode 63, recording in front of a studio audience for the first time from Growth Summit Sydney.

Simon and Majella’s guest was Ben Grabiner from Side Stage Ventures, taking them through the findings of the Australia Venture & Startup Report 2026 , which looked at the past decade of the local VC-backed ecosystem.
It’s now grown 13.7 times faster than any other major global hub, creating more $10 billion companies per dollar invested than anywhere else in the world.

But amid the success there are still challenges, and the conversation took place just as the federal government released its startups consultation paper in response to concerns about the impact of capital gains tax changes to the ecosystem.

Ben talked about tackling Australia’s productivity slump, the flywheel of successful exits and the policy settings the country needs to encourage innovation.

“You should be encouraging young people to start businesses,” he said.

"If you want to discourage speculative investment in property, then you should change the tax settings of property relative to other asset classes."
Tax settings drive incentives, Ben explained and the danger in the current plan is that the government is “going to make this a less attractive place to start a business."

There’s plenty to unpack in the macro view of Australia’s start sector and Ben brings some clear thoughts to the conversation.

Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.
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Vision gets a lot of attention in startups.

It's the thing founders pitch to investors, talk about with customers and use to inspire teams.

But as Dane Hudson argues, vision alone isn't enough.

After more than 25 years leading businesses across five industries and mentoring more than 150 founders and CEOs, Dane learnt that scaling a company requires something less glamorous but ultimately more important: discipline.

This week on episode 62 of Startup 360, Simon and Majella sit down with the founder of Impactful Leadership and author of Discipline Beats Vision to talk about what it really takes to lead as a business grows.

Dane isn't speaking from theory. He has the scars to prove it.

There was the time he was running KFC in Southern Africa and a franchisee came to a meeting with him, put a gun on the table and named Dane’s three daughters.

And also watching as CEO of a listed wine company as its share price fell 97%.

Those experiences shaped the leadership lessons he now shares with founders, CEOs and executive teams across Australia and Southeast Asia.

Simon and Majella ask about the difference between grit and resilience, the mistakes leaders make as companies scale, why transparency matters more than most founders realise, and what boards and CEOs often misunderstand about each other.

They also unpack some of the key lessons from Discipline Beats Vision, including why leadership is ultimately a set of behaviours rather than a title, and why the habits that get a business started are rarely the same ones that help it scale.

It's a candid conversation from a veteran leader about how to be disciplined and what you need to do when the pressure is really on.

Startup 360 is a SmartCo. Media production, produced and edited by Matt Jackson, with Ciarán Harte, and supported by Deel. Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere.

Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, and read StartupDaily.net for all the ANZ tech news for free!