The SproutCast

Women make up just 7% of global fintech founders according to Deloitte. Women also make up only 1% of total fintech VC funding.

In this episode, we chat to Jill about her experiences being in this group. Jill Berry is the CEO and co-founder of Adatree, an Australian financial technology company at the forefront of Open Banking. We chat about her experiences of being the only woman in the room, her views on taking risks and learnings on leadership.

Disclaimer: this conversation does not refer to scientific studies and is built on stories of personal experience.

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Sahil Bloom graduated from Stanford, managed $3.5 billion in capital, has angel invested in over 30 companies, and grew to 400,000 Twitter followers. Some of his key writings include how to win without talent or luck, and how to make $10m by 30.

This is a Next Chapter event that we've produced into a podcast episode! We thought this event was fantastic and can't wait to share it with you. While we don’t feature in this episode, Sahil gives great advice on leveraging the creator economy, networking, how he became friends with Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO and building the life you want. 

If you haven’t heard of Next Chapter, it’s a community that runs through Slack. It's a group of ambitious, curious Gen Z builders, investors and creators. The idea behind the community is that if you can bring the most incredible people together - you make the exceptional normal. 

If you want to join check out:

nextchapter.to/community

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It's the end of January, one month down on your new years resolutions. How are they going?

In this episode we chat to our friends, Max Marchione and Sandithi Lewanda about new years resolutions. We reflect on what worked well and what didn't in the last year, and take the key lessons in achieving our goals into the new year. This is a great episode of reflection, lessons, and some helpful knee advice. 

How do you take a "new business idea!" moment to something real? 

In our conversation with Anna Podolsky, we learn about how she started Lyka, a direct-to-consumer pet wellness startup. We break down the journey of starting a venture-backed business chapter by chapter. 

Chapter 1: business development and taking the leap to leave her job as a consultant. Chapter 2: bootstrapping. Chapter 3: fundraising to scale. 

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A term that you might have seen recently is Web 3, used to describe the way the internet is changing. 

In this episode, we break down how the web is evolving, where it's going and why this matters. We chat to Daniel Bar, founder at Bitfwd to unpack the impacts of the world's transition to web 3 and the trends appearing across recent projects. Daniel also explains the meanings of key terms that float around in this space such as the blockchain, NFTs and DAOs. 

Further resources:

Tools to get on boarded into crypto with:

People Daniel recommends to follow:

Projects Daniel is working on:

First tools to use:

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In this episode, we unpack the key learnings from elite performance in sports and how this can be applied to your work. 

We chat to Olympian and medical student Mackenzie Little to understand the habits, attitude and mindset that enables her to excel at both athletics and academics. We discuss how Mackenzie manages her time, sets herself up to achieve her goals, performing under pressure, and the importance of genuinely enjoying yourself at what you do. 

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Do you have an idea for a new tech solution, but feel limited by your lack of technical knowledge?

In this episode, we chat to Andrew Ward, founder of SelfWealth and PlatformX about how he built fintech companies, without a technical background or tech co-founders. We chat about Andrew's key learnings on his entrepreneurial journey, how to succeed as the sole founder and how he thinks about leadership. We also dive into some business process such as navigating regulations and hiring lawyers. 

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Imagine if period products are provided everywhere, just like toilet paper is. Pixii is a social enterprise that works on bringing free and eco-friendly period products to schools and workplaces around Australia. 

In this episode, we chat to Dean about the journey to starting a social enterprise, overcoming the inertia against social change, and ensuring a positive environmental impact. We also dive into how to achieve carbon neutrality in the supply chain and navigating the tradeoffs between maximising social impact and environmental sustainability. 

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Often when young people want to make an impact, the default advice is to work at a startup. In this episode, we chat to Bianca to show that if you have the drive, you can make an impact wherever you go. Bianca holds a role as a Culture and Engagement Advisor at Transport for NSW. In 2018, Bianca won the Judges' choice award for a case competition. Since then, Bianca and her team have been able to turn the idea into a reality to create Newtown station garden. This is an urban farm that operates as a circular economy, repurposing unused land to feed those that go hungry. 

We chat to Bianca about how she turned an idea into a reality over the course of 3 years. We dive into her motivations, challenges and how the idea has changed over time in creating social and environmental impact. Bianca also provides advice to other young people wanting to change the world, but might not know how to. 

Learn more about Newtown Station Garden here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6mduj2n7z1118u0/Newtown%20Station%20Garden.mp4?dl=0

Weekly sprout video on stoicism shared by Vis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoRXsmlF4eQ&t=69s&ab_channel=DailyStoic

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We live in a hustle culture world where we are young and we are driven and we want to change the world. But what does it mean to be young and driven and just how "busy" should we be? In this episode we chat to Byron Dempsey, the Founder and Host of Driven Young about the skills they don't teach you at school, the controversial issue of unpaid internships, and finding balance between working hard, being productive, and personal satisfaction. We also dive into a discussion about side hustles: whether to categorise it as "work" or "fun" and where hobbies without metrics fits in. Overall, Byron inspires us to have the courage and drive to make an impact. Enjoy the episode!

[Disclaimer: Unpaid/under paid internships have been discussed in this episode. Legality of this kind of work differs between countries. Make sure that you check regulations around this.]

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