The Startup Playbook Podcast

My guest for Ep197 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Paul Stovell.

Paul is the Founder & CEO of Octopus Deploy, a company he started as a “nights and weekends” project for 2 years before going full time in 2012.

The company was bootstrapped for almost a decade until 2021 when they raised USD$172.5M (roughly AUD$222M) from New York based Insight Partners which is the second largest VC funding round by an Australian company ever.

Octopus Deploy is now over 300 people and just crossed $100M in ARR.

I got to sit down with Paul at the Something Tech 2024 conference to do a live podcast interview and in this conversation we covered a range of topics including: 

A big thank you to Michael Noonan, Bob Walker and Simon Galbraith for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

[email protected]
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Music: Paycheck

Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep197 – Paul Stovell (Founder & CEO – Octopus Deploy) on turning a weekend project to a $100M ARR business appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep196 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Cam Falloon.

Every great story starts with overcoming adversity and Cam is no different.

Cam picked up a serious back injury which made it difficult for him to walk…to the point where it would take him 15mins to walk a 12m hallway and being told by doctors that he wouldn’t be able to workout again.

That life-altering injury sparked his passion for strength, conditioning, and training, not only to rehabilitate his own back but also to help others achieve peak physical health.

Cam’s expertise took him to the highest levels of personal training, including working with none other than Princess Diana and high-performance roles in the English Premier League with Derby County, as well as several AFL teams.

In 2015 he launched BFT, a group strength training studio that started with just four studios in Melbourne. Today, BFT has exploded into a global phenomenon with over 700 studios across 11 countries.

The growth and success of BFT hasn’t always been obvious with Cam having to navigate through the lockdown period during COVID and overcoming an aggressive $50M lawsuit from the largest competitor in the industry

In this episode, Cam shares lessons from his career so far and we cover topics such as:

A big thank you to John Glancy, Dave Aitchison, Sarah Nehme and Steve Latham for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

[email protected]
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Music: Paycheck

Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep196 – Cam Falloon (Founder & CEO – BFT) on overcoming adversity and scaling to 700+ studios globally appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep195 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Leigh Jasper.

This is a special edition of the podcast.

A few weeks ago, we celebrated hitting 8 years of the podcast. To celebrate the milestone, we hosted an in-person event with our community which included a “live” podcast recording with returning guest Leigh Jasper.

I first interviewed Leigh for the show in November 2016. Back then he was the Co-founder & CEO of Aconex, a construction tech company that had publicly listed 2 years prior and had a market cap of $1B.

Since that interview, Aconex was acquired by Oracle for $1.6B and Leigh has and continues to hold several positions such as Chair of LaunchVic, Victorian governments startup agency, Co-founder and Chair of SecondQuarter Ventures, the first secondaries fund in Australia and NZ among several other board roles.

If that isn’t enough, Leigh decided to jump back into the founder seat as the Co-founder & Co-CEO of Firmable, which helps companies drive smarter decisions and outperform by allowing them to know more about their leads, customers and candidates. Firmable recently raised a $9M funding round led by AirTree.

We covered a lot of ground in this live interview including:

A big thank you to Paul Perrett and Andrew Sypkes for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

[email protected]
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Music: Paycheck

Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep195 – Leigh Jasper (Co-founder & Co-CEO – Firmable) on jumping back in the founder seat after a $1.6B exit appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep194 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jon Gregory.

Jon is the Founder & CEO of Vitruvian.

Vitruvian is an all-in-one digital home gym that uses AI to adjust resistance in real time to help users get the most out of their workout.

Since launching in 2018, they have gone on to raise USD$27M, with customers all around the world and working with a number of athletes such as Olympian and world champion sprinter, Justin Gatlin and the worlds strongest man, Thor Bjornsson.

We covered a wide range of topics in this interview including:

A big thank you to Weibke Hensen for her help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

[email protected]
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Music: Paycheck

Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep194 – Jon Gregory (Founder & CEO – Vitruvian) on product led growth and relentless positivity appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep193 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Llew Jury.

Llew is the General Partner and Executive Chairman of Sprint Ventures, a Queensland based VC with two funds and 18 portfolio companies that is investing in companies that build a better future. He has just helped Sprint secure funding from QIC’s VCDF for his third early stage Seed fund.

Prior to launching Sprint Ventures, Llew founded a number of successful businesses.

Between 2006 and 2016, Llew was the Founder and Managing Director of The Reload Group, one of Australia’s largest digital & eCommerce marketing agencies. Llew built the Reload business to 90 staff and 300 clients before Reload was acquired by Hardie Grant Media in 2022.

From 1999 to 2006 Llew was co-Founder of leading Queensland web, eCommerce and digital agency Alfresco, that was sold to a consortium led by the ASX listed STW Group.

In this episode we covered a range of topics including:

A big thank you to Kylie Merritt, Ian Campbell and Craig Sommerville for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

[email protected]
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Music: Paycheck

Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep193 – Llew Jury (General Partner & Exec Chairman – Sprint Ventures) on nurturing talent and building generational companies appeared first on Startup Playbook.

Welcome to a special milestone edition of the podcast, celebrating 8 years of the show!

On this day in 2016, I published the first 6 episodes of this podcast.

Over the last 8 years I’ve sat down with almost 200 successful entrepreneurs and investors to unpack their journey, lessons and insights.

I’m so thankful to all of the great guests who have made the time to come on this show, but I am also incredibly grateful to all of you in the Startup Playbook community who have listened, supported and shared this podcast over the last few years. The success, quality of guests and everything we have been able to achieve over the last 8 years would not have been possible without all of you, so I just wanted to say a quick thank you to all of you!

For this milestone ep, I wanted to do something a little different. So for this episode, my good friend James Harrisson is taking over the hosting duties and I’m jumping on the other side of the table to answer some questions from James and from our community in this AMA edition of the podcast.

In this episode, James and I spoke about lessons from the last 8 years and advice to anyone thinking about starting out on their own podcasting/business journey.

I also answered a number of community submitted questions on podcasting, PR, investing and much more!

A big thank you to our partners for the show:

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

[email protected]
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Music: Paycheck

Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep192 – Rohit Bhargava (Host – The Startup Playbook Podcast) on lessons from 8 years of podcasting (AMA episode) appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep191 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Stew Glynn.

Stew started his investing career after joining Shark Tank’s Steve Baxter in building out his family office, Transition Level Investments.

In 2019, they then launched TEN13 VC, where Stew is a Co-founder & Managing Partner. TEN13 is a global deal by deal venture capital firm that has invested $100M across 80 portfolio companies.

They have built up an incredible portfolio of companies including the likes of Linktree, Go1, Clipchamp and me&u (formerly known as Mr. Yum).

In this episode we covered a wide range of topics including

A big thank you to Holly Cardew, Brendan Hill and An Vo for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

Stew’s links:

[email protected]
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Music: Paycheck

Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep191 – Stew Glynn (Co-founder & Managing Partner – TEN13 VC) on lessons from investing $100M appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep190 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Taryn Pieterse.

Taryn is a Partner of Rampersand VC, a dedicated seed fund that has invested over $100M across its funds, counting companies such as Sendle, Skedulo and Expert360 as part of its portfolio.

Prior to joining Rampersand, Taryn worked in Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs across Australia, the UK and Europe and at the family office of Radek Sali, the fomer CEO of Swisse Wellness.

In this episode we covered a range of topics including:

A big thank you to Paul Napthali and Chaz Heitner for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

[email protected]
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Music: Paycheck

Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep190 – Taryn Pieterse (Partner – Rampersand) on Rampersand’s AAA approach to investing appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep189 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, was Jalal Shaik.

Jalal is the Founder & CEO of Gameface.AI, a company that uses AI and machine learning to provide accurate and relevant performance insight for sports.

In 2022, Gameface was acquired for $33M by now publicly listed company, Slinger Sports after having only raised $1.2M in total funding.

Despite their success on paper, it was a difficult journey for Jalal and in this episode he opens up and shares a large part of the lessons and insights from his journey including:

A big thank you to Danny Bhandari and Adir Shiffman for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount

[email protected]
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Music: Paycheck

Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep189 – Jalal Shaik (Founder & CEO – GAMEFACE AI) on AI, persistence and M&A pitfalls appeared first on Startup Playbook.

My guest for Ep188 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Jessy Wu.

Jessy is a partner of AfterWork Ventures, a $20M pre-seed and seed stage Venture Capital Fund.

She has a background in English literature and linguistics and has used her power of storytelling to build a powerful brand not just for herself but also for AfterWork VC, allowing them to compete for deals against large incumbents.

In this episode we covered a variety of topics including:

A big thank you to Fab Mackojc, Daniel Wang and Mike Forster for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.

[email protected]
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Music: Paycheck

Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

The post Ep188 – Jessy Wu (Partner – AfterWork VC) on brand, storytelling and community powered VC appeared first on Startup Playbook.